Page 69 of Everything We Left Behind

“Lunch?” I asked, then noticed the dining room table set for four right before the front door burst open.

“Hello! We’re—here.” Aimee’s voice dropped midsentence, the last word coming out as a thin whisper. She stopped abruptly in the doorway, her blue eyes as deep as the sea, and brunette curls that flowed over her shoulders like a waterfall. She made an odd noise in the back of her throat. “Carlos.”

Ian appeared behind her. “Move aside, honey, or I’m going to drop—” His gaze caught mine. Where Aimee’s face had paled, Ian’s went hard and red. A flash of fear darkened his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m still Carlos.”

CHAPTER 21

JAMES

Present Day

June 28

Hanalei, Kauai, Hawaii

Wired for an earlier time zone, James wakes before the sun. Rain drums outside, as it did on and off through the night. He changes into the running shorts and shirt he set out the night before and laces up his Nikes. It’s been too many weeks since he left the boys alone. Last winter he just didn’t care. He’d take off for a ninety-minute run and think nothing of leaving a five-year-old with an eleven-year-old who threatened daily he’d hitch a ride to the airport. His mind was damaged and the world he knew had moved on without him. He had to get outside and run, hard and fast until his lungs burned and calves cramped. So he did.

This morning, though, he runs for pure enjoyment, that rush of adrenaline that comes as the miles build. Because this time, his boys are safe, sleeping soundly under their aunt’s roof.

He slips on his iWatch, swipes over a text message from Thomas without bothering to read it, and preps the settings for his run. It will be a good one, and he plans to make it a long one.

He runs toward Kuhio Highway, maintaining a steady pace past homes shrouded under grayness. He knows the trees overhead and lawns yawning outward from the road are as green and bright as an acrylic painting. He saw them yesterday while driving to Natalya’s house. Where Carlos had loved the heat and rustic appeal of Puerto Escondido, its air pregnant with salt and dust, dry like the surrounding hills, James prefers the vintage feel of this beachside community. Hanalei is a 1950s postcard and running past the storefronts, elementary school, and little green Wai’oli Hui’ia Church, is like going back in time. As he eats up the miles, his shoes pounding the rain-drenched asphalt, he lets his mind wander. Back to the hours he pushed himself in football conditioning, running sprints, leading the pack. Then his mind meanders further. Back to the time they lived in New York and everything changed.

James was nine that Thanksgiving weekend when he, Phil, and Phil’s friend Tyler had walked in on his mother with Uncle Grant, Phil’s dad, in the woodshed, their limbs roped around each other and clothes askew. After a stunned moment, Tyler grabbed Phil’s collar and dragged him away. Grant ran after them, pleading for his son to wait.

James’s mother straightened her skirt and gripped his shoulders. “You have to forget what you saw,” she pleaded. “Your father can’t ever know, and you can’t tell Thomas. Promise me.”

How was he supposed to forget this?

His mother shook him when he didn’t answer. “Promise me.”

He did, but it wasn’t through him his father eventually heard about James’s mother and her brother in the woodshed.

Phil had been told at a young age his mother abandoned him, leaving his father to raise him as a single parent. But after the shed incident, Phil went looking for his birth certificate. He’d always thought his mother and aunt had the same name, but after seeing his father and aunt together, the truth of his parentage was there in his aunt’s crisp penmanship, handwriting he recognized now that he was older.Claire Anne Marie Donato. Unfortunately for Phil and the rest of James’s family, Tyler was with Phil when he found the birth certificate. Shortly after Phil learned the truth, so did their friends at school, and eventually their small community, and their church. Soon the corridors and cubicles of Donato Enterprises, which had been headquartered in New York at the time, were buzzing about the Thanksgiving debacle. Because news about Grant Donato and his sister was gossip too shocking not to spread.

Disgraced, his father, Edgar, packed up the family and moved them across country, but not before he negotiated a windfall of a deal that landed him as the second largest shareholder next to Grant. He opened Donato’s western division, which eventually became the company’s headquarters upon Uncle Grant’s death. Strangely enough, Edgar still loved his wife, but he loved the company more.

Although Phil hadn’t been aware of it at the time, it was because of that deal and what he’d witnessed in the woodshed that had lost him any chance of inheriting Donato Enterprises.

Gasping as much from the memories as from pushing his body, James reaches Haena Beach Park quicker than he initially calculated. He ran the six miles from Natalya’s house at race pace. He bends over, hands on knees, lungs heaving. Sweat drips off the ends of his hair, his nose and chin, and lands in the grass. Phil changed with the knowledge of his parentage. Hell, they all did. In the end, though, Phil accomplished what he set out to do. The Feds seized a majority of Donato Enterprises’ assets and James lost Aimee. It would be easy to blame everything on Phil, but all three of them—Phil, Thomas, and James—lit the fuse that blew their family apart.

With James hidden in Mexico, Phil locked up in prison, and Thomas rebuilding Donato, he wonders if the past few years have only been the eye of the storm. What does Phil want with him? Has he burned off his need for revenge or is he still out for blood? Or could it be something else entirely? Damn, he wishes he could remember what happened inside that dive bar and on the boat.

As much as he would love to stay in Kauai, he knows he must return to California and meet with Phil. Find out the truth about what happened the day his mind crashed. If Phil indeed tried to kill him, James is in full agreement with Thomas. They have to do everything possible to lock Phil back up again.

On the run back into Hanalei, the sun’s morning rays peek through low-lying clouds and shimmers through the tree canopy, casting golden hues. His fingers twitch as though holding a phantom brush. For a moment, maybe two, he considers Googling where art supplies are sold on the island until he remembers Carlos’s acrylics, paintings as vibrant as the floral color palette in Natalya’s backyard. Canvases painted with a skill he can never hope to replicate.

Natalya loved Carlos’s work. Three of his pieces hung in her house. Scenes from Puerto Escondido, and none of them had a sunset.

In Hanalei, he stops for coffee, ordering one for himself and Natalya, then returns to the house. He leaves his shoes on the lanai and opens the glass slider. Raucous laughter and banging pots fill the rooms. He follows the noise and the sweet, syrupy scent of pancakes to the kitchen. He finds Natalya at the stove spooning batter into an iron skillet. Julian pours bright-pink juice into plastic cups and Marc waves a butter knife in an imaginary sword fight as he sets the table. His mother slices fruit with the skill of an executive chef.

He blinks, and if he weren’t holding steaming cups of coffee, he’d rub his eyes because he clearly questions his vision. First the egg sandwiches in Los Gatos and now this. Since when has his mother enjoyed working in the kitchen? He doesn’t recall ever seeing her cook anything. Their housekeeper left their after-school snacks waiting for him and Thomas on the kitchen counter. She was the one who cooked their meals. And, dear God, what is that floral tent his mother is wearing? It’s so bright that it shimmers.

Claire slides the blade through a ripe papaya and catches his gaze. She gives him a smile as dazzling as her attire. “Good morning, James.”

His mouth parts. “Uh ...” He can’t take his eyes off her. The outfit, which he figures is a swimsuit cover-up, makes her look young, and artsy, and fun. She wants to be the fun grandma.

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