Read Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) Online
Authors: Monica O'Brien
Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (28 page)
Her words came out rough, rougher than she'd intended; and she realized that even if she could dig past her sadness to let James in, all he would find was years and years of stormy, relentless anger.
James sighed. "What do you want to know about me Brie? You haven't spoken to me for the last month, even with me living in the same house as you. You act like you've asked me all these questions and I refuse to answer."
Brie's lungs emptied. She felt the shaky, delicate tendrils of a bond that had formed between them withdraw, like the sleeping grass that was so prevalent on the islands. "What questions should I ask James?" Brie's anger rolled off her so quickly that she almost felt sorry for him. "How about this one: Why didn't you tell me I'm adopted?"
James' eyes widened; he put his hands over his face, raking his fingers down it the same way Pilot did sometimes. It occurred to Brie how alike James' and Pilot's mannerisms were.
"Where did you hear that?" he asked. Brie's heart sank.
"Not from you."
"The media?"
"No. Your file cabinet." Even though she was the one confronting him, his confirmation that the story was true was overwhelming. The gravity of her emotions bent her in two, forcing her to clutch her stomach.
James scooted sideways on his lounge chair, motioning for Brie to sit down next to him. She surprised herself by actually doing so.
"I kept that a secret to protect you and our family," James whispered, looking around. There were no crew members nearby; no one to have heard Brie's outburst. "I'm going to tell you what happened, but I don't want it to leave this boat. The media would have a field day with it and it would ruin any semblance of normalcy you and Pilot have with your school schedules and new friends."
Brie nodded, saddened and slightly terrified by what might come next.
"After Pilot was born, Milena became pregnant again almost immediately. We hadn't..." James closed his eyes, putting his fingers on his temple. "We were so busy with the new baby. The thought of it being someone else's... I couldn't believe it myself. I loved your mother so much. I pretended to be happy she was pregnant again, though somewhere in my heart, I knew it wasn't mine."
James spoke in a low, dull voice, lulling Brie into that familiar daze from her depressed months.
"The whole time, Milena was having difficulty just taking care of Pilot. Please don't tell your brother this. It's not something he needs to know, especially now that Milena is gone. She would sometimes not want to feed him. When he cried in the middle of the night, she didn't wake up for him right away like a normal mother does. She was deeply troubled, but she didn't confide in me. I thought it might be the hormones because she was pregnant.
"I confronted her one day about the pregnancy. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I pulled out a calendar when I talked to her. She gave me a hard look, but didn't deny it. I still remember that look, resilient and strong, with touches of sadness at the corners of her eyes.
"I told Milena that it didn't matter who the father was—that I didn't want to know. I would adopt the child to make things legal in the case of my death, so the estate would be properly divided. We agreed to keep it a secret from even our closest friends and family, because we couldn't trust them to keep the truth a secret from the media.
"You were born premature, but when you came into this world, you were so beautiful. You were one of the most beautiful babies I'd ever seen. There was something special about you too—I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew I wanted to be your father. I knew I'd made the right decision to secretly adopt you and raise you as my own."
Brie watched the water in the hot tub as the wind blew over it—it rippled lightly, and she wondered if tiny drops clung to the wind, escaping into the ocean. "Why didn't you then? Why did you leave us?" Her voice was plain, like she'd asked a stranger where the bathroom was. She searched her body for feeling—
any sort of feeling—that would prove she was still alive, still human.
"Milena asked me to leave after you were born." James' voice cracked, and Brie could tell this was as hard for him as it was for her. He was silent for a minute, his hands folded against each other in his lap. "I asked her if there was someone else," he said quietly, annunciating every word. "She promised there wasn't. I still remember even the smallest details of the conversation we had. We were sitting in the living room of the apartment we had just bought, right there on the edge of the upper east side—the same one you grew up in. She bit her lip just like you do. We argued back and forth, but at the end, she said she had her reasons, and that she'd always love me.
"I didn't believe her at first. We had babies together, and she said she still loved me. Our family seemed so perfect and I was so happy to have the three of you in my life. I thought it was the aftermath of back-to-back pregnancies, like maybe she was exhausted and not thinking straight.
"It became more and more clear over time though, as she shut me out emotionally, that our life together was ending. I gave her space, thinking she would come around, but eventually I couldn't reach her at all.
She said I could see Pilot and you whenever I wanted, but seeing her was difficult so I spent most of my time on the road with the band. I threw myself into my career. I moved as far away as I could from New York to Honolulu and spent the rest of my time in Los Angeles.
"The whole time though, I watched Milena's movements. It wasn't right to spy on my former wife, I know.
But since we never officially divorced, I had more access to her private life than she realized. I took advantage of it. She was constantly taking these trips to the most random places, and I spent years trying to decipher her movements. I couldn't figure out how she chose where she went, or why she visited so many places every year. A part of me just wanted to understand why she pushed me away, and I thought her travel patterns held the answer.
"Before I knew it, you and Pilot were older. Milena convinced Pilot to spend the summers in Honolulu with me. To be honest, I wasn't here for him any more than I was there for him in New York. I had adjusted to a bachelor life and it was difficult to introduce kids into the fray again.
"You were a different story. You had no interest in the island and you were a miniature version of Milena. You stayed with her and traveled with her through Europe, Asia, Australia, everywhere. You loved the romance of art, and you would sit in her studio and watch her as she painted. She painted you sometimes. You loved to spend time with other artists and writers in her circle of friends, and they adored you. You were pure inspiration.
"When you hit your teenage years, you were angry with me for obvious reasons. Pilot was too, but his anger wasn't as fierce as yours—he was willing to give me a chance, to try again. I think the summers in Honolulu helped.
"At fourteen, you were name-dropping to get your group of girlfriends into eighteen and over clubs. Your mom freaked out, you know. Sure, Pilot got into trouble too, but she never worried about him. Or maybe she worried about you more because you were the youngest, and a girl. You always fought with her. It was night and day from your childhood. She got stricter with you, but it just made you lash out more."
"I never did anything," Brie argued, wishing he would shut up. She didn't want to remember how she treated her mom those last few months. "It was mostly Adele."
"Well, you worried your mother sick. She started traveling even more too, almost every week. It was almost like she had a deadline. I still have no idea what she was looking for. All the time I spent, looking for a pattern. If I had known what was going to happen... I probably would have just asked her what she was looking for. It's only in death that you realize how silly some secrets are."
Brie jumped to her feet. Secrets. James had given her all of his, but she knew she couldn't return the favor.
"So you think she was looking for something, but you don't know what?"
"She never confided in me. I spoke to some of her friends afterwards, but none of them had a clue either. Very few of them knew how much Milena traveled."
Brie folded her arms across her chest, staring at James for a moment. He stared back, waiting for her to make the first move. "I need some time to myself," she said. James' face fell, but Brie had gotten what Cora told her to get, so she left anyway.
She ran down the stairs to the lower deck and sat at the edge, holding onto the railing. Pilot wasn't around, so she had the deck to herself. She was desperate to feel something, anything. She hurdled over the flimsy railing and sat at the edge of the boat, facing the water.
A slight panic built in her chest. She knew she could fall at any minute, but it wasn't enough. Brie kicked off her Dolce Vita thong sandals into the ocean, watching them drift away. She wanted to disappear with them.
She focused on the single square foot beneath her feet, reliving everything James' had said to her.
The whole story was the opposite of what she had seen of James her entire life. A James that was open and honest? It was unbelievable.
She searched her body for feeling, and realized she was angry at her mom too. If James was telling the truth, why would Milena cheat on him? Why would she let James adopt her, then send him away? It wasn't just James who kept this a secret from her. Milena did too.
Brie let go of the railing slowly, balancing delicately on her toes. Her body ached, but Brie couldn't tell if it was because she was scared or because she was just now learning about all the things Milena had taken from her. She could have had a
father
growing up. She could have a father somewhere out there that she'd never met. Either way, it was another loss, like losing a parent all over again.
Brie stared at the sky dotted with stars, pretending she was floating above water. The boat churned underneath her, and then it hit her—wooziness.
She felt her toes slipping and reached for the railing, but she was already falling. She screamed, but no one came to her rescue; her hollow voice was swallowed by the waves rushing underneath her. The jarring impact with the ocean knocked the wind out of her, and the sky, water, and boat faded as she submerged into blackness.
*****
It wasn't the same uncomfortable breathing she had experienced when she went diving with Sirena. Her breathing was natural, considering the precarious situation she was in. She was able to breathe more deeply this time, but she didn't understand why.
Brie's vision wasn't getting any better, and she had trouble deciding which way was up. She figured it was either the middle of the night or she was so deep she couldn't see the surface. Brie twisted her body around trying to guess at the direction of the surface, only to face a massive black figure circling ten feet from her.
A large seal stared her down. Its head was probably the size of a human's, but its body was long and tubby, making the head look shrunken, unnatural. Its skin was dark, though it had a lighter underbelly.
It gazed at her with those human-like eyes and blinked.
Brie resisted the urge to scream. Was this the seal from her training with Sirena? What was it doing here? Brie wished she had paid more attention to the maps showing the cruise route. She had to be at least 60 miles from the place where Sirena took her underwater. Did seals swim this far away from their homes?
The seal ventured closer and Brie went rigid. But the seal merely nudged her, and then looked to its back. Brie tried to speak before remembering that she was surrounded by sea water—and that she was talking to a seal. The seal nudged her again, and she wondered with alarm if it wanted her to climb on its back.
Was this seal conscious? Brie knew that dolphins were supposed to be the smartest non-human mammals on the planet, but she couldn't think of anything specific about seals having smarts. Those eyes though—they bore into her with a specificity that seemed remarkably human. This wasn't an ordinary seal, and it wasn't a coincidence that this seal was here.
Brie swam above the seal, holding her hands out to touch it. One glance at the back of her hands showed that her skin was tinted a light purple blue from being underwater for so long. The skirt of her silly fifties dress was long and baggy on her; useless. She pulled the dress off reluctantly, though she knew there was no reason to hold onto it. Not only was it dark, but it was a seal. What was it going to do—snap pictures of her and sell them to
OK! Magazine
?
She let her hands stroke its slippery skin, testing to see if it would swim away at her touch. When it didn't, she grabbed hold of its slippery body the best she could, wrapping her arms around its neck and gripping its body the way she gripped the body of a horse.
The seal swam, as if it knew exactly where it wanted to go.
Brie drifted along on the seal's back for what felt like hours, until finally she could see both the surface and floor of the ocean at the same time. How far down had she fallen? Once she could feel the sand and rock beneath her feet, she let go of the seal and broke through the ocean surface, inhaling the salted air for the first time since leaving the boat. She took the deepest breath she possible could, letting her brain buzz from the overdose of oxygen.
"Thank you," Brie said, once she'd caught her breath. "You saved my life." When she glanced back at the seal, it had been replaced by a gray, mutated human head and shoulders, floating just above the water.