Chapter 3

"The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself." Shannon L. Alder

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Chapter Three

Luke had been momentarily comforted by the sound of Isabella's voice. It was such a nice sound to hear after months of incessant frustration.

But then he had heard her tone of voice. She had only said his name, but her tone told him perfectly what she was thinking. She felt sorry for him. She was frowning sadly.

Luke did not want Isabella to feel sorry for him. He did not want her to see him looking like a newborn fawn, stumbling about and looking like a fool, relying on a nurse to help him perform basic daily activities.

Luke knew that Isabella would gladly perform Mary's duties as nurse. She had a sweet heart. But he could not let her do that. He did not want Isabella to take care of him. He was the one who was supposed to take care of her.

The fact that he was paying Mary to be his nurse made it acceptable to him.

Luke held his arm out in front of him as he walked, as though he were expecting a wall to appear in front of him, even though Mary was leading him. It was so daunting, so frightening, to put one foot in front of the other when he did not know where he was walking.

Of course, he knew the layout of his childhood home fairly well, but it had been many years since he had walked these halls.

"Can she see me?" Luke asked Mary warily. He did not want anyone seeing him reaching out into thin air like he was.

"No, Captain," replied Mary.

"You did not need to be so harsh with her," Matthew scolded him.

Luke had momentarily forgotten that his brother was walking with them. He did believe that his hearing had improved in the last few months, but it still startled him when someone did not announce themselves.

"I know," Luke replied. "But Isabella is my wife. She is not my nurse. It needs to stay that way."

Luke would never be able to look Isabella in the eye if she had to help him button his shirt in the mornings. Luke nearly laughed. What a joke. He would never be able to look her in the eye anyway.

He could not look his wife in the eye because he had been hit in the eye by a bloody splinter.

Luke then asked a question that he was afraid to know the answer to. "Was she holding him? Was she holding Jamie?" Had he been in the presence of his son? Had he been mere inches away from his son without knowing it? Had this damned blindness cost him his first moments with his son? Was his son's first memory of him been one where his naval hero father turned out to be nothing more than a blind buffoon?

"Mrs Cassidy was holding a child when we arrived, Captain," Mary informed him.

"But Isabella gave him to Mother so that she could help you. Or try to help you," Matthew added. "Jamie was not there when you rudely rebuffed his mother's help."

Luke scowled in the direction of his brother's voice. For all he knew, he could have been glaring at a wall. "You do not get to judge my choices, brother. Show Mary where my bedroom is and then go back downstairs to see your children and to see your wife."

Luke could hear Matthew exhale in a way that told him he was shaking his head. Matthew opened a door and Luke walked with Mary towards the sound of the hinges squeaking slightly.

Luke stopped when a hand gripped his upper arm. "I am sorry that this happened to you," Matthew said sincerely, "but it is not going to get any easier for you if you push away the people who love you."

Of course Luke knew that Matthew was right. It would make his entire transition back into civilian life very simple if he could lean on each one of his family members as he moved from room to room. But what kind of man would that make him?

He already felt like an incompetent slug. He had lost count of the teacups that he had broken and the number of times that he had stubbed his toes.

Luke did not need his family viewing him the way he viewed himself.

Mary left him momentarily to close the door. She then returned and took his arm. "This is a lovely room," she commented. "Much nicer than your hospital room in London."

But his hospital room had been easier to memorise. It had been six paces from the door to his bed. Four paces from his bed to the basin.

This room would be much harder to memorise.

"What did he look like?" Luke asked Mary.

"Who?"

"My son."

"He looked like a little boy," she replied softly. "I am sorry, Captain, my attention was on you. I did not take much notice of your son."

Luke accepted that. "Thank you for agreeing to continue on with me, Mary. I do appreciate it. I know that I am not the most grateful patient." Mary truly had kept him sane these last few months.

"It is my pleasure, Captain," said Mary kindly. "I have treated number of visually impaired patients before you and I know exactly how difficult the transition is. I will help you in any way I can."

Over the next hour, Mary helped Luke to pace the room. From the door, it was twenty paces to the bed. From the bed, it was nine paces to the basin, and right beside that was the dressing table. The dressing table to not affect him, though Mary felt it necessary to observe that it was covered in scent bottles, hair pins, and combs, as though she was surprised that Isabella might be residing in this room also.

Luke was unsure of how Isabella would feel about sharing a bedroom with him after how he had spoken to her. If she was uncomfortable then he would gladly move.

But if Isabella could understand that he did not want her having anything to do with his care then he did believe that some sort of harmony could be found.

By mid-afternoon, Mary left Luke sitting on the settee in the bedroom to go down to luncheon with the servants.

Luke nervously felt along the length of the settee, trying to remember exactly how long the piece of furniture was, and just where it was situated in the room.

It was eerie to be sitting in silence when he could not see anything. When he listened hard enough, he could hear the faint sounds of birds singing outside. He could hear the very faint rattle of the window panes as the breeze blew against the house. He could hear the soft crackles that the dying embers in the fire place were making.

When he leant on one of the settee cushions, he felt something hard. Luke pulled the cushion away and stored it on the other side of himself. He had misjudged the depth of the settee as he heard the cushion fall on the floor. Nevertheless, he found the hard object that he had leant on. It was cool and thin, and about the length of his hand. He felt for the finer details of the object, and he was fairly sure that it was a tin soldier.

He and Matthew had had several tin soldiers when they were boys. This either belonged to William ... or it belonged to Jamie. Was he holding one of his son's toys?

***

"The poor man lost his eyesight, Isabella," Eleanor said softly.

Isabella was being comforted by her sisters at the bottom of the stairs. She needed to stop crying before Jamie saw her again. Isabella fanned her face in an effort to reduce how swollen her eyes were becoming. "I want to help him! Why will he not let me help him? I am his wife! I know that we were not married for long before he left to return to the war but we are still married."

"Isabella, he is a man with an ego," Annaliese explained simply. "You just have to give him a chance to adjust. When he is ready, he will ask for your help. You just have to let him fail on his own for a little bit."

Isabella wanted to laugh, but the fact of the matter was that Luke was not alone. "He has Mary, or Nurse Mary. He allows her to help." Isabella did not mean to sound like a jealous and bitter wife, but she could not help it.

Her life had inadvertently changed forever, and she was not allowed a say, and she was not allowed to do anything to help.

"She is a nurse; you are his wife. There is a difference. If I know anything about men, it is that they do not want to appear weak or vulnerable in front of women, especially women that they love." Annaliese rubbed Isabella's back comfortingly. "I would wager that Luke, the naval hero that he is, feels very much emasculated by having to rely on others."

"Emasculated?" Isabella repeated.

Annaliese chuckled. "Matthew feels emasculated when he has a cold and I have to feed him soup. He gets over it eventually, and so will Luke. I know that Luke's injury is far more serious, but he will get used to it, and he will allow you to be a part of his recovery. Just give him time. He is adjusting to his new reality. We all must adjust, including you. You need to decide how you feel about this, Isabella."

What did it matter how Isabella felt? She could still see perfectly fine. She could only imagine that the feelings on the matter were very similar to Luke's. She felt very sad for him. They both had to grieve what might have been and learn to live with what was now normal. She felt devastated that Luke would miss out on properly seeing Jamie, and she feared that this horrid injury would change him in a way that the man she married, and the man she had described to Jamie, would disappear.

Why could that horrid little splinter not have cut the side of his face? Why his eye? A little scar would have been nothing.

"Shall we go and find the others?" Eleanor suggested. "Perhaps Commander Lockwood might be able to tell us a little more about what happened."

Just as Isabella was about to agree, she heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. She immediately thought it might have been Luke being escorted back to his family. Isabella quickly scurried out into the foyer to see who it was. She immediately was disappointed when it was Mary descending alone.

When Mary noticed Isabella standing at the bottom of the stairs, she smiled slightly. "I was just going down to luncheon," she explained. "I have left Captain Cassidy in his bedroom for a short while."

"Right, of course," Isabella said, nodding. He was alone. Isabella wondered if she should steal upstairs for a minute or two.

"If you go through that door there," Annaliese instructed Mary, pointing to one of the servants' doors that was concealed in the wood panelling of the foyer, "you will have access to the internal staircase that the servants use to get about the house. Just go down stairs and you will come to the kitchen. Our cook will be happy to prepare you something."

Mary smiled gratefully at Annaliese. "Thank you, milady."

"Not at all," replied Annaliese.

Just as Mary was about to open the door, she paused. "Mrs Cassidy, do you mind if I speak with you for a moment?" she asked quietly.

"Of course," Isabella said eagerly.

Annaliese and Eleanor took this as their cue to leave. "We will be in the drawing room, Isabella." With that, they left the foyer, leaving Isabella and Mary alone.

"We have not been formally introduced," Mary realised. "I am Mary Smith. I worked as a nurse in Captain Cassidy's hospital wing and he asked me to accompany him home as his private nurse."

Mary spoke with such a kind, tender, and patient tone, but every jealous fibre in Isabella's being disliked it. Nevertheless, she put on a smile. "I am Isabella Cassidy," she replied. "Thank you for tending to my husband so diligently, Nurse Smith."

"Oh, Mary, please," requested Mary sweetly. "After all, we are to be spending quite some time together."

Isabella did her best to remain smiling, though she was sure that her facial expression was that of someone who was being subjected to torture. "Yes, well, I suppose we will learn to share the responsibility of caring for my husband. Perhaps I could learn a few things about nursing from you." Regardless of how she felt about the woman, Mary still had knowledge that Isabella could benefit from.

Mary pursed her lips. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about, Mrs Cassidy," she said awkwardly. "I must ask you to refrain from visiting Captain Cassidy."

Isabella took a step back and raised her eyebrows. "Pardon me?"

Mary smiled sympathetically. "I understand your position, Mrs Cassidy, believe me. But I have been a nurse to a few blind patients now and I do know what I am talking about. I truly believe that your presence in these initial stages will only affect Captain Cassidy negatively. You and your son remind him of his former life, Mrs Cassidy. You remind him of what he had, and that makes him miserable."

As much as Isabella did not want to agree with what Mary had to say, she could see the logic. Of course she reminded Luke of what he once had. He was supposed to return home from war to his family. They had been planning their futures through letters for years. They were going to purchase a home nearby. They were going to expand their family. They were going to be happy.

Now, to Luke, that was all gone.

"Are you saying that I make him miserable? That our son makes him miserable?" Isabella asked the latter in disbelief. How could Jamie make him miserable? Luke had been so excited to see him.

To see him, she realised. Luke could not see Jamie.

"Yes, Mrs Cassidy. I am sorry to say it, but yes," confirmed Mary. "Just please do take my advice. Stay away from Captain Cassidy for the time being. It is what is best."

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Hang on a sec, Mary. I don't recall Luke disclosing that to you. What are you up to? Hehehehe

I have spent a lot of time today walking around my house with my eyes closed trying to get into Luke's character. His bedroom in my mind is about the size of my living and dining room so I'm just pacing around, counting how long it takes me to get across the room.

Then I muted the TV and sat in my recliner with my eyes closed just listening to what I could hear. I could hear the fountain from my pool going, and I could hear the wind blowing against my house.

Anyway, I hope this chapter was okay! I started writing this this last night but I was so tired that I was writing sentences that did not make sense lol, so I thought I better write when I'm fully conscious hehe.

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