Blessed

by S. J. West

  Brand hugged her tenderly and turned her around to face me. “Angela, I want you to meet Lilly.”

  “Hiya,” she said holding out a slender hand to me in welcome. Angela was a pretty girl with naturally wavy, long white hair like Abby’s.

  I shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Angela.”

  Angela’s light blue eyes took in the outfit I was wearing. “I’m glad to see the clothes Abby and I got you fit. You know how it is with clothing these days. You never know if anything’s going to fit right until you try it on. Come on into the house. Dad’s ready for you.”

  “Is he having a good day?” Brand asked taking hold of my hand as we walked up the steps to the manor.

  “As good as he gets,” Angela shrugged. “I think he’s looking forward to meeting Lilly though. He’s been intrigued ever since you told him about her and you know how hard it is to get him excited about anything.”

  After we walked in, Angela shut the front door behind us and escorted us to a study to the left of the entrance. She went up to a wall of books beside an unlit fireplace and tilted a series of them onto their bindings in what looked like a sequence. There was a rattling which seemed to come from behind the shelves. Angela took a couple of steps back as the bookshelves swung open to reveal a metal door with an electronic key pad. After tapping in a numerical combination, the door slowly opened inward by itself. We walked into a small room with little white circular nozzles on the walls, floor and ceiling.

  “Decontamination chamber,” Angela told me as the door to the study closed behind us. “Don’t be scared.” She smiled reassuringly.

  There was suddenly a draft of air hitting us from all sides which only lasted for a few seconds. I had seen such things on movies and TV but never thought I would actually ever be in one.

  “Come on in,” Angela said opening the door on the far end of the chamber. “He’s waiting for us.”

  When we walked across the threshold, it felt like I’d stepped inside a hospital. The antiseptic smell of bleach and other cleaners was almost over powering. The floor was lined with white linoleum and in the center of the room was a circular glass chamber where the man I assumed to be Allan was sitting on a silver stool in front of a white marbled counter. The room contained a few pieces of equipment I didn’t recognize but assumed were used in Allan’s genetic studies.

  Allan was a handsome, slender man who looked no older than thirty-five with neat short black hair and a clean shaven face. He was of average build and height dressed in a crisp white lab coat and shirt, black pants, shiny black dress shoes, and slim black tie.

  Allan opened the door to the glass room and came out to greet us.

  “Hello Brand.”

  He may have been addressing Brand but his eyes were locked on me. It wasn’t a psychotic type of stare just one I had gotten used to around the Watchers that I knew. I could tell he felt the contentment my presence had on his kind by the welcoming smile he gave me. He held out his hand in greeting.

  If Angela hadn’t been standing across from me with a stunned look on her face as I shook her father’s hand, I might not have known what a departure the handshake was from his usual routine.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Lilly, very nice indeed.” He had a smooth, cultured English accent which had a soft almost innocent quality to it.

  “Thank you for helping me. I really hope you can answer some questions for us.”

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do.” He looked to Brand. “I assume you want the full work up?”

  “If you can give us as much information as you can, it would be helpful. As I told you earlier, we don’t have a full picture of Lilly’s heritage since she never knew her father. I’ve met the mother and haven’t detected anything out of the ordinary about her but you may find something I can’t sense.”

  “Come inside. I’ll need to take some blood first.”

  We all stepped inside the glass chamber. There was a central cabinet in the center of the room where it looked like Allan did all his work. He went to a sink there and took out a bar of soap from the glass cabinet which was suspended by wire cables from the ceiling over the counter space. He twisted the knob for cold water exactly twice and the knob for hot once. He opened the fresh bar of soap and threw the paper into a metal trash can to his left. I watched as he rubbed the soap onto the palms of his hands exactly three times each before throwing the bar of soap into the trash. After wringing his hands under the water at least ten times, he reached for a white towel to his right on the counter and dried the water off his hands. He held the towel in his right hand as he turned off the water in the opposite order he had turned it on and threw the towel into the trash can.

  After putting on a fresh pair of green rubber gloves, he instructed me to sit in a metal chair with an attached small glass table beside the door. He brought over a silver tray with two sterile syringes laying on its surface. It didn’t take him long to draw the blood he needed for the tests. I was thankful for that. I hated being stuck with needles. Mostly because the nurses and doctors who had taken my blood in the past always had a hard time finding a vein in my arm and ended up making me feel like a pin cushion by the end of the ordeal. Thankfully, Allan had no such problem and drew the blood out in under a minute.

  He put a cotton ball and piece of white tape on the puncture site.

  “I should know something by tomorrow if you would like to come back. Same time?” The hopeful note in Allan’s voice wasn’t hard to miss.

  “We’ll be here,” Brand answered.

  “Will said he would like to come with us,” I said to Brand. “Would that be ok?”

  “Is he the one you told me about?” Allan asked Brand with an aggressive tone I had not expected to hear.

  “Yes.”

  “Then no, he is not welcomed in my home. I don’t mean to sound rude, Lilly, but I would rather not have him around me or my daughter.”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said slightly surprised by Allan’s vehement answer.

  “We’ll go so you can get to work,” Brand said taking my hand.

  “See you tomorrow.” Allan turned around and seemed to completely dismiss us from his mind as he set to work on my blood samples.

  Angela escorted us back out to the front door.

  “Hey could you bring Abby with you when you come back?” Angela asked.

  “Sure,” Brand said, giving Angela a peck on her dimpled cheek. “I’m sure she’d like the trip.”

  “Ok, see you guys tomorrow then!”

  When we got back into Brand’s car and were driving away, I asked, “Why did he react like that when I asked if Will could come?”

  “Most Watchers don’t associate with Will’s kind. We rarely associate with one another much less his type.”

  “Why is that? Why don’t you like each other?”

  “Seeing each other just reminds us of what we lost. So we don’t seek each others company very often, usually just when we need help with something.”

  “Seems like a lonely existence. I would have thought you would want a friend who lived as long as you did.”

  “Not when it reminds you of why you were sent here in the first place. A lot of us still feel a lot of guilt over the decision we made.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Malcolm basically said.”

  “He feels guilty?” Brand asked, surprised by my statement.

  “Of course,” I really wished Brand could see Malcolm the way I did. “He said he didn’t like the monster he’d become living here.”

  Brand seemed lost in thought after my statement. I turned my attention to the rolling hills of the green pastures we passed by lost in my own thoughts about the Pandora’s box we might have just opened delving into my genetic background. What would Allan find out about me? Did I really want to know? If I were honest with myself, I was afraid he might find something I didn’t want to know. What if it ended up being worse than anything I could imagine? What if there was something about me that
would be repellant to Brand and cause him to fall out of love with me?

  After a few minutes, I felt Brand take my hand and touch the tender flesh to his warm lips gently reminding me of his presence.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m scared.” I admitted.

  “Of what?”

  “What if Allan finds out something I don’t want to know?”

  “He’s only looking for the truth. There can’t be anything wrong with that. And there’s no denying that you are special, Lilly. Just look at how Allan accepted you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him shake anyone’s hand for a very long time.”

  “What if he finds out something about me you don’t like?” I asked finding it impossible to hide all of my worries now that I had started to voice them.

  “Please stop worrying about things which will never happen,” he gently chastised me. “There is nothing he could ever discover about you that would make me feel any less in love with you. Nothing.”

  His words helped ease the tension I was feeling. I knew Brand loved me. Why did I keep thinking he would change his mind? I suppose it was because true happiness was a hard thing for me to accept even when it was staring me in the face and holding my hand. I needed to learn to accept the love Brand felt for me and not question whether it would last or not. The one thing my time in Justin’s prison had taught me was that life was short. I needed to make the most of it while I still could.

  Since it was lunch time, Brand took me to a restaurant in Hyde Park called The Dell. We ate out under the sun on a picnic table by the Serpentine River. It was such a beautiful day there were loads of people in the park trying to enjoy the last warmth of summer before fall rolled in and pushed the tranquil happiness of summertime to the side. After we ate, we took a stroll in the park and just talked.

  I had never been very comfortable with guys before. Will was the only one I ever truly opened up to before Brand came into my life. It seemed odd to me that three of my four best friends were now men. Though, I wasn’t completely sure Malcolm was a best friend, but certainly a good one with potential for best friend status. I just wished he would stop thinking of me romantically. I was flattered, of course, but I didn’t think it was healthy for him. Perhaps after he learned Brand and I were engaged, he would understand waiting for me to change my mind was a futile act.

  When we got back to Brand’s house it was late in the afternoon, almost evening. We went up to his bedroom and retrieved my dress so I could take it back home. We then phased back to my apartment. Because of the time difference I knew it was probably sometime around ten o’clock in the morning in Lakewood. I saw Simon’s car parked beside my mustang and knew he must be visiting Tara. I decided to knock on the door before we barged in and possibly caught them making out on the futon.

  Tara opened the door a few seconds after my knock.

  “Hey y’all,” she said slightly out of breath which made me glad I had decided to knock on the door first. I saw Simon tucking his shirt back inside his pants as he stood from the futon.

  “Did you have a good time?” Tara asked going to stand beside Simon, letting us inside the apartment.

  “We had a great time,” I answered noticing the heightened hue of Tara’s cheeks from being almost caught in a compromising position. “Did you?”

  Choosing to ignore my question, Tara took Simon by the arm and escorted him to the door.

  “Why don’t you pick me up at five?” She told him.

  “Could we make it six? I have a prior engagement.”

  “It’s not another girl is it?” Tara joked.

  “Of course not,” Simon said smoothly. “It’s something for my mom.”

  “Ok, I’ll be ready at six then. Don’t make me wait for you though.”

  “I won’t,” he kissed her on the cheek and left the apartment.

  Tara leaned up against the door and sighed in contented bliss.

  I really hoped things worked out with Simon. Tara seemed so happy with him in her life and I desperately wanted her to be happy.

  “So what are you and Simon doing tonight?” Brand asked. The tone of his question instantly put me on alert that something was wrong. He had that expression on his face I came to identify as him trying to hide what he was really thinking.

  “We’re just going out to dinner,” Tara shrugged. “Nothing special.”

  Tara pushed herself off the door and walked over to me. “So where’s the ring?”

  “You knew?” I asked completely astounded Tara had known what Brand’s intentions had been last night and hadn’t warned me or even hinted she knew about the proposal. I guess I was even more surprised she didn’t try to talk me out of accepting.

  “Utha Mae told me a couple of days ago,” Tara answered.

  “How did she know?”

  “What you didn’t tell her?” Tara asked Brand.

  He grinned guiltily and simply shook his head.

  “Lover boy over there asked her permission first.”

  “Was this the day after I got back?” I asked Brand. “Is that the secret you wanted to keep?”

  “I wanted to have Utha Mae’s blessing first. I felt it important to have her approval before I asked you to marry me.”

  It all made sense now. That was why he wanted to stay behind when I went to talk to my mother and it explained why they looked like they were sharing a secret when I got back. I could see Utha Mae and Brand keeping the secret, but I couldn’t believe Tara had actually kept it too.

  I showed Tara the ring on my finger and saw her mouth almost drop to the floor.

  “Dang, girl, you better watch where you swing that thing. It could knock somebody out cold!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. Tara was probably right though.

  “Ok you two love birds, behave while I’m gone. I need to go get some groceries. Shouldn’t be gone too long so don’t get too comfortable,” she said with a knowing grin.

  “You’re a big one to talk,” I said. “It looked like you and Simon were getting awfully comfortable with each other before we arrived.”

  Tara waved her hand at me like it was nothing, but I saw the blush on her cheeks as she headed out the door.

  “Lilly,” Brand said after Tara left. “We have a problem.”

  This sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I knew I hadn’t imagined his tone or misread his expression earlier. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think Simon is cheating on Tara.”

  “What would make you say that?”

  “When she asked him if he was seeing another girl, he lied to her.”

  “Maybe he’s just doing something for another girl who’s a friend and he doesn’t want Tara to know.” I knew I was grasping at straws but I desperately wanted Brand to be wrong or to at least misunderstand his reading of Simon.

  “I hope you’re right but I don’t think so. I believe he’s cheating on her.”

  I could tell Brand didn’t like telling me this news because he knew I didn’t want to hear it. If I didn’t want to hear it, Tara surely didn’t. Would she believe me if I told her the man she was falling in love with was a good for nothing cheat?

  “We can’t tell Tara what we suspect until we know for sure. She’s so happy with him. I just can’t make her unhappy without being absolutely positive.”

  “What do you suggest then?”

  “Why don’t we invite them to your house for supper? Maybe we can ask him some questions that’ll tell us what’s really going on.”

  “All right, but you should know that if he is cheating on her, I won’t let him stay inside my home.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. If he’s cheating on her, Tara will kick him out herself.”

  While we were waiting for Tara to get back, I took a shower and dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a white button down shirt.

  When Tara got home from the grocery store we told her we wanted her and Simon to come to Brand’s house for supper that evening.
She thought it would be fun so she phoned Simon to tell him the change in their plans. Brand and I went back to his house to get things ready before they got there.

  I was a bundle of nerves by the time Tara and Simon arrived at Brand’s house around a quarter after six that evening. Simon seemed impressed with Brand’s home and couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off my ring. I couldn’t blame him for that. The way the light danced off the diamonds was a bit distracting, almost like a lighthouse mirror reflecting shafts of light in all directions.

  Brand prepared roasted lamb, sautéed baby spinach leaves, couscous mixed with pine nuts and dried cranberries and a dish of potatoes roasted in olive oil, garlic and herbs. I was surprised by Brand’s easy going, almost friendly banter with Simon all through the meal. Tara knew I was nervous about something though. I could never hide my feelings from her. She kept a wary eye on me and Brand during supper listening intently to the conversation Brand was having with Simon. When the meal was over, Brand suggested to Simon that Tara might like a stroll by the lake while he and I prepared dessert.

  Once they were gone, I asked Brand, “Well?”

  “He lies easily,” he answered taking out a fruit trifle we had prepared earlier from the refrigerator.

  “How are we going to know for sure that he’s cheating on her?”

  “I’m going to ask him.”

  “You’re what?”

  “The easiest way for me to know for sure is to ask him a direct question. There’s really no other way around it.”

  “Well, give me a minute with Tara first. I don’t want her to be blindsided by this. She thinks he’s a great guy. So did I until you told me he was a liar.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brand said and I knew he was. “I can’t help what I know. Sometimes it’s not much of a blessing.”

  I sighed. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s better if she knows now before things get even more serious with him.”

  By the time Tara and Simon made it back in, Brand and I had dessert out on plates on the table, waiting for their arrival. I pulled Tara aside and told her I wanted to show her something upstairs. I took her into Brand’s bedroom and sat her down on the bed.