House of Dreams by Andrea Hurst

Author:Andrea Hurst [Hurst, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hurst Publishing
Published: 2024-03-30T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Cliff was about to knock on the back door of the house when he heard raised voices through the open windows. Disturbing words drifted out—developers, truth about our mother, can’t stop me—and they filled him with dread. The perilously held-together traumas and secrets from their past were unraveling, and there was no way to stop them now. So be it, he thought. A festering wound never heals until it’s cleaned out.

He thought about intervening, but it didn’t feel right. “Holly,” he whispered aloud, “what should I do?”

Matt’s angry words continued. “And leave wreckage in your wake, like our father.”

All the memories came tumbling back. Cliff turned and walked down toward the water, trying to block out the memories. The boys’ father, Richard Charles Martin, had warned Cliff about becoming involved with his sons after Holly’s death. The threat of being fired had hung in the air. How much Cliff had wanted to say, “I quit,” but he’d promised Holly he’d stay close. But he would not forget how Mr. Martin would arrive with last-minute notice for a clandestine affair with a rotating collection of beautiful, young women hanging on his arm while Holly and the boys were back home in the city. His deep-seated disgust with this man was only intensified by the way he treated his wife, Holly. If, or how much the boys knew about their father’s indiscretions was never clear to Cliff.

He walked briskly down the beach, hoping for some insight on how to make it better somehow. The jutting rocks where he and Holly used to meet in private called to him. Cliff entered the cave-like structure, leaned against a bolder, and shut his eyes. He could see Holly sneaking in, a mischievous grin across her face.

“My love,” he whispered.

She was a beautiful and sensitive soul. The simplest things would move her heart—a butterfly landing on a flower, a puppy playing in the surf, the seagulls hovering overhead mewing to her. What did Tom remember of that part of his mother?

“I miss you, Holly.”

Her image flickered in his mind and his heart ached. She was beauty itself, inside and out, and too fragile to survive in this world.

“Stand up for yourself,” Cliff would tell her, reassuring her that he was there for her. But she was groomed from youth to believe and accept that her own needs were unimportant. And Richard Charles Martin had charmed Holly’s parents with his wealth and charisma. It didn’t matter that Holly’s heart belonged to another. Even after the wedding, Cliff knew there would never be another woman for him.

Holly’s image withered before him. Her face pale, purple bruises down her arms, eyes filled with sorrow. The way she’d looked at him that summer, fifteen years later, when she returned alone with only her two boys beside her, still haunted him.

“Oh, Holly. I wish I could have helped you more. I tried…”

Her words rang in his head. “You did all you could, Cliff. I know you did.”

And he had. But it wasn’t enough.

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