Breezy Point
It was several weeks before Allison and Mike saw one another again and that was only because Kevin Dennison came home from war. No matter how much they were attracted to one another, neither of these two stubborn people would be the first one to break the stalemate.
Allison was in her studio working on a new design for a summer wrap when she heard a motorcycle approach, then stop in front of the house. There weren’t many bikes at Breezy Point. Riding on sand was a dangerous business and, when the wind blew, which was most of the time, there was sand on the road.
She looked out of her window but the bike was parked and the rider already on the porch, banging on the door. Allison was wary coming down from her perch at the top of the house. As a cop’s daughter she was cautious about unexpected visitors. If it was family or friends they knew where the key was and would come in and shout up the stairs.
When she got downstairs, she slipped her grandfather’s night stick off the hook by the door and held it casually at her side.
‘Hullo?’
‘Allison Jones, open this door and let me take you for a ride!’ The cheery roar certainly didn’t sound menacing.
‘Who are you?!’ Allison answered.
Feet stamped on the wooden porch. ‘Second Lieutenant Kevin Shirley Dennison, Sir!’ A pause. More stamping. ‘Ma’am. At your service.’
Allison was smiling as she opened the door. ‘Shirley? You don’t sound like a Shirley.’
‘Family name, Ma’am. And thank the good Lord it’s a middle name. For less formal occasions I’m just Kevin S. Dennison, brother of the wastrel, Michael Dennison.’
Within ten minutes, Allison was on the back of Kevin’s bike, streaking down cracked roads that encircled a long-abandoned pile of high rises at a far end of Breezy Point.
By the time they were tucked into Kennedy’s Restaurant, having mussels and beers, they were fast friends. And Allison had texted Mike to come and get his little brother. She wasn’t about to allow him to drive home on a motorcycle after guzzling three beers, ‘to get the sand out’, as he had said.
‘My brother is into you,’ Kevin announced after the third beer. ‘Are you into him?’
‘You don’t beat around the bush, do you?’ Allison declared, charmed by this younger, less-guarded version of his brother.
‘No time,’ Kevin said, slurping up a steamed mussel with relish. ‘Heading back to the Middle East tomorrow. Gotta save the world.’
‘And you’re spending your last night at home with me?’ she asked. ‘Kevin, that’s just so sad.’
‘I’m here on a mission of mercy, Ma’am. My brother has been a total pain in the butt my whole leave.’ Kevin took a long drink of his beer. ‘I finally figured it out. He’s in love. Now, Mike? He’s great at everything but love. Unfortunately, he’s real lousy at that.’
‘Love. Who is talking about love?’ Allison felt lighter than she had at any time since that startling kiss at Nobu. She didn’t even care that her face was red, as if she’d just worked a shift in front of a blast furnace. ‘We haven’t even had a real date.’
‘Unlike my brother, I am an expert at matters of the heart. And he is a goner.’ Kevin slid another mussel down his throat and looked hard at Allison. ‘What about you? Are you a goner, too? ’Cause if not, you need to just walk away. Mike has had enough sorrow and disappointment to last a lifetime.’
Allison sipped her lemonade and studied this charming young man. He was educated, confident, and the joy of living just bubbled forth from him. What would he have been like, Allison wondered, if Mike had stayed at West Point? What kind of life would Kevin have had if Mike hadn’t put his own life on hold for his brother, after their parents had been killed?
‘Chop, chop, time’s a wasting,’ Kevin said. ‘I head back to my unit at 0600 hours tomorrow. If I’m over there worrying about Mike, I’m liable to get myself shot.’
Allison wasn’t thinking things over, analysing, as she usually did. ‘Then I’d better tell you,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, I’m a goner, too.’
‘Then can you stop this ridiculous game you two are playing and tell Mike?’ Kevin begged.
‘Better do what he says, or he’ll never leave you alone.’
Allison looked up and there was Mike standing next to her.
Butterflies took flight in her stomach and she trembled. She had no idea how much he had heard but she didn’t care any more.
‘Kevin was encouraging me to declare my feelings for you,’ she found herself saying.
‘Oh, yes?’ Mike stared at her. ‘Well, don’t let me stop you.’ He did not look as nonchalant as his words sounded.
Allison and Mike locked eyes and, with the intensity flowing between them, there was no need for words. She said them anyway.
‘It’s possible I’m falling in love with you.’ She felt a softening inside, a release that speaking the truth can often give. ‘It’s also possible I already have.’
Mike’s words caught in his throat. ‘I know for certain I am already in love with you, Allison. The question is, what do we do about it?’
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love is the hard part. Especially if both parties, like Allison and Mike, are uncompromising, obdurate, mulish, and absolutely convinced their way is the right way.
However, both understood the value of this miracle that was happening to them and fought through it. Fought being the operative word.
Because life had inflicted so much on them, both had developed elaborate protective devices. Much like a chambered nautilus, at the first sight of trouble they had the ability to withdraw into a safe space and wait it out. If the danger persisted, they could always retreat further and further until they were far away from harm.
The danger was that they would retreat so far that they would outrun love.
But during those magical days in June, with nothing but joy looming on the horizon, they had the leisure to fall in love. There were walks on the beach and visits to West Point; nights at the theatre, hikes at Bear Mountain, and always, Sunday family suppers at the house in Breezy Point. Mike was there so often, the family stopped treating him as a specimen to be analysed, and thought of him as family instead.
The highlight of each week was the Skype with Kevin, who by then was near the fighting, doing the same work his brother had done four years before. Mike worried about him constantly, but Kevin laughed off the danger as only the very young can.
As for Allison, she felt she had acquired another brother – one who didn’t presume to tell her what to do. She had loved Kevin at first sight, with none of the complications that kept happening with his far more complex older brother.
That love for Mike’s brother only grew over time, as did her feelings for Mike. The walls they both had built to protect their hearts began tumbling around them.
‘What would you say,’ Mike asked one night as they had an early dinner at Kennedy’s, ‘if I said I loved you?’
Allison didn’t answer for a moment but she continued to cling to his hand as the sun began its descent. You could see the skyline of Manhattan but, from Breezy Point, civilisation seemed far away.
‘If you did that,’ she said finally, ‘said you loved me, I would be afraid.’
‘Why? I would not be toying with you.’ Mike concentrated on the sunset instead of the woman sitting next to him. ‘If I were to say it, I mean.’
‘I would know that you were sincere,’ she said. ‘If you were to say you loved me.’
‘Then what would you be afraid of?’
‘That I would lose you,’ she said, fighting against the sudden tears that threatened to come.
‘You would never lose me, Allison. I would love you till the day I die. I know it.’
‘If you were to love me.’
‘Exactly. If.’
Neither of them looked at anything but the sunset. By now it was kissing the top of Freedom Tower.
‘I know that now, Mike. I know you will always love me.’
‘Then what are you afraid of?’
‘Nothing. Everything.’
Mike turned her face to his. It was bathed in the pink light of the waning sun, and he thought he’d never seen anyone so exquisite. ‘Can you be more specific?’
It took a moment. Then she whispered, ‘I’m afraid you would die. Like my mother. I could never go through that kind of suffering again.’ She was weeping now. ‘You see, these feelings I have for you, they’re so deep, so intense, that, if I let them, they would swallow me up.’
‘I know exactly what you mean because those are my feelings, too. But I’m tired of fighting; tired of pretending love is a hypothetical. I now realise you’re the woman I’ve been looking for my whole life.’
He kissed her eyes and tasted the salt of her tears. ‘Dare,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Dare to love me back.’
He drew her into a kiss that would have never ended if they had not been sitting on a bench at Kennedy’s, which happened to be filled with Allison’s family and friends. Neither of them cared that they were the object of knowing glances.
‘Promise me,’ she said when she found her voice. ‘Promise me that if I let myself love you, you will not die and leave me.’
He looked at her for a long moment. He understood the path she had walked, understood why she asked this of him.
‘No one can promise that,’ he said at last. ‘But I can promise not to put myself in danger, to be careful, to think of you before I do anything to worry you. I will look both ways before crossing, I will not sky dive, I will get flu shots, I will even wear a safety belt in the garage.’
She was laughing and crying at the same time. But Mike wasn’t finished. He stood up at attention, military style, and recited, ‘A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.’ He saluted and sat down.
Allison stared at him. ‘What’s that?’
‘The West Point Cadet’s Oath. It doesn’t exactly fit but it’s the most sacred promise I know.’
Allison crawled into his arms. ‘I love you, Captain Dennison. With all my heart. That is, if you love me.’
‘You know I do. “I love you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”’
Tears streamed down Allison’s face. ‘The Cadet’s Oath and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Looks like I’ve got myself a real Renaissance man.’
They kissed again, and every man, woman and child at Kennedy’s that night stood up and applauded.