The Man Behind The Mask. Barbara Hannay

don’t think it was dumb that she picked me?” Luke said, and the hopeful look in his eyes tugged at her heartstrings. He quickly covered it. “Sure. I just took money from your grandmother.”

      “You know everybody makes mistakes. Your aunt Nora when she got engaged to a jerk.”

      Her heart filled with the most unreasonable gratitude that someone saw Vance’s defection as a statement about him, not about her.

      “He was a jerk,” Luke said. “A sanctimonious, knowit-all, stuck-up jerk.”

      Nora’s mouth fell open. First of all, she’d had no idea Luke’s dislike of Vance had run so deep. Second, she had no idea that he could use a word like sanctimonious correctly.

      “She should have asked Rover,” Brendan deadpanned, and then he and Luke cracked up. Brendan must have caught her disapproving expression, because he sobered.

      “So, everybody makes mistakes,” he said. “When you took that money from Deedee, it was a mistake. What matters is whether you choose to grow from them or not.”

      “What kind of mistakes have you ever made?” Luke challenged, not laughing anymore. Nora could tell he wanted to believe there was hope that a mistake could turn out okay, and was afraid to believe at the very same time.

      Which she understood perfectly, of course.

      Brendan hesitated. He tossed his cards down on the table. For a moment, it looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything at all.

      Then, his voice so soft she felt herself straining to hear it, he said, “My wife died because of a terrible mistake I made. She was carrying our baby.”

      Nora laid her hand on his, almost unbearably grateful that Brendan had seen how great Luke’s need was. And possibly hers. that he had overcome so tremendous an inner obstacle and given something of himself to both of them confirmed that her instincts had been right, after all.

      There was a common place between them.

      But it seemed to her that common place was the most frightening thing of all. It asked her to put aside her past injuries and her petty fears. It asked her to think less about protecting herself and more about reaching out to another human being.

      Reaching out to animals was easy. Human beings were far more complicated.

      She wasn’t ready. She ordered herself to withdraw her hand.

      And yet her hand, as if separate from her mind and linked to her soul, stayed right where it was.

      Brendan could not believe he had said that to Nora and Luke. What if these were the words that broke open that dam of emotion within him?

      But no, the dam was safe. He had not cried then, and he would not cry now. Still, there was nothing he hated more than sympathy. He waited for her to say something that would make him regret confiding in them even more than he already did.

      But Nora said nothing at all. Instead, with a tenderness so exquisite if felt as if the dam of emotion was newly threatened, she laid her hand on top of his.

      For a moment he felt only the connection, her small hand covering part of his larger one, the softness of her palm against his toughened skin.

      But then he was stunned by the warmth that began to pour from her hand, some energy vibrating up his wrist into his arm. It felt as if his whole body was beginning to tingle.

      And suddenly, the world’s greatest cynic believed what he had only suspected until now.

      She could heal things.

      The light shining in her eyes almost made him believe she could heal the most impossible thing of all: a heart smashed to pieces.

      For a stunned second, he felt his throat close. But then he fought it.

      Because who would want that fixed? For what reason? So that it could be smashed again? So that a man could face his impotency over the caprice of life all over again?

      He jerked his hand out of hers, and she stiffened, guessing it, correctly, as rejection. Then she had the good sense to look relieved. She actually glared at her hand for a minute, as if it had mutinied and acted on its own accord.

      She turned rapidly from him, ran a hand over her eyes, winced when she touched the bump on her head.

      “I should get some footage of Charlie for Deedee and then go,” he said.

      Luke, looking pensive and solemn, went and got the cat.

      Nora was completely composed when she turned back to Brendan.

      “Thank you for telling us. I know it was hard for you. And yet he needed to hear it. He’s known you only a short time, but he looks up to you.”

      Brendan shrugged, withdrawing, uncomfortable.

      Luke came back with Charlie and set him on the counter.

      The cat gave a yowl of indignation and made for the edge, as if he fully planned to leap to the floor.

      Brendan stared. This was a cat that had barely been able to lift his head a few days ago. “What are you feeding him?”

      Luke made a quick grab and caught Charlie by the back of the neck. The cat hunkered down, resigned but unhappy.

      “There’s no cure for old age,” Nora told Brendan gently. “There’s nothing that stops life from unfolding in its natural order.”

      As Luke lifted his other hand so that both of them rested on the cat, Brendan was aware again of that vibration, of an energy he didn’t understand. It was almost as if the light in the room changed.

      The cat stopped struggling. It was as if Charlie had been tranquilized. He closed his eyes and a deep purr came from him.

      Luke jerked his hands away. He took the cat off the counter, set him on the floor, watched him scoot off. Uncaring that there would be no pictures tonight, he shoved both hands in his pockets. His face was white and his voice was brimming with anger.

      “Life’s natural order?” he spat out. “My mom was thirty-four. What’s natural about that? Oh, and Aunt Nora is a healer, all right. Ask anyone. My mom always talked about my auntie Kookie, how her room was filled with mice and birds and cats and dogs, and she could heal them all.”

      “Luke, that’s an exaggeration. I liked animals. I couldn’t—”

      But he cut her off. “I was here when they brought that dog in. It was dead.”

      “It wasn’t,” Nora said. “Obviously it wasn’t.”

      “And then she puts her hands on it, and poof, he’s alive and wagging his tail. And in three days he’s running around the yard, bringing me sticks to throw.

      “But when it really counts? When it’s cancer? Forget it! Who would want a gift like that, anyway? That’s why I don’t want to be like her! You can’t change anything that matters.”

      And then he spun on his heel and followed the cat, and Nora and Brendan stood in frozen silence as he thumped up the stairs.

      “How did he know Charlie has cancer?” Brendan asked.

      “He doesn’t,” Nora said too quickly, her troubled eyes on the empty doorway her nephew had gone through. “His mom—my sister—died of cancer. I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything more I can do for Charlie. You should take him home to Deedee. She can spend his last days with him.”

      Brendan could feel weariness like a dull ache in his bones.

      Not just because it was late, either.

      It was the weariness of it all.

      A boy who had lost everything and who already knew you could not change anything that really mattered. A woman who was trying desperately to help him through it, even though she had lost, too.

      Brendan realized he had actually