Homecoming Ch. 02

It had been this guilt, gnawing away at his gut, that had motivated him to sneak back downstairs late that night and fix Lu a cold plate of chicken, homemade bread and a tall glass of tea—an attempt at a humble peace offering. The lie of the "peace offering" had given him the courage to face Lu in her bedroom. The well-worn stairs of the cavernous house carried the echo of each creaking step he took as he climbed his way up the staircase and headed in the direction of Lula's bedroom.

He carefully knocked once lightly on the door and listened for permission to enter before awkwardly turning the brass knob that proffered entrance to Lula's sanctuary. The hinges of the door squealed painfully as Daniel pushed the door open with his shoulder, his hands otherwise occupied with his intended tribute. He hadn't stepped more than a few feet across the threshold into Lula's bedroom before he was assaulted by a wooden projectile in the form of a jewelry box. Lu wasn't going to accept his offering with grace.

"Lula, please...I...I'm trying to bring you something to eat...I want to apologize for..." Daniel wasn't allowed to finish before a hairbrush sailed by his left ear bouncing harmlessly off the wall.

"Goddammit, you're going to get us both pinched if you keep this up." Daniel strained through clenched teeth.

"Well, then let 'em all come. At least I won't be the only one catching the business end of a wooden cooking spoon," Lu retorted as she bent to pick up her comb to continue the assault.

Amazed that he hadn't dropped either the plate of food or the glass of tea, Daniel dodged the wooden comb, buying himself a brief respite that allowed him to set the food down on the floor before ducking away from Lula's prized baseball as it flew past his head—a skull-cracking instrument of revenge. Daniel knew he'd had it coming, but he didn't want to get Lu in anymore trouble than he'd already managed to buy her with his earlier betrayal. It was this desire that caused him to plead anew for sanity.

"For God's sake, Lulu, you can kill me tomorrow. I just wanted to get you something to eat and say I'm sorry. I know I have this coming but I just don't understand what came over me this afternoon," Daniel lied.

"Liar," Lula spat, calling him on his dishonesty. She didn't care if he was 6'3" or six thousand feet tall; she wasn't going to let him get away with his latest mistreatment of her. She had taken all she could take; and, even though she had caught a glimpse of the man he'd become while he was struggling to dismantle the tractor this morning, she was determined not to let his considerably imposing frame intimidate her into excusing his traitorous behavior.

Just the thought of the smug expression he must have had when he so gleefully "ratted" her out to her mother, drove her into a maniacal rage and fueled her courage to stand toe-to-toe with him and beat him to a pulp. If she couldn't throttle him with her bare hands, she'd at least get in a few good licks before she went down for the count. As she bent to pick up a bottle of cologne, her most precious possession on her dressing table, her onslaught was halted by Daniel's iron grip around her wrist.

"I said stop!" the young man mumbled through clenched teeth, his patience clearly stretched to its limits. He swallowed hard before continuing.

"I can't stop you from hating me. But I am not going to let you get yourself in trouble again or tear my head from my shoulders. It's not going to happen. End of story."

These last words were delivered with a finality that startled her back into reality. He was right; she wasn't strong enough to stop him from overpowering her. Her revenge would have to be well-planned—taken with stealth. This tantrum was not the answer.

However, as the two adversaries danced in the uneasy silence of their newly formed truce, Lu had that overwhelming feeling that something was different between them. Whatever dark cloud had visited Daniel this afternoon on the path back to the house was back in this room with them, and they both shifted uneasily in the silence in an effort to avoid its shadow.

The images were back. Daniel knew they would come. He knew it had been too soon to tempt the fates that lay in wait for him. Fool that he was, he hadn't heeded the alarms going off in his head. Instead he'd found a plausible reason to be standing in the middle of Lula's bedroom, with a growing arousal that would soon manifest itself physically if he didn't do something about it...soon.

Lula stared into the steel gray eyes of her former best friend. These eyes were now darkened by something unrecognizable, something feral. The dark corners of her mind refused to register this new emotion she saw playing on Daniel's face, his angelic visage a mask of unknown threatening force. Was this lust? She'd refused to recognize it because it was a puzzle piece that wasn't supposed to fit in their relationship. This was not what she thought it was—it couldn't possibly be what she thought it was. Despite her refusal to believe the unthinkable, the irrefutable logic in her told her otherwise. This was exactly what it appeared to be.

Danny wasn't looking at her with anger. This was desire—a desire that the child in her refused to acknowledge.

The final recognition and acceptance of this reality felt like a sucker punch in the gut; Lula's heart skipped a beat in response to this emotional assault on her senses. Her breath hitched. She struggled to accept what her mind told her could not be true but was happening anyway. Tentacles of anxiety began tightening around her heart like an iron vice even as it struggled to burst from her chest.

"Daniel, what's happening here?" Lula fought to quell her hysteria in a small voice that betrayed her apprehension. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Daniel had been caught in the grips of an epic struggle to force his feelings for Lula back down into the dark place from whence it had come. His logic screamed the immorality of the visions in his mind that sung to him like Odysseus' sirens. His heart and body refused to be ignored; and, he had never been one to deny his own impetuous nature. He knew that this inevitable indulgence would be his undoing. He knew this as sure as he had known that the vision on Lula on the path would be the end of their sibling relationship. He needed to touch her, to be with her, to hold her and claim her as his own. He needed this and yet he knew to relent would be opening the gates to untold misery.

These were the thoughts that raced through Daniel Carven's mind as he bent to claim Lula's sweet mouth. Lula—the woman he had to live for; the woman whose face he had to hold in his hands again; the woman who would give him the will to endure anything, even a botched parachute drop into Ste-Mere-Eglise, France on June 6, 1944—D Day.