Authors: Amanda Carpenter
After she finished pretending to eat, she laid her head back on her pillows and sighed, her eyes closed. Then, after a struggle, she managed to get her tray down on the floor, and settled back down for a nap.
Rest, the doctor said, she thought to herself sleepily. That’s the easy part. She fell asleep.
Carrie spent the evening in much the same way, only Cliff came in to see her before she settled down for the night. He sat on her bed gingerly, as if he might break her in doing so. Carrie had to hide a smile.
“How are you feeling?” he asked gruffly. “Steven and Ralf tell me you took quite a bash in the back.”
“Well, it wasn’t quite a tickle.”“ She chuckled. “I’m sore, of course, and easily tired, but really, other than the soreness and the stiffness, I’m just fine. I think I’ll try to get up tomorrow.”
Cliff looked relieved. If Carrie was able to think about getting up, then she couldn’t have been hurt too badly. In fact, if she made it downstairs tomorrow, then that would mean she wasn’t seriously hurt. She might not have been in that much danger, after all. He approved. “I think that’s a good idea,” he told her. “The sooner you’re up, the better. Gotta work out all those kinks, and all.” And hang the doctor, who had said that she should stay in bed for a few days at least, he thought happily. She was just fine.
Cliff stood up after a little while. Carried had big, dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes, and she looked quite fragile. He remarked, “It’s a good thing you’re ready for bed right now. You look horrible!” And with that comforting remark, he left.
Carrie’s sleep was haunted by dreams about drowning all alone in a sea of madness. The next day, true to her word, she walked downstairs all by herself. Steven walked beside her the whole way to make sure she wouldn’t fall and hurt herself further. By the end of her journey from bedroom to living room, she was sweating from exhaustion, and trembling a little, but happy that she had made it without help. She gingerly lowered herself down on the couch, wincing at the pull the movement exerted on her stiff muscles. Janet and Emma stood by, beaming from ear to ear, Steven was very near, just in case, and of course, Neil was in attendance. Ralf and Cliff had made a trip into town.
After pleased exclamation and general chatter, most everyone dispersed, tactfully—for the Metcalfes—leaving Carrie and Neil alone to talk.
She watched Neil as he wandered about the room. She watched him handle an ornament from a small, carved table near the half-shuttered window, the movement of his hands, very familiar. She remembered every movement, every elegant mannerism that he possessed. An ache swelled in her throat, an ache for a remembered pain and betrayal, an ache for a lost dream. The light that poured into the room from the shuttered window threw a pattern of shadows across the smooth planes of Neil’s face, highlighting the beauty in his perfect features and his light yellow hair that was smoothly brushed back. Now that she could look at him somewhat objectively, she could see that it was the perfection of his face and the slim yet well-built body that had first attracted her to him. It was pleasing to rest her eyes on him.
“What do you want, Neil?” She spoke quietly. He set the ornament down carefully.
“It’s simple in the end, Carrie.” He spoke just as quietly as she, the well-polished voice falling into the silence of the room. She had a vague impression that the voice did not belong in this room, a room of happy memories for her. She had never expected to hear it here. “I just want you.”
She started to fiddle with the edge of the blanket that Steven had brought downstairs for her. The conversation was harder than she had anticipated. She sighed. “I told you once, my dear,” she looked at his lean fingers on the left hand, “you should acknowledge your married state by wearing your ring.”
“No more.” For the first time she heard the ragged quality in Neil’s voice as he spoke the words. “Carrie,” he said, turning to look her full in the face, “I’ve filed for divorce.”
The news hit her hard. She stared at him, unable to take in what he had just confessed. The divorce immediately put a limit to his career as a politician. He would never be able to rise above a certain point from here on out. Carrie thought of the wife she had never met and of her pain and anger. Sickness had made Neil’s wife a virtual cripple and a querulous invalid, but that she thought she could understand. To be so tied and to know, deep down, that your husband was spending more and more time away from home and guessing why…it was a very hurting sort of hell that Carrie envisaged.
“What about Joan?” she asked.
“She’ll be looked after. She’ll never be alone, I’ll see to that.” Neil spoke concisely, making a downward movement with his hand, and Carrie stared. How easy, after all, to cut someone out of one’s life! she thought. All it needed was a piece of paper. There had been a fine edge of cruelty in his dismissing gesture; it had implications that she didn’t want to dwell on.
“Carrie.” Neil came forward and took her hands in his. “I knew when you left just how much I needed you. Everything else paled in comparison. All I could think of was how I longed to hold you in my arms, how I longed to tell you how much I cared.”
She pulled her hands out of his grasp. “And was all this after I said no?” she asked, a hard note in her voice.
He straightened; they looked at each other for a long, long time. Then she stirred, opening her mouth. As she had looked at Neil, a darker, harder, more powerful face appeared in her mind. A face that smiled with the devil’s own smile. Her answer to Neil couldn’t be anything else but no.
A footfall sounded outside the room and a dark figure showed in the doorway. Then, with no smile at all on his face, Gabe walked into the room. Carrie turned to him, a beam breaking out over her own face, and she reached out to him with both hands.
“Why, Gabe.” She smiled, delighted. “How are you feeling today? I’m doing much better and I walked down the stairs all by myself this afternoon. Did you suffer any ill effects?”
Gabe strode over to her and took her hands for a moment, his eyes smiling a little, though his face was not. “I suffered nothing that a good stiff shot of whisky didn’t cure,” he told her. Looking around, he finally acknowledged Neil’s presence with a nod. “We didn’t get a chance to meet the other night. I’m Gabriel Jackson.”
“Neil Stanton,” Neil said somewhat shortly, holding out a hand. They shook hands briefly, and Carrie suddenly noticed a subtle tightening in the air, a sort of tension that emanated from
the two men. They watched each other with a wariness that she couldn’t help but see.
“I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything too important?” Gabe asked, his gaze moving from one face to another.
“Well, as a matter of fact…” Neil started.
Carrie rode over whatever Neil was about to say. “Nothing that couldn’t wait,” she said firmly. Neil raised his eyebrows. She patted the seat beside her. “Gabe, sit down and tell me about your work. How’s the shopping centre going? Is everything still on schedule for this week?”
Gabe lowered himself down in the seat she had patted. “Things seem to be going well,” he said slowly. “There are a few points that I’m…unsure about.” His eyes were fixed on her face. She got the strangest feeling that he was saying something of great importance, if she could but decipher it. “When I get things cleared up, I might be leaving the district, at least for a while. Other matters are needing my attention. Who knows, though? Anything might happen.”
His eyes swiveled to Neil, their depths perceptively cooling. “What do you do for a living—er—Stanton, was it?” Carrie was astounded. Gabe’s manner approached insolence. She had never seen him act any other way but polite and extremely charming.
Neil sensed the rudeness in Gabe’s manner, and stiffened. Habit, however, and his experience at hiding his true emotions came to the fore. He replied easily, “Right now, I’m a Congressman, but who knows what may happen in the future? You were right when you remarked that—anything might happen.” His eyes, light and strange looking in the half-lit room, met Gabe’s, dark and impenetrable. There was a brief clash that was broken by Carrie.
She asked, uncomfortable at the two men’s inexplicable, behaviour, “Er—Gabe? Neil?” They both looked at her. “Would you like some coffee? I know Emma would be happy to fix us some.”
The atmosphere eased considerably. Gabe refused, again the polite and charming man she knew. Neil also refused politely.
Standing lithely, Gabe turned to Carrie and said, very low, “I’ll call you very soon, all right? Take care, little one. Don’t exert yourself too soon.” This was all too low for Neil to hear. Then, with a quick goodbye to Neil, he left the room quickly. The room seemed to her much more empty without his vitality filling it.
Neil, watching her face, realised how tired she was. Great dark circles were again under her eyes. “We’ll talk later,” he said quietly. She started to shake her head. “No, I mean it, Carrie. You’re dead on your feet. Let’s call it quits and get you back upstairs, all right?”
She finally agreed. All the time Neil was helping her up the stairs to her bedroom, she couldn’t get the thought out of her mind of the strong, protective arms that had carried her up two nights ago. She couldn’t help comparing.
She was bothered that evening with thoughts of Gabe. The scene earlier that day had been unsettling in a subtle way. Gabe had been hard and vaguely menacing, a trait that made him a stranger to her, putting distance between them, a gulf she didn’t particularly like. All her feelings about his latent potential for violence came flooding back to haunt her, lurking about the corners of her mind. It was a quality that she couldn’t resolve in her own concept of the sensitive and caring man she thought she knew. And yet, when she thought back over the conversation in the living room, she couldn’t pinpoint anything definite that Gabe had said.
It was this unrest that drove her to pick up the phone late that evening and dial his number. Twice she hesitated, and hung up, but finally she made a decision and finished the sequence of numbers that put her through to his home. She listened to the ringing, her mind in a turmoil, and almost hung up again. She wanted to be in the same room as he, to see his eyes and to watch his smile.
Someone picked up the phone on the other end of the connection. A pause, and then, “Gabe Jackson.” His voice was terse and abrupt.
She had to swallow before she could get anything out. “Hello, Gabe. It’s Carrie,” she said quietly into the receiver. “How are you?”
“About the same since the last time you saw me,” he replied with a shortness that sounded as if he was rebuffing her. She drew in a breath, getting the impression that this was not the right time to call.
“Should I call back some other time when it’s more—er—convenient for you to talk? If you’re busy, I’ll be glad to,” she offered quickly.
She heard him sigh, a sound suddenly bitten off as if he had just realised she could have heard it over the wire. “No, it’s all right, I’m not too busy at the moment. What can I do for you?” he asked.
Carrie hesitated. What should she say? “I was calling to save you the trouble of keeping to your promise to call me,” she said lightly. There was a suspicious sound from the other end of the connection, and she protested, “Don’t you snort at me, Mr. Jackson! I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, you have a captive audience, madam, so fire away.”
“Was…anything wrong today when you stopped by?” she asked diffidently. “You left so abruptly. I didn’t get a chance to ask you how the advertisements were going for the shopping centre, or if you were planning on going to the Fourth of July picnic, or what you ate for breakfast, or if you’d stay for lunch.” She deliberately ended the little speech with an overly plaintive note in her voice, prompting a reluctant laugh from Gabe.
“I’d only checked by to see how you were feeling,” he explained. “You were entertaining company, so I left as soon as possible, it’s as simple as that. The advertisements are bringing in quite a response, I am going to the picnic, yes, and I had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning. Anything else, madam?” He ended his reply as easily and as lightly as she had, and yet he gave her the sensation of deliberately blocking any real response. It was quite the nicest rebuff she had ever experienced.
She dropped her light tone. “No, nothing else, I guess,” she almost snapped, with a feeling of frustration in her voice. “See you at the picnic.” She started to hang up, but Gabe’s voice stopped her.”
“Carrie…are you there?” he asked sharply.
She hesitated, then held the receiver back to her ear. “Yes, I’m here. Barely, though,” she replied reluctantly.
“Listen, I’ll talk to you later, but now isn’t a good time, okay?” he said, attempting a reasonable tone of voice, but only managing to sound impatient.
Carrie spoke offhandedly. “No problem. I caught you at a bad time, that’s all.” She spoke too carelessly, and gave away completely how upset she had been at Gabe’s rebuff.
“That’s not it!” he bit off. There was a short silence and then, “How long is Stanton staying with you? Will he be at the picnic?”
“I have no idea,” she said, surprised at the unexpected question. “Probably so, I would doubt if he’d be able to schedule a flight before then. Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabe replied unpleasantly. “See you at the picnic.” And with that, the odd and disturbing conversation was ended.
As she readied herself for sleep, Carrie couldn’t help but mull over the odd events of the past couple of days. She suddenly wondered how Neil had fared with the other family in her absence these past few days. Neil would handle himself well, he always did on social occasions. Except once, she remembered. He had drunk too much at a party that they had been to, and had said some vulgar things to a woman who had criticized his political allegiance. Carrie marveled at how she could have ever forgotten the crude things Neil had said, his face hushed with drink, and his voice sneering. She wondered if it had been the true Neil that she had seen that night, when he had been stripped of his inhibitions. Drink did that to a person, it was said. Carrie didn’t want to know.