I stood on our balcony, soaking in the warm summer
sunshine, and watched the tiny forms of my children as they shrieked their way
down to the beach. Tim was taking them to explore the tide pools left behind
when the tide had gone out. Little Larissa stumbled and fell, I could hear her
lusty wails drifting up to where I watched, but Deirdre, very much the bossy
older sister, brushed off her knee and told her to quit crying, she was fine.
Then, with her father’s gentleness, she helped her younger sister to her feet
and held her hand as they picked their way down to the beach together.
It was funny, I reflected, how Deirdre, with her
bright red hair, seemed to be the odd child out, and not our Larissa. Oddly
enough, the birth of Larissa, Lyle’s final legacy, just weeks before the
triplets’ first birthday, seemed to be the turning point for me. I named her
Larissa, because I had read somewhere that it means happy. Somehow I knew that
the time for sorrow had past and that her birth triggered our season of joy. I
was proven right as the days went on.
Deirdre, who had just barely begun to speak before
Lara’s birth, snuck into the nursery room we’d constructed at every
opportunity. She’d adopted Larissa as her baby almost from the first time her
tiny hand felt the fluttery kicks through my belly. Brennan and Brone ignored
her, but they ignored Deirdre too. As identical twins they seemed to have a
closeness that outsiders could only marvel at. They were probably closer to
their Uncle Sydney than anyone else, and he doted on them.
Larissa, though, and Deirdre, are a team. She’s a
tiny bundle of energy, like a hummingbird, darting brightly from one place to
the next and enchanting everyone who sees her. Deirdre is far more serious and
stubborn, and she steadies Lara while Lara softens her. The two of them adore
their Aunt Hannah. (That’s what I call Parker. I’ll explain later.) Thank God
marriage and motherhood has mellowed her or I’d probably have to lock the girls
up! They imitate her faithfully.
Larissa knows that Jarod isn’t her daddy the same
way he’s Brennan, Brone and Deirdre’s daddy, because we’ve explained a little
to her about Lyle. Not the horrors----my children are smart, but no child deserves
to be so brutally disillusioned. Maybe someday when she’s older we’ll have a
talk, but maybe we won’t.
She has some of Lyle’s qualities, his charm, his
sculpted good looks are reproduced in feminine form on her face, and she is as
intense and emotional as he ever was. But she is also sweet and loving and so
generous that I know some of Jarod’s spirit is part her makeup too, regardless
of her parentage. And she loves Jarod. She doesn’t care how he became her
daddy, he’s perfect in her eyes.
She’s perfect in his eyes too. She and Deirdre are
so spoiled by him that I worry about their future husbands. They’ll never find
a man to adore them the way he does. Sometimes I have to scold Jarod for a
tendency to indulge their infrequent tantrums. He’s pretty hopeless about
disciplining either of our girls, although he can be brought to the point of
scolding the boys now and again. I’m the disciplinarian in this family.
Fortunately, I have the prior knowledge of childrearing to allow me to guide
our strong willed, frightfully clever little angels. If it was left to Jarod,
we’d be turning loose 4 monsters on the world.
I sense him enter our apartment, and wonder what his
excuse for sneaking away from the office is today. I pretend to still be
engrossed in the view from our balcony; Brennan and Brone, dark heads together
as they examine some puzzle the sea has washed up for them; Deirdre and
Larissa, Deirdre explaining earnestly just how to pick up---whatever it is.
Probably a crab if I know my Lara. She’ll be planning to return it to the sea.
She rescues every living thing she finds in danger, from jellyfish to orphaned
rabbits
He pauses, watching me from the door. I can feel him
willing me to turn, to welcome him with my smile. I fight it, after all, I
really shouldn’t encourage him to play hooky, but I turn anyway and the smile
puts itself on my lips. He’s so beautiful to me.
I drink in the sight of him, his face a little more
lined than it was when I met him, a few white scars etched where only I can see
them, and a hint of silver at his temples. He’s just as appealing now as he was
the first time I saw him. More. His brown eyes sparkle with the joy of life,
those little lines are mostly of laughter and delight, and he isn’t the only
one in our relationship with scars, on the body or on the soul.
"Playing hooky again?" I ask, my voice
laced with amusement as we glide together like to magnets of opposite polarity.
"I finished early!" He protests, radiating
innocence. I laugh, knowing that there’s no way he could finish early. There’s
enough work in the Foundation for ten Jarods.
"Okay," he admits, reaching for me. He
frowns when I dance out of reach. "I delegated a few proposals that will
undoubtedly find their way back to my desk tomorrow."
My fears of losing myself in him vanished years ago.
Yes, he’s everything to me, but I’m everything to him and we balance each other
nicely. What I lost of myself, when I finally surrendered to his love, was only
what I wanted to lose anyway. I’m not the same woman I was when I met him, but
the woman I am now is what I want to be, not what others tried to make me.
"Miss me?" He asks, an endearing hint of
uncertainty in his voice pulling on my heartstrings like it always does.
I still marvel that he loves me so. Sometimes I
think I’m going to drown in his chocolate eyes, get lost in his hot fudge
voice.
"Always." My voice is low and husky with
love, and joy, and just a hint of tears. I never knew it was possible to be
this happy.
My feet move me closer to him. Teasing him is a
concept that my mind has now lost. He still wins far too many arguments with
his sad looks or irresistible kisses.
His arms open again, and this time I glide into them
like I’m coming home.
I am home. I don’t leave the Foundation
grounds often. I still have a hard time being around too many people, and I
still battle certain reactions to various noises or sights. But I go with Jarod
whenever he has to be gone for longer than a day or two. Where he is I am home.
All I need is the strength of his arms around me and the warmth of his love and
approval.
He says the same is true of him. That he never felt
true peace until the day I finally turned to him, finally able to put the past
behind me. When he’s troubled over a decision or brooding over another injustice
he doesn’t know how to heal, he turns to me. When he’s happy, or excited, or
discovers a new wonder in the world around us, he turns to me. He wants me to
share those moments, he craves the peace of mind he gets from my unconditional
love.
He says he knows that I know him better than anyone
else and he’s more right than he knows. I know he suspects the enhanced mental
gifts that I have, gifts that our children share, but I’ve never spoken of
them, and I keep the children quiet about them too. We’ve no need to draw more
attention to ourselves. But the gift means that I do know him, sometimes better
than he knows himself. I know his nightmares, rare now, but dreadful when they
happen. I know his fears. I know the scars that the Centre left on his heart
and soul.
And he knows mine. Being Jarod, he refused to accept
Susan’s advice and watched the DSA’s of my months in Lyle’s hands. We almost
lost him then. He was so angry, so lost, and he felt my pain because that’s
what he does----he becomes whoever he wants to. He felt my pain better than I
did, I think.
When he came to me, after he’d seen everything, just
days after we’d discovered that I carried Larissa, he radiated rage like a
bonfire radiates heat. I was afraid, and the other, who wasn’t yet integrated
with me rose up, but then he looked at me, and grief overcame him, and I pushed
her back down.
"How?" He asked simply, settling in beside
me on the floor. As was typical in those days I was sitting with my back
against a corner, although I had a needlepoint project in my hands and I wasn’t
mouthing a rhyme.
"How do you come to terms with it?"
I knew exactly what he was asking, and my face lost
all of its color in a moment. I thought he was asking how *he* could live with
what Lyle had done to me. I thought, for one eternal instant, that I had become
repulsive to him. But then I realized what he really wanted to know. He was
afraid I wouldn’t want to live, even though Tim had already brought me through
the worst of my suicidal impulses.
For the first time since the day I’d let Tim coerce
me into facing life, I initiated contact with Jarod. Until then I could only
bear Angelo’s touch, because he was too much like me to be viewed as a man, and
dangerous. But at that moment Jarod, trembling with anger and fear and pain,
ceased to be a man to fear too. He became someone I loved too much to hold
away, and when my arms closed around him, he finally released a part of himself
that he’d guarded since the Centre had kidnapped him.
We hadn’t actually exchanged marriage vows at that
time, but I think that moment was when we truly became husband and wife. In
reality, marriage is the commitment, not the words. We were both people who’d
been broken by the ugly part of life and found salvation in the other. There’s no
power on earth that can separate us. We’ve truly dedicated ourselves to each
other "until death do us part".
I inhale the special scent of him, absorb the
emotional signature of him, and everything else vanishes. In his arms I am
whole and strong and fearless. Sometimes, as much as we love our children and
care about our Foundation, we just have to escape. We leave Sally and Sam in
charge and fly to our cabin in the Poconos or our little place in Jacksonville,
North Carolina and it’s just us two.
"The kids on the beach?" He asks, with a
significant look. I laugh, knowing what’s on his mind, wondering again at how
our thoughts travel along similar lines.
"With Tim." I admit, smiling indulgently.
Tim’s recovery hasn’t matched mine, although my
other insisted that Angelo integrate and Angelo insisted that she do the same.
They’ve come closer, and sometimes Tim can come out for hours at a time, but
they haven’t fully meshed yet. I know the day is coming, though, and we
continue to support each other.
Jarod swings me into his arms, ignoring my protests.
His leg is almost as good as new, but I worry anyway. When I tell him someone
could come he stops to blow on my neck. He knows I’m hopelessly ticklish when
he does that and I can’t complain if I’m giggling. He claims he does it because
he likes to hear me laugh, but I know he just does it so I can’t argue.
But after five years, I know a thing or two about
him too. I retaliate, when he’s only halfway to our room, with my lips pressed
against the pulse in his throat. It drives him crazy and he growls a warning
for me to stop it if I don’t want to risk our children walking in on something
they’re not old enough to know about. I find myself giggling again and I ignore
the warning and step up the attack. He’s not the only one who doesn’t fight
fair. I quit playing fair with him years ago.
Oddly enough, neither of us seem to mind the way the
other cheats in an argument. Maybe if more couples fought the way we do there’d
be a lot more happy marriages.
Not only does he prove himself able to withstand my
most inventive attacks by carrying me all the way to our room, but he even has
the presence of mind to lock the door behind us. I don’t bother to tell him
that our precocious little darlings already know as much about the birds and
the bees as they want to. Every one of them reads books on a junior high level,
and they’ve never felt shy about asking mommy to explain anything they were
curious about.
With their enhanced mental sensitivity they knew
what we were doing behind closed doors long before they were old enough to
talk. They don’t understand why we would want to spend a glorious summer day
indoors alone, but they know when we’re occupied. They won’t even think about
coming home until we finish playing our grown up games. If we seem to be
inclined to take longer than they want to be out, they’ll just join the kids at
the orphanage for dinner and Jarod will have to deal with some more teasing
from Hannah’s husband Isaac at the next board meeting.
He and I work together with some of our more
traumatized orphans. Yes, the Centre is now the Foundation for the Advancement
of Mankind. The Tower and main complex, and all 27 sub-levels, house our
research and treatment facilities. We research cures for diseases, mental illness
and manmade disasters. Our ethical guidelines are far more rigid than any human
or animal rights organization could ever hope for elsewhere. But we do more
than research and cutting edge treatments.
One of the outlying buildings is the Catherine Jaimeson
Orphanage, with almost 300 children from all over the world. Miss Parker, well,
she isn’t Miss Parker anymore----of course I know her first name, I’m just too
much her friend to ever use it. I call her Miss Hannigan, Hannah for short,
because she and her husband run the orphanage with Sally and Sam Flemming. What
can I say? I have a fondness for the musical "Annie".
Two years ago she became, Dear, and then, a year
later, Mommy to an adorable boy and girl. Officially she is now Mrs. Isaac
Feldstein, and she is amazing with the children. Her stern facade never seems
to fool any of them, and I’ve seen her ruin a pair of silk slacks, just to get
down to comfort one of her more frightened charges. Her kids come from around
the world, and she’s always complaining because we can’t take in more.
The other out building is a greenhouse with a
selection of botanical species to rival any in the world. Sydney spends most of
his time there. We named it Jacob’s Eden.
Broots is in his element, supervising a cadre of
computer geniuses in technological research that’s way over my head.
Hannah and Isaac have apartments here in the
Foundation too, which they live in whenever they can be coaxed out of the
orphanage. Jarod keeps saying he’s just going to have a house added onto one
end, but Hannah tells him to mind his own business. They still argue every time
they’re in the same room for more than 5 minutes.
I know he loves her, and she loves him. They’re old
friends, with Angelo they form a trio bonded by the same childhood ogre, the
Centre. I don’t grudge them their closeness and neither does Isaac. He’s got a
few scars of his own, and he and I understand our spouses.
Angelo has his own apartments too. We’ve discussed
the possibility that he might someday want to leave, but it seems unlikely.
It’s enough that he comes and goes throughout the property freely. He still
doesn’t speak much, but he’s able to express himself when he wants to. And he
still has an uncanny ability to reach deep within others and go with them while
they face their demons. He’s been as instrumental as Sydney or Susan in the
recovery of some of our more damaged strays.
We don’t just take in children. We have a world
renown Recovery Wing, which is in SL-25. Men, women, and children who’ve been
traumatized in the countless ways that exist in this world often find their way
here. We’ve seen some truly outstanding successes, beginning, I think, with my
own. Susan oversees that aspect of the Foundation. Her Recovery Wing has
formulated several new treatment theories that have begun to gain acceptance in
other hospitals around the world.
Margaret and Charles were reunited months after the
fall of the Centre, and they live with LJ in North Carolina. Charles helps
Carrie Osbourne with her flight school and Margaret teaches a ground breaking
program for gifted students. She got a lot of practice in it when she schooled
Emily while they were on the run. LJ was her first student.
LJ initially stood for "Little Jarod", but
Margaret insisted that the boy get a real name of his own. Since he’d
already gotten used to LJ, he chose Lucas Jerome, and went on with the
initials. He usually comes up to stay with us over the summer breaks, which
gives Margaret and Charles some quality time together alone, something they really
appreciate.
Jarod’s relationship with LJ is complicated. They’re
close, but they often seem to be studying each other for similarities. LJ went
through a period where he copied everything Jarod did, and then one where he
methodically did everything the opposite of what Jarod had done. It seems now
that they’ve been able to accept that regardless of their DNA, they are not
the same person. I still count it as a minor miracle that the child is the
loving and giving person that he is, given Raines involvement in his early
life.
And finally, there’s Emily. Perhaps her wandering
childhood hasn’t completely warped her, but she doesn’t hold still for more
than 5 minutes at a time. Technically she’s got a suite in the Tower near ours,
but in reality she spends more than 90% of the year on the road. She earns her
living doing award winning film documentaries, but she’s also involved with a
Human Rights group and an environmentalist group that keep her on the run.
Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever settle down, but she’s young yet.
"Penny for them." Jarod interrupts my
reminiscing with a smile.
"Just thinking how lucky we are." I
whisper, blinking back tears.
"No more tears, Annie." He growls softly
in my ear, nipping the lobe playfully. "Didn’t I promise you that?"
"These are happy tears!" I protest
halfheartedly as he pulls me closer.
"I think we could find something better to do
than cry. Even if they are happy tears." He insists with a meaningful
leer.
He wins far more than his share of arguments that way.
I keep telling myself I’m going to get tough with him, but I never seem to be
able to resist him when he insists that a Karma Sutra is a terrible thing to
waste.