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Chapter 134 — Soul Distress
Mary meets Charlie as surprised but not angry. She arranged him in the guest room and downstairs.
"How is he?" Mason asked.
"Reading. What's happened?"
He shortly recounted the situation.
"Why do you think that something's up with him?"
"Are you angry?"
"No, I just do not understand."
"I am afraid that he'll out of control," Mason accepted. "Moreover with Brandon together."
"Have you been able to contact to your mother?"
"No," Mason got up off the couch and walked across the room. "She left the UK, that's all I know. She could be anywhere from Majorca to the Cayman Islands."
"I can not believe she left no address--"
"However she did," he sighed.
"Mason, I know what it was a huge blow for you--"
"I've always thought that she loved me but my father forbids her to see me. But she found the replacement for me--"
"Do not think about it."
"I'm trying," he wryly smiled. "But I can not help. I see myself in Charlie."
Mary stroked his arm.
"He's quite another person."
"Probably, it's affecting his European education."
"I think you're takes your blood ties as too important. I and Christy are very different although we have the same parents. You are not clone of Charlie. Let go the situation--"
Mason said nothing, and Mary knew that he did not agree but do not want to argue.
* * *
In the next day Theda brought back Chip and Sammy, and the house has filled with their delighted screams. Children adored Uncle Charlie and take every chance to gladly drag him into the nursery.
So passed a few days. Mason almost did not have been at home, replacing his lawyer colleague in the court, but Charlie made himself perfectly, and Mary sometimes seems that he always lived with them. And he was not like that the nervous teenager who firstly appeared here. He seemed to become younger, relaxed, and simpler.
One morning Mother Isabel visits them. Mary talks to her with great pleasure, but then she's surged by desperate longing for her old life when she did help to people and worked in the charity clinic. A way back was gone, but her life seemed to cut the half. By the accident on the roof of Capwell Hotel.
"Mary?" She heard Charlie's voice. "Are you all right?"
"I was just thought."
How she can return the missing part of herself? Quite out of place she remembered Uncle Larry. What he felt after losing his twin brother?
"Is Mason hates me?"
"What?" Mary came back to reality. "No, of course. Why you decided it?"
Charlie shrugged, then turned and sat down before the playpen. Put down his hand and started to move the rubber T. Rex over Mickey's head. The baby reached up, trying to get the toy.
"He tries to leave out when I'm near," Charlie said without looking up.
"Mason has a lot of work now," Mary sat down the sofa.
"It's not true," Charlie looked up to her eyes. "He does not want me here."
"Do not talk nonsense; he's brought you here."
"He believes that he must take care about me because mom asked him."
Mary paused.
"Mason loves you, but may be he's little offended at you. You do not want to tell him about your mother. She is his mother too."
"He never asked me about. And anyway I have nothing to say."
"Well, you see? You are both so stubborn and always bristled as hedgehogs."
Charlie chuckled.
"He is even a porcupine!"
"Well, you have many prickles too."
At the point the door slammed and Mason's voice loud declared: "I'm home!"
Mary got up and went to her husband, kissed him on the cheek and hugged.
"Hi! You're early today."
"I'll explain later. What we have for dinner?"
"The Orient Express."
"Alone? It's tempting," he smiled.
Mary hesitantly looked at Charlie, but then shook her head.
"Sorry, I'm afraid if we take you CC decides that you have too luxurious life as a prisoner."
"Yes, I guess," Charlie seems not too upset. "Can I call Brandon? It would not break rules. I still am stay in the house."
"Only for a short time," Mason allowed.
Mary warned Christie that they'll leave out, and half an hour later she and Mason already are sitting in the restaurant.
"You're some kind of silent," Mason said after pausing. "Is there something wrong?"
"Today Mother Isabel came up."
"Any bad news?"
"No, I just thought about how different my life become now."
"Of course. If compared with the monastery."
"Not only. If compared to what has been up before... my accident. I have a feeling that I had lost myself. Sorry," she added noting how changed Mason's expression. "Do not take it personally. I love you. Do not pay attention."
"I'll not," Mason said a little stiffly and then smiled. "You're not pay attention to my mood too."
"What's happened?"
"I made the decision about my job. I accept my father's offer."
"This is so good news!" Mary grabbed his arm.
"I'm not sure."
"You always can go back to the law firm."
"If the father did not throw me out without severance pay."
"You're mad at yourself for being unable to resist."
"I am no a boy any longer."
"And you have your own family. Us."
"Of course. And how is going the preparing for the wedding?"
"Oh, everything is fine. But so many things still must be done! I am just now appreciated how much work done for us your sisters."
"I hope that soon-be-wife-and-husband do not plan to parachute immediately after the ceremony."
Mary giggled.
"Eden suggested it, but Cruz goes totally against. He has bad memories associated with mountains."
"Oh yeah, I forgot. So what they decided?"
"As far as they chosen the traditional way but who knows what bizarre ideas can still reach them later!"
They smile at each other, remembering their own wedding.
"I love you," Mary looked into his eyes. "Do you remember that?"
"I do. I love you too, Mary. I'm afraid to lose you."
"You never lose me. I do promise."
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