The smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted the newcomers. Annie descended the short flight of stairs from the kitchen to take Paul's arm. Her nose was pink and she wiped at it again with the crumpled tissue in her hand. "I...didn't know what else to do, so I made some coffee. I don't know if anybody wants any, but..." Her voice trailed off as she settled herself in the niche under Paul's arm. She pressed her cheek against his chest and mourned, "I just can't believe it. It's like some horrible dream, and I can't wake up."
"Jody and I will get the coffee, Annie," Skalany offered. "I know where the cups are. Caine and I were just here for supper with Peter and Ka--" Her lip trembled and she stumbled up the stairs, Jody following closely behind.
"Come in and sit down." Paul and Annie took seats on the couch, and Blake and Kermit followed suit in the other chairs.
"How's the kid doing?" Kermit asked soberly, noting the absence of Peter and Caine.
"He's not. Hasn't said a word since we left the precinct. Just walked in the apartment, went right into the spare room there, and shut the door." His craggy face had aged ten years. "His father's been with him, but there hasn't been a sound."
"It's a hard thing to lose your wife," Blake commented thoughtfully, almost to himself. "You're losing a whole group of people. Your best friend, your confidante, your teammate, your lover." His head dropped and he repeated, "It's a hard thing."
"You think he'll come out of this, Paul?" Kermit voiced the question on everyone's mind.
"I don't know, Kermit. Life has dealt Peter a lot of hard blows; he's lost a lot of people in his life. I just don't know."
Caine sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed. The palpable grief emanating from his son tore at his own heart as the memories of losing Laura swept over him.
At last Peter spoke, his voice flat and dull. "I should feel something, don't you think, Father?"
Caine's eyes opened and he found Peter staring straight ahead at the closed window shades, hands gripping the side rails on the chair as he rocked and rocked.
"I should feel that they're dead, but I don't. My heart has been ripped out of my body, but I don't feel anything. Don't you think that's strange, Father?"
"To lose a loved one is to lose a part of one's self."
"Why am I still breathing?" Peter asked wonderingly. "Why does my body keep on living when my mind says, 'Enough'?"
"Our lives are filled with beginnings and endings, joys and sorrows."
Peter rocked silently a moment, then said dully, "You told me once that I would have to choose my destiny, Father, but it has chosen me. This is my destiny, that I be the last. I'm sorry for you, that I was your only son, and that I have been such a disappointment."
"You have never disappointed me, my son. Never."
Peter shook his head in disagreement. "I was never good enough, even at the temple. The others always expected more of me because I was your son, and I never measured up to those expectations. When we found each other after fifteen years, and you saw I was a cop, I could tell you didn't approve of me, of what I'd become."
"I have never said such things to you," Caine protested, a pained expression on his face.
"You didn't have to. I could see it in your eyes. But I learned to live with it."
"My son, you are imagining these things. I have always been proud of you, always. Both at the temple and now, in the work you have chosen. I am proud of the man you have become."
Peter went on as if his father hadn't spoken. "Then, when I married, and was going to give you a grandchild, I thought, now, maybe now I could please you. Even that has been taken away from me. It's just the pattern of my life, don't you see, Father? If I dare love someone too much, they're taken away. I can't do it any more, Father. I can't."
"My son, it is only because of your grief that you speak this way. Your judgment is clouded."
The rocking abruptly stopped, and Peter hissed, "Is this what you did when Mother died? Spouted a few cryptic Shaolin phrases and meditated awhile?"
Caine flinched at the bitterness in Peter's tone. {At least he is speaking of it. If he allows the words to flow, the emotion will come.} "When your mother died, a part of me died, too. The sun has never shone as brightly. The winds have never blown as gently."
"I wish I'd been on that plane with them. I can't go on without them, Pop; I can't."
"You must go on," Caine urged quietly. "It is not time for your path to end."
Peter stared at him unblinkingly. "Maybe it is."
Caine stared back for one frozen moment, eyes burning fiercely. "Your grief is speaking, Peter. You must give yourself time."
"Time for what? To be reminded every day of all that I've lost?"
"Peter," Caine chose his words carefully. "You must allow yourself to grieve, to mourn, but you must go on."
"Why?" Peter rose stiffly to his feet. "I have no reason to go on. I have nothing." He pushed himself up from the chair and to his feet, scuffling over to the bed in the corner and opening a plastic sack that was lying on it. He took out a stuffed dog and cradled it in his arms. "This was going to be the baby's room. Did I tell you that before?" He brought the dog up to his face and rubbed his chin over it. "I just bought this for Baby yesterday. It was going to be his first toy." He turned to look at his father. "Did I have a first toy?"
Nodding slowly, Caine answered. "You also had a stuffed dog. You would not go to sleep without it. You had rubbed off most of the fur. The eyes were missing, but it gave you comfort to fall asleep with it in your arms."
Peter's head rocked back on his shoulders and his eyes closed tightly as he sank to his knees with a moan. "Oh, God! What do I do now? What do I do?"
Caine knelt beside his son and threw his arms around Peter. "You must let go, Peter. You must embrace the pain and let it go."
"I can't. I can't. If I let myself start to feel, I'll go over the edge. I'll be swallowed up." He buried his face against the stuffed animal still cradled in his arms. "Kacie."
Caine held his son tightly and murmured, "You must cherish her memory and remember her love, but she would want you to go on."
Peter stiffened in his father's embrace and he lifted his head, blinking rapidly. He cocked his ear to one side, listening. "Kacie?" His face turned to the door, his nose quivering like a wolf sensing the wind. "Kacie?" He pushed away from his father, dropping the stuffed dog to the floor as he jumped to his feet. "Kacie!"
Caine watched with sorrowful eyes as Peter sprang to the door and flung it open, before racing through it calling, "Kacie? Kacie!"
The group of mourners in the living room was stunned into shocked silence as Peter ignored them all, diving for the front door and practically falling out into the outside corridor.
Caine rushed through the bedroom doorway, following after Peter with his heart in his throat. {My son has lost his mind in his grief.}
Paul and Kermit were close on his heels and nearly knocked him over when they bumped into him out in the hallway, where he had frozen in place. All three men gaped in astonishment.
The elevator door opened at the exact moment Peter exploded from the apartment, and he ran wildly for the dark-haired woman and gray-haired man who stepped out of it. He caught Kacie up in his arms, her name spilling from his lips over and over as he frantically kissed her face, her eyes, and her lips.
She tried speaking to him in between kisses. "Peter...what's happened? I called...the precinct...they said...you went home...that someone...had died. Is it your father? Not Paul or Annie? Who died?"
She felt a shudder go through him as, pressing his damp cheek against her equally wet one, he wept uncontrollably, shoulders heaving and body shaking with the force of his crying. She murmured meaningless sounds as she held him, patting his back, as one would comfort a child.
When at last he regained control, she asked him again, with tears in her own eyes, "Peter, who died?"
"You did."