The Farther I Fall

by Lisa Nicholas

  “I wanted to wait until my boys were home,” Maureen said, and her smile was misty. “We’ll decorate it after dinner, if that’s all right.”

  Lucas wrinkled his nose, but Gwen squeezed his hand and said, “That sounds lovely.”

  ***

  Gwen burst out laughing the moment Lucas opened the door to what she presumed was his childhood bedroom. “Oh my God,” she said.

  The room was dominated—but only just, given the size of the room—by a giant canopy bed, complete with hangings in a luscious burgundy velvet. There was a sitting area, and one wall featured a fireplace that was lit and burning brightly. Not only were there fresh-cut flowers everywhere, but lit candles covered many of the surfaces. The room was warm and smelled of beeswax.

  Lucas rubbed his forehead. “Mother has gone out of her way to give us her stamp of approval.”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t decorated like this when you were a child.”

  “Would you trust a child with this furniture?” Lucas crossed the room and sat on the settee, leaning over to loosen his boots and kick them off.

  “I’m not sure I trust me with this furniture.” Gwen pulled off her own shoes, groaning at the feel of the deep carpet beneath her feet. “Can I—” She gestured at the candles. “That’s making me nervous.”

  “You’re supposed to think it’s romantic.” He grinned. “You didn’t think Mom was telling stories about her nieces and nephews just because she likes kids, did you? She wanted to find out what you thought of children.”

  She tried not to think about that too much as she went around the room extinguishing candles.

  “She likes you.” Lucas caught up to her and put his arms around her waist from behind.

  “How do you know?” All evening, all through dinner and decorating the tree, Maureen never seemed anything other than perfectly polite.

  Lucas nuzzled at her ear. “Didn’t you hear her when she dropped that glass ornament?”

  “Yeah?” Gwen blew out the last candle and moved away from Lucas, taking his abandoned spot on the settee.

  “She said ‘shit.’ I’ve never heard her say anything remotely vulgar in front of anybody other than immediate family.” He smiled at her, and she managed a weak one in return. “She may as well have hung up a sign that said ‘Welcome to the Family.’”

  “I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “That’s because you don’t know her,” Lucas said. He came over and sat next to her and tugged her over to lean on him. The position felt stiff and awkward, and she tried to get comfortable. The settee was probably a priceless antique; somehow cuddling on it seemed wrong.

  “I’m glad she likes me.”

  She would have thought that a house so enormous would have any number of rattles and creaks, but all she could hear was the snapping of the fireplace, and the occasional tick of sleet on the six tall windows that lined two opposite walls of the room, three to a side.

  “Did you like her?” Lucas asked finally.

  “She’s very nice.”

  “Is that all?”

  Gwen sat up and turned to face him. “This is …” She paused, waving her hand at the room. “It’s a little overwhelming.”

  “What, the house?” Lucas wrinkled his brow. “You’ll get used to it, really. It’s just a house.”

  “No, Lucas, this is not ‘just a house.’ Places that qualify as ‘just a house’ are not on historical registers and don’t have docents leading tours through them.” She stood up and walked over to the fireplace, needing to move, like ants were marching over her skin.

  “You’re mad because I didn’t tell you.”

  The fire was warm and soothing, so she held her hands out to it. “Yeah. I am, a little.”

  “What difference does it make where I grew up?”

  “You grew up in this. I grew up in a tiny house in the middle of England. You don’t think that makes a difference?”

  “You think it does?” He came over and took one of her hands. “Look, if it helps, I haven’t taken any money from my family since I was eighteen, except for college tuition.”

  “It’s not about the money,” she said. “Why is it always money with Americans?”

  “Why is it always class with the English?”

  Gwen sighed. “I’m sorry. I just … I don’t fit in to this.” She let him wrap his arms around her and pull her close, and he rested his chin on top of her head.

  “This morning, did you think that you and I were a good fit?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded.

  “I haven’t changed since this morning.”

  But I don’t know who you are now, she thought, but didn’t say.

  ***

  Gwen awoke to a room flooded with sunlight. Disoriented, she tried to figure out what had happened to her hotel room. The canopy overhead reminded her where she was. The hotels they stayed in were nowhere near this posh. The giant windows to either side of the bed let in the morning sun, and let her see the sweeping grounds outside, diamond-dusted with frost. Christmas Eve morning, and she was in Lucas’s terrifying childhood home, in his ridiculous childhood room, but definitely not in his childhood bed. She wanted to roll over and sleep for about a year, but she was so used to getting up and moving early it was hard to keep still. Lucas was curled behind her, his breath ruffling the back of her hair, his arms and one leg wrapped around her to pull her tight against him. Sleeping with a clinging vine had taken some getting used to.

  Now it seemed that wasn’t all she needed to get used to.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Lucas stirred enough to growl, “What?”

  “It’s Katie, Mr. Wheeler. I have a tray for you.”

  “You’re joking,” Gwen murmured. Neither of them slept in clothes much anymore, and they hadn’t last night.

  He yanked the covers up over both of them. “Come in.”

  Gwen was relieved to see she wasn’t wearing an actual maid uniform, but a smart-looking skirt and blouse. The maid—Katie—also wasn’t a nubile young thing (shattering yet another stereotype), but was a pleasant-faced middle-aged woman. Still, Gwen had to resist the urge to burrow under the blankets until she went away. Room service was bad enough, but room service didn’t have a lengthy working relationship with your family. A thousand questions flitted through her head as Katie arranged the tray on a bedside table. Did she live in the house? How long had she worked here? How many other maids were there?

  Katie interrupted her train of thought. “Ms. Tennison, the other Mr. Wheeler wanted to know if you’d be interested in going Christmas shopping with him this morning.”

  “He didn’t ask me?” Lucas made a disgruntled noise.

  Her eyes twinkled, making Gwen smile. “No, sir. I believe Mrs. Wheeler already had plans in mind for you.”

  Lucas turned to Gwen and stage-whispered, “They’re separating us. This is ominous.”

  “All part of a devious plan to make sure I’ve finished my shopping,” Gwen said. She smiled at Katie, trying not to focus on how naked she was under the layer of quilts. “Tell him I’d love to, please. I’ll be ready in about an hour.”

  “Yes, Ms. Tennison. Mr. Wheeler, should I tell Mrs. Wheeler that you’ll be ready in an hour as well?”

  “Yeah, may as well.” Lucas pushed back the covers, scooting back to lean on the headboard, baring himself to the waist. If she hadn’t made a quick grab for them, Gwen would have been bared too.

  “Thank you, sir,” Katie said, and thankfully left the room.

  “So much for my plans to ravish you for hours.” Lucas pulled the tray onto the bed between them and started pouring coffee from a carafe.

  The smell of the coffee prodded Gwen’s mind into motion, and she reached for a cup. “I really haven’t finished my shopping.”

  “You know, you could at least sound disappointed.”

  Gwen smiled—at least, the corners of her mouth turned up. “Sorry. Can I get a rain check?”

  “You okay?
” He brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “Did you sleep all right?”

  The bed was easily the most comfortable thing she’d lain in for ages, but she’d stared at the windows for what felt like hours before finally falling asleep. The coffee helped. “I’m okay. What do you think your mother has planned for you?”

  “God only knows.”

  “Do you need to finish your shopping?” There was toast on the tray as well, and Gwen helped herself to some with what looked like strawberry jam.

  “God no.” His smile was decidedly smug. “I always finish with Christmas before November.”

  “You’re kidding. You?” She paused mid-bite. “Wait. I’ve never seen you buy anything.”

  “I finished early this year.” The smugness was threatening to knock her out of bed now.

  “Then I hope she makes you wash windows or something.”

  “Don’t you know? We have servants for that sort of thing.” He grinned as if he’d said something funny. Gwen smiled and finished her toast.

  ***

  Breakfast with his mother wasn’t as bad as Lucas had feared. Fortified with coffee, he listened to her talk about her charity work. The latest organization that had her full attention was a local LGBT nonprofit that worked with at-risk teenagers, providing support when their families didn’t.

  It was the first time she’d supported that sort of cause, and he recognized an apology when he heard one.

  As she was outlining their plans for the day—she wanted to go shopping for Gwen, it turned out—his eye caught on a small headline in the back of the newspaper.

  Tom Blackwell, Woodstock performer, dead at 71.

  He picked it up and read the article; an obituary, really. The only reason it made the papers was that Tom’s story followed a trajectory the papers loved: a musician who had a brush with greatness in the 1960s, only to freeze to death under a bridge, a washed-up drunk.

  “Don’t ever get falling down drunk in wintertime, Lucas,” he’d said in the first conversation they’d had in the dingy day room at the hospital, showing off his right hand, missing two fingers.

  Damn it, Tom. Lucas was startled to find his eyes stinging, and he excused himself from the table.

  Tom had been one of the only people who bothered with Lucas during rehab, since Lucas had been busy being a spoiled, angry brat. He’d been rotten to everyone as the coke left his system, but Tom stepped past it and took Lucas under his wing, one musician to another.

  Nine times in rehab, and the booze still got him in the end. What did that say about Lucas’s chances? Was he deluding himself that he was actually going to stay clean?

  He clenched his own right hand, remembering the tingle of neuropathy that had developed because of the coke, the pins and needles in his fingers that had started to screw with his playing. The urge for a hit was fierce and sudden and caught him off guard.

  He’d had it easy this time. The new tour, with new people, none of whom were his old party friends, and Gwen—he’d been too distracted to think much about coke. What happened when the tour was over? What happened when Gwen went back to her real life?—because she would, and he wouldn’t blame her.

  He realized he was already thinking of that bliss hitting his system. Just once. Could he do just once? What if he couldn’t pull back?

  “Lucas? Almost ready to go?” His mother knocked at his door.

  “Just a minute; I’ll be right down.”

  He pulled out his cell phone, hearing the voice of a dead man in his head. “Listen, when you get out of here, you lose the phone number of every single person you used to party with. Don’t even call to say good-bye.”

  Lucas hadn’t called to say good-bye, but he hadn’t lost those phone numbers either.

  If Gwen found out, she’d walk. He could cost a lot of good people their jobs. His heart raced as he flipped through his phone’s address book, as if just the act of looking at old entries was reckless beyond belief.

  What the hell. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Tom was proof of that. He punched one of the numbers and let it ring.

  ***

  Lee drove Gwen down the drive, and leaving the house’s shadow seemed to lift a tangible weight from her shoulders. It was beautiful and obviously well-loved, but she hadn’t seen anything so utterly foreign in the entire time she’d been in the United States.

  “Have you heard anything further about the investigation?” Lee asked, turning the car onto the main road.

  “So that’s why you wanted to get me alone,” Gwen said. “Nothing. One of the detectives told Lucas that the stalker might go underground after this last attempt. Regroup. Which sounds incredibly ominous to me.”

  “I’m glad you were there.”

  Outside her window, she could still see the house, the grounds going on for what felt like forever. “I didn’t do anything though. Lucas got himself loose and she ran.”

  “Because you showed him what to do. So thank you.”

  Gwen internally grimaced under the weight of his gratitude, but nodded. “I’m still not enough. You know that.”

  “You have been so far.” He waved at a driver they passed. “I bet you’re happy to have a break, though.”

  She let him change the subject, for now. “You have no idea. I never thought I’d be homesick for Afghanistan, but at least there I was sleeping in the same place every night.”

  He chuckled. “I think I understand.” Then, after a moment, he said, “I don’t remember when I last saw him this at ease with someone.”

  “That’s … good, right?”

  His brow furrowed as he looked toward her, then back to the road. “I wasn’t sure about this. So soon, I mean. They say not to make major life changes for six months after something like rehab. I worried that—I don’t know—that he might be replacing coke with, well, you. A relationship.”

  She turned her attention out the window, watching gray fields pass by. “I thought about it. I know … a little about recovery. Not me, but I’ve known some folks.”

  “And?”

  “I hope that’s not what it is.”

  “But you won’t swear to it,” he pressed.

  “I won’t swear to anything where an ex-addict is concerned.” It came out more bitter than she’d intended, but it was too late to take it back.

  They drove for several miles with that hanging in the air. Gwen could practically see the words etched and gleaming like knives. Finally, Lee said, “So he didn’t tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” She began to suspect he was taking them the long way around to wherever they were going, the better to keep her hostage in this car, talking.

  “About our parents, our family. The house.”

  “Was it that obvious?” she deadpanned.

  “You did look a little overwhelmed when you first got here last night.” He laughed. “I don’t think Mom noticed. She likes you, by the way.”

  “I know, Lucas told me. She said ‘shit’ in front of me.”

  “Yes, well, she also said, ‘I like Gwen, she seems to be good for Lucas’ this morning.”

  “That’s … probably a more reliable indicator,” she said, finally cracking a smile. “You didn’t tell me either.”

  “Listen.” Then, paradoxically, he said nothing for a few minutes. “Give him a chance to explain.”

  “There’s no need to explain.”

  “There is, though,” he said. This was the longest car ride Gwen could ever remember. She curled her fingers around the door handle. He went on. “I know it looks great now, but … it wasn’t. Not always. Especially not for him. He had his reasons to stay quiet.”

  The scenery out the window was shifting from rural to suburban. Finally they were getting somewhere. “So where are we going?”

  He sighed, but let her change the subject. “There’s a mall in the next town. I hope you’re ready for screaming chaos.”

  “Great. It’ll be just like another day at work.”

  **
*

  The rest of the day was taken up with gift wrapping and joking and seemingly endless mugs of mulled cider. Gwen heard stories about Lucas and Lee as little boys and even got to see a few baby pictures before the boys’ protests got too loud. It felt remarkably normal. She tried to imagine what it would be like to pass every day this way, in a world where someone else did the laundry, cooked the dinner, did the dishes. The indolence of it shocked her.

  After dinner, Lucas insisted that they retire early to their room. As they walked side by side down the corridor, some of the tension returned to her shoulders. “He had his reasons,” Lee had said. Was she ready to ask for them?

  The fire was lit, but someone had got the message about the candles. They were gone. She’d had visions of coming back to find a bed full of rose petals or something equally ridiculous. Lucas pulled the settee over to angle it more directly at the fire, then motioned for her to come sit beside him. The warm glow of the firelight transferred to his skin, and the shadows fell sharp over his cheekbones and nose before retreating into his hair, which gleamed in the light. He reached for her, curling his fingers at the base of her skull to pull her in for a slow kiss. After a few minutes, he let her breathe. “I missed you today,” he murmured.

  “I wasn’t gone that long.” His fingers dug into her scalp, massaging, and she dropped her head with a sigh.

  “Long enough.” He leaned in and nuzzled her ear, and she shivered. “Long enough for me to think about how much I wanted to keep you in bed this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He put his hands around her waist and tried to pull her into his lap. “I thought I did; very specifically, in fact.”

  “No, I mean—” She pulled back so she could see his face. “Why didn’t you tell me about your family?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think it mattered. Wait. Is that why you’ve been acting so odd? Are you upset that I didn’t tell you my family had money?”

  “Money.” She laughed, standing up and going to one of the windows. “Your family doesn’t have money, your family has—has the budget of a small European country!”