Revisiting the Past
Part 13
By Kellie
Michelle bit her lip as she turned away from Danny. She stood in stunned silence for several minutes as his confession sank in. Suddenly, she spun on her heel faced him, "Danny, you promised me…"
He interrupted before she could go any further, "Michelle, there’s more you need to know about this before you rake me over the coals."
She began tapping her right foot while crossing her arms. She looked up at him, "More…you just told me you let Carlos kill someone for you and now you say there’s more I need to know. I don’t think I need to know more. Nothing seems to change between us – you get pulled into making horrible choices for ‘the family’ and then try to justify them to me. I don’t want to hear it!" Michelle’s voice shook with controlled fury as she continued, "I told you after that fiasco with the bonds in San Cristobel that I couldn’t live that life with you. So, are you still tied to ‘the family business’ or not?"
"Michelle, I need you to listen to me for a minute,"
"Damn it, Danny – I can’t come back to the way things were. I want a new start with a clean slate, so answer my question – are you still tied to the business or not?"
"I was for awhile, but not anymore. I need to tell you everything about all of it, though. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us," he said as he put his hand on her shoulder.
Michelle turned and looked at the brown pools that were his eyes. She reached up and caressed the side of his face as she nodded to indicate she would listen to what he needed to say. Danny took her hand and pulled her back over to the rock and took a seat, resting his elbows on his knees. Michelle sat down beside him and waited for him to begin.
"For days after that night at the club, all I could think about was how I had broken my promise to you. I felt so guilty – you had only been gone a few weeks, so started to believe that you’re not returning was God’s way of punishing me for breaking my promises to you. That’s when I began just going through the motions of living. I worked at the club almost non-stop, trying to exhaust myself to avoid my own nightmares. Then, my cousin Tony came to town. He’s Ray’s brother and he had gotten into big trouble with some people in Chicago. They had a hit out on him, but Ray got caught in the crossfire. I ended up taking control of the business to get him out of that mess. Not long after that, the house was finished and I moved out here. The day Meta came to see me; I had been going through some boxes of pictures of us. That was the day I realized that if you ever came back to try and live our dream, you wouldn’t have me – you wouldn’t be able to live with the person I was becoming. I found a bottle of tequila and got wasted. When Meta got here, I was a mess. She called Ray and somehow, between the two of them, they convinced me that you still loved me and you wouldn’t be able to stay away forever. Meta told me I needed to get my house in order so I would be the kind of man that deserved a life with you. Ray took me to the house to tell Abuela I wanted out, but instead, we overheard an interesting conversation between her and some visitors."
"Who was there?" Michelle asked.
"Carlos and…" Danny paused and looked up, he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her who else was at the house that day.
"Danny, who else was there?"
"Your mother – Claire was at the house."
