Anything for Danny

by Carla Cassidy

  He looked around the apartment that had been his home for the past year. The futon where he sat and a television set/stereo unit comprised the extent of his furniture.

  The walls were covered with some of his best work…pictures of native children in South Africa, fatherless children who were the legacy of the Vietnam era, the despair on young faces in Belfast.

  He'd given up his world travels a year ago when Danny had gotten ill, and he now photographed the young, the disillusioned, the hopeless in the United States. That way, he was always no more than a couple hours' plane ride away should Danny need him.

  He looked around him again. Sherri would hate this place. Sherri loved order and the one thing his apartment lacked was order. He felt a dull sense of dissatisfaction sweep over him. He really should invest in more furniture, perhaps an end table or two. He eyed the untidy stack of clothing in the corner of the room. A chest of drawers would be nice…maybe a maid could make some sense of his chaos.

  He frowned, realizing he was viewing his apartment through her eyes. He pulled himself off the futon and glared out the window. His apartment was fine just the way it was. The futon served as his sofa by day, his bed at night. His clothes were fine in a stack in the corner, as were his magazines, his albums and his photography equipment.

  Damn, this trip from hell hadn't even begun yet and already Sherri was an intrusion into his life. He didn't want to go. He couldn't imagine being trapped in an R.V. for three weeks with his ex-wife. He must have been crazy when he'd agreed to the whole thing.

  His mind suddenly filled with a vision of Danny. His frown automatically faded, replaced by a small smile. What a kid. He and Sherri might have failed at their marriage, but somehow, the best of both of them had joined together on the night that Danny was conceived. That's why he had agreed to this trip. For Danny.

  He stared out the window, seeing a motor home pull to a stop in the parking lot. He looked down at his watch. Bingo…seven o'clock on the nose. Some things never changed.

  He grabbed his duffel bag, pulled on his jacket, locked the front door, then hurried down to meet them.

  Luke felt his heart expand in his chest as Danny stuck his head out the window. "Hi, Dad," he yelled. He opened the door and jumped down from the passenger seat and ran toward Luke. "Hey, big man," Danny said, grinning up at him.

  "Hey, little man," Luke replied. He let the duffel bag fall to the concrete and went down to one knee as Danny threw himself into his arms.

  For a moment, Luke held him tight, smelling the little-boy scent of him…a scent of sunshine and freedom, of laughter and dreams. Dreams the doctors said would probably not be fulfilled…dreams Luke would sell his soul to see come true.

  "Come on, Mom is waiting." Danny wiggled from Luke's tight embrace. He grabbed his father's hand and tugged Luke toward the R.V. "Wait until you see everything inside. It's so awesome. And Mom says if it's not too cold we can make a camp fire every night and toast marshmallows and when we get to the Grand Canyon we're going to rent a helicopter to fly us over it."

  "Whoa," Luke said with a laugh. "Slow down. We've got a lot of driving time ahead of us before we get to the Grand Canyon."

  "Yeah, but with you and me and Mom all together, it will be fun. We can sing and talk and just be together." Danny tugged impatiently on his father's hand again. "Come on, let's get this show on the road!"

  Funny, Luke thought as he stepped into the vehicle. He'd forgotten how small Sherri was…how petite. Sitting behind the steering wheel, clad in a pair of red slacks and a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved blouse, she looked like the cute little teenager he had fallen in love with years before.

  He had a sudden vision of the way she had looked on the day they had gotten married. It hadn't been much of a ceremony, a simple civil service in city hall. She'd been eighteen years old and had gazed up at him as if he were her entire world. It wasn't until they'd been married several months that he'd realized he was her entire world.

  "Hi," he said awkwardly.

  She smiled a greeting, her big brown eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at his duffel bag. "Is that all your luggage?"

  He nodded. "I travel light." He saw her lips compress in disapproval, as if she knew he'd thrown together clothes in the bag only moments before, which of course he had.

  "I'll take it, Dad. I'll store it with ours," Danny said, taking the bag from him. He disappeared into the back as Sherri started the engine.

  "You want me to drive?" he asked with a touch of irritation. She'd probably packed a month ago…sixteen suitcases full of useless items.

  "I'll drive until I get tired, then you can take over," she answered, her voice pleasant, but distant.

  Luke settled into the seat with a sigh. He stared out the window at the passing scenery, waiting for her to say something, anything to ease the awkward silence that grew and expanded with each passing moment.

  What do you say to the woman you'd been married to for five years, and divorced from for the past five? he wondered. He could tell her about his date last Friday night, but he had a feeling she wouldn't want to hear about it. Besides, it had been a horrible night and he was doing his best to forget it. He could tell her about his latest photography assignment, but she'd always resented his work.

  They'd had little in common years ago. After five years of separation, he suspected that hadn't changed. Maybe it was best that he just keep his mouth shut.

  He sighed again. He leaned forward and turned on the radio, relaxing somewhat as the sounds of an old rock and roll song filled the motor home.

  "Uh…would you mind leaving it off until we get out of this rush-hour traffic?" she asked politely.

  "Okay," he agreed reluctantly. He turned it off, remembering that she'd never liked to drive with the radio playing.

  He was aware of Danny returning from the back and sitting down in the chair just behind him. Danny leaned forward and placed a hand on Luke's arm, and his other hand on Sherri's shoulder. "This is gonna be so much fun," he exclaimed with all the excitement a nine-year-old could generate. "We're going to have the greatest time in the world, aren't we?" His words were met with silence. "Aren't we?" he prompted, squeezing Luke's arm.

  "Sure, the greatest," Luke replied faintly.

  "The best," Sherri added. She looked at Luke, and in her eyes he saw the same dull dread he knew was in his own.

  He smiled weakly, then turned his gaze out the window. Yes, this was definitely going to be the trip from hell.

  Chapter Two

  Sherri feigned sleep and studied Luke beneath her lowered lashes. She'd spent the last six hours driving and after they'd stopped for lunch, had relinquished control of the vehicle to him.

  She'd spent the past five years trying not to really look at him whenever they happened to run into each other. She now took the opportunity to examine the man she had once been married to, the man she had once loved above all else.

  Luke had always been handsome. Sherri was honest enough to know that it had been his intense good looks that had initially attracted her to him.

  He was still sinfully attractive. The passage of time had merely intensified his bold features. His chin was square and strong, his nose a Roman feature. He's wearing his dark hair longer, she observed. She liked it. She decided it gave him a rakish look that complemented his devil-may-care personality.

  He'd taken off the leather bomber jacket he'd been wearing this morning and was clad in a short-sleeved T-shirt that exposed his firmly muscled, tanned arms. He had the body of a man who worked out, but she knew Luke was too undisciplined to follow any regular workout regimen.

  She looked at his hands, gripping the steering wheel competently. She'd always loved his hands. They were artist hands, slender and long-fingered, yet masculine with the dark curly hair that dotted each knuckle.

  He talked with his hands, gesturing often as if they were an extension of his thought processes. They used to laugh about it. She'd teased that if his hands were
tied behind his back, he would be completely tongue-tied.

  "Sherri?"

  His voice caused her to squeeze her eyes more tightly closed. She didn't want him to know that she'd been looking at him. She kept her breathing even and rhythmic, feigning deep slumber.

  "I know you aren't sleeping, Sherri." His voice was softly indulgent and she could hear the smile in it.

  She cracked an eyelid. "How do you know I'm not?" she asked, suddenly irritable.

  "Because you always sleep with your mouth hanging open," he observed.

  She sat up straighter in the seat. "I most certainly do not," she replied stiffly.

  He smiled, a smirking, knowing grin that instantly fueled her unreasonable aggravation with him. "For the five years we were married, you never, ever slept with your mouth closed."

  "Well, it's been a long time since you've slept with me and nobody else has ever complained," she snapped. She groaned inwardly. Now why had she said that? In the years since her divorce from Luke, there had been no opportunity for anyone to complain about her sleeping habits. Other than the occasional night when Danny had a nightmare and had needed some assurance, she'd slept alone.

  "We need to talk," he said, not taking his gaze off the highway they traveled.

  "Talk about what?" She sat up in the seat and eyed him curiously.

  "About the silence we've suffered through for the last six hours."

  "It hasn't been silent…Danny has been chattering." Sherri turned around in her seat, looking for her son.

  "Don't worry," Luke said. "He went back a little while ago to take a nap. He can't hear us." He looked at her for a moment, then redirected his gaze to the road. "Sherri, I don't know about you, but so far this trip has been damned uncomfortable. The tension between us is so ripe, Danny can't help but feel it. We can't have the whole trip like this."

  Sherri thought about those six hours. She had driven, Luke had stared out the window and Danny had talked. It had been the inane chatter of a kid who sensed tension and was attempting to dispel it. "So, what do you suggest?" she asked.

  "I don't know. All I do know is that we've got three weeks of close contact, intimate togetherness and a Christmas holiday to get through. For the sake of that kid back there, we'd better be able to put our past behind us and act like reasonable adults."

  "I can do whatever it takes to make Danny happy," she answered.

  Luke grinned. "I think it would make Danny happy if you tried to be nice to me."

  Sherri glared at him in outrage. Was he somehow trying to take advantage of this whole situation? It would be just like him to do that. She instantly steadied herself. Of course he wasn't. He didn't want to be with her any more than she wanted to be with him. He was merely thinking of Danny. And she would do the same. "I can be nice to you…for Danny's sake."

  "Okay, then it's agreed. For Danny's sake, we'll act like we really like each other."

  Sherri grimaced. "I don't know if I'm that talented an actress," she muttered.

  "You are, I can still remember all those times you acted like you enjoyed my lovemaking."

  "Oh!" Sherri gasped at his temerity. She sputtered for a moment, opening and closing her mouth in an effort to find effectively scathing words. When nothing strong enough came to mind, she turned around in the seat, staring out the passenger window and studiously ignoring the soft chuckle he emitted.

  Why did he have to mention that? she thought. Of all the things that had happened between them, of all the memories both good and bad she had entertained in the past, their lovemaking was something she'd never looked back on. That had been one particular set of memories she'd refused to acknowledge, refused to indulge herself in remembering.

  But now the memories exploded in her mind, reminding her of the intensity, the wonder of sexual fulfillment she had always found in his arms. He'd been her first…her only. Sex had been their common ground, the only thing they had really done well together. It was what had kept their marriage alive much longer than it should have been.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, refusing to give those vivid memories any substance, shoving the disturbing visions firmly out of her mind.

  As the motor home traveled onward, she allowed the motion to lull her to sleep.

  * * *

  Luke glanced over at Sherri and realized this time she really was sound asleep. A small smile curved his lips upward as he saw that her mouth hung slightly agape. Yes, she was definitely asleep.

  He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and reached over and flipped on the radio, turning it up so he could hear it, but not so loud it would intrude on Sherri's slumber. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up. One thing he remembered quite well, a tired Sherri was a cranky Sherri. His grin widened. The first thing he'd learned about her after marriage was that when she was tired her nose itched, and when he saw her scratching the tip of her pert little nose, he knew to watch out and give her a wide berth.

  He eyed her again, humming along to Elvis's crooning 'Love Me Tender.' He didn't know why he had thrown out that comment about their lovemaking, but somehow he knew it had been because of a perverse wish to shake her up, watch her blush.

  She'd always been so damned tight, so rigid. She'd come to him with a full structured set of ideals on love and marriage, ideals that no man would have been able to live up to…especially him.

  He'd wondered how many others had tried. No complaints, she'd said and he'd been surprised to feel a swift, strong shaft of jealousy sweep through him. He'd thought he'd gotten beyond that particular emotion long ago where she was concerned.

  He shook his head ruefully. He hadn't exactly been a monk since their divorce. He'd just never thought about Sherri's being with somebody else. He'd never contemplated the thought of her breathing her sweet sighs of passion into the hollow of another man's neck. He'd never considered that another man's hands might stroke the smoothness of her shapely legs, caress the satiny texture of her breasts. He now realized it had been the height of conceit to assume that Sherri would never love another…never make love to another man.

  He looked at her again, this time studying her in her vulnerable state of sleep. She'd done something different to her hair. Although she still wore it long, below her shoulders, the rich darkness was now shot through with strands of lighter shades. He liked it, he decided. It gave her a softer, more stylish look.

  He could smell her, a curious mingling of floral perfume and that indefinable scent that had always belonged to her alone. He'd often boasted that in a roomful of women, blindfolded he would be able to pick out Sherri by her scent. It had always turned him on. He was shocked to realize it was having that same kind of effect on him now.

  With an edge of irritation, he cracked open the window, allowing in the cold December air, needing it to banish the heat that suddenly flooded through his veins.

  He jumped as Danny touched him on the shoulder. "Hi, sport, have a good nap?" he asked, relieved for the distraction from his crazy thoughts.

  Danny nodded. "How long has Mom been asleep?" he asked.

  "Not long," Luke answered, then grinned. "I see she still sleeps with her mouth open."

  Danny laughed. "Yeah, last Easter Sunday I woke her up by dropping a black jelly bean between her lips. Boy, did she get mad."

  "I can imagine," Luke replied. "She always did hate black licorice," he added, making Danny laugh again.

  "Where are we?" Danny asked, peering out the side window.

  "About an hour from our first campsite. According to your mother's schedule, we're stopping at a place just outside Akron, Ohio, for tonight."

  "Cool, I've never been to Ohio before," Danny observed.

  "You've never been out of Connecticut before," Luke reminded his son. "Are you getting hungry?"

  "Not really. What about you?"

  "Yes, I'm starting to get hungry," Luke replied.

  "Mom made out menus for each night. Hang on and I'll tell you what she's cooking tonight." Da
nny scurried out of his seat and rummaged around in one of the drawers.

  Menus. Of course, Sherri would make menus, Luke thought. And lists. There was probably a list detailing all the lists she had made for the trip.

  "Steaks and baked potatoes. Sounds good, huh," Danny exclaimed, sitting back down behind Luke.

  "Sounds terrific," Luke agreed.

  "You think we'll be able to have a camp fire and cook the steaks outside?" Danny asked.

  "We'll have to wait and see what sort of campsite we stop at," Luke explained. "If it's too cold out and we can't have a fire, then we'll be eating in."

  "Okay," Danny agreed easily.

  Luke's heart swelled with pride, and the peculiar kind of dread that was always there when he thought of his son. The latest prognosis was that Danny had six months to a year to live. There had been a time when Luke had been unable to imagine a life with a son. Now he couldn't imagine life without Danny.

  "Hey, Dad?"

  "Yeah, sport?" Luke shoved his dark thoughts away.

  "I told Mom I wanted to sleep on the top bunk, but she said we'd have to see. So what do you think? Can I have the top bunk and you and Mom can share the bottom one?"

  Amusement rippled through Luke at the very thought. He tried to imagine he and Sherri in the small confines of the lower bunk. It was an interesting image.

  Of course, it would be only natural that they'd inadvertently touch each other. A rubbing of shoulders, a brush of a thigh…it could be quite stimulating. But it was a stimulation neither of them needed, or wanted, he reminded himself firmly. Besides, if Sherri got cranky when she was tired, he'd hate to see her if she realized she would be sharing a bed with him once again.

  "How about us men take the top one?" he countered. "If we can share my futon on weekends, surely we can share the upper bunk for the duration of this trip."

  "Okay," Danny replied. Luke expelled a sigh. One crisis averted. He wondered how many more lay in wait for him.