The Long Walk into his Arms
      Chapter  6
 

He is sleeping. A part of me wants to wake him up, ask how he can sleep so peacefully when my world is falling apart? Can’t he see what this is doing to me? I can’t think of anything other than death. I see Mick’s body, I see Nino’s body and then I stare at my hands and see them as instruments of death. I want to forget. I want for tonight to never have happened. As long as Danny and I never discussed Mick, he could lay buried in our past, untouched . . . but that is no longer an option.

I get out of bed and grab a shirt of his out of the drawer. I climb back onto the bed, sitting at the foot as I button it up. And I watch him sleep. A minute passes, then two and then four. I gaze at him and then look over at the clock. Ten minutes have passed. I feel like I’m in a void, but there is a torrent of rage and anguish waiting to erupt. Twelve minutes. His lids flutter and he shifts in the bed; his arm reaches out and he is searching for my presence. I wish achingly for a moment with every thing in me that I were there, that he could hold me and that just his touch would take this all away.

But it won’t.

He finds my spot empty and his eyes open. He looks about and sees me. A smile crosses his face. He is beautiful, I think but I can’t return his smile. He sits up.

"What?" and he moves towards me.

I get up off the bed and ask him the question that’s been pounding in my head. "Have you ever thought about what it would be like to kill someone, Danny? Have you ever really thought about it?"

He looks away and sighs, "Michelle …" and his voice trails off.

"Have you?"

"Yes. I always knew that in my world it could come up at any time." He still won’t look at me.

"What did you think? Did you imagine what it would be like? How you would feel? How you would do it?" The questions come quickly and his eyes shut, his frame tightening.

"I don’t want to talk about -"

"-I do!" I bang my fists down on the bed and he finally looks at me.

"Michelle, this isn’t something you should be thinking about. You shouldn’t … I wanted to protect you from this." And his voice is filled with pain, so much pain, but I am immune to that pain right now.

"How could you protect me, Danny? I committed my first murder before I even knew you. I killed your brother. Remember? I whacked him over the head with a rock. I watched him fall to his knees, I watched the death throes cross his face, I saw -"

"Shut up!" and he is on his feet, towering over me. "Shut up," and his voice is a whisper.


His eyes close and that ever-present guilt crosses his face. He takes a step back and breathes deeply. I stand watching him, wondering if I have pushed him too far. His eyes open and he is calm, that sudden anger that had enflamed them moments ago is gone.

Not far enough.

"We never talk about that night, Danny." My voice is amazingly serene. I hear the slightest smile in my words. Actually it is more than a smile, I realize; it is a taunt. He hears it too. His fists clench at his sides and he takes another step back, turning away from me. I watch him as he pulls on some shorts, runs a hand through his hair and sits back down on the bed.

"Michelle, we discussed it on the beach. You told me what happened. End of story." His words are tight, emotionless and I can see the tension coiling within him. Just a little push, I think and don’t even flinch at how much I want him to hurt right now, hurt as badly as I am.

"Why can’t we talk about it again? You see, I told you the details, but not the feelings and you don’t know, Danny, you don’t know what it feels like to take a life. I do. I want to tell you." A tear slips down my cheek and I am surprised to feel it’s warm wetness. "I need to tell you," and my voice is no longer calm and it is not just one tear, but many and I say again, "I need to tell you." And then "I need to tell someone." And then I am rambling, rushing through words, my rage dissipating as my tears fall … my need to wound him disappearing with each word.

"I tried to tell Jesse, but he wouldn’t listen. Mick was scum, a criminal, not worthy of my guilt, that’s what he said. It didn’t matter that I killed him, you see, Mick was bad and he deserved to die." Absently, I note the way Danny sits up straighter, the unseeing glare in his eyes. "And Bill wouldn’t hear it, either. You see, he couldn’t face what I had done. And I really don’t think that Drew even cared. And I couldn’t talk to Rick or Abby or Aunt Meta because they wouldn’t understand. No one could understand. No one would try."

And then I’m before him and I can barely see as I kneel in front of him, the tears are so thick, blinding me. And my words are slurred and breaking apart as the sobs choke my throat. "Please, please, Danny." My hands reach up and encircle his face, force him to look at me. His eyes close again. "I’ve tried for so long to not care, to not remember and I’ve done a really good job of it, but I don’t want to … Danny?"

And he looks at me.

"Please," I beg of him softly again. "Please I can’t do it anymore. Nino, what happened tonight, I need … someone needs to try. Please listen to me. Please try and understand."


He looks at me intently and I can see the battle in his eyes and for a moment I spare a thought for his struggle, for his emotions this night. His wife - his beloved wife - took a gun in hand and killed someone. How could that not have brought back his own memories of his brother’s death? And I’d never asked him. I never asked what those memories were? I never knew how he grieved. I never questioned what guilt he must feel because he fell in love with his brother’s murderer.

He has tried so hard to protect me, to keep me from being tainted by the crime and the violence of the Santos family and tonight I stepped right into it. And he could do nothing to protect me … he failed in his sacred duty as husband.

And now, now I ask him to hear me speak about the night his brother died, how I felt, what he did to me, the fear I felt, the horror at witnessing his death. And I think, in this moment of empathy for my husband, that I can understand if he refuses.

I look away from his gaze and my eyes fall upon my hands still encircling his face and I see so clearly Nino’s blood and Mick’s. I shake my head back and forth, my moment of compassion gone and beg of him once more, "please try."

He remains silent and my hands fall to my side. I rise and take a wobbly step away from him when suddenly his arm comes out and wraps about my waist. He is looking at me and there is resolve upon his features, determination in his eyes. He pulls me to him and I settle upon his lap, my hands lying tentatively upon his bare chest and I meet his gaze.

"Okay," he says simply and I find the sobs building within me and I marvel amidst my misery once again at this love that I have found in this man. He pulls me to him, tucking my head beneath his chin and gently brushes my hair, all the while murmuring words of comfort.

And for the first time in days I do feel comforted. I feel the anger, the anguish slowly drain out of me as his fingers soothe my throbbing head … as his words offer succor to my aching heart. My cries subside and I open my mind, thinking back to that night, centuries ago now it seems.

"Drew and I needed to talk and somewhere privately where Jesse wouldn’t hear us. I don’t even remember now what it was about, but that’s why we were on the beach that night. I don’t know how Mick knew that we were there, actually Drew. He was looking for Drew, he wanted revenge because she fired him or had called the cops, I don’t know if he’d known."

Danny shifts slightly beneath me and murmurs softly, "this was the night he died?"

I nod, my head bumping against his chin. "Ow," he says softly and I find the smallest smile on my lips as I pull away and look at him.

"Sorry," he shakes his head slightly and I note a touch of confusion in his gaze, but I can’t question it now ... maybe later. I need to talk; I need to deal with this, finally, once and for all.

"Where was I? Oh, we were at the beach and Mick didn’t even know I’d be there, he was really just following Drew, and he was threatening her when I got there and then when he saw me, he just ignored her. And I know this sounds crazy, but I think even that irritated her. She hated the fact that Jesse loved me, she hated the fact that any guy could prefer me to her and Mick did.

"He was always coming on to me, he was so creepy, making veiled comments about him and me and Drew knew about it, and I think she was jealous in a way … she thought, ‘once again, Michelle gets the guy.’ I couldn’t understand her. I guess I still don’t."

"Why are you still friends then?" his voice is so soft, so soothing, I can’t imagine how hard this is for him, but he is still here, still listening, doing this for me. I reach out a hand and lightly rest it against his face; he leans into my touch, his eyes closing briefly. I savor this renewed closeness for a moment and then my eyes light upon my hand, my guilty hand. I pull away, getting up off of his lap and begin to pace the room. He doesn’t question my move, he just accepts.

I think of that night and I think of Drew, realizing I never answered his question. "Habit, I guess. Drew, I mean. When everything was happening with you, when we first got married, she was the only one who knew the whole story. I began to depend on her and, even after everything she’d done, I couldn’t deny her. And it was so strange because we disliked each other for so long, Danny. Until I married you and all of that stuff happened, we barely spoke civilly to each other."

"So you weren’t friends all along?"

"No," I look at him, surprised that I had never told him this.

"But she was the maid of --, oh, she was the only one who knew, which made her the only one you could ask. Right?"

I nod, "and after what happened with you," he has the decency to look away in a flash of guilt, "I suppose most wouldn’t have forgiven her, but I guess I thought that if I didn’t forgive her, it would make me a hypocrite. I was with you, I forgave you." I laugh with little humor, "it takes two to tango, right Danny?"

He sends a sudden, piercing look my way … "that night on the beach, when did she leave?" he changes the subject with little ease and there is no inflection in his voice when he says ‘she,’ purposely negating her presence in his life, then and now.

"When did she leave? What do you mean?" I ask, suddenly confused as I think to answer his question.

"Well, what happened next … Mick saw you and ignored her, what then?" I wonder for a moment at his interest in a discussion I thought he would not want to have, but I need this. I keep changing the subject, trying to find a way to not talk about it. Even now, after tonight, after Nino, I still don’t want to face my actions … my violent tendencies. I look down at my hands again and see that gun, that rock there and wince. I must. I must.

"Mick ignored her and he grabbed me, he made it clear that he wanted … that he was going to rape me. He began to drag me off the beach when Drew ran up behind him and hit him on the head with a rock." Danny sits up straighter in the bed and from a distance I hear his "Michelle?" in a strained whisper.

I don’t respond. I can’t. I’m there on the beach, that night. I can feel his breath on my face, his hands gripping me, the lust, the glittering, fiery lust in his gaze and I let out a sudden gasp, covering my face in horror as I see those eyes staring into my own in my mind.

I had blocked this out; I had barely remembered what he looked like. I had made myself forget his face - before this moment, he had just been a hazy image, I had made myself banish the memory of those eyes, those dark eyes looking at me with such wanting.

I had forgotten. I had forgotten. I had forgotten.

I turn and look at Danny and he is staring at me with shock, but I don’t see it. All I can see are his eyes. My Danny’s eyes. My husband’s eyes and the many, many times he has looked at me with wanting, with desire, with lust in them and I have always -- even in the beginning of our marriage -- felt an answering rush of warmth every time he had looked at me so.

Because I had forgotten. I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the same look, the same eyes had looked at me the same way so many times before Danny even entered my life.

Mick. His Brother. My husband’s brother. Danny and Mick had the same eyes.