The Darkest of Shadows

by Lisse Smith

  The door to his room was open when I reached it, but I couldn’t see anything inside, because a curtain blocked my vision. I could hear voices, and my eyes closed at the sound of Reed’s voice and then Duncan’s hushed response. I leaned against the wall beside the door and waited. I waited for the time when it felt right to walk in there, when it felt like my heart wasn’t going to explode in my chest, when I thought I could handle what was coming without giving myself up to the darkness and becoming a casualty to its embrace.

  It was Reed’s quietly whispered words that finally made me move. “Hold on, Daddy. Just a little longer, until Lilly gets here.”

  The tears were streaming down my face when I pushed back the curtain and walked into the room.

  Reed and Duncan were standing on either side of the bed, and Reed had one of dad’s hands cradled in hers. She saw me, saw my tears, and that burst the dam on her own emotions. Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs. I walked up beside her, my tears silent and steady.

  I looked down on the man who was my father. He had tubes coming out of both arms, a breathing tube was in his nose, and his eyes were closed. There was a faint tinge of pain to his face, and his breathing was ragged and hoarse. I leaned over and laid a soft kiss on his cheek.

  “I’m here, Daddy,” I whispered to him, and then rested my face against his. I loved him, and God, it hurt to lose him. So much. Too much. Unbelievably.

  I stepped back a pace to draw a painful breath into my lungs; then Duncan came around the bed and took Reed into his arms. He held her and whispered soft, soothing sounds over and over. I moved, around the bed, my body strangely numb, and sat down on the chair that Duncan had been using. I reached out slowly and took Dad’s hand in mine, breathing in the scent of him.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, and I’m not sure exactly what made me up look up, but something changed—his breathing, or maybe it was the coldness that flushed through his body and burned against my hand— something made me look up, and my eyes met Reed’s as she sat across the bed from me. A mirror of my own grief. It was in that scene, with that company, that my father breathed his last breath. It was a ragged sound, and the silence that followed was profound. A whole minute or more passed before it became a reality.

  I dropped his hand suddenly; the coldness of it hurt to touch. My dad was dead. I had made it in just enough time to watch him die.

  Oh, God. I stood and stepped back, one pace, then another, then another. Oh, God. I was shivering, cold. Scared. Terrified. My breath coming too fast. My eyes met Duncan’s for a horrified moment, and I knew that I couldn’t do this. Not again.

  “Lilly.” Duncan called my name, but it meant nothing to me.

  I turned and crashed into a solid wall of heat and muscle. I bounced back a step, and a moment later my eyes focused on something astonishing.

  I threw myself into Lawrence’s arms and sobbed my heart out. Nothing in that moment could have gotten me to let go of him. I tried to claw my way closer to him, crawl into his skin, anything to get away from the pain that was slashing through me. His arms wrapped tightly around me, and his head rested against the top of mine as he whispered softly into my hair. “I’m here, Lilly. It’s OK, baby.”

  Over and over again, until eventually the sobs lessened; the tears still fell, but with less force. My lungs started working properly and allowed me to breathe more evenly, and everything calmed, slowed. The room became quiet, with just the soft sounds of slow, even breathing as Reed and I recovered from the death of our father.

  I didn’t dare pull away from Lawrence. I stared at the material of his shirt, memorized the texture, the weave, the smell, his smell. I tucked my arms inside his jacket and hid in the warmth of his embrace.

  He comforted me in a way that no one else could have. He was my tether to reality, and without him, I was certain that I would have fallen victim to the craziness that called to me in my darkest moments. Lawrence kept the shadows far enough away so that I could resist its call.

  And I loved him.

  I tilted my head up to stare in his eyes. Those beautiful, stunning, knowing eyes that I had come to love with a wholeness that surprised me. I hadn’t thought I would ever get that again. I had loved my husband, my soul mate, and I had lost him. I didn’t think it fair that I be given another chance with a man just as special as he had been.

  “Shhh.” Lawrence’s look said that he understood. He knew I loved him. I saw it as plainly as if he spoke the words aloud. And I also saw the answering love in his eyes. He loved me, for whatever reasons that he had, he loved the good and the bad of me. He knew me, he still accepted me, and he loved me.

  Oh, God, what would I do if I lost him? I felt the rush of fear bombard my body as it tried to comprehend that thought.

  “Shhh,” he whispered again. “Don’t worry about it now.” It was almost like he knew what I was thinking. “Let’s take it one thing at a time. Give yourself time to deal with this first, and then we’ll talk about the other things later.”

  I nodded and buried my head back against his chest. I wanted to stay there forever.

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned just a fraction to see Reed standing with Duncan. His arms were still around her, but she had turned and was facing more toward me. Her face was tearstained and red, and when our eyes met, we shared a long, understanding look. We both hurt. This was our dad. We had already buried our mother, and now with Dad gone, there was only us left. Just Reed and me. We were all the family we had now.

  We stood, looking at each other for a while, taking the time to reconnect and recover. It had been nearly four years since I had seen her.

  Sometimes it seemed longer than that, and other times it seemed not that long ago that I had left. Today, it felt like centuries.

  “Hi,” she whispered to me.

  I smiled gently. “Hi, baby sister,” I answered, but neither of us moved.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said after a while.

  “Me too.” I think I actually meant it.

  Eventually the doctors came, and the room was just too small for everyone to stay.

  “We’ll see you at home?” Duncan inquired, as he steered Reed past us and out into the hall. I nodded, and then they left.

  I still clung to Lawrence, his arms wrapped around my shoulders so that I could keep my arms around his waist. He was the only warmth that my body would allow, and I was afraid that if I let go, I would start shaking and might not be able to stop. Lawrence led me from the room, and it was proof of exactly how numb I was that I wasn’t surprised to find Nicholas waiting in the hall outside my father’s room. He gave my fingers a quick squeeze and then walked with us out of the hospital.

  We found Frost leaning against a very expensive black SUV parked in a no-parking spot out front. A quick glance behind me confirmed that Charlie was bringing up the rear. I couldn’t muster anything resembling a smile for them and allowed Lawrence to pull me into the backseat of the car with him and Nicholas.

  Reed and Duncan lived in a large house near the city, one of the more affluent suburbs of Newcastle, and their house was nice. Nothing grand, but functional. With four boys, it had to be functional. I was glad the boys weren’t there when we arrived. I loved them, but right then I wasn’t sure I could have handled the four of them.

  I led Lawrence and Nicholas around to the back of the house; Reed rarely ever used the front door, so I knew it would be locked. Reed and Duncan were sitting on the lounger when we stepped through the sliding door and into the living room. She had a wad of tissues in her hand; as soon as she saw me, the tears started flowing again, and with a muffled cry she flew across the room and threw herself into my arms.

  We cried that way for a while, the both of us holding onto each other, while the men in our lives watched passively from the sidelines. Eventually, like at the hospital, the crying stopped, the grief ran its course, and we stepped back from each other.

  “Coffee?” she asked
hesitantly, and I smiled sadly at her.

  “Yes, please.” I didn’t feel like coffee, but it would keep Reed busy, so I accepted.

  “Duncan has beer out in the garage, if you want something stronger?” Reed offered to Lawrence and Nicholas, as they stood quietly by the door. I wasn’t sure where Frost and Charlie had gone, but I was sure it wasn’t far.

  I almost forgot that none of these people had actually met before. “Reed,” I called, and she stopped walking toward the kitchen and turned back to me. “Duncan.” He walked over to join us and gave me a nod of encouragement.

  I walked the few paces to stand before the two men who had traveled halfway around the world to support me. I reached up and wrapped my arms around Nicholas neck. I had to stand on tiptoes to get there, but I kissed him on both cheeks. He was surprised for a second, and then his arms wrapped around me and lifted me off the ground.

  “Thank you,” I whispered against his cheek, and he nodded in understanding before putting me back on the ground.

  “Reed, Duncan.” I turned back to them. “This is Nicholas Janis. He is a good friend of ours.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Reed and Duncan echoed. They were a bit astonished, I think.

  “And this,” I announced, my gaze rising to take in the expanse of Lawrence as he stood beside Nicholas. My two men were impressive; everything about them was solid and real. “This is Lawrence Monterey.” I didn’t turn toward Reed or Duncan when I made the introduction. I wasn’t even really talking to them. “This is Lawrence,” I added more quietly, and my eyes told him in so many ways how real it was for me to introduce him to my family.

  His arms wrapped around me, and he lifted me up until my lips could touch his without him having to bend down. He kissed me until I forgot about everyone else, everything else, and I lived this moment with this man. He owned me. He knew me, and I wanted so much to have that forever, but I wasn’t sure the fear would allow me to keep him. But for now, I would do as he suggested and just worry about getting through the next few days. Then we would talk about other things.

  “Ah, Lilly.” Reed’s voice finally intruded on my thoughts. I smiled against Lawrence’s lips and realized that he was as lost to the moment as I was. “Do you want to save that for later?” she asked.

  “Reed.” I turned, and with Lawrence’s hand clasped firmly in mine I towed him across the room to my sister and her husband. “Meet Lawrence.”

  “It’s about time,” Reed announced, and leaned up to kiss Lawrence on the cheek.

  “You seem to have everything under control,” Duncan announced, as he shook hands with Lawrence.

  “I’m working on it,” Lawrence agreed with a nod.

  “Wanna beer?” Duncan asked, and I watched with a small amount of amusement as the three of them wandered out the back to the garage.

  “Lawrence doesn’t drink beer,” I told Reed, as I settled at the breakfast bar and watched her prepare the coffee. “I’m not sure that Nicholas does, either,” I added.

  “Don’t worry.” Reed waved away my concerns. “Duncan has other stuff out there that they can have.” She set a cup down in front of me. “So that’s Lawrence?” She asked with a raised brow.

  “That’s Lawrence,” I confirmed.

  “Google doesn’t do him justice,” she remarked.

  “It never does.”

  “He’s taller than I expected.”

  “He’s wonderful.”

  “He certainly seems that way.”

  “I love him, and it scares the shit out of me.”

  “Oh, Lilly,” Reed cried, and rushed around the counter to embrace me.

  “Don’t get me started, woman.” I pushed her away and tried to laugh away the tears.

  “OK.” Reed composed herself. “So what’s with this Nicholas? Who’s he?”

  “He’s just a friend. A good friend to Lawrence. He was with us that night when you rang me.”

  “And he came all this way just for you?”

  “He probably came because he was bored.” I joked. “No,” I amended seriously. “He came because he cares, and because he wouldn’t have wanted Lawrence to come alone. You have to understand the world we live in to understand the relationship between Lawrence and Nicholas. Those men can live their entire lives and have not a single person they really trust. Trust doesn’t mean the same thing in their world that it does in yours. For them, trust is an illusion, it doesn’t really exist, not in the way that I trust you, or you trust Duncan. Everyone wants something from them, and they learn very early on that no one is to be trusted. People say what they think you want to hear, appear in a way that they think you want them to be, but in the end they always end up serving their own needs—and that will inevitably result in them using Lawrence or Nicholas to further their own goals. Both of those men have found in each other a person who wants nothing in return for their association. They are very similar, both brilliant and both very good at playing the games of our world. But they don’t have to play the game with each other. Together, they can relax and be real. I value Nicholas as a friend, because he can give Lawrence something he has been missing for a very long time. A true friend who will guard his back and stand beside him when he needs it and ask for nothing in return.”

  “Your world is too complicated for me.” Reed shook her head in astonishment.

  “It’s not simple,” I admitted. “But it is necessary.”

  “I guess.” She shrugged. “What happens now?”

  “Right now?” I raised an eyebrow. “Now we drink coffee. Later we make the phone calls, and tomorrow we organize a funeral.”

  It was nearly ten o’clock that night by the time we left Reed and Duncan’s house, and it took some work to get out of staying there.

  “We’ll go to a hotel,” I told Reed, when she tried to usher me down the hall toward the bedrooms.

  “No, you can’t,” she objected. “Stay here; there’s plenty of room.”

  I shook my head and steered her back to the living room at the back of the house, where Lawrence and Nicholas waited with Duncan.

  “Duncan, tell her she has to stay here,” Reed pleaded to her husband.

  “Lilly is a big girl, Reed. She can stay wherever she wants.”

  “We won’t all fit here,” I reminded her. “There’s Frost and Charlie too, remember.”

  “They can sleep in the boys’ beds,” she offered.

  “Frost is six foot six, honey.” I smiled at here. “There is no way he could even go close to getting in one of those beds.”

  “Well, then just you stay here.” She was getting agitated. I shot a look to Duncan, but he shrugged in confusion.

  “I can’t stay here, Reed.” I grabbed her hands in mine. “It’s too hard.” This was her family home, and it had too many memories of my own family in it. Reed and Duncan had lived here for nearly ten years, so there had been too many birthday parties, too many Christmas parties, and too many memories of me here with my own family for me to stay now.

  “But I need you,” she sobbed.

  “I can see him walking down the hall,” I told her, my own emotions so close to the surface. “I see him sitting on the lounge. I see them everywhere I look in your house.”

  “I’m afraid that if you leave now, you won’t come back,” she finally admitted.

  “I promise that I will be here until after the funeral.” I could give her that. “I might not be in this house, but I won’t leave you until after dad is buried.”

  “OK.” She hugged me tightly for a long moment. “Just promise me that you won’t disappear, that you’ll come say good-bye.”

  “I promise.” I gave her a last reassuring smile. “I’ll ring you in the morning,” I told her, and she finally let us leave.

  We stayed at the closest hotel we could find. It wasn’t flashy, certainly nothing compared to what we were all used to, and it was more a serviced apartment than an actual hotel. But it was clean and would suit our purposes for the short ti
me that we were here.

  I had never been more thankful to see my luggage bags as I was when Charlie grabbed them from the boot of the car when we arrived at the hotel. I knew they were from the plane. We kept a few changes of clothes in the bedroom of the plane for emergencies, when we had to travel with no warning. There wasn’t much, but it would suffice until we could get more.

  Charlie and Frost had a room adjoining Lawrence’s and mine, and Nicholas had a room just down the hall. But the first thing I did when I got to my room was strip and shower, and then I pulled on a pair of tights and a gym shirt and went in search of a treadmill. I had no shoes, but that didn’t really bother me. I could manage without them, but I couldn’t manage without the release of running.

  Charlie walked with me through the hotel until we found the gym on the ground floor overlooking the pool. I ran for over an hour and then walked for another hour. I had my iPod on loud and set it to shuffle through all my harshest rock songs. The beat of the music thumped through my head and drove all thoughts out of it. Charlie kept pace beside me on a bike, his presence silent and unobtrusive.

  I finally got to bed just after 1:00 a.m., and then I lay there and listened to Lawrence breathing. He wasn’t having a restful sleep; his breathing never reached the calm ratio of deep sleep, and he twitched and turned continuously. My eyes were still open when the sun rose in the morning. I crept quietly from the bed so that I didn’t wake him and walked out into the lounge.

  I made coffee and sat out on the balcony and watched the city come to life around me. We were in the waterfront district of the inner city, and the view out over the harbor was beautiful and calming at this hour. I watched the progress of a massive coal ship as it made its slow, cumbersome way into the harbor with the aid of the much smaller tugboats. Then I watched a different ship, sitting much lower in the water as it steamed out with a full load of coal, heading for God knows where.

  I watched cars creep into the city and wondered what the people were doing. Were they off to work? Then I realized that I didn’t have a clue what day of the week it was. I tried to count back, but the time difference made it too hard, so I ended up having to dig my phone out so that I could find out.