Page 61 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

Nathan, bloodied and shirtless, raising his fists up to protect his face, swaying a little on his feet. A man charges at him and I gasp just as Nathan dodges. He grabs the back of the man’s shirt and shoves, using the man’s momentum to fling him off. The man tumbles onto the dirt, but another man pounces on Nathan with an animal cry. Both of them fall onto the dirt, scrambling, and this is a nightmare. It can’t possibly be real.

“Stop it.” My voice comes out thin, swallowed immediately by the jeers around me. “Stop it!” I look around wildly. That’s my husband. The person who always sees the best in others, the one who’s done nothing but be supportive about spending our honeymoon visiting my ancestral homeland. And now this poor, sweet guy is rolling around in the dirt, literally getting beaten up by thugs.

Something overcomes me. Rage. Flowing hot as lava, filling up my entire being. Everything around me ceases to exist. The noise recedes to a background hum. I’ve had enough of this fucking thing. I march over to Kristofer. Neither he nor his guards pay any attention to me, a puny, weak female. I don’t stop to think.

I’m so close to Kristofer I can practically smell him, I can see the little hairs on the side of his ears, and without any hesitation, I reach out and grab him by the collar of his shirt. Summoning all of my strength, I yank Kristofer down so we’re face-to-face. I only have a few seconds before his guards are on me. The few words I’m about to say will be the most important words of my life. If I stop to consider what to say, I will lose the moment. So I pounce on the only things I know. The truth.

“You’re in love with Julia Child.” The words rush out of me like a raging river, unstoppable. “She’s in love with you too. All these years. Your wife knew it. Abi never had a relationship with Julia Child. He was always in love with my aunt, Enjelin.”

Hands grab my shoulders. I’m wrenched away from Kristofer, jerked back like a rag doll. I let go. Struggling might endanger this life growing inside of me, and I would never do anything to risk that. But I keep my eyes on him. I watch it all sink in; his expression going from anger to confusion to surprise and then something almost unreadable. An expression that comes from emotions layered one right on top of the other. Grief, joy, hope, embarrassment, all of them intermingling, fighting for control of his features.

“Wait.” He holds up his palm. The rough hands gripping my shoulders stop pulling, though they remain there, firm. Kristofer takes a step closer to me. “What do you—how do you know?”

My natural instinct is to answer him. That’s just the sort of person I am. But I wrestle my stupid instincts to the ground. Instead, I make myself raise my chin with defiance. “I’m not telling you anything until you tell your henchmen to get away from my husband.”

Kristofer’s eye twitches a little, but then he turns to the men in the center, purses his lips, and blows a short, shrill whistle. As though they’re robots whose switches were turned off, four of the men immediately stop fighting. They drop their hands to their sides and leap back onto their feet. Nathan and the other men, presumably Abi’s henchmen, slowly straighten up, looking confused. The crowd falls silent.

Every pair of eyes is now directed at us, the weight of everyone’s attention almost physical, like ants crawling on my face. I resist the urge to hide.

Kristofer turns his full attention to me, and it’s even more unsettling than having all these people staring at me. He has the kind of intensity that tears away at your confidence, because it’s obvious when he looks at you, he’s fully listening, absorbing not just everything you say but all of the minute details of your movements, reading your body language like a book. It’s easy to see, in this moment, how this man has ascended to the top and become one of the largest business tycoons in the country. I falter. I don’t know how to convince this man, this person who’s probably heard it all.

But then I catch a glimpse of Nathan, Ma, and my aunties. And they’re all looking at me with trust. Even Big Aunt. I would’ve thought that their main reaction would be: Oh crap, who put Meddy in charge? But no, they’re all looking at me with hope shining in their eyes, filled with utter confidence that I’m about to solve everything. And knowing that bolstersthat little kernel of defiance inside me. Kristofer’s cynicism has nothing against me, because I’m about to tell him the most valuable thing anyone has ever given him. I’m about to tell him the truth.

“I read your wife’s letter.” I ignore the flare of anger in his eyes and plow on. “She said to seek ‘her’ out. The woman you’ve been in love with ever since you were teenagers.”

Kristofer sucks in a painful breath. “You don’t know what you’re—”

I shake my head, my frustration spilling out. “I talked to Julia Child. She said things—they didn’t make sense at the time, I thought that you were just business rivals, but now I get it. The way she talked about you, she was bitter.”

“Hah!” Kristofer snorts. “That’s because we’re competitors.”

“No, it’s much more than that. There was a lot of emotion in it, a lot of history. Look, I—my family, we run our own business too. I know what it’s like to come across a competitor. This was much more than that. This was personal.” I take a deep breath, ignoring the look of cynicism on Kristofer’s face, and raise my voice, louder and louder, so every word rings clear and true. “She loved you. And you loved her.”

There’s a collective gasp from the people around us. Kristofer blanches. “That’s not true—”

“Your wife knew. Marjie, she said as much to you. You were a good husband, but she knew there was someone you left behind. The one that got away.” My voice breaks as my gaze strays to Nathan. Despite everything, a small, sad smile touches his mouth. It’s a smile that speaks of years of loss, when we were both apart from each other. A smile that speaks of confidence. He completely trusts that I will make things right again.

I force myself to look at Kristofer again. “I know what it’s like to have that person, the one who got away, because that’s my husband. And I was lucky, so lucky, to have been given a second chance, but you and Julia Child never had that, did you? You two broke up and you got married and you were a wonderful husband and father and you moved on, but there’s always been a piece of you that was left behind with her.”

Kristofer’s hands clench and unclench. He glares at me as though I’m the only person who exists in this whole world, everyone else forgotten. His upper lip curls up. “We didn’t break up. I gave her all of me, and she took my heart and she cheated on me with that scumbag.” He shoots a poisonous glance back at Abi.

“No, you were mistaken.” This is it. The root of everything. “She didn’t. There was nothing going on between her and Abi, and I know this because Abi was, and still is, in love with my aunt.”

Kristofer’s mouth snaps shut. He opens it, drawing a breath, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s true.”

I turn to see Abi stepping forward. He spits at the ground and glares at Kristofer. “There was never anything between me and Julia Child. We were close, yes, but all we did when we spent time together was talk about you and Enjelin.”

“You’re lying,” Kristofer snaps. “I saw the two of you walking, holding hands.”

“Apa? Holding hands?” Second Aunt demands in a pterodactyl screech. She wrenches her arms free from the guards holding her back and takes a murderous step toward Abi before the guards catch her again.

“No, Enjelin, I swear to you, I never—” Abi pauses, hismouth dropping open as realization apparently sinks in. “You and Julia Child—you had the same haircut. All the girls did, at the time. It was this really round bob, kind of like a helmet?” He sees the expression on Second Aunt’s face and quickly adds, “A beautiful helmet. And you’re about the same size—well, you’re much curvier, of course—but from behind, it would be a challenge telling you apart. I mean, of course I would’ve been able to tell you apart from every other girl, but Kristofer must have seen you and me together and thought it was me and Julia Child.”

Second Aunt narrows her eyes and sniffs.

Ma frowns at Kristofer. “You can’t even tell your own girlfriend apart from Enjelin?”

---