The Other Side of Midnight

"I didn't give you the title or a salary raise sooner because I didn't want it to scare you. But now you know you can do it."

"I don't know what to say," Catherine stammered. "I--you won't be sorry, Mr. Fraser."

"I'm sorry already. My assistants always call me Bill."

"Bill."

Later that night as Catherine lay in bed, she remembered how he had looked at her and how it had made her feel, and it was a long time before she was able to go to sleep.

Catherine had written to her father several times asking him when he was coming to Washington to visit her. She was eager to show him around the city and introduce him to her friends and to Bill Fraser. She had received no reply to her last two letters. Worried, she telephoned her uncle's house in Omaha. Her uncle answered the phone.

"Cathy! I--I was just about to call you."

Catherine's heart sank.

"How's father?"

There was a brief pause.

"He's had a stroke. I wanted to call you sooner but your father asked me to wait until he was better."

Catherine gripped the receiver.

"Is he better?"

"I'm afraid not, Cathy," her uncle's voice said. "He's paralyzed."

"I'm on my way," Catherine said.

She went in to Bill Fraser and told him the news.

"I'm sorry," Fraser said. "What can I do to help?"

"I don't know. I want to go to him right away, Bill."

"Of course." And he picked up a telephone and began to make calls. His chauffeur drove Catherine to her apartment, where she threw some clothes into a suitcase, and then took her to the airport, where Fraser had arranged a plane reservation for her.

When the plane landed at the Omaha airport, Catherine's aunt and uncle were there to meet her, and one look at their faces told her that she was too late. They drove in silence to the funeral parlor and as Catherine entered the building she was filled with an ineffable sense of loss, of loneliness. A part of her had died and could never be recovered. She was ushered into the small chapel. Her father's body was lying in a simple coffin wearing his best suit. Time had shrunk him, as though the constant abrasion of living had worn him down and made him smaller. Her uncle had handed Catherine her father's personal effects, the accumulations and treasures of a lifetime, and they consisted of fifty dollars in cash, some old snapshots, a few receipted bills, a wristwatch, a tarnished silver penknife and a collection of her letters to him, neatly tied with a piece of string and dog-eared from constant reading. It was a pitiful legacy for any man to have left, and Catherine's heart broke for her father. His dreams were so big and his successes so small. She remembered how alive and vital he had been when she was a little girl and the excitement when he came home from the road with his pockets full of money and his arms full of presents. She remembered his wonderful inventions that never quite worked. It wasn't much to remember, but it was all there was left of him. There were suddenly so many things Catherine wanted to say to him, so much she wanted to do for him; and it would always be too late.

They buried her father in the small graveyard next to the church. Catherine had planned on spending the night with her aunt and uncle and taking the train back the next day, but suddenly she could not bear to stay a moment longer, and she called the airport and made a reservation on the next plane to Washington. Bill Fraser was at the airport to meet her, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to be there, waiting for her, taking care o

f her when she needed him.

He took Catherine to an old country inn in Virginia for dinner, and he listened while she talked about her father. In the middle of telling a funny story about him, Catherine began to cry, but strangely she felt no embarrassment in front of Bill Fraser.

He suggested that Catherine take some time off, but she wanted to keep busy, wanted to keep her mind filled with anything but the death of her father. She slipped into the habit of having dinner with Fraser once or twice a week, and Catherine felt closer to him than ever before.

It happened without any planning or forethought. They had been working late at the office. Catherine was checking some papers and sensed Bill Fraser standing in back of her. His fingers touched her neck, slowly and caressingly.

"Catherine..."

She turned to look up at him and an instant later she was in his arms. It was as though they had kissed a thousand times before, as though this was her past as well as her future, where she had always belonged.

It's this simple, Catherine thought. It's always been this simple, but I didn't know it.

"Get your coat, darling," Bill Fraser said. "We're going home."

In the car driving to Georgetown they sat close together, Fraser's arm around Catherine, gentle and protective. She had never known such happiness. She was sure she was in love with him, and it did not matter if he was not in love with her. He was fond of her, and she would settle for that. When she thought of what she had been willing to settle for before--Ron Peterson--she shuddered.