Please."
"I already have!" I screamed, sitting up to hurl a
pillow at the door where he stood. "Does he know?
Have you told him that you could be my father?" I saw the shiver that ran down Tony's body. "I
could not bring myself to tell him. He respects me,
admires me, loves me. He has always been the best
thing in my life, despite all the trouble he was. I am
begging you, on my knees, to find some other reason
for breaking your engagement. He will hate me if he
knows the truth. And will I be able to blame him?
You could have saved him . . and I am responsible for
taking you from him. I only hope and pray you can
find the right words, for I cannot."
An hour passed during which my tears
evaporated. An hour in which I bathed my face and
eyes with ice water, and very carefully I applied
makeup. Then, with no real words stashed in my brain to help him survive without me, I slipped through the maze. I knocked on Troy's blue door. There was no response, just as Tony had warned me there would be
none.
It was late now, about ten. There had never
been a more glorious evening. Birds snuggling down
for the night chirped and cheeped sleepily. Hundreds
of rose bushes wafted sweet perfume to tickle my
nostrils. Primroses and pansies glimmered beside his
blue door. Gardenia bushes waxed brightly in the
moonlight, their blossoms huge and almost blue. The
air was as soft as a lover's kiss, and he was inside,
shut away.
"Troy," I called as I opened his door and
hesitated on the threshold. "It's Heaven. I'm back. I'm
so sorry I fell ill and couldn't return on the day I
promised . ."
There was no response. There was no scent of
bread baking in the oven, or bread that had recently
been baked. The cottage was too still, too orderly,
frightening.
I ran to his bedroom, throwing open the door.
He lay on the bed, with his head turned toward the
open window. Soft breezes fanned out his curtains,
almost brushing a vase full of roses from a table. "Troy," I said again, moving closer to the bed.
"Please look-my way. Please say you forgive me for
not keeping my word; I wanted to, desperately wanted
to."
Still he didn't look my way. I drew closer, then
moved onto the bed, and gently turned his head my
way. The moonlight through the windows showed me
his glassy eyes, his blank stare. He was a million
miles. away, snared in some horrible dream. I knew
that, just knew that!
My lips pressed down softly on his. I murmured
his name over and over. "Come back to me, Troy,
please, please. You are not alone. I love you. I will
always love you."
Over and over I called him back, until at last
the glassiness in his eyes departed, and slowly they
came into focus. Delirious and happy delight took
away the stare, even as his fingers reached to trail
over my face. "You did come back . . . oh, Heaven, I
was so terrified you wouldn't. I had a weird feeling
you went to that Logan Stonewall again, and
discovered you love him, and not me."
"You, only you!" I cried passionately, raining
kisses all over his chilled, pale face. "I had the flu,
darling. I ran a high fever for days and days. The telephones were down, the bridges were out, and the roads were flooded. I returned to you as soon as I
could."
His smile was thin and weak. "I knew I was
being silly to allow myself to become so depressed. I
knew you would come back, subconsciously I knew
that . . ."
I snuggled into his embrace and felt his hands
slip into my hair. My face pressed down against his
chest. I heard his heart beating slowly, so slowly--
how fast was a normal heart supposed to beat? "I don't
want a big wedding, Troy. I've changed my mind
about that. We'll slip away from Farthinggale Manor
and have a small private ceremony."
He held me tightly against him, stroking my
hair, putting small kisses on the top of my head. "I'm
so tired, Heaven, so tired. I thought you wanted a
large wedding."
"No, I want only you."
"Tony has to be at the wedding," he whispered
with his lips brushing my forehead. "It wouldn't be
real without him. He was like my father . . ." "Whatever you want," I mumbled, holding his
frail body closer. How thin he'd become. "You are
totally recovered from your pneumonia, aren't you?" "As recovered as I ever am from any disease." "You'll never be sick again! Not when you have
me to take care of you!"
All through the night he held me, and I held
him. We talked of our dreams, our life together, and
for the life of me it all seemed like smoke spiraling
out the windows and fading into the night. How could
I marry him now? How could I not marry him, no
matter what our relationship?
Toward dawn, I brought up the portrait doll of
my mother again. Did he know if Tony had made the
model? Did at one point in time Tony feel more than a
stepfather toward her?
His dark eyes clouded. "No! Not in a million
years! Heaven, Tony could have any woman he
wanted! He was madly in love with Jillian! There
wasn't a woman around who didn't make a play for
him . . . why since the time he grew his first beard,
he's never had to chase any woman. They chased
him."
I knew as I lay in the circle of his arms that he'd
never admit to himself that Tony used women, and
had used Jillian in his own thoughtless way, to
provide his younger brother with a mother and a sister
while he went his own merry way chasing every skirt in town, and all over Europe. Tears were in my eyes as I turned to embrace him before I returned to the big house. "I'm sorry to be so suspicious. I love you, love you, love you--and I'll be back as soon as I catch up
on some sleep. Don't go away, promise?"
He sat up, clinging to both of my hands. "Have
lunch with me, darling, about one."
I thought I could return to my bed and sleep the
sleep of the deeply justified, but I tossed and turned,
and finally ended up at the dining table downstairs
where Tony was already ensconced, eating one slice
of honeydew melon after another. He began to ply me
with questions immediately. Had I seen Troy? Had I
broken our engagement? What had been his reaction?
What had been my explanation? I had been kind,
considerate, caring, hadn't I?
"I said as little as possible about you." My
voice was cold, hostile. I hated him every bit as much
as I hated Pa. "Out of consideration for Troy, I
covered for you, though if Troy wasn't so sensitive, I
would have let him know exactly what kind of man
his beloved brother is, and was."
"What reason did you give him?"
"I gave him none. We are still engaged. I don't
know how to destroy him, Tony, I just can't do it!" "I can see you are building a tower of ha
te for
me. Maybe you are right to wait a few weeks before
you tell him you've found out you are still in love with
that young man of yours. Logan, isn't that his name?
Troy will get over you. I'll be here to support him. I'll
see to it that he recovers. And the best way to do that
is through work. Once Troy accepts the fact that you
love someone else and won't be marrying him, he'll
make substitutes for your love. I'll do what I can to
see he finds another girl he wants to marry." It hurt so much to hear him say those things that
I wanted to bay at the sun like a wolf did at the moon,
like Sarah had once done when her last baby died. In
my chest was a living pain. And beside me was the
man who had started everything. "What a detestable
person you are, Tony Tatterton! By God, if I knew it
wouldn't hurt Troy, I would tell him exactly what you
did to my mother! And he'd hate you! You would lose
the one person who is most valuable to you!" He threw me a pitiful look. "Please . . .
remember, you would destroy him. Troy lives on faith
and belief. He isn't like you or me, able to survive no
matter what the circumstances."
"Don't ever compare me to yourself again!" I
yelled.
He didn't respond, only reached for another
melon to slice.
"Promise, Heaven, promise to say nothing to
Jill about any of this."
I got up and stalked by Tony's chair without
promising anything.
"All right!" Tony yelled, abruptly out of
patience, jumping up and seizing my arm and
whipping me about so I saw his usually pleasant and
handsome face turned monstrous with anger. "Go
back to Troy! Go on! Destroy him! And when you're
done with him, run to Jill and destroy her! And when
you've finished off everyone in Farthy, run to your
father and ruin his life! Ruin Tom's and Fanny's, and
don't leave out Our Jane and Keith! You want
revenge, Heaven Leigh Casteel! I see it in your eyes,
those incredible blue eyes that speak of a devil inside
more than they speak of an angel!"
I slung my balled fist at him blindly, striking
nothing as he released me so suddenly I fell off
balance to the floor. Quickly I scrambled to my feet,
to spurt ahead so fast he wasn't able to say another
word before I was running up the stairs to the safety
of my bed again. My crying place.
At one o'clock I was again in the cottage, and this time Troy was out of bed, looking a bit stronger as he smiled at me. "Come," he said, beckoning, "I want you to see this train set-up that has just been
finished, and then we'll eat."
What he had to show me filled one huge corner
of his workshop. It was a tiny stage-set with soft
lights glowing, and hidden spots lit up the sets, and
miniature trains picked up passengers and let them
off, only to pick them up again, repeatedly taking
them around mountains steep and dangerous; I
thought, as I watched the tiny Orient Express
chuggity-chug, chuggity-chug, starting slowly,
gaining speed, forever climbing, forever taking risks,
daring everything only to reach the heights, only to
descend much more quickly than it had ascended, that
Troy was trying to tell me something through his tiny
trains.
What was it that Troy tried to say with these
three little trains that wove such intricate paths
through different territory, yet always reached the
same destination? Didn't the whole human race ride
trains throughout life, reaching highs, sinking to lows,
riding the plateau between extremities more often than
they soared or fell. I chewed thoughtfully on my
lower lip, pressed my forehead with my fingertips . . and stared at a little girl who had been added to the passengers. A dark-haired little girl wearing a blue coat with matching blue shoes. She was enough like me to cause me to smile. For the trains that apparently led nowhere still gave the passengers thrills. The little girl didn't get off the train at the destination, only an old woman wearing another blue coat with matching blue shoes. And eagerly I went back to the train depot, and saw again the little girl in her blue coat boarding
another train . . .
Oh, but he was good at this toy making, giving
it meaning, imparting without words his beliefs, and
as I turned away from the trains, I felt the familiar
fascination gather me into its arms. "Troy, Troy!" I
called. "Where are you? We have a thousand plans to
make!"
He was seated on one of the window seats
again, his long legs pulled up, his skilled and graceful
hands loosely locked below his knees--and all the
windows were wide open and the cold, damp wind
swept through his bedroom!
Alarmed, I ran to pull at his arm, trying to bring
him out of the nowhere he had lost himself in. "Troy!
Troy!" I yelled, shaking him, and still he gazed
straight ahead without blinking. Even as I shook him, the wind gusted in so strong it blew a table lamp to the floor. I had to use all my strength to pull the windows down, and when I had them all closed, I ran to gather up blankets which I swatched about Troy's
shoulders and legs; still he had not moved nor spoken. His face was pale and cold when I touched him,
but soft, and that made me cry out in relief. He wasn't
dead. Yet the pulse when I felt for it was so faint I
hurried to his telephone and dialed Farthy. Over and
over again the telephone rang and no one answered! I
didn't know what kind of doctor I could call directly.
My fingers trembling, I picked up Troy's Yellow
Pages and was thumbing through them when I heard
him sneeze.
"Troy!" I cried, hurrying to his side. "What are
you doing, trying to kill yourself?"
His eyes were unfocused and blurry, his voice
weak when he spoke my name. When he could see
me, he seized me as a drowning man reaches for
anything, and I was pulled hard against him so his
face could bury deep into my hair. "You came back.
Oh, God, I thought you'd never come back!" "Of course I came back." Kisses I rained on his
face. "Troy, I stayed here with you last night, don't
you remember?" More kisses on his face, on his hands. "Didn't I tell you I'd returned so we could marry?" I stroked his arms, his back, smoothed down his wild hair. "I'm sorry I came back late, but I'm here now. We'll marry and build our own traditions, make every day a holiday . . ." And I stopped talking
because he wasn't really listening.
The chilly room brought on fresh assaults of
sneezes, from both of us, then I was drawing him to
the bed, so we could both snuggle under mounds of
covers and wait for our shivering to end. Even as we
lay there, wrapped tightly in each other's arms, the
many clocks began all those subtle grinds and movements that would tell the chimes to toll.
Some errant wind managed to come in and
tinkle the crystal prisms of his dinette chandelier. "It's all right, darling, darling," I crooned,
smoothing his dark, rumpled hair. "I came upon you
just now during one of your . . what do I c
all them?
Trances, would that be the right word?"
His arms tightened so much my ribs began to
ache dully. "Heaven," he breathed; "thank God you
are here. His voice broke and he sobbed, gently
pushing me from him. "However much I am grateful,
I can't pretend any longer that I can live with you. Or
marry you. Your absence gave me the chance to think over what we were doing; your presence deludes me into thinking I'm a normal man, with normal expectations. But I'm not, I am not! I'll never be! I'm warped and unable to change. I didn't think you'd come back, once you got out into the real world and discovered you'd been asleep. This isn't a real house,
Heaven.
Not one lived in by real people. We're all fakes,
Heaven, Tony, Jillian, me; even the servants learn the
rules and play the game."
An ache that had begun when I entered
thickened and grew. "What rules, Troy? What game?" Laughing in a way that chilled my blood, he
rolled over, holding me still, rolled again and again
until we fell to the floor, and he ripped off my clothes
wildly, and his warm kisses soon turned hot. "I hope
we both made a baby," he cried when it was over, and
he turned away and began to pick up the pieces of my
torn garments. "I hope I didn't hurt you. I never want
to hurt you. But I'd like to leave behind something
real, made of my flesh and blood." Then, crushing me
to him, he began to sob--deep, harsh, terrible sobs. I held him, caressed him, kissed him a thousand
times before we both fell onto the bed and covered
ourselves from the harsh cold.
As I lay there beside him and heard him choke
back his sobs and Whatever anguish he suffered, I
realized Troy was far too complex for me ever to
understand. I'd just love him as he was, and maybe
one day when he woke up from a dreamless sleep he'd
smile before dawn and throughout the day thoughts of
dying young would be forgotten.
And I slept. From time to time I woke up
slightly, enough to feel air moving around me.
Enough to feel warm arms embracing me.
Then it was another day, and I was in my own
room and there was a note on my night table. A short
note from Troy.
I didn't like notes. I'd not known one yet that
came unposted that hadn't brought sad news. .
My own true love,
You found me in the wind last night, just
Casteel 02 Dark Angel Page 32
