Union: Chapter 22

Sometimes we must leave our safe places and walk empty-handed among our enemies.

- Brigit O'Donnell

A little over a month after Jacob’s birth, Catherine peered out of a seldom-used natural stone gateway into the sunshine of North Woods.  She wouldn’t lie.  It was as beautiful as it was frightening.

She had to shield her accustomed-to-candlelight eyes, squinting through the mist to look into the Park.  The leaves were larger than she expected.  Still spring green, but almost in full flush, creating patches of sunlight and shade in the white, wistful sun of the early May morning.

Catherine’s clothes - her lightly patched shirt, large cardigan, skirt, stockings and boots - kept her comfortably warm in the Tunnels and were equally suited to the chilly early hours of the day.  It was spring, when the Tunnels’ cool temperatures and New York’s equalized.  It was the other time of year when the walls of the worlds must grow thin, she thought, when the realm of the spirits and a thousand other magical lands became accessible.  Smelling the new grass, old leaves, and wet earth, she thought of Brigit.

Vincent stood behind her, holding the baby away from the touch of sunlight.  Jamie and Dominic had gone ahead to scout the route and to let the family say their farewells alone.

Catherine turned back towards the twin suns of her twilight universe.  Vincent, clad in his cream shirt, tan vest, jeans, and old cloak, cradled their tiny sleeping boy easily with one arm.  The mysteries of the newborn, while not fully revealed, with Mary’s and the others’ help were daily discovered, each day bringing a new gift or understanding, moment-to-moment - a sleepy smile, a transient gas pain, old kicks and new calls - blissfully experienced with the man and baby she loved.

Dare she ask for more?  She had been blessed by Fate.  These two had sustained her for so long, locked away from the sun.  They had been her hope, but because of them she was needed in the light now.  She had to find out if Joe had done as she asked. For Jacob and Vincent’s sake, she would plead with the man if need be.  She was greedy.  She wanted both worlds for her son and safety for her husband.

Husband - such a new, beloved word, a fated word, she believed, despite his misgivings.  Even after Father’s somewhat clumsy nudging and Catherine’s outright proposal, Vincent had balked at marrying before she could safely leave the Tunnels.  He feared for her freedom - again, the old argument.  Hades’ kidnapping of Persephone, he had said.  She let him know in no uncertain, bordering on obscene, terms what she thought of that image.  Her anger, while not as keen as it had been during her pregnancy, still flashed icy-hot at times.  Jacob and he were her whole world, she had countered, no matter what happened Above. Their souls and fates were linked.  She was his, and he belonged to her, forever.

Her next breath had teetered on the edge of tears. 

Don’t you want to marry me?

The old fears hadn’t left them, not yet, and her emotions were intemperate and all-consuming; Summer storms, Mary called them, and completely expected after a baby.  Of course he did, he had argued, but he didn’t wish for her to bind herself if she weren’t completely free.

It was their first true fight after the baby, all vehemence and passion, but, in the end, Jacob cast the deciding vote, his cries over their shared distress a reminder that, all ideals aside, they were bound by greater forces than man’s words, and one of those forces was a healthy eight pounds, with a howling need that could wake his parents from a dead sleep.  The words were a formality, but a welcome one for all who had witnessed their simple vows, added with little notice to Jacob’s naming ceremony.

“Catherine, are you sure this is the wisest course of action?” Vincent asked, as he shifted their sleeping son - wrapped snugly in Sarah’s hastily, albeit beautifully crafted, naming gift.  He had been silent on their long walk here, his fear for her growing with each step towards the doorway that would take her to the unknown.  It had been so long since she had tasted this feeling from him, not truly since Jacob’s birth.

“You sound like Father,” Catherine admonished softly, kissing the baby’s velvet head while inhaling his unique and perfect scent.

“Well, yes,” he countered, as she looked up from their child to see the dry humor in his eyes.  “You made me one.”

“Well, I think I had a little help,” she lobbed back, smiling.  She curled around the baby and nuzzled him one more time.  Were all mothers addicted to their baby’s smell?

She stood back, placed her hand on her husband’s arm, and tried to soothe his worries. “Joe is a good man, Vincent.  He hasn’t done anything so far.  He’s angry; I’ll talk to him.  I can make him understand.  The worst he will do is just let me go, I’m sure of it.”

He looked down at their sleeping baby.  “I wish I could be as sure, Catherine.  I hope our trust is well placed.”

I do too, my love. 

Joe had contacted Sammy two days before, wanting a meeting with her.  Joe looked “awful angry,” according to the concerned Helper, and she didn’t doubt his assessment.  She had kept a lot from Joe.  She prayed he wouldn’t make her pay for it.

Catherine kissed her husband slowly, placing her hand on his rough cheek in parting, and again gently kissed her son, wanting one more moment with him, but trying to keep him sleeping for Vincent’s sake.

“I will see you soon,” Catherine said, attempting to swallow her threatening tears as she backed away from Vincent, away from her place of safety.  She turned into the sunlight and shimmied through the crack that hid him and their child from those who wouldn’t understand.

If she looked back she would lose her nerve.

Jamie and Dominic, wearing close to regular clothing, fell in step with her as soon as she reached the path.  Jamie, true to her word, would not let Catherine go alone, and had enlisted Dominic’s help, who everyone knew to have the best eyes in all the Tunnels. They were to keep watch for others, and protect her in case Joe’s anger got out of hand.  She had made them swear they would slip away at the first hint of any real trouble.  They did swear, and she didn’t need her years at the D.A.’s to know they lied like third-strike bagmen.

After about ten minutes of walking, silently taking in the Park - the birds staking their claims, the sound of wind in leaves, the sights of the cultivated wild, passing the odd early jogger - they came upon a series of benches near a row of stones and old trees.  It was semi-private and not easily accessible by any type of vehicle, police cars specifically on their minds.  Joe was already sitting on a bench, clothed in a ragged work suit, with a newspaper on his lap, staring off into space as if he didn’t notice her or her strange companions.

As she advanced towards him, watching for his reactions as one might approach an untamed animal, she read the headline:  More Corruption Fallout from D.A. Arrest.  Moreno had been taken into custody by Federal agents, along with a number of prominent businessmen with no discernible business and a half a dozen Albany “public servants.”  Gabriel was the name of her kidnapper, the man whose warm and sticky blood she could still feel on her hands.  She never knew his name when he held her; she had to read it in the Times.

Gabriel had been wrong; justice could move swiftly when it had to.  Once Joe had contacted the Feds, Gabriel’s criminal enterprise washed away like a modern Atlantis, taking with it people and businesses, banks and law firms, investment corporations and real estate developers.  The rest, it seemed, was to be scavenged and fought over by the established mobsters and the up-and-coming criminals.  The chaos and bloodshed of the turf wars and power grabs reined from Brooklyn to the Bronx and beyond.

Catherine sat on the far end of the bench, waiting for Joe to acknowledge her.  Jamie stood a few yards away, just outside of the conversation’s radius.  Dominic placed himself behind the benches on a small hill, their lookout.

Catherine took a quick glance at the man beside her before going back to staring into the Park, wondering how to proceed.  Joe didn’t look sad or angry.  He didn’t act relieved or excited to see her. He looked numb. She would have felt sorry for him. Unlike her, he had no place of love and support. He had never left this brutal city, had no one to tell him it would be all right, and that things would settle.  She would have felt sorry for him, but she couldn’t, he was so changed.  This was a Joe she didn’t know, and that frightened her.

Catherine had weeks to escape the memories, to leave that place of hate and isolation to history.  She could almost imagine what happened in those months of captivity occurred to someone else.  Her Winter’s Tale, Father had named it, after she told him of the feeling.  It could almost be forgotten under the spell of Vincent’s voice, the images of her cell just a faded photograph compared to the vividness of their son’s immediate needs, the gentle jokes of Cullen, Rebecca and Lena’s company, the laughter of the children, Father’s doting on his namesake.

But last night the past came for a visit.

She had dreamt of Him the night before, the Other one, with Vincent’s countenance but not his spirit.

A sun-drenched Park chessboard separated them.  The dream wove a fabric of experience not merely strange for the fact that it was midday in the center of Manhattan and everyone else seemed too interested in their own games to notice them, but because she didn’t play chess.

Catherine’s mind protested while being dragged through the dream’s fixed narrative.  How could the future be predicted? she always questioned, looking at the patterned board that held no patterns for her.  How could you begin to imagine what someone else would do, not just a move ahead but three or four moves on?  Vincent seemed to be able to parse out prospective strategies with ease.  He had told her the predictions came with time and experience, but she doubted there was time enough in the world for her to even get close to matching him.  She respected him for his ability but never wished to pursue its cultivation, and yet here she was.     

 “Isn't this…civilized,”  Vincent’s shadow, her opponent, snarled more than said through clenched teeth, looking at the untouched board, waiting for her to make the first move.

She opened with her king’s pawn.  “We can be civil,” she told him. 

He countered.  Soon the pieces were in motion.

“You’re right,” he answered with a feral grin when he took her opening pawn, as if to say she would have to do better.

She assessed her former tormentor from across the table. He still felt unpredictable, aggressive, but, somehow, amazingly, less harmful.  “You can't hurt me anymore.”  Not truly telling him, more informing herself.

“You’re stronger now,” he acknowledged as he held up her pawn, examining it in his claws.  “Besides, Catherine,” he continued as he studied her unintentional sacrifice, “I never did anything to you that you weren't already doing to yourself.” He gently set the piece down on his side of the board.

She hesitated in her next move, unsure. “You’re right,” she acceded, and finally parried with her knight, and within that knight, in the dream truth, (unquestioned, accepted,) lived the essence of the man she would meet with today. 

“Do you really think Maxwell,” her adversary asked, motioning at the piece with a nod, “will help you, your husband…Vincent’s son?”  He looked decidedly skeptical.  “You want him to keep your family safe, but no matter his title, he is just a man of the world that betrayed you, and not a very open-minded one. Can you really trust him?”

“I trust Joe,” she told her opponent with sincerity, if not perfect certainty.

“He might not be the same man you knew.  He might hate you, Catherine,” Vincent’s shade argued, the words so out of place in the beautiful sun-filled day.  “He probably already does.” He studied the board to find a way around the knight. “He loved you, he wanted you, but you loved…”

Vincent’s shadow stood and put his hands down, palms open, to display the image of the person she loved beyond any other man, the one she chose despite every obstacle and every danger. He sighed and took his place again.  

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He sounded resigned. “You've chosen. The queen moves across the entire board in ways the others can’t.  She protects fiercely. It will be hard, but you've made up your mind, and you are my image.”

She looked back down to calculate what would happen next, but the board was empty.  All the pieces - the knights, the rooks, the bishops, the pawns, her king, her queen - were all still there; she could feel their presence, but they were hidden. 

Her last impression, the one that stayed with her long after all the other details faded, warned her - she would still be forced to play, no matter how inadequate to the game she felt, but from now on with invisible pieces. 

“You look pretty good, Cathy,” Joe stated flatly in opening. She heard the words underneath the words – You survived.  Somehow, you survived it all.

“Thanks, Joe,” she said, answering his statement’s face value.  She couldn’t say the same about him, so she kept her mouth shut on the subject.  He looked careworn and sleep-deprived and, for him, preternaturally still.

For a few moments all between them were the tree blossoms drifting away on the wind, blue sky, and birdsong, until he broke the silence.

“Some F.B.I. agents came to see me a few days ago. They want to talk with you.”

Of course they do, Joe.  I killed a man, a man who would have killed me, who would have stolen my son, destroyed my husband.  He deserved death, but I still murdered him, and there are consequences.  I want to make this right.  I want to finish this, but what did you tell them? Have you made that impossible? 

Her heart raced as he continued with the words she knew he would say and wished he wouldn’t.

“I watched the tapes, Cathy.”

She closed her eyes.

“I watched the tapes and I read the files.”

And now you know everything…

…and nothing.

“I saw you, pregnant.” He seemed to reject the word as one might strike something away unexpectedly thrown at them.  “I saw medical files...”

He finally turned to her, clearly meaning to provoke her, to challenge her to deny it.  “And I saw him, Cathy.”

He didn’t even try to hide his revulsion.

“I saw a monster slash men, crush them, tear their throats out, throw them like they were dolls.  I know he killed three guards in the building you sent me to.  It was...”

He lowered his eyes as if he wanted nothing more than to erase the images from his mind.

Catherine remained silent.  She could say nothing that would comfort him.  She had seen what Vincent could do, had done, to protect her.  She had felt his rage, and shared his rage.  She wouldn’t deny it.

“Is this thing the father of your baby?”

She turned to him, fully looking at her accuser.  “Yes.” A breath, the truth, defiant. “What are you going to do about it?”

This was the turning point. This moment decided if she hid from the sun for the rest of her days, or if she found a way to straddle both worlds.  Whatever Joe said next would determine her life.

He shifted closer to her on the bench. “You know, at first I thought these records you asked me to take were a joke, just fantasies.  I mean, the guy who took you was a loon, a goddamn psycho. When I read...When I read his notes…that said that this creature was the father…I thought…you couldn’t…you never would...” He stopped at that, unable to finish his sentence, disgust apparent, killing the rest of his words.

But then his voice returned with the rough, angry sarcasm that she had heard many times but hoped never to receive. “Then I got this crazy idea, this crazy idea, that this thing knew you, so I went back through your files, through your cases, to see if I could find anything...” He nearly spit out words.

Catherine didn’t know if she could endure this, but she would, if only to find out what Joe might try to do to Vincent.

“How stupid did you think I was?  How stupid have I been?” he yelled, slapping down his paper, his raging words like blows.  “Killings, slashing, all related to you and the cases you were investigating - those serial killer kids, that crazy stalker who tried to drown you, that hitman who went after you and Erika, those foreign guys at the docks, God, so many - all dead because of this guy!  So many, Cathy!”

His voice fell to a whisper. “I didn’t see it then, I can’t believe I didn’t see it, but now I do.”

Joe’s voice growled with conviction, “He’s a monster...”

She would hide.

She had made a mistake, another stupid mistake!  She had put Vincent in danger, again.  She trusted Joe when she shouldn’t have, just like Moreno, only worse.  She had walked into this with her eyes open.

She rocketed off the bench to escape.  The second she did, Joe grabbed her arm.  Jamie ran towards them to intervene.

Catherine had been afraid of this, that the tapes would show a killer, not the warrior who had risked his life and soul to protect her. She was about to scream.  She felt her fear, her rage, begin to surface.  She tried to control it, master it, for Vincent’s sake.  He couldn’t help her now, he could only keep Jacob and himself safe; daylight ensured it.

She would fight Joe if she had to, but Vincent would not.  She would do anything to get back to her husband and child, anything but put them in danger. She had to do this without him.

She began trying to pull her arm away. “You haven’t the slightest...”

He interrupted her. “He is a monster,” he said, nodding, sure of this, but with more sad acceptance in his tone now than anger.  “He’s a monster, but he loves you...doesn’t he?  He takes care of you.”

Catherine stood rigid for a moment, looking into Joe’s resolute eyes, unsure what to do next.  She descended to the bench which, after a few more moments, sent Jamie back, slowly, to her former place.

“You can see it,” Joe continued.  “You can see it in the files if you read them right.  It isn’t random.  He fights for you...he defends you, like a knight in a goddamn fairy tale.”  He let go of her arm and shook his head, as if disbelieving the words coming out of his mouth. “And he’s got a lion’s face, and claws, and gives you books by Shakespeare and Dickens, doesn’t he?”

He seemed to take her silence as acquiescence, and shook his head.

“Once upon a time in New York, huh?”  He ran a hand through his thick black hair.  “Jesus, Cathy, this is nuts.”

She sighed. “Yeah...”

“So how on God’s crazy Earth do you meet a guy like that?”

This was a crazy Earth.  In this city of cities, under its asphalt and metal, glass and stone, there was magic, and fate, and honor, and goodness.

She could tell him at least part of the truth.

“He saved me in the Park three years ago, when I was first attacked and left for dead.  He and his father made sure I survived...more than survived.  He showed me my own strength.  He’s been with me ever since.”

Joe blew a low whistle from his teeth that Catherine could see startled Jamie, who was understandably tense from his previous outburst.  When it was a clear the whistle was part of the conversation, Catherine’s protector and friend went back to her silent scanning of the area.

“You’re not kidding, Radcliffe, the ‘first’ attack.  He must be on you like butter on bread.  I didn’t see it day to day but, reading those files...I had an idea, but…you’re a real danger magnet.  Do ya think he knew what he was gettin’ into with you? I don’t know,” he shook his head, his familiar smart-aleck smile plastered on his face, “doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship to me.”

This was the Joe she remembered.  Battered down, worried, hurt, but still there.  This was the one she trusted, that she believed could understand.

Well, in for a penny….  

”I know it sounds…crazy, but he knows when I’m in danger.  He can feel what I’m feeling.” She sighed. “And I don’t know how, but I can sense what he’s feeling too.” Right now it was worry for her, indecision, helplessness.  She allowed fragile relief to fly to him, and a tiny bit of hope.

“Jesus!” Joe burst out tense laughter. “Now I know it isn’t a healthy relationship!”  But his laughter gave way - too little in this situation to laugh at - and he turned earnest.

“You know, Cathy, a couple of months ago a lot of people thought you were dead, and I was beginning to think they were right. There were a hell of a lot of things I didn’t think were possible, like you being alive after six months gone, or any good coming from Patrick Hanlan’s death.  Then I got your note.” He stopped for a moment, maybe wishing she had never sent it.

“Then I started looking into Moreno, the man I thought of as a father, as living, breathing  Justice. I saw it, and God, I didn’t want to, but I did.  And then...I watched those tapes, and a lot of things that I never imagined suddenly became very real.”

He took her hand. “Cathy, if this guy, whatever he is, loves you, if he fights for you, than he can’t be bad because, despite everything, you’re the best person I know...,” then he added with a sniff, “always saving my dear Mother, of course.”

She laughed and relaxed the smallest bit. He pulled her next to him and hugged her close. He let her go after a long moment’s embrace, so they sat next to each other on the bench, her head resting on his shoulder.

“I destroyed the tapes, Cathy,” he whispered.

A cry of relief burst from her, like sunshine escaping through a cloud bank.

“We found some more...copies, at the guy’s house. I got rid of those too. I think you’re safe, Cathy.  He’s safe.”

“Thank you,” she breathed through grateful tears as she turned and hugged him again. “You are a true friend.”

He let her go a little. “Yeah, well, I hope you feel the same way after you see what I did to your apartment.” He looked diffident. “I, ah, kinda wrecked it.”

She pulled back from his loose embrace, wiping tears from her cheeks, puzzled. “You wrecked my apartment?”

He let her go fully, looking out into the Park for a few moments before he would answer.

“After I saw the tapes, read the files, I gotta admit, I went a little nuts.” He turned to her again, eyes begging for understanding.  “I needed to find out as much as I could about this guy.”

“Vincent?”

“Yeah, I figured, after what you told me before about loving someone, and then seeing the stuff in your apartment...” Joe dropped his elbows to his knees and looked away again.  He seemed at a loss to explain his actions.  “I think…I wanted a reason to hate him, Cathy, a reason to lock him up in a zoo, or a prison, or whatever, but everything I found, everything I read, told me this Vincent was a man, a man in love with you. There’re a lot of us in the same boat, Radcliffe…loving you.” His shy smile did nothing to hide his vulnerability. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Joe…” She hoped he could feel her instant forgiveness and smiled back. “You can argue with anyone, you’re the District Attorney of New York.”

“So, you’ve been keeping up on current events, huh?” More chagrin on his face. “Well, when Hughs and I brought the stuff to the Feds implicating Moreno, the mayor decided to reward me.” His tone made clear what he thought of the mayor’s reward.  “I’m only acting D.A. until the next election in seven months and...four days,” he calculated, and then placed his hands together in prayer, motioning towards heaven. “Thank you, St. Jude!”

“…the patron saint of lost causes,” she added with understanding.

He had dreamed of rising this high, but never in this way.  Catherine could sympathize. She knew a little about getting what you wanted, just not in the way you wanted to get it.

“And if we ain’t a pair of lost causes, I don’t know who is.” He took her hand in unfortunate solidarity.

There was so much to say, so much she might tell him, however, time and the second-nature secrecy that had grown like armor under her skin cut their conversation short.

“Joe, I’m sorry.  I have to go.”

“Yeah, but wait, Cathy…the baby…is it…?”  She could see his hesitancy, worried his questions could upset her if any of the sad possibilities running through his imagination were true, but he also had to know.

“He’s fine, Joe,” she assured him. “He’s healthy and beautiful…and getting hungry,” she said, looking at Jamie for a moment then Dominic.  The plan to leave in Nick’s cab still seemed the best option.  Once they circled, they would meet Vincent and Jacob under the Church of the Ascension to hide the entrances in the Park from anyone who might try to follow them.  It felt both stupidly inadequate and immensely paranoid at the same time. “You’ll get to see him soon, and I’ll contact you about meeting with the F.B.I.”

“Yeah, I’m worried, Cathy.  If you don’t show up on their doorstep soon...”

 …they’ll come looking. 

She nodded, hoping they weren’t already.  She would fix this, for Vincent, the Tunnels, her baby; she had to, but she needed more time.

“If you need to reach me, you can contact me through Sammy, or at Nunzio’s near your apartment.”

“Wait…” He looked almost pained. “That little Italian place! How do you know about it? I love that place.  They have the best pasta fagioli in New York.”

She looked behind Joe to Dominic, the son who could never go back home because of teenage mistakes that put him in the Mafia’s sights.  Dominic, whose mother died of pancreatic cancer in the Tunnels surrounded by love and all her family, a wayward son included, because in that place of safety, she could.

“I know,” was all Catherine said in agreement as she caught her lookout’s sad eyes.

Catherine turned and hugged Joe goodbye as Jamie and Dominic walked towards them, their path, so far, clear.

“So this Vincent’s a good guy, huh?” he asked as they embraced.

Her joyous answer came with fresh tears.  She tried to swipe them away again.  “He is.  He’s perfect.”

Joe looked down as he reached for her hand and kept his eyes there.  “I’m glad, Cathy, because my only consolation in this whole mess?”

He squeezed her fingers warmly then let her go.

“I didn’t lose my chance with you.  I just never had one.”

Union: Chapter 23

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

– Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 .

.                       

This was his life.

A house – a rented one, but a house; a purpose - helping a friend, keeping a promise;   a job… well, jobs -   amateur computer programmer, handyman, driver, carpenter, plumber… almost anything that paid the bills.

He was Devin Wells here, taking care of his “brother,” being as friendly and as private as expected in a small town, living a quiet life smack in the middle of restless waiting and dreading.  It chafed on Devin like new-bought shoes, alien and uncomfortable.

He was living his life in almost complete truth, and it felt like an bald-faced lie.

Devin stepped over the threshold of the narrow front door to the porch and let the screen go.  It bounced twice off the frame, shutting the cooking and worried Charles in and him out.  A peeling and warped board squeaked underfoot with a sound that forewarned weakness; maybe not dangerous now, but with Charles’ weight and ambling gait, it could easily go bad faster than Devin's good intentions could keep up. It was his responsibility to take care of the house, to take care of Charles.

Praemonitus, praemunitus.[i]

Devin surrendered to logic: better to fix it right after the mail.  His recent after-work shower would be shot, and he would have to put off dinner until after dark, but better that than to add another future chore to the list, another responsibility on the heap.

I can't go on like this.

That's what you think.[ii]

Devin was irritable, worn down, and it was clear Charles knew it.  The large man stayed inside, out of Devin’s way.  Devin couldn’t help but be grateful that Charles understood when to leave a brother alone.  Devin hated Eddie for teaching the lesson, but it didn’t stop a guilty Devin from taking advantage.

I could send that piece of shit a thank-you note. Eddie and me…

..not so different after all…

The beauty of the trees, their natural and man-made patterns on the horizon, the new, vibrant grass, the dusty rose-grey sky, could do nothing to change his mood.  He couldn’t see any future, nor outrun his past, staying here in one place.  It was the same today as yesterday, and it would be the same world he would wake up to tomorrow.  He was stuck in the present.

Always before, when the novelty had worn off, when the responsibilities, (burdens, but he wouldn’t say burdens) began, Devin would pick another life to try on.  He would gather the pieces - books and ephemera, accessories, accents, backstory - and fraud his way into a new world.

And then he had gone back home again.

He took on Devin Wells once more, a son, a brother, a man with family and friends - friends that needed daily help, and a family that could be in danger and could leave you wondering for weeks without a word whether they were dead or alive.

Attachment leads to suffering.[iii]

Devin scanned past the rock and dirt driveway, hoping to see the dust of the country road flying from the squat mail truck driving past, but his only companions were the sparrows and warblers congregating on the rock fence and Charles’ chickens roaming in their yard.

The mail wasn’t late, he hadn’t missed it, no reason to walk down to the box, but Devin needed to move.  His tired feet shuffled off the sagging porch of the New House, as Chad, their elderly landlord, had named it.  Chad’s Old House was about a half a mile away, past a rolling field and an overgrown orchard.  If you lived your whole life in a Colonial farm house that had sheltered eight generations, on land that had been in your family since before the Mason-Dixon line, Devin guessed, a house built in the mid-1800s might seem new by comparison.

There was comfort here, for Charles at least, in the paradoxical stillness and clamor of spring, close enough to the doctors and social workers at Johns Hopkins to make the drive once a week or so, but far enough into rural Maryland for Charles to live without the worry of unfriendly and judging eyes on him daily.

With your medical training, Mr. Wells, you can understand that most cases like your brother’s will require repeat surgery, as easy excision is generally not possible due to the nature of the tumors.  Plexiform neurofibromas can infiltrate multiple tissue planes and are thus much more difficult or impossible to resect.  We will do our best to provide Charles with the best pain management techniques available, and put you on a payment plan that fits your needs.

Despite his pain, Charles was thriving here.  He was becoming more than he had ever been; out from under Eddie’s whip and cage, he was discovering his own tastes and strengths.  He liked songs by Lionel Richie, and detective novels, and cooking.   In that, and only in that, Devin felt right about his life.  The winter of recovery after Charles’ harsh, but necessary, surgery had blossomed into a spring of growth.

Before the snow had left the ground, Charles, just recuperated from pneumonia, shyly but with growing confidence asked for chickens.  At the time, Devin’s instinct, born of a life of movement and uncertainty, was to refuse.  The time and money when they were barely making ends meet seemed foolish, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew he was wrong.   Charles’ open disappointment, and hearing the sound of the Old Man’s defeated exasperation in his own voice, propelled Devin to town and back with enough lumber for a small chicken coop, and a promise of chicks in exchange for some odd jobs around the feed store.  It was Charles who kept the bartered-for chicks alive, not losing even one to his and Devin’s inexperience.  Charles learned to curb his strength holding the tiny chicks in his huge, warm hands.  He took care of his charges, making a place for the fragile birds close to the warmth of the kitchen stove, feeding and cleaning up after them daily.  They gave him nothing yet but joy.  They wouldn’t lay anything until at least July, so the books said, but for Charles their companionship was more than enough.

After a life on the road, Charles loved the clock of farm, the routine of the sun, the meals, the garden and the animals.  Devin read all the books the library had to offer, but it was Charles who was reaching out beyond the books, discovering daily the things that Devin had always treasured, the things the books forgot to say.

Devin knew early that a photographic memory was a rare thing, a double-edged sword, intruding and not perfect, but a gift good enough to be treasured.   The Old Man may have treated his ability as a given, but Devin felt proud when easily answering questions on dates or data, or when asked to recite a soliloquy, or a special passage.  Pages read could be read again with his mind’s eye, mined for knowledge and meaning.  It wasn’t perfect, but it had served him well enough when a lack of a birth certificate had kept him from school and any meaningful work.  A couple of good books and great smiles, and he could have almost any job he wanted, but there was no challenge in that.

Devin needed a life outside of books - motorcycles, acrobatics, marksmanship, knife throwing - he yearned for anything that could only be learned from experience.  The written word wasn’t perfect - meanings were clouded, their true depth hidden from the uninitiated.  A page of words might recall, but not truly introduce, the feel of an almost-loving, almost-rebellious bike under you at ninety miles an hour, the smell of St. Louis barbeque, the sound of a thousand hooves bounding past on the Serengeti, the almost mystical orange-yellow glow of a sunset reflecting off mountain snow.  Some things had never been, maybe could never be, written about in the detail needed to explain to someone who had never experienced them.

They were all the things Vincent could never have.

Vincent had been locked away from life by the Old Man against threats from the cruelest people of the world, and no matter how good it was to see Charles grow, and learn, and become, it could not fulfill Devin’s wish, never pay his debts.

Vincent had been his childhood.  From Devin’s earliest memories until his choice to leave the Tunnels and that sheltered life behind, Vincent had been his constant – a sickly baby taking everyone’s attention, then a toddling shadow, to, finally, true companion.   He was Athos to Devin’s Aramis, Mortimer to his Blake, Watson to his Holmes …

He was my childhood and I can’t do a thing for him.

Vincent had written somehow forgiving him, somehow picking up where they had left off, recalling mutual memories that Devin hadn’t forgotten.  Vincent described the hardships of the Tunnels with a poetry and a thankfulness that Devin could only admire, but doubted he could ever share.  Vincent wrote of the time they were apart, of growing up, and of more recent times - of ghosts that painted magical portraits, of the man/boy named Mouse, of greed, and goodness, and finally, after many letters, of Lisa’s departure and return, and the awful and, at least in Devin’s mind, justifiable things he had done to keep others safe.

And he wrote about her…

He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.[iv]

Vincent wrote of her, his words, his meaning almost as clear from the things he didn’t say as what he did.  In Vincent’s letters she was never named as lover, girlfriend, or even friend.  Just…

Catherine

He never said love, but every sentence, even if he meant to hide it, shouted for him.

She opened my eyes to a way of seeing the world I never would have known. 

She awes me with her strength and her dedication to justice.     

She trusts me, almost to a fault, while I doubt myself every moment.    Am I cognizant enough of the risks we face each time we meet?  Could I let her go if I must?   I look into her eyes, Devin, and all other moments die.  I can think of nothing but her.   

It was easy to see how Vincent felt, but what Devin wanted to know - what did she feel?

What is he to her? Does she love him?  Yes.  No one could deny it – the way she tried to keep him safe, even from me, seeing their heads together laughing over my note at the carousel, her expression when Vincent told Charles about our misadventures moon-gazing – she has it as bad as Vincent, but how far is she willing to go?

Is she ready to give up everything for love?

…everything I couldn’t.

Devin had had women before, more than he would ever tell his brother, but they never looked at him the way Chandler looked at Vincent, but that didn’t mean she would keep on looking at him that way, and if she hurt him…

…but she already had.

Before last summer Vincent’s letters had stopped.  Only after the fact did Devin hear about the attacks from that monster John Pater, or Paracelsus, or whatever that egotistical psycho called himself, and then of  Vincent’s… illness…his breakdown… and all the forces of the world battering against him.  Vincent had hidden his downward path.  Why?

Was Chandler a part of it? Was she to blame, at least partially?    

Vincent had written again, after recovering, but his letters were disjointed, his voice weakened almost, like he was trying to grasp at ideas that couldn’t fully form.

And then Chandler had gone missing.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts; one is she, and there is happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…[v]

And then Vincent didn’t write at all…hadn’t written since the fall.  That, in itself, proclaimed the seriousness of their relationship.

Was it foul play, or had she just pulled a “Devin”?  Would she do that?

The Old Man begged him to come home.

I fear Catherine’s absence is leading Vincent back to that dark place at the very edge of his sanity.  I worry your brother is close to the madness that claimed him before.   If there is any way you and Charles could come home, I know you could bring him some comfort. 

But that was right after Charles’ surgery.  Charles couldn’t travel; hell, he couldn’t even climb the damn stairs hopped up on enough pain pills to numb a killer whale.  All his basic needs from companionship to crapping were Devin’s responsibility.  And then, just as winter was setting in, when life for Charles should have gone back to normal, a stupid cold that should have been gone in a week, settled into a three-month stint of pneumonia.

At this time your protests mean little, and less in light of Vincent’s fragile body and heart.  I am sorry you feel Winterfest beyond you.  Clearly, your new life takes precedence over your old.   You have always found a way to leave your past behind, son.  It hurts me to remind you, but it seems I must.  We did not stop existing when you departed.  Vincent may have left you with scars, but when you disappeared you left many of your own...   

When it came to Vincent, Devin was still to blame.

As if I needed reminding, that self-righteous bastard…

Jacob Wells either didn’t remember or didn’t care that nothing, not even fire and booze, could erase his words.   That was the danger of an eidetic memory, the guilt that didn’t stop because forgetting was impossible.

Wasn’t I being the person he wants me to be, the dutiful man, if not the dutiful son?

Devin wanted to go back home.  He nearly left a dozen times when he could kid himself that Charles was almost better, when he could ignore the wheezing and the weakness, but the truth always caught him before he could take two steps back to New York - Charles needed him to survive.  Charles couldn’t leave then, and he was still too dependent to be left on his own.  It was a maddening and completely binding responsibility. (He wouldn’t say burden…he wouldn’t.)

Devin had never cared this much for someone else.  He had spent his entire life avoiding it, but that didn’t work out.

Think you're escaping and you run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.[vi]

Did he have any idea the can of worms he was opening when he returned to New York to play lawyer?     Could he have imagined that it would eventually lead him into caring so much for two people that he didn’t know where his loyalties lay?   It was only Charles’ proximity and immediate need that won out.    Vincent had an entire community; Charles only had Devin.  He tried to explain that to the Old Man.

And then they all stopped writing.

For weeks now, not a word had come from anyone from that stupid hole in the ground, no matter how many letters Devin sent to find them; no matter how much he begged, it was like they had all disappeared off the face of the earth.

Turn-about was fair play, right?

He left them without a word, and now they left him, stuck in the life he had chosen - kicking stones in “Hicksville,” shuffling towards a roadside mailbox for bills, but probably nothing else.

So how can I be myself, Devin Wells, a man with a family, if my family gives up on me? Who is Devin Wells then?

You are a cold bitch, Karma, and your ironic lessons on what a tremendous prick I have been are monumentally unappreciated. 

As he walked the last few yards he saw Mike Green’s postal truck finally pull up.  Devin had helped Mike with some demolition and framing work on his house.  They were friendly.  This was Mike’s last delivery, and his boss didn’t mind if he caught a cold one on Devin’s and Charles’ porch before clocking out.   Devin had learned there were times to keep your head down and there were times to make friends.  Charles needed friends, and Devin, no matter how much he wanted to hole up, tried to oblige.   

“Hey, Wells, how’s your brother doing?”   Mike yelled from the small square window just as he cut the truck’s engine.

Devin walked into the gravel road, reached out and shook the mailman’s hand.  It surprised Devin that Charles was accepted here for the most part, even liked in some quarters.  If Charles’ appearance still brought some stares and comments, Devin’s responsibility for his “brother” was never questioned.  People here understood about family taking care of family.  It was expected, but uncommon enough now to be admired, supported.

“Just fine, Mike.  He’s cooking us dinner.”  Devin gestured back to the house.

“That’s great!” Mike said.  “So, he’s really on the mend?  Glad to hear it.”  He handed Devin a rubber band-wrapped stack of mail.  “A couple magazines, Trader Horne flyer, you know….you got a letter from the State.  Looks like more paperwork for the health aid, good luck on that, and, oh, a letter postmarked from New York…”

Devin nearly tore through the bundle to find the thick envelope with Vincent’s handwriting on it.

“No return address though,” Mike commented, meaning strange.

“It’s from my…our brother, our other brother,” Devin corrected himself as he inserted his finger into the cream-colored envelope and ripped open the top.   He wrenched out the letter but, as he did, a picture tucked safely in the papers escaped and drifted to the ground before Devin could catch it.

“That’s a cute little tyke,” Mike said, craning out his window as Devin snatched the photo from the gravel.  “Who is he?”

“I have no idea…” Devin replied almost under his breath as he turned over the photograph and read the inscription.

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls…”  Jacob, born March 28^th

With more questions than ever, Devin unfolded the pages, holding the photograph to the side with the other mail.

My Dearest Devin,

                I write you with the greatest joy and deepest contrition.  I am sorry I could not get word to you until now.  I know you have been worried and, for that, please accept my apology.   I wished to write you sooner.  My only defense has been nearly non-stop occupation, and confusion as to how to reach you safely.

Since you last heard from us, we have experienced a season of wonders, profound changes, great sorrow, pain and fear, but also unimagined happiness.  There is so much to tell, and so much that I cannot put into words.   I believe you will understand when I write that although we are exactly where you left us, I have journeyed to an entirely new continent, and am living a different life in a beautiful, but foreign land.  It seems almost too strange and miraculous to write in words, but Catherine has become my wife and she has given me a son, Jacob, born just three days after all my prayers, uttered in hope and despair, were answered, and we were reunited.   

So many walls that seemed impossibly tall have been scaled by love. Our tiny child, my wise little Jacob, looks into me with my own eyes perfected, and he sees no half-man, only his guide, his protector, his father…

Devin stopped reading and looked at the photo again.

Jacob…

Vincent’s son…

Holy Jesus…

Devin whooped, punching the air with the papers.   The sound reverberated through the quiet hills and fields of his new home.

“Good news, I take it?” offered Mike.

“The best!  My brother and his wife just had a kid.  I didn’t even know he was married!  I’m a goddamn uncle!”  Devin shouted in amazement.

“Congratulations to ‘em!” Mike said with real affection, starting the truck again.

“Hey, thanks, Mike! ” Devin yelled over his shoulder, already running up the drive.

Vincent had named Catherine his wife.   He had claimed her, and been claimed in return.  Vincent had a son.  The world was a different place, larger, fairer, and maybe, just maybe, Devin Wells had a place in it.

“Charles!” Devin screamed for his friend.

His memory could be a gift.  He could pay some of his debts to Vincent after all.  He could tell Catherine stories of the boy her husband was, the secrets their father knew nothing about - the mischievous boy, the trickster child, of the tears and laughter only two little boys could share.  He would reminisce with a brother and speculate about a son.

There was a new person in the world, and because of this little boy, there were new possibilities, a new life to try on.

Vincent is a dad, and maybe I can be a better uncle than I’ve been a brother, or a son. 

Devin spied Charles standing tentatively between the house and porch, peering out of their darkening home to see what could cause his friend, recently so dour and quiet, to scream and laugh like a madman.

“Charles,” Devin began, running up the wooden stairs, wheezing out the words, “pack a bag.  We’ve got to get ready.”  He looked around at the birds starting to quiet in the cooling evening.  He wiped the sweat off his forehead, slicking back his black hair.  “Jeeze, we need to find somebody to take care of your chickens for a while,” he gulped out.

He turned back to his friend, who had followed him almost blindly into a new life.  Devin hoped he would have the faith and good will to follow him again.

Devin needed to return to New York to see Vincent and his family.  He needed to go back to go forward.

He showed Charles the photo.

“We’ve got family to see.”

---

[i] Latin - Forewarned, forarmed.

[ii] Waiting for Godot, Samuel Becket

[iii] Gutama Buddha

[iv] Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

[v] War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

[vi] Ulysses – James Joyce

Click here to return to the Main Title page...

Click here to return to Fiction index