![All We Have Are Each Other](res/uploads/stories/1614a6ab100a9c_joinkelmghpfq_818.jpeg)
All We Have Are Each Other
![JPYoung](res/uploads/avatars/jpyoung-7555-60133b0241629.jpeg)
Doc and Tory Sanford had had another tiff.
It was a sad end to a beautiful August day in their coastal town. The coral trees were ablaze with red petals, looking brilliant against the sun beating on the town's traditional dry brown stone walls that lined the country roads and marked the boundaries of the family-owned farms. Here and there a cherry tree had burst forth with bright pink blossoms. As there had been rain, the grass seemed to glow in magnificent green, as an American soldier had once described England, it was so green it hurt the eyes. Amongst the green paddocks, contented looking brown horses admired the blue seaside views towards the East and the green forested hills towards the Wast.
Doc, a former Canadian, had received a lucrative redundancy payout from the Commonwealth Public Service and the pair did a 'sea change', moving to a beautiful coastal town. The pair were so close that their fellow employees at the Council of the coastal town where the pair of them worked together referred to them with one name-'DocTory', in a parody of the 1960s jungle show Daktari. The Council was glad to engage Doc who used his former experience as an Ontario Provincial Policeman combining Canadian courtesy with police force mental and rarely physical expertise to diffuse any trouble. Tory was one of the many efficient administrative assistants the Council had; they had so many that they didn't mind having Tory don a Ranger blouse and wide brimmed hat in order to ride with her husband on occasion. Doc teasingly called her 'Danger Rangerette'.
Doc commented on one of Tory's observations with a sarcastic remark. Tory lost her loving mood and took offence. Her shrill response surprised Doc and destroyed his wonderful mood. The event occurred near their finishing time; their bickering stopped once they entered the small town lest they become something new for the townspeople to gossip about.
Doc, as he preferred to be called because his first two initials were 'D' and 'R', went for a drive in his car to cool down. Tory, as what she was called by her friends instead of her first name Victoria, went over to her best friends and next-door neighbours, the older retired couple Phil and Fran Danté.
Doc and Tory took to their eccentric neighbours like a duck to water. The Danté's were both retired Commonwealth Public Servants, and Phil had military and private investigation experience as Doc did. Doc and Phil became not only friends, but confidants, with the latter sometimes acting as a mentor. Though Tory was older than the couple's daughter who was an Air Force officer in another state, at times Fran became Tory's surrogate mother and the latter became the former's surrogate daughter, other times the pair were equals in their friendship.
Franco and Ciccia, the Danté's pigeon pair of miniature poodles rushed barking to the door to greet their visitor...
* * *
The two girlfriends faced each other over a tea set and a plate of biscuits as a sometimes-tearful Tory related her husband's unacceptable remarks. When she stopped to drink some tea, Fran responded,
'Phil can be...he is...very cruel at times. He doesn't mean to hurt anyone with his words, but he does...when I point out how hurtful he really is, he's truly surprised and he's actually shocked and genuinely remorseful...but he's more The Manchurian Candidate than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...he really doesn't know what he's doing until it's too late. He's emotionally retarded.'
'Why do you accept it?'
'I love him...He continually tells me that no one has ever loved him like I love him. It sounds like something out of a trite romantic novel, but there you go...'
'You sound like him sometimes...'
Phil used that phrase when concluding an anecdote. Whether there was an ending to the story or not, he thought the matter was finished when he pronounced 'There you go'.
'I've picked a lot of things up from him, his phrases, communicating without speaking, his sense of dark humour...I have to stop him from finishing what I'm going to say, as I believe we're somehow telepathic together.'
'Did you ever think you'd ever meet anyone like him?'
She gently laughed, but her eyes showed that her mind was taking her back through the past...
'Girls of my generation had Barbie and Ken dolls, and I was no exception; my father who frequently travelled would bring them home to me after his overseas trips. My mother made such beautiful clothes for them, and I kept playing with my dolls longer than most girls. Every outfit that my mother made for them was like a special gift...which it was...Then in the middle sixties the entire world loved James Bond 007, and I was no exception, I worshipped Sean Connery as every girl did...'
Tory smiled and nodded.
'When they came out with a James Bond doll, I had to have one, and my father bought one for me. I was thrilled to death. Poor Ken went to second place, he'd be the loser in my love triangle, for I was Barbie, and Ken was now the tradesman fixing something in our dream dollhouse.'
Tory giggled.
'Have you ever seen a 1960s James Bond doll, Tory?'
She shook her head and sipped her tea.
'He was very much like Ken, except his head was sort of a rubber mask of Sean Connery, like the one at the beginning of From Russia with Love. His arms and legs were like Ken and Barbie's, straight, no joints, attached to the shoulders or hips, but James had one difference...His right-hand could hold his pistol. and when you moved his left arm, the right hand had a spring that would make it automatically shoot upwards.'
Fran imitated the motion, moving her left hand back and having her right hand shoot upwards, pointing her index finger imitating a pistol. Her best friend nodded in understanding.
'Of course, the first thing I wanted James to do was marry Barbie, and there was poor Ken conducting the service with James wearing Ken's dinner jacket...'
Tory wildly laughed.
'Literally poor James only came into my life like the way he swam ashore in Thunderball; he only had a T-shirt, swimming trunks, scuba mask, flippers and his gun of course, so he moved in and got all of Ken's clothes! He's just like Phil when he said, "I travel light, all I carry are my weapons and my wits", I replied "Yes, you do travel light", and we both broke out laughing and hugged each other.'
Both of them laughed.
'I invited Mama to the wedding of course, we both dressed up for it! I had poor Ken say the words as I imagined they'd be in the marriage ceremony, I didn't have a priest's outfit for Ken, so I had to force up the lapels of his suit as much as I could...'
Tory gave a cute 'awww'.
'That's just what my mother was probably thinking, but she was so proud and happy and as romantically excited as I was. I turned James and Barbie to each other and had Father Ken say, "You may now kiss the bride..."'
Tory wore a dreamy expression.
When I held James to move over and kiss Barbie, I must have moved his left arm. His right arm shot up to give Barbie an uppercut and he knocked her down, just like the beginning of Thunderball...'
Tory held her hands to her wide-eyed face and gasped.
'Mama broke out laughing and I started crying! Mama held me in her arms as she always did when I cried. She whispered in my ear, "Someday the man who loves you the most will hurt you the most. If you really love him, you'll forgive him, because that's how men really are, and that's how the women who really love them really are".'
Fran shrugged and gave a resigned look,
'What can I say? We're Italian...'
'I'm nobody's doormat!'
'Tory, has Doc ever...ever, been your doormat?'
The longer Tory took to reply, the bigger Fran smiled until the pair both broke up in laughter.
'How and where did you meet Phil?'
The couples had never told each other how they met their true love, they discussed everything else together, but not that, as if each one of them had a story that was too strange to be believed.
'It was like what the fortune tellers say, with the tall dark stranger walking in the room and you only have eyes for him, and he only has eyes for you...He was the nearest thing to James Bond that I had ever seen in my life. He swept me off my feet, and he told me I swept him off his feet...He didn't have to be in his uniform, I could tell he was a soldier. He was slim and fit and alert, we both were then, but he had that look in his eyes...'
When Tory gave a questioning expression, Fran held her left hand over her mouth pulling her head up and made the cutting of her throat motion with her right finger across her neck then gave Tory a glare. Tory gave a look of horror; Fran closed her eyes in sorrow and nodded.
'We fell in love with each other like a dream. I was always afraid to tell someone my feelings, but I knew he was the man for me so I told him of my love, and he let me know of his love for me, he didn't have to say it, I could sense it, and I knew it. Then one day, I was so afraid of never seeing him again due to his occupation, so I said something I thought would bring us together, something from my heart, I'll never tell anyone what I told him.'
Fran made the arm motions of her James Bond doll.
'He gave me a very hurtful sarcastic remark. I won't tell anyone what he said, but though he didn't mean to, it was as if he had held his hand over my mouth and thrust his commando dagger into my heart...I ran out screaming and crying like a child...'
Tory followed her with her eyes as if she was witnessing the entire thing.
'When I came home, one of Mama's neighbours telephoned me to say Mama was in the hospital, nothing serious, thank God. The next day I packed a suitcase and went to the railway station to catch the train to her home, and there Phil was, dressed in a suit and carrying a suitcase as I was. I just froze. He came up to me and begged my forgiveness. He told me he was nothing without me...'
She repeated the arm motions of her James Bond doll,
'I told him that two nothings make a something, without thinking. He took the parachute wings off his lapel and pinned them on me, I broke off one of Mama's flowers and put it in his lapel, and we rode the same train together and talked the entire time. I knew I had him forever, and though we later may have been apart, we were inseparable ever since...When we were on the train together my doll wedding and Mama's remarks came back to me...When I arrived at the hospital and went into her room, she noticed the parachute wings on the lapel of my suit and she couldn't wait to meet Phil! She said, "He's your man! Never let him go".'
Tory had a dreamy expression.
'Mama was fine and went home that afternoon, if I hadn't have gone to see her, I never would have seen Phil again so I wonder...', she looked skyward with a reverent look on her face, 'So that's Phil. He has an uncontrollable reflex of giving out a witty or sarcastic remark without thinking, like something moved his left arm. So that's all men, all real men...'
Fran repeated the motion of the James Bond doll.
'I can never tell anyone how I found out Doc was the man for me, I love him in spite of himself and I always will.'
Franco and Ciccia ran barking to the door for a new visitor.
'Speak of the devil', smiled Fran.
'And you'll step on his tail', replied Tory.
The doorbell rang.
Fran went to the door to find Tory's Doc. He looked sheepish and was holding a colourful bouquet of flowers.
'Is the merciful and forgiving lady of the house at home?'
Fran turned towards Tory and gave her a pleading look. Tory nodded, Fran winked.
'I'm so sorry, darling.'
The reconciled couple walked up to each other and warmly embraced.
The pair of poodles weren't getting their usual petting from Doc, who they could see was otherwise engaged.
The pair ran barking to the back door.
A sheepish looking Phil came in holding a bouquet. The three occupants warmly smiled. Phil held two fingers up behind his head,
'Some bunny loves you....', he looked at their visitors, 'How lovely to see you, DocTory!
Many people had remarked that Phil was the only straight man who ever used the word 'lovely'.
Doc held up his bouquet and everyone laughed.
'What's the occasion, Phil?', Doc smiled.
'I'm just celebrating how lucky I am, sometimes I forget.'
Fran ran into his arms. The poodles went on their hind legs to give a group hug to the couple.
'Sometimes I forget too', Doc replied.
The women gave their men a big hug that the men reciprocated.
'I do moderation in moderation...'
'We married late in life...', Fran explained to the Sanfords.
'And we've been making up for lost time ever since', quipped Phil.
Tory giggled as Fran slapped Phil on his backside for finishing her sentence.
Fran expertly stopped Phil's invitation for Doc to stay for tea by covering his mouth with her hand.
'I think our neighbours have a previous engagement', she removed her hand.
Phil's smile toward Tory was so enticing that she decided not to immediately leave. She loved Phil's warm brown eyes that looked so inviting, almost hypnotic. She recalled the time when Fran was over at her house where she told her that Phil was like a cobra, charming, but...
'You're always more than welcome here...I hope I haven't interrupted the girl talk.'
'Secret women's business', warmly smiled Fran as the pair went for another hug. 'Thé, mon cher?'
'Sì, prego, bell'angela.'
'We were discussing how Fran domesticated you.'
Fran's eyes became very wide as she looked at Tory, Tory shrugged and gave the arm motions of Fran's doll.
'She doesn't cry much, but when she does, she brings me to my knees. One day she said to me, "All we have are each other", and she was right.'
Doc and Tory looked in each other's eyes and repeated the phrase to each other.
'Never forget that...I try not to...', Phil added.
Their visitors also simultaneously proclaimed,
'Phil and Fran forever!'
The poodles escorted them to the door.
'You don't have to see us out, I see you've got your hands full, Phil.', Tory laughed.
'She is a real handful, but I wouldn't have her any other way.'
The embracing couple warmly watched their best friends leave, there would be another time...
She put his arm around his neck and jumped, Phil caught Fran in his arms.
'What am I going to do with you, Phillipe?'
'Tea can wait, Francesca...'
He carried his loving wife into another room of their house...
FIN
Author Notes: I am the author of three Extra Dimensional/Ultraterrestial military science fiction novels MERCENARY EXOTIQUE, OPERATION CHUPACABRA and WORK IN OTHER WORLDS FROM YOUR OWN HOME! as well as two travel books THE MAN FROM WAUKEGAN and TWO AUSTRALIANS IN SCOTLAND (all from Lulu.com). I live happily ever after with my wife in paradise (coastal Kiama, NSW Australia).
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