Mommy Dearest
Chapter 1
All in the Family
"Commander Rabb's Office, Petty Officer Coates, sir. Oh, I beg your pardon ma'am! No ma'am, he's with the Admiral right now. No ma'am, I just happened to be passing his desk when the phone rang." She looked across the desk at Commander Rabb as he mouthed frantically 'who is it? Mackenzie?' (He'd been ducking calls from Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie for days) She shook her head, while still listening to the caller and raised her eyebrows, and with eyes brimming with mischief, she mouthed in return 'your mother', then ignoring his desperate shakes of his head said to his horror, "Oh, one moment ma'am, he's just walked in the door!"
Giving her a look that promised future dire punishment he reluctantly accepted the 'phone from her and said, in his best-behaved little boy voice, "Hi, mom, how are you" but he didn't take his eyes off the Petty Officer's hips as she turned and walked out of his office.
"Don't you, 'Hi mom,' me!" said his mother's voice from the other side of the continent. "You should be ashamed of yourself!
Well, alright he'd been a bit busy and hadn't managed to call home for a week or two, or maybe six, he thought a little guiltily, and he could, he supposed, have made the time to call in and see her, or just call her when he was on that last JAGMAN investigation at Miramar, but he had been busy, and he had in the past left it much longer between calls home. And it was complicated; there were still unresolved issues between him and Frank, his mother's second husband. He still hadn't found the right moment yet to tell his mother about his newly discovered half-brother Sergei. How the hell was he supposed to explain that anyway! But for his mom to tell him he should be ashamed of himself was a bit much, unless, and his heart sunk, she had somehow found out about Sergei! But how?
"Mom, I'm sorry, I know I should have called you sooner, but we've been a bit busy here..."
"Oh this isn't about you neglecting me! I'm used to that!" he winced at this reminder of his past failures to call home, but neglect?
"Mom, I don't neglect you! I send you Birthday, Christmas and Mothers' Day Cards, I always call you on those days..."
"And who reminds you to send those cards? I suppose it's your secretary!"
"What secretary? I don't have a secretary!"
"Well who was that girl that answered your phone? Another one of your floozies, I suppose, or is she just another one of your unfortunate victims?"
Harmon Rabb was now totally out of his depth and sinking fast. He honestly had no idea what his mother was talking about, but he clutched at a passing straw, and as usual when trying to deal with his mother in one her moods, he caught hold of the wrong one. "Mom, she's just one of the Legalmen who work in the office, and she was just dropping off some paperwork for me when you called. I barely know the girl!" He was unaware that the volume of his voice had risen until he saw out of the corner of his eye and through the open door of his office, a door that Petty Officer Coates should have shut behind her, he had gathered a small audience. Included in the audience was Lieutenant Harriett Sims who was looking at him with an expression of unholy amusement on her face, and 'the girl' he had this past moment, deeply offended and dismissively described to his mother as 'just one of the Legalmen'. The mischief that had lit up her face a bare five minutes ago had entirely disappeared, and she looked deeply hurt and had turned pale. But for now he had to try and cope with his mother, and hope that nobody else noticed her expression; he'd have to deal with his mistake later.
"Mom, I have no idea what you're talking about!" he protested, making frantic signals for someone to shut his office door for him.
"It's just as well that you've got friends in that office of yours who answer their calls and gave me that sweet child's number so that I was able to call her. I don't know what you said or did to her, although that seems to be self-evident, but when I spoke to her and told her who I was, she couldn't stop crying! I always hoped you'd give me grandchildren, but I thought I had raised you so that at least you'd get married first, and not present me with a clutch of bastards!" 'Friends who answer their calls'? What friends? Mackenzie?
"Mom," he replied helplessly, "what sweet child, what bastards?"
"That's right, pretend ignorance. I don't know what I did wrong when I was raising you, but you certainly haven't turned out as I'd expected, or as your father would have wanted!"
Ow! That was dirty pool! And he still didn't know of what crime he was being accused. He had a right to a fair and speedy trial (OK, this one was speedy, if a bit on the biased side), he had the right to confront his accuser (well he was, kind of, but she was also apparently the judge in the case, and she'd already found him guilty!) and he had the right to hear the evidence against him!
"Mom, he said patiently, "I'm not pretending ignorance. I honestly do not know what you are talking about!" Again as he spoke he was unaware of his voice reaching a crescendo.
"Don't you yell at me! I'm talking about that pretty little blonde girl Loren, and that fat belly you've given her!"
"That's not mine!" he retorted (Still yelling, a voice in the back his mind warned him; still yelling, not good.) "That's Sergei's baby!" Loren? 'A sweet child'? Loren Singer? And then an awful realisation dawned on him: Oh crap! Did I just say Sergei? He asked himself in panic.
The silence emanating from La Jolla was deafening, and finally, a quiet, slow, measured voice loaded with poisonous sweetness asked, "And just who is Sergei? And why, if the baby is his, should Loren say it was another bastard Rabb?"
Oh, crap, crap, crap, crap! "Mom, it's a long, long story, and I don't really have time to try and explain it to you now. And it isn't really the kind of thing you need to hear over the 'phone. Mom, I'll fly out to La Jolla this weekend and I'll try to clear everything up, properly. OK, mom? Mom? Mom, say something... please?"
"If you are sure you are coming to visit me this weekend, then yes, I'll give you a hearing, but why you couldn't have called in last week when you were at Miramar, I just don't know! I suppose it was too difficult to get a rental and drive all those hundreds of miles, no, wait, all of the twelve miles between the airport and here!"
"I promise, mom, I'll be there late Friday evening." We are not having a conversation as to why I did not visit her when I was at Miramar! And how the hell did she find out? Mackenzie again?
"Not too late, you know Frank and I like our early bedtime on a weekend!" (Oh, great, thanks mom for putting that image in my mind!)
"Mom, who gave you Loren's number?" I don't even have Loren's number!
"It was that nice Sarah Mackenzie, when I called to talk to you last week. She didn't know where you were either, and suggested I call Loren, she said it would have been too awkward for her to call." I'll just bet she did!
"Now, don't forget, Friday evening!"
"I'll be there mom, oh, and mom, I love you."
"I love you too, son, take care, and we'll see you on Friday - don't forget."
He put the 'phone down and buried his face in his hands. How did he suddenly become the bad guy in this? All he'd tried to do was help the woman who was, as she finally admitted, carrying his half-brother's child! OK, he'd yelled at Loren in Belsinger's parking lot, but she could provoke him nearly as much as Mackenzie, and she'd been wearing his patience thin over the it-was/wasn't-Sergei's-baby game she'd been playing ever since they got back from the Seahawk, but she did have his sympathy, and when she'd grabbed her stomach and said it hurt he'd stopped yelling at her and driven her up to Bethesda to get a check-up and then when the medicos had said she was OK, on to Ronald Regan airport to make sure she got to her flight to San Diego in time. He'd even paid for the first month's parking at the secure parking lot she'd booked her car into while she was on maternity leave.
And he'd got a witness to his good deeds! Petty Officer Coates had been in the bar that evening and she'd come running when he'd called her for help, and she'd followed him in her own car so he wouldn't be left stranded when he'd parked Loren's. Now that was another mess they'd have to clear up!
Neither of them had meant it to happen, she'd driven him home, and he'd invited her in for a coffee, to say thank you for her help and sorry for spoiling her dinner. They'd got talking, about her article 32 hearing, about Bud and his accident, and she'd got all misty eyed, and then he'd done something incredibly stupid. He'd done what he had wanted to do since he'd first seen her more than a year before, he'd taken her into his arms and he'd kissed her. She had been just as stupid, she'd kissed him back. They had ended up spending that night, and many more since, together. It was the irony of their situation that got to him. After waiting so many years, after years of searching for just the right woman, it had been the navy that had thrown them together and the navy that would throw them into the brig for being together!
And now, this morning, in trying to pacify his mother he'd referred to her, in her hearing, as 'just a girl from the office'. Well, unless she was too mad to even talk to him, he could expect a three ring circus of a fight this evening!
He groaned, all he'd tried to do was be a good pilot, a good lawyer and a good person, and this was all the thanks he got. But it seemed he wasn't even going to be allowed the luxury of a little self-pity. His office door was hurled open, and he snapped his head out of his hands, as a blazingly furious Mac Mackenzie burst into his office. She slammed the door behind her and yelled, "Rabb! You bastard...!"
This was why he'd been ducking her calls. He'd said something in casual conversation about helping to look after Loren, and she'd leapt to the same conclusion his mother had, but her anger he realised was motivated by jealousy. What the hell she'd got to be jealous about he didn't know. They were work partners, colleagues, sometimes they were even friends, but she had no right to be jealous! They had, or rather, she had once, that night in Sydney Harbour, broached the possibility of them being more than just friends, but he'd known that it would have been a huge personal and professional mistake, and she'd seemed OK with it. Since then he'd had girlfriends while she'd had her boyfriends and had even been engaged once, and they'd gotten on pretty well most of the time.
His own temper now worn to shreds he'd risen to his feet and yelled at her across the desk, "Don't you come storming in here, you... Jarhead!" Even in his anger he couldn't bring himself to swear at a woman.
But that was as far as he got. They were interrupted by a furious Admiral Chegwidden, "Stand down! Both of you stand down!" he roared. "My office now!"
They had been forced still simmering with rage at each other, to stand to attention while the Admiral with consummate mastery had torn their characters and their professional abilities to shreds. They had left his office hating him, and their outstanding grievances unresolved, still hating each other. The chewing out had been one of the Admiral's masterworks; it had been forceful, pithy, well-delivered, well-reasoned and very, very loud. Even Petty Officer Tiner, the Admiral's Yeoman had looked pale and shaken as they had left the Old Man's office, and Tiner had been at his own desk!
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Petty Officer Coates had evaded him all afternoon; everywhere he looked it seemed he had just missed her. He couldn't persist in his search for her. If he made it too obvious, then scuttlebutt control would shift into overdrive; and scuttlebutt reaching the wrong quarters could easily lead to an investigation into their somewhat unorthodox (and contrary to regulations) relationship.
So now he sat on his couch at home, idly plucking a soulful blues number on the strings of his acoustic guitar, an opened but untouched bottle of beer on the table in front of him, and a look of abject misery on his face. He didn't look up as the apartment door opened, he didn't need to, only one other person had the key to the apartment. He tensed as she crossed the room towards him and he thought he could feel the temperature drop as she came closer.
Petty Officer Jennifer Coates had come prepared for a fight. There was no way he was going to get off referring her to her as 'just a Legalman from the office.' Who the hell did he think he is? Especially now! It was one thing to be careful around the office, but when it comes to his sounding ashamed of her when he was talking to his mother, then it was about time she tore him a new one! The miserable bastard (for once she agreed with Colonel Mackenzie) couldn't even look her in the eye. And then he did, and Jen felt all her anger drain away. He wasn't wearing his usual cocky grin, he looked pale, drawn, miserable, anxious, ashamed and... scared.
He swallowed hard before he was able to speak, and even then all he could say "Jen... I was so afraid I'd lost you..."
She sat next to him on the couch and drew his face down to her breast, "I know, Harm, I know, everything's fine, hush now."
She sat holding him like that for a long time, content to let her presence heal him. And then standing, she took his hand in hers and drew him gently towards the bedroom.
Later, in the peaceful darkness, he spoke tentatively to her, "Jen, would you like to come to San Diego with me this weekend, and meet my folks? I promised mom that I'd go, there are some family things we need to talk through, but I really want her to meet you."
"Are you sure about this? I'm told you never let your mom meet your girl-friends."
"That's because, until you, I never met anyone who she would approve of."
"Not just as a smokescreen to get you off the hook about Loren and her baby?"
"No, Never! I know I was a jerk this morning, but I would never ever do that to you, to the woman I love."
"Are you sure you love me Harm?"
There was something in her voice that told him that his next answer had better be the right one. "I am as sure that I love you as I am that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening."
She took his hand and laid it on her bare stomach, "And are you going to love this one just as much?"