1 The Heir to a Secret
1.1 By ANGELOFNIGHT
As I stared across the hospital bed at my mothers' tear-red eyes, I finally understood the exact meaning of my existence. For nearly twenty years, I had been subjected to the gossip my mother and father seemed oblivious to. Although the gossip was not really meant to hurt my parents, it was stinging to my mind.
Father, who I'd known my whole life as Monsieur Hab Ledoux, was many years my mothers' senior. My mother, Clair, had been a teacher, and was an honest woman. But until now, I'd almost believed rumors about how she had been forced into marriage with my father.
But she loved my father with all that she was. Looking at her now, I knew that my birth was the result of love, and not the lust of an old man… or from my mothers' sense of duty to produce her unwanted husbands heir. My father was not a perverse old chap who desired a younger wife to subject to his lust. He was a very noble man, who had always considered her wants and desires as they had both looked out for mine.
I'd grown up surrounded by their loved, and never questioned that they were both very good people. Yet now I knew there were no secrets of that nature – caused by the gossip of our neighbors and their co-workers – hidden within the sanctity of our family. Even had my mother been obligated to marry my father, I would never have thought him a perverse fool, or an insincere husband.
"Maman… try and get some rest." I put my hand gently on my mothers' shoulder, making her blue eyes look at me sharply. Even now, at fifty, I couldn't believe how beautiful she was.
"I told your father that I would stay." She protested. "Toni… I know he'd want me to be here. Before he slipped away…"
There had been nothing wrong with my father until a few months before. At least he had seemed all right to me. But then, after what surely had to have been many months of well-hidden, agonizing pain, my mother began to notice he would sometimes go into states of oblivion, where he'd just stare into space. And twice, he had been thrown into fits of such pain that he would become unconscious. It was then that my mother forced him to go to the doctor. It was something I'd never seen either of them do. For some reason, not one of us had ever been taken to the hospital unless it was a total emergency. It had usually been for me going to the emergency room for stitches because of some childhood accident.
The doctor had finally found a cancer that was in its' final stages, and was totally inoperable. The doctor had been amazed how my father had managed to hide the illness for so long, because he knew it must have been excruciatingly painful. Now, he was in a coma, and probably would last much longer. He'd been in this state for days, after an extended period of laying in the at home hospital bed, trying very hard to breathe without the help of a respirator. At his demand, he'd been allowed to remain at home with only a live-in nurse to take care of him. No medicines, except to help with the pain. No heart monitor, and no respirator or oxygen masks.
"Mother… at least lean back and rest your eyes. The man is nearly eighty-three. You can't sit up in hopes that he'll beat something like this." My words were harsh, but we both knew I was telling the truth.
"No, Toni." She sighed in quiet agreement. "Now all I hope for is he be released from the cage of his pains. He always hated being weak… or feeling as though he were caged."
My mother reached out to touch a cheek that had grown thin and pale. For a moment, it seemed father would react. But he only lay in his pitiful state of complete oblivion. Still, my mother would sometimes insist she saw him take in a sharper breath than normal. Or that his pulse, which usually sat under one of her extra-sensitive fingertips, would quicken momentarily.
"Maman… you told me that you wanted to tell me something. You and papa. Just a while before he fell into the coma. Will you tell me now?"
A week ago, she'd called me at work, saying that my fathers condition was getting worse, and that he wanted to talk to me about something. Well… to write something to me at least. His ability to speak had long gone away, because it took too much energy out of him. Yet when I got home, he was in his coma… and my mother had been so distressed I would not dared to have brought the subject up earlier than now.
She sighed, reaching over to the table by her chair. She passed me a packet of papers, with three heavy duty staples driven through it.
"Your father wrote this." She said. "I'll answer any questions you have about me; but these are the facts, and his emotional responses to it all. I added some things in back, too. I printed them off the internet."
I looked over the first page carefully. My fathers writing must have been shaky, for my mother had re-typed the story for him. I wished she hadn't. Even with a weak and trembling hand, my father had had elegant writing that I would always compare to those of a scholar that could write calligraphy.
"Lecter?" I asked, peering up at her over the pamphlet. "I've never heard of him."
"I'm not surprised." Mother replied. "He hasn't killed since a few days after you were born. It's all in his story. Read it carefully, Toni."
"Was my father some twisted version of Jean Val Jean, from Les Miserables?" I asked with a crooked smile, trying to be funny. I chuckled, not really worried about the terrible things I might be about to read. My mother smiled to me sadly.
"Perhaps. If so … I was his Javert." Looking to my father, she bit her lower lip. "Isn't that right, my love?"
Of course, my father didn't answer her. His breathing was inaudible now. Yet the massive chest of his once very robust and strong body continued to rise and fall visibly.
I sat down, and read the thirteen page story. Apparently, my father had been working on it for a very long time. It told me every little secret I'd always wanted to know about my parents. Some of their strange behavior that I'd noticed as a child became suddenly clear to me. At the end of the pamphlet, my mother had stapled black and white printouts of my father as he had looked some thirty years ago, in a prison cell. With it were newspaper articles that she must have come up upon mostly by chance. They were so bizarre and uncommon, it was a miracle she'd found them at all.
When I was done, I looked up at my fathers slack face. His breathing was the same as when I'd started.
"It's all right." I told them both in a low voice. "You raised me with love. I love you both. I accept what you've been, Papa…"
The man I now knew as Dr. Hannibal Lecter took in a slow, deep breath. Several minutes later, he stopped breathing altogether. I reached down to take the hand closest to me, checking for a pulse. My mother did the same with his other hand, and two fingertips pressed to his throat. We followed his heartbeat until it slowed… stopped altogether. We held our breaths until we knew there would be no more heartbeat.
"Good-bye, Hannibal." My mother whispered, her voice breaking, despite what a strong-willed woman she was. A tear slid down each cheek, but she did not break down into tears. She leaned down to press a kiss to my fathers' thin lips, and then stood, turning away.
I walked around to her side of the bed to try and comfort her, but I wound up catching her in a dead faint of shock. Gently, I lowered her to the floor, trying to waken her again.
AS I held her, I knew their secret would go with me to my grave. I would not allow their love to be exploited by anyone. No one would make their devotion to one another into a twisted little fairy tale of horror. The tabloid articles my mother had included with my fathers' essay-story had offered me a glimpse of the shame that would be placed on their names if anyone ever found out the truth.
My mother and father had been in love. I would never let anyone make me forget that. They had loved one another. They had loved me. And they had been fighting for all these years just to keep us all safe from the sorrow of being separated forever. Now, even though father was dead, we would never again be apart.
1.1 By ANGELOFNIGHT
As I stared across the hospital bed at my mothers' tear-red eyes, I finally understood the exact meaning of my existence. For nearly twenty years, I had been subjected to the gossip my mother and father seemed oblivious to. Although the gossip was not really meant to hurt my parents, it was stinging to my mind.
Father, who I'd known my whole life as Monsieur Hab Ledoux, was many years my mothers' senior. My mother, Clair, had been a teacher, and was an honest woman. But until now, I'd almost believed rumors about how she had been forced into marriage with my father.
But she loved my father with all that she was. Looking at her now, I knew that my birth was the result of love, and not the lust of an old man… or from my mothers' sense of duty to produce her unwanted husbands heir. My father was not a perverse old chap who desired a younger wife to subject to his lust. He was a very noble man, who had always considered her wants and desires as they had both looked out for mine.
I'd grown up surrounded by their loved, and never questioned that they were both very good people. Yet now I knew there were no secrets of that nature – caused by the gossip of our neighbors and their co-workers – hidden within the sanctity of our family. Even had my mother been obligated to marry my father, I would never have thought him a perverse fool, or an insincere husband.
"Maman… try and get some rest." I put my hand gently on my mothers' shoulder, making her blue eyes look at me sharply. Even now, at fifty, I couldn't believe how beautiful she was.
"I told your father that I would stay." She protested. "Toni… I know he'd want me to be here. Before he slipped away…"
There had been nothing wrong with my father until a few months before. At least he had seemed all right to me. But then, after what surely had to have been many months of well-hidden, agonizing pain, my mother began to notice he would sometimes go into states of oblivion, where he'd just stare into space. And twice, he had been thrown into fits of such pain that he would become unconscious. It was then that my mother forced him to go to the doctor. It was something I'd never seen either of them do. For some reason, not one of us had ever been taken to the hospital unless it was a total emergency. It had usually been for me going to the emergency room for stitches because of some childhood accident.
The doctor had finally found a cancer that was in its' final stages, and was totally inoperable. The doctor had been amazed how my father had managed to hide the illness for so long, because he knew it must have been excruciatingly painful. Now, he was in a coma, and probably would last much longer. He'd been in this state for days, after an extended period of laying in the at home hospital bed, trying very hard to breathe without the help of a respirator. At his demand, he'd been allowed to remain at home with only a live-in nurse to take care of him. No medicines, except to help with the pain. No heart monitor, and no respirator or oxygen masks.
"Mother… at least lean back and rest your eyes. The man is nearly eighty-three. You can't sit up in hopes that he'll beat something like this." My words were harsh, but we both knew I was telling the truth.
"No, Toni." She sighed in quiet agreement. "Now all I hope for is he be released from the cage of his pains. He always hated being weak… or feeling as though he were caged."
My mother reached out to touch a cheek that had grown thin and pale. For a moment, it seemed father would react. But he only lay in his pitiful state of complete oblivion. Still, my mother would sometimes insist she saw him take in a sharper breath than normal. Or that his pulse, which usually sat under one of her extra-sensitive fingertips, would quicken momentarily.
"Maman… you told me that you wanted to tell me something. You and papa. Just a while before he fell into the coma. Will you tell me now?"
A week ago, she'd called me at work, saying that my fathers condition was getting worse, and that he wanted to talk to me about something. Well… to write something to me at least. His ability to speak had long gone away, because it took too much energy out of him. Yet when I got home, he was in his coma… and my mother had been so distressed I would not dared to have brought the subject up earlier than now.
She sighed, reaching over to the table by her chair. She passed me a packet of papers, with three heavy duty staples driven through it.
"Your father wrote this." She said. "I'll answer any questions you have about me; but these are the facts, and his emotional responses to it all. I added some things in back, too. I printed them off the internet."
I looked over the first page carefully. My fathers writing must have been shaky, for my mother had re-typed the story for him. I wished she hadn't. Even with a weak and trembling hand, my father had had elegant writing that I would always compare to those of a scholar that could write calligraphy.
"Lecter?" I asked, peering up at her over the pamphlet. "I've never heard of him."
"I'm not surprised." Mother replied. "He hasn't killed since a few days after you were born. It's all in his story. Read it carefully, Toni."
"Was my father some twisted version of Jean Val Jean, from Les Miserables?" I asked with a crooked smile, trying to be funny. I chuckled, not really worried about the terrible things I might be about to read. My mother smiled to me sadly.
"Perhaps. If so … I was his Javert." Looking to my father, she bit her lower lip. "Isn't that right, my love?"
Of course, my father didn't answer her. His breathing was inaudible now. Yet the massive chest of his once very robust and strong body continued to rise and fall visibly.
I sat down, and read the thirteen page story. Apparently, my father had been working on it for a very long time. It told me every little secret I'd always wanted to know about my parents. Some of their strange behavior that I'd noticed as a child became suddenly clear to me. At the end of the pamphlet, my mother had stapled black and white printouts of my father as he had looked some thirty years ago, in a prison cell. With it were newspaper articles that she must have come up upon mostly by chance. They were so bizarre and uncommon, it was a miracle she'd found them at all.
When I was done, I looked up at my fathers slack face. His breathing was the same as when I'd started.
"It's all right." I told them both in a low voice. "You raised me with love. I love you both. I accept what you've been, Papa…"
The man I now knew as Dr. Hannibal Lecter took in a slow, deep breath. Several minutes later, he stopped breathing altogether. I reached down to take the hand closest to me, checking for a pulse. My mother did the same with his other hand, and two fingertips pressed to his throat. We followed his heartbeat until it slowed… stopped altogether. We held our breaths until we knew there would be no more heartbeat.
"Good-bye, Hannibal." My mother whispered, her voice breaking, despite what a strong-willed woman she was. A tear slid down each cheek, but she did not break down into tears. She leaned down to press a kiss to my fathers' thin lips, and then stood, turning away.
I walked around to her side of the bed to try and comfort her, but I wound up catching her in a dead faint of shock. Gently, I lowered her to the floor, trying to waken her again.
AS I held her, I knew their secret would go with me to my grave. I would not allow their love to be exploited by anyone. No one would make their devotion to one another into a twisted little fairy tale of horror. The tabloid articles my mother had included with my fathers' essay-story had offered me a glimpse of the shame that would be placed on their names if anyone ever found out the truth.
My mother and father had been in love. I would never let anyone make me forget that. They had loved one another. They had loved me. And they had been fighting for all these years just to keep us all safe from the sorrow of being separated forever. Now, even though father was dead, we would never again be apart.