Damaged

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Peter was one of the few people she could bear to be around. Mike’s whereabouts was of no concern to him. So he was safe. And kind.

  Knowing she couldn’t bear to be in a restaurant, he would have his own chef make them lunches and dinners, most of which they ate in his office. There was wine, excellent wine, with every meal. Even if she couldn’t eat, the alcohol took the edge off the pain. The work was all done. All that was left was to wait for the launch. And of course, news.

  Some nights, when she just wasn’t up to going home, Peter gave her a guest suite in his apartment, right upstairs. First, she just stayed a night or two. Soon, she moved in. It was easier than spending an evening with her dad and Jimmy asking a thousand questions. Even when she managed to convince them to be silent, she caught them looking at her with eyes filled with worry.

  The day the new and improved Lydia’s Closet launched worldwide should have been the happiest day of her life. Instead, during the launch party, she stayed in her suite at Peter’s apartment and drank Irish whiskey. She needed not to think and the wine no longer did the trick.

  Peter had volunteered to handle things for her. He’d been doing that more and more as her depression deepened. Actually, he was becoming the face of her business.

  Her friend, Kimberly, and the rest of her squad of moms let her know they were not happy about taking orders from Peter Collins. But Allison was dead inside, unable to deal with it.

  Peter checked on Allison when he got home after the launch party but she was curled up like a child on the couch in her sitting room, out for the night. Lord, the woman was beautiful. It took restraint to keep from touching her luscious body all over, gently at first, then roughly, in a way that would have her begging him to love her.

  It was a technique he had perfected over time and so far, it had never failed. He knew what to do and how to do it. But it was too soon. Mike had only been gone a few weeks. Time was his friend. All things would be his eventually.

  He quietly let himself out of her suite and retreated to his own quarters. The servants were in bed and he had the leisure to put his feet up and marvel at the thousands of sales Allison’s business had made in just one day.

  Actually, it was their business now, his and Allison’s. They were partners for the moment. Maybe later, when they were married, she would step out of the picture entirely.

  The whole thing had been her idea, this partnership. Well, more or less. Naturally, when she asked him to handle things for her, she agreed to sign paperwork to ensure he would be compensated for his services. It’s possible she’d had too much whiskey to notice that he was not being paid in cash, but in stock – fifty-one per cent of the shares in the company, to be precise. She might not yet have comprehended that he was now the controlling partner of the boutique business.

  She was quite fragile right now. That was one of the reasons he’d thought it best to delete the flood of emails Mike had been sending. He wrote several times a day since he’d walked out weeks ago.

  They were hard to read. Love-filled sentiments, promises to stay safe, the usual gibberish. They would have just confused Allison, who had been clear that she wanted nothing more to do with Mike Dennison. Peter was doing her a favour by making sure she would never see them.

  He poured himself a small Cognac and focused on Mike. He wondered what the mighty warrior thought when Allison did not respond to his words of love. On the other hand, Mike was in his element, up to his superhero tricks again.

  Unlike Allison, Peter was on top of every piece of news pertaining to Mike’s search for Kevin Dennison.

  News of the Dennison brothers was the only news anyone talked about. The story was perfect fodder for a news-hungry media looking for a human-interest story with real-life heroes. Headline writers had a field day:

  HE WAS HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER.

  NO GREATER LOVE.

  THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE.

  It was breaking news on cable television:

  Captain Michael Dennison was killed yesterday while rescuing his younger brother, Lieutenant Kevin Dennison, from enemy territory in the war-torn Middle East.

  The reports spoke of how Mike’s understanding of his brother’s way of thinking guided the rescuers, helped them to know where he was hiding.

  When Allison picked up the paper Peter had unexpectedly placed on her breakfast tray, she didn’t register anything beyond the words ‘Michael Dennison was killed …’

  Her sobbing echoed through the spacious apartment and did not stop for a long time.

  Defeated

  2015

  Allison

  Manhattan

  When she finally grasped that she no longer owned her business, Allison barely reacted. Even the news that some of the manufacturing was being outsourced, that the heart of her concept, the stay-at-home moms, was being phased out, didn’t penetrate. She spent most days in a haze of regret and grief kept at bay by an increasing supply of alcohol.

  The idea that if she hadn’t been so afraid of pain and loss, Mike would be alive, would not leave her. He had asked her to wear a ring, the most exquisite ring she’d ever seen, promising it would keep him safe, but her fear had made her refuse. Because of her, he had died in the desert.

  A psychiatrist most likely would have diagnosed Allison with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She could have been helped if she’d agreed to see someone. But she wouldn’t. And Peter Collins, the only one at that point who held influence over her, certainly didn’t encourage it.

  In the past, the Jones family didn’t believe in psychiatry; navel gazing, they called it. Both Riley and Jimmy Jones had believed there was no problem so great that it couldn’t be solved by a gathering of friends, a half-dozen drafts of Guinness, a lighted candle and a good cry. But that was before the light went out in their Allison’s eyes.

  Both had seen the police psychiatrist separately to discuss Allison. Both had received the same answer: most likely PTSD. She was self-medicating with alcohol to keep from dealing with what had happened.

  However, a diagnosis did no good if she would not allow herself to be treated. They did everything they could to get her home. They even got a warrant to search Peter Collins’ apartment on a trumped-up charge. But she refused to leave. And since he was not holding her against her will, there was nothing to be done but wait for her to come to her senses.

  Mike was not dead. But Allison had no way of knowing that. Or that he thought of her every day as he went through the gruelling regimen of rehabilitation at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC. And loved her still, the way he had loved her the night she had broken into his apartment.

  Things might have been different if she had listened to Mike about what a snake Peter Collins was. But she wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.

  Peter had decided it was best that he delete the email from Kevin Dennison telling Allison that the initial report had been wrong. Mike was alive, albeit gravely wounded. He was at Walter Reed, and asking for her, although he apparently did not expect her to come.

  Mike had told Kevin about the trouble between them, about how the loss of her mother had affected Allison. He told his brother that, if she chose not to come, to let it alone. He loved her enough to let her go.

  The game was over. Peter had won.

  Three months after Mike Dennison’s supposed death, Peter asked Allison to leave his apartment within forty-eight hours. He said she was no longer beautiful. Or coherent. She was a drunk and her weakness disgusted him. He did not want her anywhere near Lydia’s Closet, the company he now controlled. She was a detriment to the business she had created as a tribute to her mother.

  Allison had nowhere to go. She refused to move back home and face the judgment of her family. She really didn’t care where she lived, as long as she was left alone. She settled for a studio on West Nineteenth Street. It was in the back of the building and had little natural light. That suited her.

  She also liked the studio because it was close to Gramercy Park. Sometimes
, if she felt up to it, she would walk over to look at the building where Mike once lived. She enjoyed being near the place where her heart had once been filled with love and possibilities.

  She stayed in that dark studio with her memories, her regrets, and her bottles until the year was over, her money gone, her life seemingly ended.

  And sometimes, when she could no longer stand the solitude, she would fix herself up as best she could and head over to O’Lunney’s. She didn’t really understand why it was the only place she ever thought of going.

  Maybe it was because her history had been written there. Or maybe, because she’d had poetry bred into her, some part of her remembered Emily Dickinson’s words: ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.’

  Renewal

  2016–2017

  Mike

  Washington, DC

  Mike Dennison was swearing again. Foul language might be offensive coming from most men. Instead, his total lack of vocabulary in the genre amused the other patients at Walter Reed Hospital no end. Clearly, this was a man not accustomed to using the vernacular.

  All his life, Mike had excelled at everything he put his hand to. If he didn’t have a talent for something, he outworked everyone else. But that didn’t work with physical therapy. Sometimes powering through was the worst thing a patient could do.

  Consequently, he was usually frustrated and angry after a therapy session. When he couldn’t accomplish a task perfectly, he had no proper way of expressing his frustration. So he took up this benign cursing.

  No one laughed harder at Mike than his kid brother, Kevin. He was no longer a patient, having recovered quickly from exposure and malnutrition. But Kevin had not left Mike’s side since he was pulled, half dead, from that rocky hillside almost two years ago.

  Mike had been badly wounded when he held off a dozen rebel soldiers long enough for his brother to get safely aboard the chopper.

  That rocky hillside had been Kevin’s home for over a month. During that time he had used every survival skill Mike had taught him on their camping trips, too numerous to count. Luckily, the rebel group that had set the trap for the Medevac squad had wanted the helicopter, not the men. Even they knew that to kill medical personnel was a war crime. When their mission had failed they had left the field of battle.

  All Kevin had to do then was to somehow stay alive. He never despaired. He knew either his brothers-in-arms or his brother Mike would find a way to get him out of there. And they had.

  Then it was his turn to save Mike.

  Mike had gone into cardiac arrest several times on the way to the field hospital, hence the erroneous reports that he had been killed. But the medics never stopped working on him. When he was stable enough to travel, he was flown to a hospital in Germany and later transferred to Walter Reed to begin months of arduous rehabilitation.

  Because of the rule which had been broken in getting Mike to the battlefield, the army decided not to draw any more attention to Mike’s so-called death. Since he had no other family, the only person to notify had been Allison Jones, and she had not responded.

  Mike had been at Walter Reed for well over a year and still wasn’t where he wanted to be. It was possible he never would be satisfied with the man he had become since the rescue.

  But one day he was ready to go home, back to Gramercy Park in New York.

  Allison

  O’Lunney’s

  Allison would never really know why it had been so important that she go to O’Lunney’s that particular night. She was lonely, of course, but that was an old story. Yet the urge to get out of her apartment and go there was overpowering. That night she thought she was going out just to be with people, to hear laughter. Later she might attribute it to Divine Providence.

  She had worked as much as she could that day. These days, instead of running Lydia’s Closet, an enterprise so successful there was a chance it might go public, she made her own designs and sold them from a market table in Washington Square. She didn’t make a lot of money, but it was enough for rent, food and her medication of choice – alcohol.

  The night at O’Lunney’s had gone like many in the past year had gone, in a blur. Until she slid off the barstool and stood up to discover Mike Dennison looking at her like she wasn’t even there.

  Kevin couldn’t understand why Mike wanted to spend his first night out in New York at a certain Irish pub.

  ‘Why do you want to do this to yourself?’ he asked for the tenth time as their Uber sped up Eighth Avenue. ‘That part of your life is gone.’

  ‘I don’t know. I just do.’ Mike leaned forward in the cab, eager to get to O’Lunney’s.

  ‘It’s not good to live in the past,’ Kevin said. ‘Didn’t you pay attention to your doctors at Reed?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. I have my own pain-in-the-butt shrink who goes everywhere with me instead of living his own life.’

  The brothers remained silent until the car had arrived at the pub. Kevin tipped the driver and they got out.

  ‘There’s a little table out of the way in the back,’ Mike said, as he made his way through the door. ‘Let’s sit there.’

  He stood stock-still when he came through the door. A woman was singing. He listened carefully, before heading towards the sound. ‘That’s Allison,’ Mike said. ‘I’ve heard her sing that before. It’s Allison.’ Mike was frozen in place.

  Kevin watched as Allison slid off the barstool and onto the floor, laughing like being drunk was funny. Make-up was smeared all over her face but she didn’t seem to take note. She was still laughing as she clambered to her feet. And that’s when she saw Mike.

  ‘It’s her,’ Mike said.

  Kevin looked at the wreck the once-beautiful Allison Jones had become. ‘No, Mike. That’s not your Allison. Nothing like her.’

  He took his brother’s arm and disentangled from the chair the white stick given to Mike by the therapists at ‘the blind school’. Mike insisted on calling the place he had spent the past six months, ‘the blind school’. It was there he had begun to learn to live without his sight.

  The hardest part of the therapy, however, was dealing with the fact that it would never change. He had recovered from his wounds but he would never regain his sight. Nor would he ever regain the love of Allison Jones.

  Allison

  Silver Hill

  Allison had a visitor the day before she was to leave Silver Hill Clinic. It was in early spring, almost two years after Mike had gone looking for his brother. The dogwoods were out and the azalea bushes that surrounded the beautiful grounds were about to burst forth in a riot of colour.

  The Jones family was not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but when their girl had called for Jimmy to come get her at O’Lunney’s that winter night, they had decided she would have the best medical care money could buy.

  The therapists at Silver Hill were wise enough to understand that alcohol was not her problem. It was her way of self-medicating. She had never really dealt with her mother’s death. And that, followed by the loss of the man she loved, followed by the loss of her beloved business, had proved too much for her to deal with.

  She was sitting in the garden, writing a letter to her friend, Kimberly, when Kevin Dennison sat down beside her. She stared at him in surprise.

  ‘I have a story to tell you,’ Kevin said.

  Mike and Allison

  Gramercy Park

  Mike was on the couch with a Yankee game playing in the background when he heard the door open quietly.

  ‘Kevin?’

  No response.

  ‘Damnit, Kevin, I told you to let me know when you come into a room.’

  ‘It’s not Kevin,’ Allison said softly, turning off the television.

  Mike was speechless for a moment, then said, ‘Allison?’

  Allison did not respond. It would have been impossible to speak, with tears of happiness streaming down her cheeks, choking her. Instead she sat down next to him, took his hands and led
them to trace the contours of her face.

  ‘Yep. It’s me. Your old flame.’ The joke died on her lips and she touched his sightless eyes with infinite tenderness.

  ‘How did you …? Never mind,’ Mike said, finding it hard to speak himself. ‘Cop’s kid. Lock picking in kindergarten.’

  ‘That’s me,’ she said. ‘There’s no use trying to lock me out. I’ll just keep coming back. Over and over and over again. I’m never going to leave you. Never.’

  ‘I’m not the same,’ he said when the words would come.

  ‘I’m not the same either,’ she answered.

  ‘But this is different. Being blind is like being a baby. I’m just now beginning to figure out how to live on my own without setting the house on fire.’

  ‘I think you’d better have a roommate.’

  ‘You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into, Allison. I will learn, but right now I need help with almost everything. I can’t drive, I can’t fly a plane, I can’t …’

  ‘Michael Dennison,’ she cut in, ‘if you dare start that nobility blather, I don’t know what I’ll do. Haven’t we suffered enough? Haven’t we wasted enough time? Answer me … do you love me?’

  It took a moment before Mike could speak. ‘You know I do. Since the moment I first saw you.’

  ‘I’m a lucky girl then. I’ll always be young and beautiful to you. You should know that I’m still stubborn and opinionated and used to getting my own way, so don’t mess with me. I’m staying.’

  She kissed him. Her heart felt full. And then she said, ‘Mike, I hope one day you will forgive me for being so difficult when you joined up again. I’m so sorry.’

  Instead of answering, he took her in his arms and kissed her eyes, her mouth, her neck. His hands slid over her body, relearning every curve. That she was suddenly here, in his arms, that she had come back to him, surprised and thrilled him. His one love had come home.