From Here to There (32 page)

 "Sounds a bit violent to me, tearing off all those petals, and not very friendly to the environment.” He smiled. “Besides, I don't need to know if he loves her or not." Somehow his right arm had found its way around her waist again. It seemed to make walking easier when she returned the favor and put her left arm around him.

 "Well, in your case, of course, you'd say whatever question you had in mind or needed to... uh know the answer," she said teasingly, "but you're out of luck anyway." She gestured widely with her hand. "Any daisies here today are clearly under snow."

 "So, what's left... for decision making, that is?" She could hear the seductive smile in his voice even before she looked up.

 "Well, you could always wish on a star for an answer or something you want. I'm not sure if that qualifies as decision making though." She squinted up at the cloudy sky and was rewarded by snowflakes hitting each eye.

 He squeezed her against his side, smiling down at the tiny starlight drops glistening on her long lashes. "Maybe," he said as he reached down and kissed what he could reach of the tip of her nose, "I should ask you to make my decision."

 "That wouldn't tell you what
you
want," she said, her voice growing husky with his nearness, with her own desire to fling her arms around his neck and demand that he stay with her forever.

 "Maybe it would. Tell me, lady, do you want me to go or stay?"

 "That's not fair," she complained, reaching up with a mittened hand to brush snow from his hair and lingering to rest her hand against his face, stroking down the hollowed out cheek to his jaw.

 "Why not?"

 "Because it still wouldn't tell you what
you
want."

 "I think it would. Do you want me here?"

 "And if I say yes," she said pushing away, "and you go, where will that leave me?"

 "Why would you think I'd go if you wanted me here?"

 "Because you seem afraid of either your feelings or mine."

 He stepped back a pace. "You a mind reader?"

 "Not much of one but it does happen to be true, doesn’t it?" She tightened her lips against the answer she knew he would give if he was going to be honest with her.

 He looked away, out toward the hills that were now almost hidden by swirling snow. "Maybe it has been," he admitted finally, "but maybe it's changing too."

 "Too?"

 "Like all the rest of me. I--" He was interrupted by Dale's yelling of his name from the house.

 "Your assistant wants you," Helene said after taking a deep breath to steady her voice.

 "Is he the only one?" Phillip asked persistently.

 Before Helene could respond, Dale was tromping through the snow heading for them. "There's a phone call," he said, almost bounding up.

 "Good timing, Dale," Phillip snapped.

 "I didn't control the phone ringing. It's long distance. She said she was your mother."

 Helene was only moments behind Phillip as he grabbed the receiver. She heard his monosyllabic responses and saw the whiteness of his face as he clenched his jaw, the muscle twitching with tension. When he hung up, he sighed as he looked bleakly at Helene.

 "What is it?" she asked, reaching out to touch his cold cheek, to offer him whatever comfort she could against the unhappiness she saw on his face.

 "My brother--" Phillip swallowed and looked away from her beautiful face, her compassionate eyes. He didn't deserve compassion. "Derek was arrested."

 "For what?"

 "Dealing drugs. She didn’t know what kind or how much." Phillip's eyes were emotionless, his mouth in a flat, compressed line. It was as though he had put a curtain between himself and everyone around him.

 "But I thought... he was doing okay," Helene said, reaching out to take his arm and finding her hand shrugged off.

 "I thought so too. I guess the money I sent him wasn't enough to satisfy him," Phillip muttered, running his hand over his face.

 "Where is he now?"

 "In jail," Phillip said, the coldest smile she'd ever seen on his face, "where else do you think they'd put dope peddlers?"

 "But surely there's bail."

 "Yeah, that's what the call was about. I don't know. I have to think about it."

 "You have to think about getting your own brother out of jail?" Helene asked her amazement obvious in her voice.

 Phillip turned away from the look in her eyes. He walked to the window, standing and staring outside at the whirling whiteness.  Everything out there seemed pure and unsoiled, as though washed clean of filth and corruption. If only it was so easy to wash a man clean. He opened his mouth to say that to Helene, but he couldn't get the words out. She seemed to be judging him for not helping his brother, but would getting Derek out of jail be helping?

 Amos had been standing at the kitchen door listening to the conversation,. "Might do your brother good to spend a little time in the hoosegow. Make him know you can't buy your way out of everything."

 Curly, pushing past Amos, shook his head. "Don't reckon it'd do any good one way or t' other, but kin is kin."

 "You aren't saying he ought to put up bail, are you?" Amos argued.

 "I ain't saying nothing yet, but I'll tell you this. A man's family's got to stick by him. Besides half the time it's the family's fault."

 "What?" Amos yelped. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. Where'd you get such a cockamamie idea?"

 "You know what they say, the apple don't fall too far from the tree."

 Ignoring the two old men, who had forgotten him and whose voices were raised in their disagreement, Phillip walked out of the room. He buttoned his coat as he walked out onto the porch.

 Outside the air was cold enough to sting his face but he couldn't bring himself to go back into the house, to face the confusing voices, Helene's attitude, his own indecision. He pulled open his coat just long enough to get out a cigarette and his matches. He was torn as to what was best to do and felt anger and frustration at his brother and himself. Where he'd once thought of himself as a decisive man, he was beginning to understand that when it came to personal issues, he was anything but. It was doubtless one of the reasons why he’d wanted a wife who wouldn’t matter that much.

Business had come easy. Ask him to look at factors of production or market mechanisms. Need someone, who could figure the averages, see trends, recognize future directions in the market, visit your company and see where there was waste, figure out more effective manufacturing methods, and he was your man, but everything that had made him a success in business was useless in his personal life. Where it really mattered, in relationships with people he cared about, he was an abject failure.

 A wind had come up and Phillip cupped his hand to protect the cigarette as he lit it. Inhaling the smoke deeply into his lungs, he didn't turn as Helene came to stand beside him at the porch rail. "Awfully cold out here," she commented as she bundled her muffler around her face.

 He nodded, not trusting his voice.

 "I shouldn't have said anything about what you ought to do with your brother," she said, her shoulder touching his arm. Even through the many layers of clothing he was aware of her body in a way that was still amazing to him. He'd never desired a woman as much as he did Helene, never experienced the driving need to be near her, to touch her, to understand her; but because he didn't know what to make of the feelings, he felt fear of them. It only added to his confusion. He could not afford to need her.

 "I can see how you'd have doubts about what was right to do," she went on when he didn't respond. "And I don't have the answers for you. I've never had a brother or sister, anyone to really be responsible for."

 "I haven’t been responsible. I ran out on them," Phillip said unable to mask his feelings.

 "You didn't do that. You went out to make your own way. It’s what you had to do," Helene said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You can't be everything to everybody."

 "I haven't been much of anything to anybody." He knew he was feeling sorry for himself, but it seemed he couldn't escape what he saw as the trap.

 "By your hard work, you have been an example for your family. If Derek hasn't chosen to follow in your example, it isn't your fault."

 "Isn't it? He blamed me for leaving them. For not coming back more often."

 "Phillip," she said, reaching up and turning his head so that he faced her, "if you'd have stayed home, not gone to college, not gone into business, what would that have done for anybody? Maybe you could have gone home more frequently, but nobody fulfills all of anybody's expectations. Your brother lashes out at you to avoid looking at his own life."

 He smiled faintly. "How did you get so smart?"

 "I wish,” she said with a little laugh. “I think it’s always easier to see someone this when it’s someone else, isn’t it? Don’t let him lay his guilt onto you. I know firsthand how destructive that can be."

 Phillip gave a short laugh. He was all too familiar with guilt and the damage it could do. He had lived, breathed and suffered with it so many different ways and times that he'd thought he was inured to it, that he'd deadened his sensibilities against it. Apparently he hadn't deadened them enough because it was rearing its ugly head again.

 "Phillip, it's too cold to stay out here. Come back inside."

 He shook his head. "It's cold everyplace," he said finally, knowing she was right. He had no choice. There was no place left to run. It was too late to run from Helene either.

 Back in the house, Helene nudged Phillip toward the woodstove where they shed their coats and stood, thawing out their frozen bodies by the radiant heat. Hobo barely lifted his head to see who they were, then plopped back down. In the living room, Helene could hear the two old men arguing back and forth, but their argument had shifted from family relationships to a game of checkers.

 There was a tired slump to Phillip's broad shoulders, a discouraged droop of his shoulders. She wanted to comfort him. She didn't know how.

 "Would you like some coffee?" she asked in the way of a certain type of woman throughout time. Food. It was what a woman could offer for comfort. Was it too easy a solution? She felt uneasy what she might offer in the way of advice. It had to be his decision.

Their relationship had gone through so many changes she hardly knew what they were anymore. They had jumped into an engagement when they barely knew each other. They'd become husband and wife, then enemies, later lovers and maybe little by little, through all the conflict, they'd grown into friends. So, after all the confusion and change, where were they left? Were they husband and wife, lovers, friends, or was the real essence of a successful, love relationship that they be all three?

 Phillip smiled, a little tired and maybe sad but she appreciated the effort.  "Coffee?" she asked again.

 He shook his head.

 "How about hot chocolate," she suggested.

 He grinned. "With marshmallows?"

 "Of course," she retorted. "Hot chocolate without marshmallows would not be hot chocolate."

 She busied herself with pouring milk and measuring dry cocoa mix and sugar. "Are you going to call your mother?" she asked as she worked.

 "Sounds good other than I don't know what I'd say. I'm still not sure getting Derek out of jail immediately is best in the long run. Naturally my mother agrees with you and thinks I'm an unnatural brother."