AN: This is another very short one-shot, that takes a tentative look at would could have happened if one answer to one question had been different. Just a piece of nonsense that came to me while talking to Catherine, my next-door neighbour!
A Letter from His Sister
It was the postmark that had caught his attention, and for a moment he'd considered throwing it in the trash, just like he done with all the other letters from England, but for some reason, and with a snort of exasperation at his own foolish curiosity he slipped the blade of his pocket knife under the flap and slitting the envelope, pulled out the three sheets of paper, covered, as he'd expected, in her beautifully clear handwriting.
"103 Torquay Street
London WC1 2EE
United Kingdom
0044 207 555 4280
October 1st 2010
Dear Donnie.
I know this all came as a huge surprise, probably even shocked you when it happened, but it's been four years now, and I need you not to be mad at me any more.
You're right of course, I must have been mad, totally out of my head and out of this world insane. It was a huge risk to take. Not what you expected from your ever-so-cautious, test-the-water-first baby sister, I guess. Yes, I know you felt you had a right to be concerned, I can even see how you felt that you were right to be concerned, but you needn't have been. There was just something about him, especially that night, something so sincere and so, oh, I don't know, so safe and secure, maybe. And even though I didn't love him then, after all, I hardly even knew him; I just knew that he would never hurt me.
You asked me once just how well did I know him; we had worked together, no... actually, we had worked against each other on a case where his emotions were running so high and I... well, I had been cool and professional and managed to stonewall him at every turn. Until the last turn, that is. His commitment and his belief in the rightness of his cause struck a sympathetic chord somewhere, with someone, and a piece of evidence I didn't even know existed came to light. And when the court viewed that evidence, even the cool , professional counsel for the respondent (me) had to find a tissue in a big hurry. He won, of course. When I asked him afterwards why he had been so determined, even passionate about winning the case, he said that it wasn't about winning or losing, it was discovering the truth that was important, that, and doing the right thing.
And then when I had needed someone to help me out in the second most insane thing I had ever done, he had stepped up to the plate and swung like Casey, OK, I'd had ask him pretty please, with sugar on it, before he had agreed, but once in, he was in all the way, but you know that; you were there that night too.
And then he got fired. Well, not exactly fired, he had to resign just so he could do the right thing, again. How can you not admire a man for sticking to his principles like that? Especially in today's world. Then about six months later he got fired from his new job, guess what for - for doing the right thing, again. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
That was just a little after the time when that mess with Kevin (yes, I know, you warned me about him too!) had reached critical mass and imploded, (alright, I'm not a physicist - so sue me!) and he had been the only person of whom I could think to turn. It was unlucky, perhaps that she was at his apartment that one time. I still don't know what she was to him by then; hell I don't think he knows even now what she was to him then, his former girlfriend? Partner? Frenemy? Whatever she was, she thought she was still important to him, and Donnie, if you had seen the look she gave as we passed in the doorway, you'd have been calling 911.
I may not have known what she was to him, but I do know that she had broken him, not just his heart, but she had taken something that had been essentially him, and that is something that I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her for. I didn't, and I still don't know how to describe what he had lost, but I could see its loss in his eyes; he'd tried to hide it from me, hell, from the whole world, of course. He is the most infuriatingly reticent man I have ever met. Totally unlike all the other guys in my life, those jerks were all so keen to tell me how great they were, but he wasn't like that. Trying to get him to talk about himself was like trying to get blood out of a stone.
I found out, much later, from one his friends that he resigned so he could go after her and pull her out of some half-resourced mission that another government branch had sent her on. And when he got to her she was on the verge of being tortured and killed. So he not only gave up a profession he loved but he saved her life, and she never even thanked him for any of it, and then she told him, after nearly ten years of close friendship, that there was never going to be anything meaningful between them. I think that's what broke him.
I still don't really know why I went to see him at his apartment that evening. I'd broken up with Kevin some time ago, and I knew that he had just been fired, and that she had taken up with the idiot spook who'd nearly got them all killed, so I figured that two lonely people might cheer each other up, and in spite of his own hurt he tried to help me. Then a couple of nights later I went to see Mom in hospital, and he was already there visiting with her. Mom had already figured out the trick we'd played and she even used her x-ray vision to see through my coat and told me that it wasn't hiding anything or fooling anybody - I was about five months pregnant then with Elizabeth Patricia. Anyway, when we left the hospital, he invited me for dinner the following evening, at his apartment, and then at the end of the meal we were sat, finishing our glass of wine when he asked me why didn't we give it a try? When I asked him what he meant, he said he meant that we should give our relationship a chance, and see what happened.
He jokes about it now, and says he wishes he'd had a camera ready just to catch the expression on my face, though I've pretty good idea of just how stunned-dumb-stupid I must have looked. When I got my wits back I started to say 'no', but when I saw his eyes, the loss, the pain, the desperate longing, the fear of rejection, and the beginning of hope, I just couldn't bring myself to just say 'no'.
So, I tried to rationalise an appropriate answer - yes, I know you always say I over analyse everything, but it's what I do, I am a lawyer. So I started to tell him that he was too high risk, too emotionally damaged, that he didn't know what he wanted, that I was pregnant with another man's child, and that I was never going to tell him who that man was, and maybe that was what he wanted, an instant family, and that we had nothing in common, he'd been at Annapolis while I was at Michigan and he'd been at Georgetown while I did my law at Cornell, and that while he had many qualities that I admired and I didn't necessarily posses, we should perhaps not even be friends.
Then he said he did know what he wanted, he wanted me. He was so certain, I swear my heart skipped a beat, and then I felt that sense of overpowering safety and security I was talking about, and I knew that because he knew what it felt like to be hurt, that he would never hurt me... and then I heard myself say I didn't see why we shouldn't give it a go. Really smart, huh?
Yes, it was smart, probably the smartest thing I've ever said, except I was a bit smarter when six months later, just after he took guardianship of Mattie, and just after we buried Mom, he asked me to marry him. By that time I was so absolutely in love with the most wonderful man in the world that I never even dreamed of analysing or rationalising, I just said 'yes, please'. Maybe you were right, maybe the timing was wrong, but Mom's dying left this huge empty space in my soul, and he filled it with his love for me when I needed him to do just that.
By then he'd got his old job, his first job, back, and then six months after that he took a promotion and we were posted here. He had a very high profile position and I got a part-time job teaching pre-law at the American School. And of course we've got Edward David (Ed) as well now; he's coming up just shy of eighteen months, but I'm sure I wrote you and told you about that. I wish you'd answer my letters.
But he's received new orders assigning him to a post in our old stamping grounds, as Chief of Staff to the new JAG at Falls Church, not too far from Langley. We fly back to DC on November 18th, just in time for Mattie's 21st birthday - she's at Annapolis now, half-way through her third year - and he takes up his assignment on December 1st, so we are hoping to get everything squared away in time for Christmas. We don't have an address yet, so at first we'll be camping at Harmon's Grandmother's house in Belleville, PA, about three hours' drive from DC, but when we get settled, we would love for you and Chrissie and the boys to come and visit with us. It doesn't seem right to me that our children should have to grow up not knowing their cousins just because you and I had a falling out, and I know Mom would want us to kiss and make up and be friends again.
I'll write again and let you know where we end up. I miss you Donnie. With all my love, as always.
Catherine"
Donald Gale read through the letter twice, and again hesitated before he followed his first inclinations to dump it in the trash. Instead he passed it to Chrissie, his wife, who juggling the letter and the squirming eight month old Caroline Esther (named after her grandmothers) read it through, and then looking her husband squarely in the eye said, "She's right Donnie, the kids should get to know each other, and Momma Esther would want you to kiss and make up again."
"Yeah, maybe it's time." He paused, and pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked at his wife and with a smile full of regret for stupid pride and for the lost years said, "I miss her too."