Chapter Sixteen - Destiny
Chris opened the door.
"Hello, Dr. Gregory," he said politely to Ulysses, who was standing on the front porch with his hand raised to knock. He slowly put his hand down.
"Hello, Christopher." Ulysses looked like he had been through hell. His eyes were blood shot and his salt and pepper hair stuck out in all directions; his blazer and tie were haphazardly askew. "Is Linda here?" Chris nodded and opened the door farther to let him in.
Aaron, Henry, Linda and Ruth all watched as they came and stood in front of them.
"Oh," Chris suddenly said as Ulysses looked at him. "This is my mum, Ruth and my brothers, Henry and Aaron. Family, this is Linda's father, Dr. Gregory." Henry and Aaron smiled and nodded politely.
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Doctor." Ruth came and shook his hand, clearing her throat loudly. "Um, boys," she turned to Aaron and Henry, giving them a pointed look. "Can you come out and help me in the garden?" They got up and Henry ruffled Linda's hair playfully as he passed her by. Despite the tense situation, she gently hit his hand away and gave him a short smile before he left with Ruth and Aaron out the door.
All three of them found themselves in awkward silence.
"Um, please have a seat, Dr. Gregory." Ulysses sat in Chris's usual armchair and Chris took a seat in Henry's abandoned chair across from Linda. After a few more seconds of silence, she cleared her throat.
"Father...why are you here?" There was no mistaking the edge in her tone. Ulysses sighed tiredly and clenched his jaw.
"You know..." he scoffed. "I don't know." He threw his hand up and hit his knee with a hand smack, his lips in a tight line. "I know that you won't listen to whatever I have to say, no matter how much I sit here and talk."
"Well, I'm glad that we, at least, have that understanding," Linda said shortly. "I'll make it easy for you: if you've come here to drag me back home, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going anywhere." Ulysses pounded his fist on the arm of the chair and took a deep breath.
"Linda," He said between clenched teeth. "I want to understand your reasoning behind why you just picked and ran away."
"Oh, so you want to make this a session, do you?" Chris flicked his eyes toward Linda; she looked absolutely ready to unleash her fury. "Okay, fine. We'll play your way. You want to know why I'm here? Let's start with the fact that ever since I was a child, you've had absolute control over everything I've done, You have barely given any thought to what I want, because you're convinced that I'm a complete dud when it comes to living my own life." She stood to her feet, baring her teeth.
"And when I finally find happiness that is outside of your watchful eye, you brutally tear me away from it and carry on with your life like nothing happened, ignoring the fact that I was basically on the verge of committing suicide from the amount of trauma you inflicted on me." Chris shifted in his seat, the thought of Linda killing herself settling uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. Ulysses didn't seem be bothered by her tone nor her words.
"So you felt trapped," he said calmly.
"Suffocated is more like it."
"And now that you've come here, you feel free?"
"I AM free. You may think you're going to just make me do what you want, but I promise you that if you even try to take me back home, I will fight you with every ounce of strength I have, because I'm not leaving Chris again." The silence after her threat was almost unbearable.
"That's not up to you," Ulysses finally answered. "You're a minor, I have control over you legally."
"Is that supposed to frighten me?"
"That's supposed to make you think twice about what you're doing. You're leaving here with me today."
"If you take me home, I'll just run away again."
"And I will find you and bring you home."
"And I promise you that if you do that on the day I turn eighteen, you will never see me again," Linda said almost so serenely, it was disturbing. Chris felt a chill at Ulysses's extremely cold expression.
"I don't know who you're trying to fool here, Linda, but I'll tell you right now: you won't be happy with this life," Ulysses said. "Look at this place," He motioned around the room. "The barn down the road from us has more class than this. You're used to a pampered life." His eyes slid to Chris, who was watching him closely. "Not some existence as a commoner." Chris's eyes narrowed.
"How. Dare. You ." The tension in the room thickened at the snarl in Linda's voice. "Do you really believe I'm so shallow that I would base my love for Chris and how happy I would be with him on the amount of money in his pocket?!"
"I'm just informing you of the facts. Chris wouldn't be able to give you the life that you deserve, Linda." She opened her mouth to reply.
"Linda," Chris said suddenly from his relaxed position in his chair. "Your father has a point." They both blinked at him in surprise. "You know, Doctor," he addressed Ulysses. "You're acting as though I'm not aware of the reality of where Linda and I are on the totem pole of society. Allow me, if you will, to tell you about it..."
"I come from a middle class -or in your opinion, poor- family, with four brothers -one who's a cross dresser, mind you- and a single mother who constantly harasses her sons for grandchildren." Linda's jaw dropped, but she barely had time to dwell on anything Chris had just said; his speech was speeding up with each word, as if his brain and mouth were in perfect working harmony, not skipping a single beat. "I'm an English major, which to most people means I'm automatically doomed to live in a box on the streets of London, though that also means I'm unbelievably good with manipulating words to my advantage, but who can put that on a resume? Me, I'm lucky that I even passed last term; I'm something of a moron, but that's a moot point. I'm nothing special in terms of looks; in fact, I consider myself painfully ordinary compared to most men."
He pointed to Linda, his words stronger and clearer, though still flowing out uncomprehendingly fast. "Linda, on the other hand, was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and an ability with numbers that would Einstein have a brain aneurysm. She makes some of the people in the mathematics department at the university look like complete and utter morons." She couldn't help but gape as she watched Chris's mouth move, his words still moving at lightening speed and flowing out smoothly into the open space like water in a stream. "You would expect someone with her mental prowess to look like a dog's wet blanket, but truthfully, she could probably wear a potato sack for the rest of her life and she would still be unbelievably hot." He stressed the last two words with a deep and sensual voice, and Linda briefly looked to see Ulysses's absolutely shocked expression.
"Are you trying to be funny?" He asked as he recovered from the surprise of Chris's words.
"Not at all, sir. Well, I'm glad that's cleared up." Chris clapped his hands together. "Feels good to know where we stand, doesn't it? So, enough about us. Now, if you don't mind, I have a question for you." Ulysses shot him a look to say he did mind, but Chris seemed to gloss right over it. "Why have you been setting Linda up all of these years, even though you knew she didn't want it?" Ulysses opened his mouth to answer, but seemed to think better and shut it.
"I don't have to explain myself to you."
"Then explain yourself to me," Linda said, sitting back down and crossing her legs. She put her hands under her chin and fixed her eyes on her father. For awhile, it looked as though Ulysses wasn't going to talk, but finally, he sighed and swallowed.
"There's a very deep history attached to that question." His voice was tight and soft and his knuckles were white from where he was clenching his fists. Chris leaned back in his seat, his hand to his mouth as his eyes swept Ulysses up and down, his mind working like a radar, pinpointing the tiniest details he could. As if he was poked with an electric prod, he shot back up straight in his seat, making Linda jump.
"Well, from what I've seen and experienced of you, sir, you're used to making the decisions and calling the shots. You have a strong sense of control and an almost innate ability to use your intimidation to get your way. However, you're not very skilled on how to handle getting dethroned by something underneath you, or in other words, beaten. How very much like my brother Rudy, and on that note, extremely typical of the oldest sibling." Linda shook her head.
"Sibling? No, he's the only chi-"
"But I'm going to guess that you don't have any family outside of Linda and Sarah," Chris rose his voice to drown her out. "Why else would you show up here trying to convince her to come back without your wife by your side? Simple: you're about to lose the only family your have for good. So, I'm going to guess that you've been on your own for quite a long time, probably since you were our age or even earlier. So what happened to make it that way?"
Ulysses's jaw hung as Chris stood to his feet, put his hands behind his back and started to stroll.
"From what I've come to understand after many conversations with Linda, she doesn't know much about your family, which doesn't make sense, yet it does." He tilted his head. "It doesn't make sense because she's your daughter; after all, she would have to meet someone from your side eventually, but it does make sense because why would you want her to know if you're hiding something…?" He could tell he hit a nerve; Ulysses looked as though he was about to faint.
"Ah, but here's where it gets interesting," Chris said with a small smile. "I noticed when I introduced my brothers, your reactions to them were very different. You didn't pay Aaron much mind –who would, he's about as interesting as watching cows eat grass." He rolled his eyes. "But you made sure to guard yourself against Henry and you almost went at him for ruffling Linda's hair. I know he looks like the type that could snap her in half like a twig, but in truth, he's the biggest wimp that has ever walked the face of this Earth, so you have nothing to worry about." He waved his hand dismissively. "But your intense reaction to him told me that he reminds you of someone- someone that left a mark on your memory." Linda looked at Ulysses, who was pale as a ghost, his expression a cross between bewilderment and awe.
"So, the question is, what could've happened in your past to teach you that in order to ensure your piece of mind when it came to your daughter's love life, you make sure and have complete and total control over how everything plays out?" Chris stopped and spun around.
"This has to do with your sister, doesn't it?" Linda stared in disbelief, lost for words. She started to open her mouth to say something to her father, but at his deep expression of grief, she stopped herself.
"Her name was Jane." The words came out slow and strangled. "She was my younger sister. We were both set up by our parents to get married- me to Sarah, her to a young man named Charles. But when she went off to university, she met a man named Daniel. He was…such a charmer. He captivated Jane, made her feel as though she was experiencing life for the very first time. She told our parents over holiday that she wasn't going to be with Charles anymore and that Daniel had asked her to marry him. And the crazy part is…my parents were happy." Ulysses chuckled bitterly. "They were happy that their daughter had found someone she loved. But they didn't know him...none of us knew him."
"Boy, he knew how to play us like a fiddle." Ulysses smacked his lips. "He really took her places..."
"And one of those places he took her was to the grave," Chris said softly. "He killed her, didn't he?" Ulysses cleared his throat.
"He snapped one night when they were having an argument and he-" He put a hand to his mouth, making a sound of what sounded like pain. After a few seconds, he lowered his hand. "We could barely recognize her when he was finished. He didn't just kill her, but he killed the child that she was carrying, too." Linda gasped softly, her eyes filling with tears as she watched him wince like he was reliving the pain all over again.
"My father was...so torn up about it. I remember that he used to just walk around the house, as if he was in trance, looking for Jane. Well, after a few weeks, it finally sunk in what happened and he locked himself away and shot himself as we were begging him to open the door. My mother, in utter despair, hung herself about a month later and before I knew it…it was just me. I lost my entire family all because of one. Reckless. Mistake."
"Sarah and I promised to not speak about it," he continued after a very lengthy pause. "When Linda was born, I made a vow within myself that I would never, ever lose her the way I lost my sister. I came to the conclusion that Jane and my whole family would still been alive if she had stayed with Charles and went through with the arranged marriage. So I took a page from my father's book, except I made no room for error, no room for a mistake. I did, however, make a miscalculation..." He looked up at Chris, a low fire of hatred in his eyes. "You." The men stared at each other and even though Chris knew that he was really the target of Ulysses's hatred, he couldn't help but feel sorry for the man sitting in the armchair. There was a lot of pain in his past, and it was because of him letting his pain rule him that he was sitting there trying to put together his broken family.
"That's where you're wrong, Father," Linda said, drawing her father's gaze toward her. "Chris wasn't your miscalculation…Fate was." She stood to her feet and walked around the table to Chris's side, taking his hand in hers.
"Meeting Chris wasn't a coincidence. It was an arrangement." She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.
"You don't seriously believe that?"
"The universe is rarely so lazy," Linda replied gently. "We may make our plans and have a formula of how our life is going to play out, but sometimes...Fate has a different idea." She showed Ulysses their joined hands. "A better one." Ulysses slowly stood to his feet, looking to their hands before looking to Linda, his expression unreadable.
"I hope you realize what you're giving up by walking away from your mother and I." The door opened and Aaron, Henry and Ruth stood with baskets full of vegetables, all of them looking sheepishly in on the scene. Linda smiled at them.
"But I realize what I'm gaining," she replied tenderly. Chris's family seemed to know what she meant, and they all smiled back.
"Well," Ulysses said. "I..." He suddenly turned around and everyone moved to let him out of the door. Linda and Chris stared at each other; was he just walking away? She ran after him, stopping on the porch.
"Father!" He stopped walking and slowly turned around to face her, an expression of utter sadness in his eyes; he really was walking away and leaving her behind. What would Sarah think? "I'm sorry." And she really was. As much as she wanted to please both Chris and her father, it just wasn't possible. She could finally say that she had made her choice...and she choose a life by Chris's side.
"You've chosen your side, Linda," Ulysses said with an air of disappointment. "It's no use trying to stop you if you're going to just fight back each time. I hope you're happy with the life you've chosen." With a sigh, he turned around again and got into the limousine, and Linda watched with a heavy heart at it drove off down the dirt road and into the distance. She walked down the steps and onto the lawn, letting the wind take a tear that had fallen down her cheek.
She felt a hand lay on her shoulder.
"You're very brave, you know," Chris said softly as he slipped his arms around her waist to draw her back into his chest. He rest his chin on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you."
She sniffled. "I hope he can forgive me one day." His lips brushed against her cheek and he tightened his grip around her waist. The quiet moment was broken as they heard Aaron, Henry and Ruth coming to meet them.
"Is your father coming back, Linda?" Ruth asked when they came to a stop.
"No," she said. Chris released her and they turned around to face them. "Mrs. Holmes, do you mind if I stay here for a couple of days until I figure out, um." She looked down sadly. "What I'm going to do next?" Ruth looked very thoughtful, and then looked to the sons standing next to her.
"You know, the summertime is a perfect time for a wedding," she said suddenly. Aaron and Henry smiled at her.
"I agree, a splendid time," Aaron said, looking back to Chris and Linda.
"As perfect of a time as any," Henry confirmed with a nod and wink.
"Okay, everyone, thank you for your input about our future," Chris said with an air of light amusement. "But Linda and I aren't the slightest bit ready to be married." All of the family looked to Linda, and a slow, sweet smile crept onto her face.
"You know, Linda Holmes doesn't sound too bad to me." His head snapped toward her in both shock and surprise.
"Me neither," Aaron agreed.
"Rolls off of the tongue like honey from a comb." Henry's grin was a mile long.
"To think I'll have a daughter!" Ruth clapped her hands together. "Oh, I'm so excited I could just burst!" Chris made a noise of exasperation.
"Wait, now, hold on a minute!" Everyone turned to look at him. He stood with his jaw hanging, a look of utter confusion on his face. "What the bloody hell are you all talking about?!"
"About you and Linda getting married." Henry, for once, looked at Chris like he was the complete idiot.
"What?!" Linda felt sorry for Chris; he looked as though he was about to either faint, have a heart attack, throw up or do all three. "Since when do you all get a say in that?!"
"Are you saying you don't want to marry Linda, Christopher?" Ruth asked as she eyed him with a stern stare.
"Of course I want to marry her." He felt his face turn red. He couldn't believe that he was actually having this conversation. It was the stuff that his worst nightmares were made of. "But for God's sake, it's OUR relationship!" He motioned between him and Linda. "WE are supposed to decide when the time would be to get married! And you also have to remember that Linda is underage; we can't get married even if we wanted to."
"I'll be eighteen at the end of July," Linda said. "We can get married right before we go back to term."
"Splendid," Henry said with a clap of his hands and a smile to Ruth and Aaron, who nodded in agreement.
"You're serious?" Chris asked with an extremely surprised look to Linda. "You actually want to get married?"
"Yes, of course I do," she said.
"Don't you think this is happening a little too quickly?"
"We're going to get married someday, why not just do it now?" The family beamed at her response and Chris paused.
"What about our educations?" He finally asked after a few seconds.
"Plenty of people get married when they're in university," Linda said. "If you're worried about paying for our terms, I got offered a scholarship before I left. I can pay my own way, I just have to pull some strings."
"But after we leave for the summer, where are we going to live?"
"You can always live here until you graduate," Ruth offered.
"Or better yet," Aaron chimed in as Chris's face drained of color at her offer. "You can live in the old summer house when you're home. It needs work, but Henry and I will help you fix it up and clean it out." Henry nodded.
"And when you go back each term, you can live in the married couple dormitory. See? Simple." Chris blinked at Henry's statement - he wasn't used to hearing so much logical thinking come out of his mouth. It was almost surreal.
"So, what do you think?" Ruth asked hopefully. Everyone looked to Chris, who looked as though he was a little irritated at the fact that everyone was ganging up on him. He sighed for a long time before answering.
"I don't have a ring," he said to Linda.
"I don't need a ring."
"She doesn't need a ring," Henry parroted.
"But it's the principle of the matter!" Chris practically shouted. "I know this may come as a shock to you two sacks of bones," he said with a glare toward his brothers. "But when you ask a woman to marry you, you're supposed to give her a ring!"
"Chris, a marriage isn't made by a ring. You can always get me one later," Linda said in an attempt to calm him down.
"There, seeeeeee? Pressure's off," Henry said, going up to Linda grabbing her in a hug, which she happily accepted. "Welcome to the family, Linda." He nosily and sloppily kissed her cheek.
"Oh, my baby boy is getting married!" Ruth sniffled, wiping at her eye. "There's so much to do! We have to book a hall, and get a list together of who's coming, and start looking for a gown for Linda…"
"Can't believe this rubbish," Chris grumbled loudly. "Damn family has to make me look like an arse, didn't even get to ask her myself-" Linda swiftly and painfully nudged in the side with her elbow, making sure to hit his ribs.
"Behave," she snapped lowly and Chris quieted down as they all walked back up to the house and listened to Ruth go on and on about wedding plans...
"Lin, could you come out here and help me with something, please?"
Linda looked up from the gardening book that she was casually scanning through in her room – who knew that flowers could be utterly fascinating- and her eyes slid to the clock at the bedside.
What in the world could Chris need help with at almost midnight?
Setting the book aside, she got up and walked out to the hallway, following the light that was coming from the sitting room. Maybe he wanted her to look over another poem or an excerpt from a book that he was thinking about writing. He was doing quite of a bit of-
She stopped and stared at the sight of the sitting room. The couch, the table where the chessboard was usually sitting and some of the other random furniture had been moved out of the way and in the very middle of the small space sat the red armchair. Chris was standing by a black chalkboard, his hands behind his back and an extremely serious expression on his face.
A million different questions raced through her mind, but only one seemed to make its way out of her mouth.
"Where in the world did you get that?" she asked, pointing to the chalkboard.
"We've always had it," he said with a light shrug. "It was just hiding away. I need you to help me with a maths problem."
Silence.
"A maths problem," she repeated flatly.
"Yes." He gestured to the armchair that was sitting in front of the chalkboard. "Have a seat."
She folded her arms and bit her lip. "What are you up to?"
"What do you mean?"
"You never want to do maths; you act as though someone is drawing blood from you when you're even asked what two plus two is."
His facial expression didn't change as he pointed to the chair. "Just come sit. I need your full attention for this."
Though she was suspicious –and slightly nervous for some unknown reason-, she walked to the chair and took a seat, folding her hands in her lap neatly.
"I want to show you a problem that I've been working on and see what you think about it."
She blinked and tried to keep her expression neutral. "All right, then."
He took a deep breath and picked up a piece of chalk. "An estimated three billion people are alive on this planet right now." He wrote the number three billion on the board. "Now, how many of that number do you estimate that I could meet?"
He paused and Linda felt her mind literally start to run away with itself as it began to crunch and come up with an answer.
"This is just an estimation, but maybe less than four percent or so. I could narrow it down with an algorithm-"
"Not necessary," Chris interrupted with a smile. "We'll just run with that." He turned back around and wrote "4 percent" on the board. "Now, four percent of three billion is..."
"One hundred and twenty million," Linda replied automatically.
"Excellent." Chris wrote it down. "So, for simplicity's sake, I'll divide that number by two to separate the women from the men...that's sixty million."
"You do understand that's not an accurate number."
"Yes, of course, I know that, but I'm just trying not to give myself too much of a headache with this."
She felt her lips curl into a grin.
"Now, of this number," he contined. "How much do you estimate are between the ages of seventeen and nineteen?"
"Three, maybe four percent? You might want to go with four to allow some room for error." Where in the world is he going with this, she thought to herself as he wrote it down. "And four percent of sixty million is two million, four hundred thousand," she said before he could ask her for the answer.
"Thank you for that." He turned around. "Now, we have to factor in another percentage: those that can't speak English well. After all, I have to be able to talk to the other person, don't I?"
"Uh," Linda said with a shrug, not sure how to really response to his tongue-in-cheek statement. "I suppose so."
"I remember that someone in maths last term said that an estimated six percent of the world's population can speak English, which leaves a staggering ninety-four percent that can't. I don't know if that's true or not, but for the sake of this demonstration, I'm going to use that number."
"Chris-"
"Would you like to tell me what the final number is?" Chris stepped back and Linda rolled her eyes, looking over the numbers. The scrawl popped off the chalkboard and floated in midair and as though they had minds of their own, they moved and raced across her vision. She heard herself mumbling to keep up with them as they zoomed around and provided her with the final glowing answer.
"One hundred and forty-four thousand, give or take."
"So that means that I have a dating pool of one hundred and forty-four thousand women open to me." Chris actually looked slightly impressed by the number and Linda clenched her jaw.
"And you're about to be out in that pool unless you tell me what you're up."
"Now, now, don't get angry; I'm going somewhere with this," he said patiently, walking up to the board again looking over the numbers again in silence. "Now, here's where it gets interesting: I estimate that maybe three percent of that group has half the smarts that you do."
He turned around and started to walk toward her. "I also estimate that only two percent of this group will inspire me to become the best man that I can be. And only six percent of this group will love me the way you have loved me and will appreciate the hell I went through to get these numbers."
Linda would've laughed at that comment, but at the look of utter seriousness on Chris's face, it quickly died in her throat.
"And only a measly one percent of that group could bring the happiness and joy that you have brought into my life," he finished as he stopped in front of her. She furiously looked between the board and Chris, her mind absolutely blank for what to say. That was a rather elaborate way of telling her that she was part of a small percentage of women that were a match for him. But what was the purpose with going through all of that trouble?
"No amount of statistics and numbers could possibly calculate how perfect you are for me, Linda," he said softly, gently reaching to take her hands and pull her to her feet. "I'm not a logical thinker like you are, but I know this: by most people's standards, we shouldn't be together, but we are. And I want to make sure that we're never apart again." With a nervous smile, he slowly got down on one knee and she felt her heart lunch in her chest, an extremely soft sob catching in her throat as she looked between him and the numbers for a few seconds.
The gears of her mind grinded to a halt as it finally sank in what was happening.
"You did all of this to propose?" she asked with a soft laugh.
"Well, I wasn't about to let the family steal my thunder," he said with a soft laugh, letting go of her hands to reach into his back pocket. "You deserve to be asked for your hand in marriage properly. So…with all of this said." The small ring box opened to reveal a simple diamond ring with a white gold band that winked in the dim light of the room.
"I know that we're young and that we haven't been together very long, but I know that deep down that I will love another woman as much as I love you, Linda."
She sniffled.
"I can't promise you that our life together will be easy, but you can be assured that I will never regret the price that I had to pay for you. You were worth every second of the wait, heartache, loneliness and bliss."
"Oh, Chris," she whispered, wiping furiously at the tears that were already running down her cheeks.
"I don't have a dime to my name to give you, but for right now, I want to give you something that I think has more worth and value…my heart. Will you marry me?"
"Yes!" Linda barely could hold herself back from sobbing out her answer. "Yes, of course I will marry you!" Her vision was completely blurry with tears, but she saw the shape of Chris get to his feet and take her left hand to slip the ring on her finger. They shared a tender kiss to seal the moment.
"It's beautiful," she said through a soft hiccup after a couple of seconds of staring at her hand.
"I'm glad you like it." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead, hugging her tightly. As they stood together in the silence of the sitting room, Linda felt as though she was taking off in flight for the first time and leaving behind the cage of her former life.
She had a new destiny awaiting her: to become a Holmes.