by Joachim Jean
May bloomed beautifully. A month when all the trees began to come alive again and colorful hyacinths, irises and tulips flourished, dotting the landscape—a perfect day for a long walk. The campus at KensingtonStateUniversity looked more beautiful than ever. Callie wheeled Kitty through streets where apple trees were bursting with pink and white blossoms and flowers lined narrow driveways. Little Kitty Caldwell had her father’s almost black hair and her mother’s turquoise blue eyes. Only sixteen months old, but already she had a radiant smile and an even disposition.
* * * *
A few blocks away, Danny put his uniform on and headed to the administration building. He felt shy about having his picture taken because he didn’t want attention called to his military experience, preferring to be seen as an academic. Though proud of having done so well and killed so many of the enemy, he wanted to move on. He wanted his life to be about living, not about killing.
As he turned the corner, he spied a young woman with a stroller approaching the steps of the administration building. There was something familiar about her, perhaps about the way she walked.
* * * *
Callie met Eliza at the steps to the administration building and just as Callie began to bump Kitty’s stroller up the front steps, she heard her name being called.
Danny stopped at the edge of the quad when he saw Callie closer up and from the side, he recognized her instantly.
“Callie! Callie!” he called, waving his arm.
Callie stopped and looked around but didn’t see him at first.
“Callie! Callie, over here!” Danny called again.
She turned around and spotted Danny, a dead ringer for his brother, except that his eyes were hazel and Kyle’s were blue. Her smile fell and her face paled.
“Kyle,” she murmured.
Callie gasped, reached out her hand toward Danny, her eyes fluttered and she slumped to the ground, unconscious. Eliza broke her fall and fortunately, Danny appeared there a split second later.
“Into the office and on the sofa…” Eliza said, taking charge of the stroller and pointing the way.
Danny picked up the unconscious Callie as if she weighed nothing and carried her into the administration building.
At the sound of Callie’s named being called, Mac Caldwell undergraduate dean, poked his head out of the second floor window, in time to witness Callie’s collapse.
“John’s office…here…” Eliza instructed, pointing to a partially open door.
Danny brought her in and put her gently down on university president, John Lawrence’s, sofa.
Tall, rangy, handsome Mac entered the room.“What happened?”
“I called her name, she turned around, saw me and collapsed,” Danny said.
“Call a doctor,” Mac said, crouching down next to Callie, rubbing her hand.
Eliza’s eyes darted from Danny to Mac and back to Danny.
“No, wait, Mac…” she said.
Mac shot her a questioning look. Callie started to come to. She opened her eyes, looked up at Danny and gasped again.
“Callie, Callie, this is Danny, not Kyle,” Eliza whispered.
“Callie, its Danny. Don’t you remember me?” he asked, softly, stroking her hair.
Callie stared at his face for several minutes.
“Danny, I thought you were Kyle,” she said, trying to sit up.
“What the—” Mac started.
“My fault. Danny wanted to surprise Callie and I went along. Danny is Kyle’s brother, Mac,” Eliza explained.
“What?”
“We met at the reception at my house…yesterday,” she continued.
“If I had known…” Danny started.
“Danny! Oh, God. Danny…” Callie said, bursting into tears and flinging herself at him. Danny pulled her close and hugged her tightly, tears forming in his eyes. When she saw her mother cry, Kitty started to cry. Mac picked her up, kissed her round cheek and offered his handkerchief to Callie.
Danny and Callie stayed in their embrace.
“What are you doing here?” Callie asked, pushing away from him, staring at him.
“Dean Caldwell hired me to teach freshman English,” he replied.
“Mac, you hired Danny? Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, smiling at Mac.
Mac looked uncomfortable as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I didn’t know he’s Kyle’s brother,” Mac admitted.
“You hired him on merit? Even better!” Callie said.
“He is well qualified,” Mac explained.
“Mac is my husband, Danny. This is Kitty, our daughter,” Callie explained.
“You’re married?” Danny asked, his face clouding over.
“Yes,” Callie said.
“The photographer is here, Callie. We should do the shoot and discuss this later,” Eliza suggested.
Callie got up and took Danny’s hand.
“Mac, can you watch Kitty while I set up the shoot? Come on, Danny,” she said leading Danny into the main office as Mac carried Kitty into his office.
Jonesy, the crusty, 60-year-old administrative secretary raised her eyebrows when she saw Callie holding Danny’s hand.
“Callie, the photographer is in the conference room. Ruth Jeffries and Mark Allison are, too, waiting for Professor Maine,” Jonesy said, giving Danny a side-long glance.
“Thank you. Professor Maine is an old friend of mine, Jonesy,” Callie said, leading him into the conference room.
* * * *
After the shoot, Callie went into Mac’s office to pick up Kitty. “Are you okay?” she asked, giving him a kiss.
“I can’t believe he’s Kyle’s brother. Can’t seem to get away from this connection,” he said, shaking his head.
“Danny came here looking for me. He considers me family, like a sister.”
“What do you consider him?” Mac asked.
“I used to think of him as my brother,” she said.
“You’re not falling in love with him, are you?” Mac asked, his eyes connecting with hers, his palms sweating slightly.
“How can I when I’m already in love with you? You’re the one for me, now and forever. I’ll never love anyone but you,” Callie said, putting her arms around his waist and hugging him hard.
“Sometimes love takes you over, like when I met you.”
“You’re the only man I’ll ever want or need, Mac,” she said, kissing him again, then touching his cheek with her palm.
* * * *
“Is there some place we can talk?” Danny asked Callie, shifting his weight from foot to foot outside the administration building.
“My house. It’s time for Kitty’s nap, anyway.”
She put Kitty in her stroller, took Danny by the hand and left quickly.
While Kitty napped, Callie prepared lunch. “Why are you here?”
“I came looking for you. Mary Weston, John’s mom, told me you were here. But she didn’t tell me you were married…and with a kid, too.”
“Actually we have two kids. Jason is five and in school. He is Mac’s child by a previous marriage,” she said, while opening a can of tuna fish.
“But Kitty is yours with him?”
She nodded.
“Are you happy, Callie?” Danny asked, looking into her eyes.
“So much happier than I thought I could ever be again,” she said, smiling as she cut a tuna fish sandwich in two and passed it to him. Still, she couldn’t ignore the thought nagging at her. “Why the military? After Kyle’s death…”
“I had a plan…a mission. I went there to kill the people who killed Kyle.”
“How could you know…?”
“All the snipers, suicide bombers, terrorists…they all killed him,” Danny said, clenching his fist.
“Did you get them?” she asked him, gently, putting her hand on his shoulder.
“You’re damn right I did. I killed them all…those bastards. Every time we went on patrol and came across the enemy, I was the f
irst one there with my rifle. I’m a crack shot, a sniper, a detonator, an executioner. I shot them, I blew them up. I splattered their blood all over the Middle East,” he said, heatedly, his face growing red and a vein in his arm bulging as his fist closed tighter.
Callie saw the pain and fury on Danny’s face. She hardly recognized the new Danny. Where was the intellectual scholar Callie knew? An enraged, vengeful man faced her, clearly injured on the inside. Her friend never found respite from the pain of losing Kyle. Callie placed gentle hands on Danny’s shoulders.
“Only you could understand,” he said as he put his arms around her, laid his head on hers and wept uncontrollably.
Callie held him, hugging him to her, as if she could squeeze the rage out of his body.
Finally he calmed down, spent from his emotional release. Danny cleaned himself up with his handkerchief and asked her the question she had been dreading.
“How come you got married, Callie?” he asked.
“I’ll always love Kyle, but I hit bottom. I couldn’t move forward. Dreaming of making love to a dead man broke me,” she said with feeling, tears blurring her vision. “I came here to get a masters degree so I could teach. I didn’t come looking for marriage. Mac and I met by chance—can you believe love at first sight. I needed a new beginning and to stop living in the past.
Danny appeared to search her face.
“Tell me about Caldwell. Do you love him? Does he treat you well? Does he love you as much as Kyle did?”
“Don’t compare them. Kyle loved me more than I thought anyone could, but Mac does, too...he loves me just as much. He is good to me and I love him a lot.”
“So you’ve moved on. Kyle is replaced, forgotten. Sometimes I wish I could, but I haven’t been able to.”
“I haven’t forgotten Kyle. He lives in my heart and has become a part of me. No one could replace him, not for me and not for you either. Be thankful we had him for as long as we did,” she said, touching his face gently.
“If you ever have trouble with Caldwell, call me. I’ll straighten him out,” Danny offered, his mouth pulled taut into a grim line.
She put her palm on his face and her lips curved into a grin, one that he returned with a gentle smile of his own.
“Don’t ever take me by surprise or come up behind me. I might break your arm. It’s a reaction I can’t control,” he confided. “I want to move on, but I have nightmares and I’m jumpy. I want what you have, Callie, a normal life, a wife, a family.”
“I hope you find a good life here. You’re my only family, Danny,” Callie said, hugging him.
They spent the rest of the afternoon telling stories about their lives. Danny grilled Callie about Eliza in a subtle way, but she still picked up his interest in the “lady dean” as he called her.
Danny turned out well, Callie thought, he’d become a strong, intelligent man, Kyle would be proud. She dismissed his bloodthirsty attitude toward the enemy to genuine grief and acknowledged she harbored some of those feelings herself.
Jason burst into the house after school. Callie introduced him to Danny.
“Are you a soldier?” Jason asked, looking up at Danny with wide eyes.
“I was, but not anymore. Do you like soldiers?” Danny asked him.
“Soldiers are brave. I have toy soldiers. Wanna see ‘em?”
Danny nodded. Jason took him by the hand and led him to his room. Later they played catch in the living room and hide and seek while Callie read to Kitty in her bedroom.
“Callie, I need a favor,” Danny called, walking into her bedroom.
She followed to where he stood with a large white tube of ointment, unbuttoning his shirt.
“I got some shrapnel wounds in my back. Need vitamin E. Could you put some on for me. I can’t reach,” he asked, handing her the tube and turning his back to her while stripping to the waist.
She gasped at the sight of his back, riddled with holes and angry, red scars where longer wounds were stitched up.
“My God! What did they do to you?” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I got about thirty pieces of shrapnel, but other guys got a lot worse.”
Though she tried, Callie couldn’t blink back her tears. Danny heard her weeping softly; he reached around, took her hand and kissed it.
Callie leaned over and gave Danny’s back a soothing kiss. When they were done, she left quickly to pull herself back together.
Callie heard the door open and a familiar voice call out.
“Hello!”
Mac walked in the front door while Danny stood in the bedroom doorway, tucking in his shirt and zipping up his pants. Callie was joining the children in the living room with a bowl of carrots when she saw the expression on Mac’s face change from sunny to cloudy in an instant. He looked at Danny, then at Callie with a questioning stare, his eyebrows knitted.
“Why is Danny getting dressed in the bedroom, Callie?” he asked.
Callie saw his face darken with suspicion.
“You were great, Callie. Amazing,” Danny said, laughing.
“Danny! Stop joking!” Callie snapped, clearly upset.
“What’s going on?” Mac asked, anger rising in his tone, his cheeks getting pink.
The children watched silently, quieted by the tone of Mac’s voice.
“Mac has no sense of humor about these things, Danny. I put vitamin E on the scars on Danny’s back. Show him, Danny.”
Danny opened his shirt and turned around.
Mac made no sound, but a look of shock and horror appeared on his face, his hand came up to cover his mouth.
“I’m so sorry, Danny…Callie…” Mac said.
“Kyle was jealous, too,” Danny reminded Callie.
“No, he wasn’t,” Callie said, with an edge to her voice, turning off the video, allowing Jason free reign of the house again.
“Yeah? One time after you two had a fight and you said you were going babysitting Kyle followed you to make sure you weren’t going out with the guy who had a thing for you, Angus Cleary. Another time he called the house where you were supposed to be babysitting and hung up when you answered the phone,” Danny said.
“Stop. He did not!” she protested.
“Yes he did! He swore me to secrecy. Afterward he felt bad checking up on you and didn’t do it again. Only those two times.”
“I never knew.”
“He protected you, too. Do you remember that Stanton family you used to baby-sit for?”
“I didn’t sit for them for long.”
“The dad, Jerry Stanton, brought his car into the shop. Kyle found earrings and panties in the backseat. That’s why he came to pick you up instead of letting lecherous Jerry drive you home. They dumped you when old Jerry realized he couldn’t make it with you.”
“I never knew!”
“That was Kyle,” Danny said.
“He trusted me,” she said, looking directly at Mac.
Mac flushed and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, kissing her. “How did your day go?”
Jason and Kitty came to life when Mac smiled and kissed Callie. Jason jumped on Mac, yelling “Daddy!” while Kitty clapped her hands with joy. Mac put Jason down, kissed the top of Kitty’s head then shook Danny’s hand.
“Staying for dinner, Danny?” Mac asked.
Chapter Three
Before their first date, Danny agonized over where to take this special woman. Bowling wasn’t romantic enough, movies didn’t allow you to talk, and an ice cream parlor was too informal. He called Callie for a restaurant recommendation.
“Try Bon Appetit. It’s a new restaurant, owned by a New Age couple, Don and Sunny Rosen.”
“I’m looking for a small place…kind of romantic, you know.”
“This is the place, Danny, trust me.”
The small restaurant wasn’t a romantic place during the day, but in the evening, Sunny lowered the lighting, placed fresh flowers and candles
on tables covered with pink tablecloths and piped in sweet music.
Danny spent the day buying and registering a used car, a cobalt blue Honda Civic, and looking at houses. He liked the small house near to Eliza’s because it was big enough, cheap enough and close to her.
Eliza answered the door dressed and ready to go in a low-cut lavender sundress and high heeled white sandals, even though Danny was early. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her soft green eyes shining in the late afternoon sun, her lovely golden hair, her long neck, graceful shoulders, full breasts peeking out above the neckline of her dress enchanted him, rendering him practically speechless.
With plenty of time to get to the restaurant, Danny wanted to walk with Eliza. He put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her down the front steps. Her hand felt soft and small in his as they walked to the restaurant a few blocks away. Sexy high heels are not meant for walking, he thought as Eliza snagged a heel in the grass of her front lawn, tumbling forward. Danny caught her against his chest, holding her there for a moment as she rested against him. The heat from her one hand on his chest and the other on his bicep created desire in him.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, unable to meet his gaze.
“Are you okay?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her.
“I’m fine,” she said, her fingers tightening over his upper arm, her breasts crushed against him. His lips were close to hers, close enough for him to steal a quick kiss. When she closed her eyes for a second before she pushed away from him, he thought about it, but the opportunity passed as quickly as it came. His hands gripped her upper arms as he helped her back on her feet with ease. She stared up into his eyes and they stopped. Danny felt electricity shoot up his arms from touching her. Eliza averted her eyes first, stepping back and smoothing out her dress to cover her nervousness. Danny captured her hand again and they continued the short distance to the restaurant in silence.
