Chapter 15

Nick took a deep breath and went right into explaining where he'd been, how he'd been bashing heads right and left everywhere this side of the divide, how he'd spent so many nights in so many jails that he was beginning to think he ought to carve his name into the walls so everyone would know that Nick Barkley had been here. But then he thought the things he was saying were sounding too flip, too much like he didn't care what he'd become or worse yet, was proud of it.

"Truth is," he said, "I just lost control of myself. Mother and Heath have heard this already, Audra, but when I came home from the war, I felt deep down like I hadn't been important in the war because I was mostly back of the lines, and I wasn't important, period. I just let myself wallow in that, and when Jarrod left, it got worse, not better. I just started beating on men, maybe to make myself feel more important, I don't know. But the point is, I forgot you. I was so wrapped up in myself and my anger that I forgot you. If I hadn't forgotten you, if I had remembered how much you loved me and how much I loved you, like we were before the war – "

Nick stopped. He was choking up. But when no one said anything, he kept going.

"It was all my fault," Nick said. "I don't know how I managed to let all those years go by without getting my head back together. Well, no, that's not true. I know how it happened. I got too ashamed to change. I got too lazy to change. Every time I thought about coming back home, I thought about the fights Father and I had and I just got too ashamed to change my ways."

"Maybe we should have come after you," Audra said. "Isn't that what changed? Heath came and found you."

"Yes," Nick said. "And he got Jarrod to come, too, and that's what did it. Audra, I'm so sorry. I should never have let it go on as long as it did."

Audra just shook her head at him. "Nick, I loved you. I was so excited and happy to have you come home from the war. Didn't you know that?"

Nick took a deep breath. "Honey, I was so wrapped up in myself and my own troubles that when I thought of you – and I did, every day. When I thought of you, I only thought of how much I loved you. It never even occurred to me that you loved me."

Audra shook her head again. "I don't know how I could have made it any clearer."

Heath began to cringe inside. Nick and Audra were talking, but were they getting through to one another? He saw Victoria looking at him, and he saw Audra hanging her head and not knowing what else to say. He saw Nick getting up and wandering toward the place where the liquor was kept.

"Nick – " Heath said quickly, and Nick stopped and turned. Heath turned his attention to Audra once he was sure Nick was watching. "Audra – war is just the most horrible thing a man can go through. It changes you. It can make you look only to yourself because you have to do that to survive. I was just a kid, a lot younger than you, when I went into the war and was captured and put in prison, and I spent every day I was in that prison thinking about me, just me, how I could get out of there. When I was sick and raging with fever, I was still thinking every thought of me. Just me. Just surviving. Nick wasn't in the fighting as much, but he did get into it once in a while. And even when he wasn't on the line, he still got lost in himself. He was back being an aide to a general and he had to watch everybody else he knew fighting and dying, and he was still trying to survive that. He felt like he said he felt."

"Worthless," Nick muttered.

"And you've spent every day since trying to beat it into other men that you're not worthless," Victoria said.

Nick looked up at his mother. "When Mayville happened during the war and all those innocent people were killed – I took the fault onto myself because I wasn't there, and I felt more worthless."

"But you weren't supposed to be there," Victoria said.

Nick nodded. "It wasn't until Heath came along and brought Jarrod and we talked that I let myself believe that was true. I was doing the job I was supposed to do. Mayville wasn't my fault. I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Audra got up slowly and came over to him. "I'm sorry, too," she said.

"No, no," he said, smiling an embarrassed smile. "You've got nothing at all to be sorry about. I'm the one who got so wrapped up in myself that I ruined my life."

"It's not ruined," Victoria said quickly and came over to the two of them. "It was detoured for a while, but it doesn't need to be ruined."

"I don't know if I can change, Mother," Nick said.

"No, you don't, not until you try."

Nick took a deep breath. He didn't want to cry, but his voice was getting shaky and his hands were getting shaky.

They all sat down again and kept talking. Heath took the opportunity to slip upstairs, where he was almost startled to find Eugene helping Jarrod to get off the bed and stand up. Jarrod looked up. "How's it going down there?"

"Not bad," Heath said. "Audra slapped Nick across the face a couple times and then they started talking. They're still at it."

"Is it time for me to take my medicine?" Jarrod asked.

"When she gets a look at the damage I did, she might not slap you," Eugene said. Jarrod's left eye was beginning to turn color.

Heath could tell his brothers had continued to talk up here together. "I can only hope," Jarrod said.

Jarrod was able to walk around on his own, and soon the three of them were joining Nick, Audra and Victoria in the living room. All conversation stopped when Audra got a look at Jarrod. If she had been inclined to slap him too, the urge slipped away when she saw his face. She was sitting on the settee again with Nick, and she did not get up. She just stared at her oldest brother.

Jarrod was almost wished she'd get up and hit him. Her staring was more unnerving. Jarrod let his gaze fall as he took a deep breath. "Hello, Audra," he said. It was all he could think of to say, but as he started feeling a bit light-headed – from the beating or his nerves, he wasn't sure which - he said, "I think I'd better sit down," and sat in his vacant "thinking chair."

Audra sighed and just said, "I'm listening."

It was Jarrod's turn to sigh. "Have you told Audra anything yet?"

Victoria said, "No, not about you."

Jarrod straightened up, trying to ease the pain in his ribs. "Where should I start?"

"Maybe with why you came home from the war feeling like you could knock me and Gene around whenever you felt like it," Audra said. "The minute you came in the door, Jarrod. The minute you came into this room, you were horrible to us, and to everybody else. And never a word of explanation."

Jarrod nodded. "You're right, of course. I've explained to everyone else now, and they've taken it however they've taken it, so here it is for you. When I was in the war, I was wounded several times, and each time they gave me laudanum. When I came home, I was addicted, pure and simple, and I couldn't get it enough, so most of the time I was screaming mad with withdrawal. When I was able to get some, or get some opium, it eased off, but it came right back again. Then I started drinking too much on top of that, and that's all there is to say."

Audra wasn't expecting that. She swallowed. "How are you now?"

"Sober," Jarrod said. "I was in San Francisco for a lot of years, and I met a woman who put me in touch with a doctor who helped me ease off everything. Now I run a freight business in Sacramento, I married that woman, and I've been straightened out for a year." He looked at his sister, waiting for whatever was going to come next.

Audra's gaze fell, and everyone could see her trying to sort this out. "Why didn't you come home?" she finally asked.

"I wasn't welcome," Jarrod said. "And I thought there was just too much for you to forgive. When Eloise and I got married and moved to Sacramento, I built another life. I figured it was best just to let everything be."

"Until Heath came along," Audra said.

Jarrod nodded. "Until Heath came along. Audra, I'm not asking for forgiveness or even understanding. I expect that's too much to ask. I'm just explaining myself."

Audra sank a little more into the settee. It was easy to see that she was overwhelmed.

Nick got up. "Jarrod – maybe you and I ought to leave these people alone for a little bit. We've just dumped a load onto them."

Jarrod nodded as he got slowly to his feet. "Let's take a look around the yard, see if we remember much."

The two of them left by the front door, leaving the four remaining Barkleys to watch them, and then to figure out what had just happened in the last hour or two. And what they were going to do now.