The Gift of Happiness

by Amanda Carpenter

The hurting cry, sounding like a plea for help, had him closing his eyes with a wince. He turned away from her, presenting to her the strong lines of his profile, and he bowed his head to look at his two clasped hands dangling between his knees. It was an attitude of such sorrow and strange helplessness that it made her want to hold him to her, to soothe away the troubled look, to ease his pain. She had time to wonder about this; Luke had always seemed to be so much in control. She had not realized just how much she looked to him for everything, until she saw him now at a loss as to what to say to her. In that one moment, she realized a sudden shift had taken place in the balance of their relationship. Before, he had been the one to give, and she did the majority of the taking.

  It would never be that way again. Not after the exposure of his own vulnerability.

  “I wish,” he was saying, “that I could give you a life free of pain, Katherine.” He so very rarely called her by her full name. “But I can’t do that. I can’t guarantee you that you are never going to hurt again, because if we get married, then one of us is going to experience a terrible loss. ‘For the rest of our lives’ is a phrase that so rarely comes true. Do you see, my love?” As long as she lived, she would never forget the look on his face as he sat, unable to face her, and spoke to her thus. “One of us is going to die before the other. And one of us is going to hurt more than they’ve ever hurt before. It is going to happen.

  “I would give my right arm to save you grief, if I could. I wish I could give that little boy life. But I can’t spare you any more than I could shield Jana. Pain and grief happen! But I can promise you one thing, Katherine.” He turned his bent head, and she saw the glitter in his dark eyes, and the intensity of his expression. “I will promise you this: the more you feel, the more strength you are capable of attaining. The deeper the grief, the higher the joy. You can’t change what you are—you are a caring and sensitive person, and always have been. That is why your father was capable of hurting you so much—because you cared. The more you care, the more you will be able to withstand. I can’t stop your hurt, but maybe, just maybe, I can help you find your strength.”

  Some deep part of her took in what he was trying so hard to say with a recognition and a welcoming, as if she had found the one thing that made her feel truly balanced and whole inside. She raised her eyes to him and found him regarding her with such a look of gentle concern and understanding that tears started in her eyes. He exclaimed with dismay at this, but she smiled through her tears and said, “No, no—it’s all right!” She stopped whatever he was going to say with one finger. “Really, Luke. I’m all right. I understand what you are trying to tell me. I know what you say is right. But”—at this her lips quivered—“I—it’s been such a painful…and I need to feel something good—oh, just hold me.” She was drawn into his arms as she whispered, “Just hold me for a while.”

  He groaned at this, and held her with such a tenderness that she was quite overcome. She pressed little soft kisses on the side of his neck, at which he trembled. This had her crying in earnest, and she tightened her arms around him to try and give him a measure of the strength that he had given her. His mouth came to hers and for a long, long time she couldn’t speak, nor did she want to. A warmth began to invade her limbs. Then she noticed something.

  “Why do you have your clothes on?” she whispered to him, after glancing at the clock that read two a.m. He was fully dressed.

  “I stayed up and read in my room,” he answered her softly, one hand fondling the hair that lay heavily on her neck. “You had kept so much of your pain in, that I suspected something like this might happen, and wanted to be near you when you needed me.”

  She trembled and whispered, “Luke.” He looked at her with dark eyes. “I need you. Why do you have your clothes on?”

  “No,” he murmured in protest, but it was a feeble sound, and at length he came down to her with the same urgency that she felt. Once, when he was shedding his clothes having just turned off the light, he whispered, “We shouldn’t—you’re too overwrought, and—”

  “Hush,” she whispered. “Why shouldn’t we? I love you, Luke. I love you more than anything else in the world.”

  “Be sure,” he murmured. “Be very sure.” There was no more talking, other than little whispered love words, for the rest of the night.

  The next morning, Katherine came downstairs very late, and found Jana sitting at the kitchen table with an empty mug in front of her staring into space. “Hello,” Katherine said softly, and was rewarded with a swift smile.

  “Oh, my dear,” said Jana with relief, after scanning her face in concern. “Luke told me before he left that you’d probably sleep in late, and so I resisted the temptation to peek in and check on you, but—are you really doing better? You worried Marian and me so, last night.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said quietly. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took the pot over to Jana to pour her more too. Then she added cream and sat down. “It’ll take a while, I dare say, for the rather vivid memory to fade, but I’m getting over it. Luke mentioned something, and I wanted to ask you about it, if you don’t mind.” She looked into the other woman’s eyes. “He mentioned you in a way that I didn’t quite understand. He said something about being unable to ‘shield you too’ and I was wondering if you could throw some light on that. Of course, if I’m prying just tell me so and I’ll shut up.”

  Something flickered in the older woman’s eyes, and Katherine watched them fall away to look at the checkered tablecloth. Jana absently moved her mug around on the table, the veined and slender hands touching the salt and pepper shakers lightly and then moving on to fidget with something else. “I think,” she said quietly, “that he must have meant when my husband and little girl died, some years back.”

  Katherine felt very sick, and closed her eyes at this statement. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t be, love. It was some time ago. Of course it still hurts me to think of it, but the pain is a gentle pain now, and almost like a friend to me.” The blue eyes smiled at her, as Jana looked up. “It was very difficult for me at the time, and the only way I could have borne the pain, I think, was with Luke’s help. He bore with my tears and fits of depression for so long! And it was he who pointed out to me that Mark would have wanted me to enjoy life, and not bury myself away like I had been doing. He said to me that Mark would have told me to reach out and make my happiness, either by myself or with someone new. And he was right, so I had to pull myself together and do just that!” Jana leaned back in her chair.

  She continued, “I think that you must have reminded him a little of me when you first came to live with us.” She was heartened by Katherine’s reflective silence. “You had that same stricken look in your eyes that I seem to remember in mine, and Luke was always a sucker for that look! He can’t bear to see someone unhappy, you see, especially someone he cares about deeply, and he certainly has come to care very deeply for you! It’s been such a pleasure to see him fall in love with you. Now, don’t look surprised, Marian and I saw it coming a mile away! And very pleased we are, too. You are just the one for him.” Jana reached out and patted her arm. “And don’t you let anyone convince you differently, dear!”

  Katherine had been given the day off, and so when she finally went back to work, she was able to show the usual calm, unruffled appearance that she had acquired and now displayed on the job.

  Luke did not come back to her room after that one night, saying when they had talked about it that he had really wanted to wait until the wedding, and although he couldn’t regret the night under the circumstances, he would be hesitant to repeat it. “We have to think of Marian and Jana,” he said gently, in response to her baffled enquiry. “Much as I want to, love, I’d rather not hurt either, and I’m not sure how they’d react.” She thought she understood after that, but in the ensuing days, she detected a certain, inexplicable reserve in Luke’s attitude toward her. She found it strang
ely hard to maneuver things so that she could spend time alone with him, and she caught odd, unsmiling glances from him when he thought she wasn’t looking. This observation puzzled her, and concerned her a little, but since they had set a date for the wedding in a few weeks’ time, she had no time for leisurely speculation.

  Events had been so attention-consuming, she found, that she hardly had time to do much of anything other than spend her mornings planning details of the wedding with Jana and Marian, and then go to work in the afternoons. In the evenings she was about ready to drop into her bed without supper, she was so exhausted. After much discussion, she had decided that she would try to keep her job, and this meant taking leave from work for a honeymoon. It created much dismay in her head nurse and a terrific amount of juggling on the work schedule. The time off was approved, however, and Katherine liked to think that it was because she was such a good worker, but she didn’t mention so to anyone else.

  Perhaps the absorption in the whirling and hectic events made her let down her guard. Perhaps the fast-moving days trickling by and the frantic rush to get the business squared up for the honeymoon had made Luke just a bit lax too. Perhaps the passage of time without any action from James had lulled her into a false sense of security, or maybe it was just that her mind did not work in such devious patterns as his did. Whatever the reason, she did not suspect a thing when Luke phoned her from his office late one afternoon.

  “Katie-bug, I can’t pick you up this afternoon, I’m afraid,” he told her regretfully. “I’ve had the Ferrari garaged this afternoon. There’s something wrong with it. The mechanic says that it shouldn’t be too serious, though. I’m going to put in an extra couple of hours at the office while I wait. Is Jana still at the hospital?”

  “No,” she answered, a bit puzzled. “As far as I know, she left at the normal time. Why’d you think she was here?”

  “I rang home to see if she could pick you up, and no one answered,” he replied. “Do you know where she could have gone?”

  “It’s Marian’s day off,” she said after a moment’s reflection. “I’ll bet you that they went shopping for the afternoon, or popped out to the grocery store to get something for supper. You know, I bet that is it. Jana hates to cook anything if she can possibly get away with it, and we’re going to have frozen pizza, or something equally revolting.”

  “No doubt,” he said with a little laugh. “Well, do you have enough money with you for a taxi? It will get dull after a couple of hours if you were to wait for me at the hospital, I’m afraid.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I’ve enough with me. I wouldn’t want to wait around here, anyway. I keep dreaming about that lovely bottle of wine chilling in the fridge, and I can’t wait to get home. You’ll find me in a blissful state, no doubt, with the bottle empty and rolling under the couch while I snooze on top. At least I won’t remember how the frozen pizza tastes.”

  “You drink that whole bottle, my love, and I’ll take my share of it out of your hide,” she was told in no uncertain terms. She laughed and told him that she might save him a glass if he was good, and they rang off.

  She didn’t suspect a thing until she stepped out on to the curb just outside the hospital at exactly five minutes past five, her usual meeting time with Luke, and found that she had to wait for the taxi she’d called some ten minutes ago. Watching the left side of the street, as she presumed the direction of the cab’s arrival to be, since it was from this direction that the semicircle for the pick up of passengers started, she was considerably surprised at the polite tap on her right shoulder. When she turned to see who it was, she turned white.

  “Miss Farlough?” the big, dark man, the one who had bumped into her in the restaurant some weeks ago, spoke quietly. She blinked and took a quick step back. He did not bother to move. She took his measure in a glance and found time to reflect bitterly that he wouldn’t have to move to block her puny response. He looked perfectly capable of catching her even if she had been half a block away, and she was no slow mover.

  “What do you want?” she asked sharply, taking a quick, comprehensive glance around. There weren’t any people about, as she met Luke in front of the hospital and most of the staff went round the back way to a private car park.

  The man just smiled. “Why, Miss Farlough, I don’t want anything,” he told her pleasantly. “But your father wants you. Would you be so good as to step this way?”

  “And,” she asked, looking directly into his eyes, “what if I don’t?” There was the dark saloon car close by, and she could see the back of another person’s head, in the driving position.

  “Then I suppose I’ll have to hit you in the jaw,” was his reply. He was balanced on the balls of his feet, for all his air of relaxation, just like she had seen Luke balance once. It was a dangerous sight. She took another good look around her, and found that there was no one about, not even across the street. There would be no witnesses. “Have you decided which it is to be?” he asked.

  “You do,” she told him dryly, “pick your moments.” With complete composure, she moved forward of her own accord to step into the car with the assistance of his helping hand. It would have been futile to do otherwise.

  He climbed into the back seat with her, and without a word from the driver, the car shot forward to pull into the traffic’s flow. She stared at the back of the driver’s head for a moment with a surge of recognition.

  “Of course!” she said calmly. “How are you doing, Joss?” The head jerked a little.

  Joss’s hateful, insinuating voice flowed back to her. “I’m just fine, Miss Farlough. In fact, everybody is doing just fine. Might I add that you’re going to find Mr. Farlough very healthy.” He added nastily, “You might even find him, er, forgiving, but I wouldn’t necessarily count on it.”

  “I don’t believe that I’ll hold my breath,” she told him mildly. This contained statement had his sharp eyes flicking to her reflection in the rearview mirror with some surprise. She caught this and had to hide a smile. Despite her discomfiture, and uneasy apprehension at the forthcoming interview with a man she’d give anything to be able to forget, she had managed to show a shell of composure that she’d cultivated in the recent past. Always in the past Joss could be assured of some kind of agitated response from his malicious digs, and the mere mention of James’s displeasure would have been enough to send the former Katherine into the grip of fear.

  In a way, the composure that she maintained outwardly was not just a shell. Deep inside herself, Katherine had found a measure of the strength that Luke had prophesied was in her, and with the strength came peace of mind. She was worried and, yes, to herself she admitted some degree of apprehension. But underneath all these surface agitations there ran a deep flowing river of serenity. She was not the same girl who had been cowed into submission all her life. James was, she thought grimly, going to be surprised.

  She spared no glances for the rather menacing aspect of the man sitting so quietly beside her. His slightly battered visage was still familiar in some way, but she did not trouble herself to try to put his face to a memory. He did not matter to her existence beyond the fact that he was a restriction for the moment. One thing she did notice, though, was that the jacket he was wearing did not fit as exactly as it could. She had no doubt that there was a gun somewhere on his formidable person.

  When they pulled up the long, shady driveway to her old home, she spared an admiring glance for the new electronic apparatus attached to the double gates. They swished shut behind the car, and she began to know a moment of disquiet.

  She presented an unruffled calm though, as she thanked the stranger politely when he opened the car door for her. His eyes flickered but he showed no sign other than this, and she had not been looking at him anyway. Joss had not spared the unobtrusive man a single look.

  The front door opened as they all mounted the steps, and she lifted her eyes to look into the eyes of a beast. “Hello, James,” she said, as if she were coming home af
ter an afternoon’s shopping, “how’ve you been?”

  “Very well, thank you,” he replied in the same vein, his expression enough to make her want to scream. She had lost capacity to feel the incredible impact that his cold and utterly inhuman face could have on her. “And yourself?”

  “In good health.” In the spacious hall, she stopped to see where he would direct her. He indicated with one hand the room that in an earlier day had been called the drawing room, but was now a huge family-type den. Its windows overlooked the front gardens and driveway and let in the morning sun. The decor was tasteful; James had hired the best decorator in the area. With a calm grace, she moved forward to drop suddenly to one knee as a vicious hand whistled just by her head. Putting out a steady hand to balance herself, she waited for a moment, crouched where she had fallen as she observed her father’s actions. She had not been surprised by the blow. It was a favorite trick of his to hit out when he thought his victim was least suspecting, and she had seen his calculation of the distance and position a split second before he had struck out.

  Joss was already going down the hall and hadn’t seen the encounter. The stranger, who had stopped just inside the front door, had not moved an inch from his rigid position, and he stared ahead of him with blank eyes, but Katherine caught a glimpse of a muscle in his jaw twitching. With a slightly raised eyebrow, she asked her father, “Do you suppose I can get up now, or would you rather kick me around a bit first?” Her tone, almost amused, and also her swift response to his attempted blow had his light, merciless eyes staring at her in blank surprise.

  He recovered almost immediately, though, and with a charming smile that had her privately wishing she could afford the luxury of retching he said, “By all means, my pet, do pick yourself up from that sprawl.” He sounded, she observed, almost disdainfully elegant.

  With the same swift grace that had sent her down, she swung to her feet and preceded him into the family room. She stopped just inside the door. “May I sit?”