The Happiness Pact

by Liz Flaherty

  It would be all right—of course it would. She had plenty of friends, and she was closer in many ways to Arlie and Holly than to Tucker. After all, only Arlie knew Libby’s secret.

  She turned her attention back to the sky. The clouds were frenzied, swirling and dancing on the pressure of the air. She loved the hope and beauty offered by Earth’s rebirth in spring, but storms or threats thereof left her unsettled and breathless. Made the weight heavier.

  “I think it will happen, too, but I kind of wish I’d started looking when I was a little younger. I’m going to be too old to play catch or crawl around on the floor with my kids at this rate.”

  “Tucker, you’re thirty-four. You’ve got at least a couple of months before retirement age.”

  He laughed. “You think?” He leaned back to peer at the sky. “It’s spring, I guess. Remember that poem about a young man’s fancy?”

  “When it turns to love? I remember.” She’d liked it when they’d read it in one high school literature class or another. Most of the guys, including Tucker, had snickered at Tennyson’s words, but she wondered how many of them still remembered their gist.

  “I guess I’m not feeling so young, even if I do have that couple of months.”

  “We’re both young,” she said firmly. “I’m not finished with adventures, and your dream will come true. I’m sure of it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  She walked him to the door when he left, stepping out onto the back porch and hugging herself against the chill in the wind. “A strange night,” she murmured.

  He drew her into the loose circle of his arm. “But a pretty good date, wouldn’t you say?”

  She laughed, resting her hands lightly on his biceps. “A day in the back of a truck, an evening where I had to pay our way into the movie even though you were the one who did the asking and hot chocolate I made. I may have to think about that.”

  He bent his head to hers, pulling her in closer so that she could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady. The kiss was long and leisurely and not at all brotherly. Or merely friendly. Or casual in any way.

  His heartbeat wasn’t slow anymore, either. Or particularly steady.

  Neither was hers.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “It was a pretty good date.”

  He kissed her again, then turned her toward the door. “Go inside before you blow away. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She went in, locking the door behind her. She waited for the faint sound of his car horn before she turned off the porch light and went upstairs with Pretty Boy and Elijah at her heels.

  She was glad they were there. The weight on her chest was getting heavier, and it was harder to carry if she was alone.

  * * *

  “ONE OF US needs to go to Vermont for a couple of days. There’s nothing wrong, but the fire in December kept us from putting in appearances at our satellite locations. In addition to that, there’s a retirement dinner for one of the assemblers tomorrow night. He’s been there since before we were born and we owe him the respect of attending. I can go if you don’t want to. I need to check on my house and the bike shop anyway.” Jack handed a cup of coffee to his brother.

  Tucker knew Jack loved Vermont—it had been his home base for years. He still owned a house there, nestled into the shadow of Wish Mountain, though it was rented out.

  “You’d miss one of Charlie’s practice games, wouldn’t you? And Arlie. You’d miss her, too.” Tucker sipped from the hot brew, wishing he’d stopped by the tearoom and begged a cup from Libby.

  “I would,” Jack admitted.

  “I’ll go then. I wouldn’t mind getting some skiing in. The mountain’s still open, isn’t it?”

  “It is. You could always take Libby with you.” Jack leaned back in his chair and didn’t quite meet Tucker’s eyes. “She’s never been there, and I don’t think she’s ever skied, either. It could be two adventures rolled into one.”

  “Are you and Arlie trying to set us up?”

  His brother shrugged. “Maybe. We’d like to see you happy, both of you.”

  “You’ve known me my whole life—can you really see me making anyone happy?” Tucker was joking, sort of, but he had a growing sense that he didn’t have it in him to actually put someone else’s needs before his own on a continuing basis. He and Jack hadn’t grown up with good role models, but he was pretty sure that was how a relationship was supposed to work.

  Jack looked thoughtful. “I don’t think it’s about making someone happy. I think it’s about sharing happiness with someone.”

  “That sounds like something Gianna Gallagher would say.”

  “I think she did. Can you think of anyone whose advice you’d rather follow?”

  “Not right offhand,” Tucker admitted. “If you’ll have the office manager get me a flight, I’ll get packed and on the road. Is this the normal evaluation period, or do we have plant closing back on the business plan as a possibility?” They’d talked about it ever since their return to Miniagua a year before. One of the potential buyers of Llewellyn’s Lures had made it clear that if they bought the company, the Vermont plant would close and the Michigan one would be reduced to a warehousing facility. The proposition had led to Jack and Tucker not selling after all; however, keeping all the facilities going was a quarter-by-quarter decision.

  “I think we go on as we are. It’s working.”

  “Good answer.” The differences in their personalities led to differences in administrative styles, too. The Lake Miniagua plant manager, Sam Phillipy’s dad, had been known to stride into their offices when they were arguing and tell them to either keep it down or take it outside. For the most part, they’d come to realize that they shared both values and concerns in both their work lives and their personal ones; if they applied those values differently sometimes...well, it kept it interesting.

  “Am I mistaken, or are you getting restless?”

  “You’re mistaken.” The two people closest to Tucker had asked the same question in the last three days. Irritation skittered along his nerves, but he wasn’t sure whom he was irritated at. “Sometimes when you look at other people, it seems as if their lives have just fallen neatly into place, even when they haven’t.”

  Jack nodded. “Yup. I know that one.” He finished his coffee and got up. “If you need a week or two away, you can visit the Michigan and Tennessee plants while you’re gone, too. Barring unforeseen incidents, that would put us ahead of the game for this year.”

  “I think I will.” Tucker rose, too, and shook hands with his brother, something they did at the end of every business meeting whether they’d reached agreement or not. Sometimes the handshakes were more like arm wrestling than brotherly affection, but it kept them connected. “See you in ten days or so.”

  He stopped by Seven Pillars on his way out of town. The tearoom was closed, but Libby was baking. He hadn’t seen her for a few days, since their date, and she looked terrible.

  He filled a to-go cup and told her about his trip, laying it on thick about knowing how much she’d miss him but she’d just have to be strong.

  She smiled over her shoulder. “I’ll bear up under the strain.”

  But she didn’t really look like she could.

  “You’re sick.” He stopped her from moving around, laying a hand on her forehead and easing it down to rest on her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just a headache.” She pushed him away and opened the oven door.

  He handed her a tray of cinnamon rolls. “Did you take anything?”

  “Yes. No.” She closed the oven door, set the timer and stopped halfway back to the sink. “I’m not sure. I’ll check before I take anything else.”

  Something was wrong. It was like it had been that day a month or so before, only worse. She’d blown him off then,
and he hadn’t given it much thought. The next time he’d seen her, it was as if it had never happened. But something...something was off.

  “Check how?” he asked. “Do you count your headache pills?”

  She hesitated, and the look in her gray eyes was frenzied. He stepped closer. “Lib?”

  “No, of course I don’t. But they’re strong. I have a prescription for them, and I want to be careful.” She grinned at him, but it was a splintery expression, nothing at all like her usual cheerfulness. “You know I’m a cheap drunk, Llewellyn.”

  He did know that. Two mugs of Mollie’s hot chocolate put Libby near the outer edge of sobriety—three had pushed her all the way over at their birthday party. He also knew she had headaches occasionally, so a prescription for pain wasn’t out of the ordinary. Or was it? He almost asked but stopped—he’d ask Arlie instead. He used her nursing expertise shamelessly.

  “Did you say you’re going to Vermont, Michigan and Tennessee?” Libby asked. Her voice was higher than usual. She sounded like she was going to cry, which was crazy. Libby never cried.

  “I am. And I’m going to downhill ski in Vermont, cross-country ski in Michigan and go to the Opry in Tennessee. Want to go with me?”

  “Not this time. The crew has gotten started on the carriage house. I want to be around to see the transformation and maybe get in the way.”

  “You’re good at that.” He gave her a hug. “Call if you need me for anything. I’ll only be a flight away.”

  “I’m good.” She kissed his cheek and gave him another push. “Get going. If you’re here when the rolls come out of the oven, you’ll eat them all. I’ll have to bake some more and I don’t want to.”

  “Good point.” He stepped outside, hesitating on the back porch because leaving felt like a mistake. Everything felt out of place. He glanced back through the window on the door. She wasn’t moving around the kitchen but had taken a seat on a stool at the prep island.

  Tucker started to go back in—he even had his hand on the doorknob—but he knew her body language well enough to understand she didn’t want him there. Not then. So he wouldn’t go. One thing that had made their friendship so strong was their absolute respect for each other’s privacy.

  But something was definitely wrong.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS only April, Libby felt as if it had surely been the longest day of the year. After delivering the rolls, she went for a walk, meeting Arlie at the end of her friend’s driveway.

  “It’s so warm. Doesn’t it feel great?” Arlie pushed up the long sleeves of her T-shirt. “How’s the remodeling coming on the carriage house?”

  “Really well. I’ll be glad when I stop having knots in my stomach over the size of the mortgage. It’s a good thing they’re putting the apartment in upstairs, because I may be living there.” Libby knew the loan on the building wasn’t what was causing her upset—the payments were manageable even if her business expansion didn’t go as planned. But at least it was a reason she could give to how she’d been feeling. She hated being clinically depressed, but she hated not understanding its triggers even more.

  Of course she had had grief in her life, most of it slammed into a two-year period when she was still in her teens, but hadn’t everyone? Why was good old Lib the one who was still curling into the emotional fetal position every time...every time what? She couldn’t pin down a time. It was worse in the darkness of winter and in the gloom and angry wind of spring, but she’d been tossed into the viper’s grasp on bright sunshiny days, too.

  “You’re having some trouble, aren’t you?” Arlie’s voice was quiet and calm.

  Libby nodded, a lump working its way into her throat. She cleared it, then cleared it again. “I’m so afraid of taking too many anti-anxiety pills that sometimes I don’t take enough. It was almost easy when I just took two pills first thing in the morning—one for depression and one for anxiety—but there’s more to it now. We’ve had to change the combination a few times.”

  “Do you set them out for the day?”

  “I always mean to. I even have one of those little pill cases for three dosages a day, but sometimes I forget to load it. Or I lose track of where I’ve put it, because I never bring it downstairs with me. One morning I think Elijah and Pretty Boy were playing catch with it. Sometimes I’m convinced I’ve already taken the dose even when the pill is right there in the case. All ridiculous things.” Her heart was fluttering in her chest like a flock of big butterflies.

  Was she losing her mind? Was the thing she’d dreaded since the morning she’d found her father in the barn finally happening? He’d been forty-six when he died, her mother only forty-one. None of her grandparents had lived to old age, either; although one had died in an accident and another had been killed in Vietnam, Libby had never expected longevity—it didn’t seem to happen much in her lineage. But dying in her midthirties was way too young even if she did follow her father’s path into madness. She had far too much to do.

  “Tucker left this afternoon. He’s going to be gone for ten days or so.” She kept her tone casual. No one else needed to know how much she missed him when he was gone. “He’ll enjoy it. I think he misses traveling.”

  “He hired Rent-a-Wife to pack up his things at the Hall while he’s gone and put them in storage. The new owners are taking possession.” Arlie chuckled, although her eyes still looked wary when they met Libby’s. “He’ll be living out of a suitcase at Jack’s house.”

  Libby thought of her purple suitcase. Its plastic wheels had gotten some wear on them since her adventures with Tucker. She wondered what the next destination would be.

  Or if there would be one. Was it time for them to stop pretending they weren’t grown-ups?

  A gust of wind made her look up and frown as clouds rolled in. The drop in temperature was immediate. By the time they’d walked past another house, Arlie was pushing her sleeves back down. “This is the weirdest spring. Between what the almanac is predicting and what the people at the old lakers’ tables at the Silver Moon and Anything Goes say, I’ll be surprised if a storm doesn’t blow us right into lower Michigan.”

  Libby shuddered. “I remember my dad talking about the Palm Sunday tornadoes in northern Indiana. He was from Elkhart, and his family lived in a trailer park that was decimated. No one in his family was badly hurt, but their home was destroyed. He pushed us into the basement every time the wind rose.”

  “How did you ever get to be a sky watcher?”

  “I think that’s how. I’m not claustrophobic, but I hated when he closed us in down there, so I started learning about the sky. I studied cloud formations before I ever looked at stars, and I’d say, ‘Hey, look, Dad, they’re just scud clouds. Nothing’s going to happen with them.’ After a while, he believed me. I never admitted I was scared anyway—he’d have made us go back downstairs.”

  Arlie laughed. “Daddy would take Holly and me outside to look at the clouds. Mama would stand at the door saying, ‘Dave, I mean it, bring them inside. If you want to blow away, that’s up to you, but they’re staying here with me.’ We’d go in, and whenever it thundered or the wind got loud, Dad would throw himself on the floor, howling that it had hit him.”

  “I remember!” Dave Gallagher had been a hero to all of his daughters’ friends—they’d called him Superdad. Libby mourned him as much as she did her own father.

  Libby and Arlie walked all the way around the lake, clinging to each other when they crossed the bridge over the slapping waves below. Libby felt better when they parted in front of Seven Pillars, as if the weight on her chest had been lightened by being shared.

  When it was fully dark, she took the telescope out and looked at the stars. She wished on Venus, the plea whispered into the silence of the night, and tried to feel her mother’s presence as she had on the balloon ride.

 
It was late when she went to bed. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she was afraid to sleep. Afraid of the dreams she sensed were coming, pushed into her subconscious by the monster she couldn’t control.

  Elijah curled into his usual space at her back. Pretty Boy left his rug across the room and leaped agilely onto the bed, settling himself at her feet. Almost asleep, she rested her fingers in the dog’s fur and took comfort in not being alone.

  * * *

  TUCKER SKIED EARLY and not well, giving up midmorning and going back to the inn for a late breakfast. He went to the plant that occupied an old brick building in downtown Fionnegan, Vermont, and spent the rest of the day talking to employees and seeing if he could still do the jobs he’d had during summers while he was in college. He found he could do them, but he was in no way good at them.

  “I wouldn’t hire me,” he admitted, laughing.

  “You know we have good people, and the business is important to the town,” the plant manager assured him at the retirement dinner at McGuffey’s Tavern, “but if we don’t change equipment soon, we’re not going to be able to produce enough to stay sustainable.”

  Tucker was glad he and Jack had argued and come to a decision on this already. “We have room here for another production line without crowding the building, too, don’t we?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think if we were able to make that kind of investment—including new equipment for the products you’re already making—we could get any tax breaks until we recoup the costs?” It was a game he hated playing, and his brother did, too, but if Llewellyn’s Lures was to stay profitable, it was a necessary one.

  “It’s something we’ve never asked for, but we’re a valuable and philanthropic part of the community. I don’t see it being a problem.”

  “Do you want us to handle it at corporate or do you want to take care of it here? If you’d rather gather information and present it yourselves, we’ll offer any kind of support you ask.”