by Raine Miller
Neil showed up for dinner quite often after that first meeting. Some days it felt like he was my new brother who’d just moved in with us. Other times, he’d show up after a few weeks’ absence, wearing a hollow look in his dark, dark eyes. His home life was shit, apparently. No mum, just a dad of some sort who didn’t care about him. My dad wasn’t around a great deal either, but it wasn’t because he didn’t want us, it was because he travelled a lot for his job. I missed my father, of course, so I suppose it was natural for me to connect with an older male figure who was always nice to me, and didn’t act like I carried the plague.
Neil called me Cherry Girl due to the colour of my hair. I’d have to agree with him on that. My hair was pretty much the colour of one of those dark cherries—nearly black with an undertone of deep red running through it. Neil told me my hair was very beautiful, and that small gesture was enough for my self-confidence to blossom. I took his compliment and ran with it.
I remember when he touched my hair for the first time, too. The memory is as perfect as the day it happened and I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. Because it was also the first time he rescued me…
THE cricket field stretched out to meet the forest edge a fair distance back. When I was eleven, on a summery Sunday afternoon, I had been sitting on the fence watching the local team play cricket. Neil and Ian were there too. I’d seen them strolling through talking to girls and other friends they knew. I was content to watch the match from my perch on the fence and blend into the background. The warm day brought out the crowd and space had become a premium, I guess. When a noisy, obnoxious group came through, being so small, I just got swallowed up in the melee that resulted.
A disputed call by the official started the ruckus. Then a fight broke out in front of me with two blokes pounding into each other, with no regard for who they might include with their misfires. I didn’t duck out of the way fast enough, and was shanked by a fist that relieved me of my front-row fence spot. And right onto my left forearm, which managed to find a large rock to land on. Lucky me.
I heard the crack of bone, felt the pain, saw the brutal blows of the two brawlers, and smelled the beer that’d been sprayed about when the first punch was thrown.
I clutched my arm and tried to breathe, crying through the pain, sure that nobody would ever see me, let alone help me out.
I was wrong, though.
The sweetest sound was Neil’s voice in my ear saying, “I’ve got you, Cherry Girl, and you’re going to be just fine.”
“My arm hurts,” I told him through the tears.
“I know, darlin’.”
“I heard a noise…like something snapped. Does that mean it’s broken?” I wailed.
He picked me up and shouted something to my brother, the anger in his expression darkening his eyes to a frightening black as he eyeballed the two who’d caused my injury. I wouldn’t want to be either one of those idiot blokes, confirmed by what I found out a day later.
Neil stroked my hair and sat with me until the doctor could cast my arm. And then, when he actually set the bone. The bone setting hurt, but the gentle reassurance and soft touch of Neil’s hand on my hair almost made it cancel out. “Look at me, Cherry. Keep your eyes on me,” he’d said with a smile, his hand moving slowly down my head over and over.
The next day, Neil brought some visitors by my house. Armed with humility and the telltale evidence of a second round of beatings, courtesy of Ian and Neil, the two fools responsible for my broken arm arrived with flowers and apologies for me and my panicked mum. My dad had a go ’round as well with them when he returned home from his business trip. Poor bastards didn’t stand a chance, and it was safe to say they were scared straight onto a much more righteous path after that.
Neil’s actions with me, in my time of need, cemented his place in our family for good. He basically became a second son to my parents and everyone seemed to understand and settle into this knowledge. I had to accept that Mum and Dad loved Neil too…which meant I had to share him with everyone in my family.
I wouldn’t even let my best friend sign my cast until Neil did first. My knight in shining armor.
Back then.
When I was fourteen, and he was twenty-one, he joined the army and went away to fight for Britain. Mum and Dad had a goodbye party for him, and I remember how it seemed totally normal that we threw the going-away celebration for him and not his own family. Not that they had ever shown an ounce of interest that we’d seen expressed. It made me sad to realize that I could not recall even a single conversation where Neil ever spoke about anything personal in all the time he was around our family. The information I did know about him had always come from my brother, Ian.
The Morrison family had claimed Neil McManus for their own, and that was simply the way it was going to be.
When it was time to say our goodbyes I got shy, struggling with the words I wanted to say, but knew didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of forming on my lips. I didn’t want Neil to leave without a proper send-off, but I was also totally self-conscious like any young girl would be with an adult man she adored and thought walked on water. I also waited until his girlfriend Cora had gone to the loo. I didn’t care for Cora much at all and surely wouldn’t have her fouling up my coveted goodbye to Neil. I wasn’t stupid, just at a disadvantage.
“So, Cherry Girl, don’t go falling off any fences or getting into the middle of a bunch of sodding idiots brawling while I’m away, all right?” His dark eyes twinkled with teasing so that I couldn’t help but return a smile as they swallowed me up.
“I won’t.”
“I’ll have a hard time cracking heads all the way here from over in Afghanistan.”
I looked at the floor and gulped down the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. “Nobody will bother with me. They never do,” I said.
He dipped his head to find my eyes, waiting for me to look up. “I think that’s about to change, Cherry. You’re growing far too pretty for your own good. The blokes are going to be all over you and they’d better be nice. Ian’s got strict instructions to keep the crowds of arseholes at bay and make sure I’m regularly updated.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair and gathered the courage to give him my gift. “I made you something.” I handed the small packet to him and waited while he opened it, his big hands moving the tissue paper carefully aside. “It’s a bracelet,” I blurted, “for luck…to keep you safe.” I held up my own wrist. “I made one for me, too. It has the infinity symbol and two good luck owls…I’ll say a prayer for you every day and this will help me to remember,” I trailed off, feeling shy again. “Be really careful over there, Neil, I want you to come back.”
He brushed over the black-braided leather with the charms I’d added and smiled before looking up at me. “I will,” he said in a whisper. The expression Neil wore was different this time. Something I’d never seen from him before, at least not directed at me personally. His eyes seemed like they could be a little watery too. We were definitely having a moment.
He brought a hand up to my cheek and held it there for a moment. “Thank you.” He slipped the bracelet onto his wrist and tightened it. “I’m going to miss you very much, Cherry…and I’ll wear this, and be the luckiest bloke in the British Army.” He held his wrist up to show my bracelet before wrapping me into a hug with his big arms.
“I’m going to miss you too, Neil.” And, I love you. I breathed in the smell of him and held onto it, hoping he would return safely someday, that the war would not take him away from us forever.
I felt his soft lips against the side of my temple and got the squishy feeling in my insides again. I didn’t want to pull away, but the awkwardness of my young emotions bouncing all over the place made me self-conscious.
“Don’t you ever change, Cherry Girl. Stay just how you are right now. You’re utterly perfect.”
Those were Neil’s final words to me before he left to be a soldier.
Chapter 2
&
nbsp; NOTHING stays the same though, and I did change. A great deal. It’s impossible for life to stand still and of course, it never will. Change is inevitable in all of us.
The year Neil joined the army was also the same year everything changed at home for my family. Hell, everything changed all over the world.
September 11 happened.
My father was on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon building in Washington D.C. during the attacks. He’d been there for business and on his way to Los Angeles when the plane was hijacked and taken down. One of the sixty odd British nationals to lose their lives on that fateful day. My father was ripped away from us and we would never see him again. I guess that was the moment when I passed out of childhood and left it behind me. The innocence of my prior life was gone. Forever.
Time to grow up.
The horribleness of that year was really clouded for me. There are some things I remember clearly that were insignificant at the time, and other things I should have memories of, but are just…gone.
Like Dad’s funeral for instance. I know we had a service for him, I’ve seen the pictures in an album, but I don’t remember a thing about it or being there, or who came to pay their respects, or if I even spoke to them. I have nothing but blankness about that day. However I do remember stupid things like what shoes I was wearing when we watched the news on television, and saw the pictures of fires and wreckage and crashed plane parts, that had taken my gentle and loving father from me.
My red Chuck’s with black laces.
It’s funny how our subconscious can hold onto some memories and not others. Like the letter that Neil sent to me personally, shortly after it happened. I remember that very well, because I still have it safe in a box with all my other precious mementos.
Dear Elaina,
There aren’t proper words to express the depth of my sadness for your unbearable loss. I want to be home in England more than anything right now, but it is out of the question for the time being. Your father was the best of men. He loved his wife and children and worked hard for you all so you could have a safe and comfortable life. He was a true man in every sense of the word. This mad world we live in could use a great deal more men like George Morrison in it. He will be greatly missed. I wish so badly that I could be there for you and Ian, and your sweet mum right now. Please know that I am thinking about you and sending my love to you all. You are never far from my thoughts, Cherry. Don’t you ever forget it.
Yours always,
Neil
His letter was written hastily on military-issue stationary, which spoke to the hectic pace the army was keeping right after the attacks. Neil was busy fighting a war against terrorism and I was busy trying to grow up, and attempting to accept the fact that I had only one parent left in my life. Ian was busy at university and his career in law. Our mum was busy drowning her grief in glasses of gin.
We were all very, very busy getting on with our lives and doing our jobs. Isolated. Alone.
My dad had done well by us though, and there were settlements from his life insurance, the airlines, and the US government, so money was not the issue. No, it was more so the void and abruptness that we were forced to accept that he was never coming back to us.
Never.
I understood the finality of death then, and took my newfound knowledge to heart, closing off a little of myself, in an effort to prevent such terrible hurt from ever happening to me again.
Foolish, foolish girl.
MY mum has always loved to cook. She still does, and just like that very first night when Neil joined our family for dinner, she embraced him as a son whenever he was on leave from the army, with huge home-cooked dinners. It was a given that he would come to see us, but now when Mum cooked in her kitchen, a hi-ball glass of gin and tonic stood at the ready to see her through. I cannot fault my mother. She was still a good mum and devoted to my brother and me with all her heart, she just wasn’t as “present” or aware of my activities following the tragedy, as she normally would have been.
I had the open road of freedom dumped in my lap at a time when I needed censure.
As a confused and grieving teenager, I embraced the opportunity. Hell, I grabbed onto it with everything I had and then some.
By the summer I was seventeen, I had experienced just about everything you wouldn’t want your teenage daughter doing. Yes, that was me. Parties, alcohol, smoking…boys. I sampled just about everything, and came out of my experience a little older, somewhat wiser, and a lot insecure about myself, and with no idea about what I wanted for my life. Well, I knew one thing I wanted.
Neil.
I still wanted him.
And Neil had been right about one thing.
The boys were all over me as I matured. I think he would have wished I was more selective in who I allowed to be “all over” me. Actually, I knew he wished I were more selective. I noticed the hard looks from him whenever he was home on leave, evaluating my boyfriend of the moment, his dark eyes ever watchful. The fact that he paid any attention to me at all was both wonderful and the bane of my existence. He was taken, you see. Neil had a girlfriend that just wouldn’t let her claws out of him.
He would never look at me as a woman while she was wrapped around his cock. That was what I believed, anyway.
I had run through a slew of guys since he first went off to war, while Neil had stuck with Cora and been her loyal man. Why, I did not know. I couldn’t stand her and knew she messed around with others, blatantly behind his back, whenever he was deployed. I often wondered how he couldn’t see right through her. Or if he did see, and just didn’t care. I figured his mates had been telling him what she was doing when he wasn’t around. Ian had to know and should have told him, I reasoned. Was Neil with Cora just for the sex? Ugh. I hated to think about them together, and at the same time, I tried to forget about him. Forget that he would never belong to me. Forget that our time could never come. Forget about ever having the man I loved all for myself.
The following summer after I finished school, was when we crossed over into a new and strange territory together. The “ringing” of our proverbial bell came to pass, as it were. The spark that started a flame, that started a blaze, that started a forest fire, that would leave burns and scorch marks in its wake? This became part of our landscape.
Neil came home on a leave from the army that summer. When I was still eighteen, and he was twenty-five. That was the time when it finally happened for us…
Chapter 3
I saw Neil in the pub when I went in after classes one evening.
Despite my destructive choices, I’d somehow managed to escape without too many bumps and bruises along the way. I don’t know how I never got arrested, or pregnant, or worse, but I was very, very grateful for my good fortune. Or mostly, I realized my random luck for the miracle it truly was.
Somehow, I’d finally gotten my act together enough, to figure out what I hoped would be my “calling” in life. It appeared I had been blessed with a knack for languages. And my studies in French and Italian were helping me to figure out what I’d like to do with my skill. I’d applied to go abroad as an au pair, working my way across Europe, with families who needed care for their young children, while I honed my studies in the local language. First on my list was Italy, then France, and maybe if things worked out, eventually I’d get to work in Spain and Germany too. I desperately wanted away from home and to be on my own. So this was my naïve plan to make that happen.
Neil had been on a leave for nearly three weeks when he showed up at the pub alone one night, looking like a beautiful golden god in his jeans, black T-shirt and black Doc’s. Simply clothed, but perfectly gorgeous in his skin, miles of soldier-hardened muscles filling out the clothes as elegantly as a male model would. Emphasis on the “male.” Neil was all male strength and power, and commanded respect just by how he moved in a room, military service notwithstanding. The size of him didn’t hurt others’ impressions either. He was a large man, tall and
muscular where it counted, yet he was noted by all—male and female—both for his physical presence and his strong character. Watching him converse with acquaintances who wanted to catch up and express their admiration for his service in the army, I saw easily how people held him in great esteem and respect. In contrast, his young life had been so very different—so devoid of anything resembling the praise he was receiving from the citizens in the pub—that I was happy for him. It was right and proper that everyone noticed Neil McManus, because he very much deserved it.
The subtle confidence in his manner, the purposeful movements as he talked to people, the sound of his voice, all made me insane with wanting to be close to him, to put my hands on him. I craved the right to be able to touch him and have it be welcomed. I would have sold my soul to the devil to see him looking at me with something other than big-brother-is-only-here-to-keep-you-from-harm, little girl.
I had been drinking for an hour at least when he pulled up beside me and ordered a beer. The troubles with my boyfriend of the moment, Denny, had put me in a foul mood. He’d called me earlier, begging me to come down to the pub and meet him so he could “make it up to me.” Whatever that meant, since we were so finished. Yeah, finding Denny shagging some blonde tart in the alley behind the pub, had pretty much put the death knell in our relationship, and I knew I’d never trust him again.