Happy New year 2012! Here's a new story leading to GSR! Enjoy!

Fifteen years Chapter 1

1980

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Most days were not bad, nine year old Sara Sidle thought as she sat on the front steps of the place she called home. Her parents would be awake, sometimes drinking coffee and talking about what they were going to do, before she left for school. When she returned home, her dad might be away trying to find work that paid him enough to buy a bottle of cheap liquor or a six-pack of beer. Her mother was beyond working—and on good days, Laura Sidle would sleep most of the day away.

Today was not a good day and from the noise inside the house, the day had been a very bad one; she had heard their noise as she walked up the sidewalk. They were screaming about everything. Before she got to the porch, glass was breaking. The wars she read about in history books were nothing compared to the on-going battle between her parents.

This was the third time this week she had come home to a major fight. Her dad would beat the walls so hard his hands would bleed. Occasionally, he hit her mother—sometimes with his fists or objects such as a lamp or a book or shoved her into a door. And her mother would throw things at him. They were well known at the emergency room—lies were told to cover truth and yet Sara knew the nurses knew the truth.

Sara could visit Mrs. Dodson, the next door neighbor, but it would only give her parents something else to scream about. Her mother said they did not accept charity from anyone; Sara smirked. That was a lot of nonsense; they had been on welfare off and on since moving from the bed and breakfast house her parents had tried to run as a business.

Instead, Sara daydreamed. She wished for peace and quiet, to live in a house where life was "normal", to have her parents make decisions as adults. She was nine and smart; she read all the mail and checked bank account statements, even paid some bills when she was able to gather up enough money or get her mother to sign a check. She knew why they had moved to this crummy neighborhood and into a small rental house with one bathroom, so sparsely furnished that visitors would not have a place to sit. Not that anyone ever visited—only the bill collectors came to the front door.

She lifted her face and looked toward Mrs. Dodson's house. For Sara, Mrs. Dodson had been a life saver, at least a good friend to the gangly too-tall-for-her-age girl who had moved next door. Sara knew Mrs. Dodson had figured out her parents, heard them fighting, knew they did not work, but she was too nice to let on. Sara appreciated that. Sara's mother would not speak to the elderly neighbor, but ranted about charity when Sara came home with a new sweater one day. But Mrs. Dodson continued to be kind, to buy new socks and underwear for Sara, to provide an after-school haven, and a place to study an old set of encyclopedias when Sara's parents were having a really bad day.

Sara hugged her books to her chest. She could walk over and knock on Mrs. Dodson's door and receive a warm, genuine welcome. She could stay on the porch and hope the yelling and crashing inside would stop. The nine year old grimaced at the sound of a heavy thud—one had pushed the other to the floor, or one had fallen. Another round of loud cursing followed. She opened a book and started reading—geography was her newest interest and her teacher had loaned her a book with exotic names and beautiful photographs filling page after page.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Finally, the noise stopped. She stood, reached for the door knob and turned it slowly so it wouldn't make noise. She peeked in. Her mother was on the sofa, passed out from alcohol or exhaustion. Her father was not to be seen. Sara slipped in and leaned over her mother, checking for breathing and blood—yes on the breathing and no on blood.

The living room was a mess of broken bottles, cans, newspapers, and half eaten food. The kitchen was even worse. Sara sighed; she had washed dishes last night and now pans and plates were scattered over the counters as if a dozen people had eaten there. She went to her room, so small if she lay crosswise on her bed, she could put her feet on one wall and the palms of her hands on the other. Hanging her school clothes in the closet, she pulled on pants that were too short and an old sweater.

At nine, Sara's emotions vacillated between love and hate for her parents. Her dad was smart and on his good days, he would spend hours working math problems with her. He wasn't strict with her, often told strangers how smart his young daughter was; her mother complained of his obvious favoritism. Sara loved him without reservation when he was sober, but when drunk, he could not remember what he had done the day before—which was often hanging out with his drinking buddies.

When he staggered home after a day of drinking, or when Sara's mother got in his face about some imagined fault or action, his behavior deteriorated to yelling and pounding the walls and her mother responded with screaming and throwing things which continued until one or both passed out. Sara knew something was wrong with her mother—normal people did not see things or imagine conversations like her mother did. Her dad called it "mental illness" but at times her mother was extraordinary with praise for her daughter. Even when that happened, Sara knew her mother's attention was different from the usual mother-daughter interest. And Laura Sidle could make the most amazing plans and tell wonderful stories of how their lives were going to be until her "mental illness" covered every thought and action.

Both parents had enough bad days that Sara no longer told them of parent-teacher meetings or programs at school. She was smart. Her teachers knew it and several of them provided extra lessons, let her read books several grades ahead of her level. In her backpack, she had a letter with her test scores putting her in the ninety-fifth percentile for sixth graders—and Sara was a fourth grader. She had read the letter; her teacher wanted parental permission to give Sara an above-level assessment test which would place her several grades above the fourth grade. The geography teacher had whispered that sixth graders were studying the Americas, its people, land, climate, and water which combined history and geography. The woman had smiled with such sincerity and affection that Sara smiled with her.

As she washed dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and swept up broken glass, Sara's daydreaming began again. She wanted what was normal so desperately that she would, and often did, hide her intelligence from others. She had few friends at school but this was more of her own choice—hiding her family life—than because of her math skills or reading comprehension. She knew her fourth grade teachers were careful not to call attention to her abilities but she suspected she was the topic of an on-going discussion. Why else would her geography teacher give her a beautiful book of maps or her history teacher slip her a book on European history covering the Hundred Years' War. She loved both subjects, keeping the books hidden behind her bed to keep them safe from her parents.

She found a couple of slices of bread and smeared one with grape jelly and the other with the last of the peanut butter. Supper. No milk, no juice, not even tea to drink. There were two eggs in the refrigerator and she decided to boil those for her breakfast. She wiped spilled beer from the table and threw a dozen empty cans in the trash. They needed real food, but she had no way to buy anything—and she knew her dad had no money by the number of beer cans in the house.

Taking her sandwich and a glass of water into her bedroom, she closed the door, ate her supper while she completed homework—a process that took her fifteen minutes—and then pulled out the hidden history book. Knowing her parents would sleep until daylight, she pulled her bedcovers over her and continued reading until almost midnight, pretending she was in a quiet cocoon of safety.

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Gil Grissom raised an eyebrow as the young woman approached. At twenty-four, women liked him—and he liked women. He was a scientist and kept himself immersed in his work, but a beautiful woman could catch his eye and this one was headed to the window seat next to his aisle seat.

"Let me help with that," he said as he rose from his seat and lifted her bag into the overhead compartment.

She murmured a pleasant response and slipped into her seat.

Grissom liked the tangy smell of her fragrance as her shoulder grazed his. He took his seat again and clipped the seat belt together.

"Heading home?" He asked watching as the young woman crossed slim ankles and wiggled a bit before she fastened her own seat belt. The long flight to California might be more enjoyable than he had thought if this woman was more than a pretty face.

An hour later the pretty face had lost its attraction as she had talked so much drivel that Grissom made a polite excuse and escaped to the bathroom where he wanted to hide until landing. Pretty girl had laced sentences together without ceasing about her soon-to-be famous acting career and her wonderful agent and a dozen other nonsense topics. His mind was numb from the incessant chatter. Two rows behind his seat an old man was sleeping against the window; the aisle seat empty. After a quick trip to the back of the plane, he returned to his seat, retrieved two books from the overhead compartment, and, making no excuse, settled into the empty seat two rows back and opened a book. Frivolous continuous conversation had never been his strong point; listening to it even less so.

With the book open in his hand, he did not read. Instead, he thought of home, not a house or an address, but the sunny place where he had lived all of his life. He had barely allowed himself to think of home and his mother during the entire trip. His three day interview had gone surprisingly well and Grissom had left Minneapolis with a job offer in hand. The position was similar to what he had been doing, more money, more responsibility, but it would put two thousand miles between him and his mother, separate him from the only place he had ever called home.

When he was nine, his father had died, and his mother, hoping to counteract the lack of a father, told him daily that he was destined for a unique path in life. When his interests turned to science, she made sure he experienced every museum exhibit relating to biology, botany, ecology, astronomy—anything relating to his budding interest and the two were standing in line when the doors opened. For birthdays and Christmas, she gave him microscopes, chemistry kits, rockets and weather stations. Yet, his favorites were ant farms—especially when he learned he could win school science fairs with his meticulous presentation of a year with an ant farm. At twelve, he received small anatomical models of humans and animals and he quickly proceeded to collecting dead animals and dissecting them, comparing real ones to his models. By the time he was in high school, he was immersed in studying insect activity, especially finding the orderliness of insects interesting—and his teenage hobby had slowly bloomed into a college diploma, graduate work, and a doctorate degree in entomology.

He smiled to himself; Betty Grissom was a saint. She held three graduate degrees, ran a successful art gallery, served on civic boards, started an art program for special needs children and lavished attention on talents, real or fictitious. She took risks, loved the limelight and stood fearless in the face of change when she lost her hearing and her husband within a few years. For years, her son had wanted to be like her, but at some point, he realized they did not experience the thrill of living in the same way.

His mother was an extrovert, so gregarious, so sociable and self-confident that people seldom considered her deafness as a handicap. Grissom was not as shy as he remembered his father, who taught at the same school for years, and had depended on his wife for social contacts. His father had been an enigma as he stood before students teaching botany every day, but found it difficult to respond to a greeting from a grocery clerk.

Grissom knew he would have more difficulty with separation than his mother would. She would see his new job as breaking out of a mold of his own making. A master at bolstering his self-esteem, she would say this was a step in the right direction even if it moved him two thousand miles away in a new city with long cold winters.

He wiped his hand over his face and raked fingers through his hair. If his mother had ever thought his chosen occupation was odd—working in the coroner's office—she had never voiced it to him. He knew he was very lucky to have a strong, generous mother.

In a few seconds, he closed his book and his eyes and joined his slumbering seat mate in a high-altitude nap.

As the plane landed, Grissom knew his mother would be waiting just beyond security. She would have parked her car, never considering that she could have picked him up curbside—and she had probably arrived at least forty-five minutes prior to his scheduled arrival. Betty Grissom, just as he expected, was waiting for him as if he had been gone for weeks instead of three days.

His mother was a striking woman for her age, fit, well-dressed wearing a pink and gray suit looking more like a television star than the young woman on the plane could ever hope to achieve. She grabbed his hands and lightly kissed his cheek before letting go and signing:

"You got the job" her hands moved as a smile spread across her face. "I am so proud."

He nodded; she had known before he told her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they headed to claim his luggage.

Betty's hands kept signing, "When will you move? Is Minneapolis beautiful? Do you know where you will live?"

Grissom was laughing; he stopped walking, faced his mother and signed "I will tell you everything when we get home."

A/N: We are writing a glimpse of history with this one-you will see a pattern as chapters are posted. We enjoy reading your comments, so please take a minute and let us know what you think!