His Mother's Eyes
He didn't like having to do what he did, putting an end to an old man to end his family's curse. But the blood high was unlike anything he could ever get from a bottle or a pill.
That old buzzard hadn't gone down easy either. In life, he had been something of a spitfire, in the literal sense; his curse was being able to breathe fire. He'd burned down his neighbor's house over a quarrel, and well, you just couldn't have that sort of thing around Haven, it scared the normals too much. Not to mention the rest of the world didn't need to know what went on in this town.
He didn't like having to do what he did. But he knew it was a necessary evil when the Troubles came. It was what his family had done since they'd begun.
He gingerly touched the wound on his side. It needed stitching, he knew. He hoped the Mik'maq's doctor was in on his monthly visit.
Henry Prosper, the local shaman, met him at the edge of the village, coming back from fishing.
"Did you stop the man?"
"Yes," was Simon Crocker's answer.
Henry looked sad, but nodded. "It had to be done."
"Yeah. Is Doc Guidry in this week?" Simon questioned.
Henry shook his head. "No, he's been reassigned further north. But we have a nurse. She's very capable."
It'd be just too good of luck to be Sarah, Simon thought. Sarah had killed his father that day at the hospital, and Simon had longed to pay her back for it for 20 years. But she'd up and vanished one day back in '58, and no one had seen her since.
Simon nodded his thanks, and made his way to the long, low building that the Mik'maq used as their clinic.
Rosie Prosper, Henry's wife was there.
"What brings you, Simon?" she questioned. She knew what he did. Most everyone knew what he did. They just didn't talk about it. Simon knew what it was to feel like an executioner; an unpleasant task, but he had a job to do like everyone else.
"Got hurt, Rosie," Simon said, showing her the wound.
Rosie got up and put her head in the door across from them, and then turned back to Simon.
"Nurse Duke will see you now," she told him.
Simon heaved himself to his feet, and went inside, and found himself struck dumb by the woman he found in the room.
She had long dark hair, braided neatly down her back. Large almond-shaped deep brown eyes, olive skin, delicate bone structure, a full mouth. She wore a clinical coat with her name Hannah Duke, RN embroidered on it.
"Rosie says you have a cut," she began. "Let's have a look."
Simon remembered himself, and took off his coat, Hannah's helping him. He got his shirt off, and winced as she gently prodded it.
"Looks like a clean slice," she commented. "Mr.-"
"Crocker," Simon answered. "Simon Crocker."
"Well, Mr. Crocker, that's going to require some sutures," she replied. "I can give you a shot to dull the pain, if you would rather wait for Dr. Keller to do it back in Haven. It's not life-threatening; it would keep."
"Can't you stitch it? I have to get back home," Simon said.
She wavered. "I'm not supposed to suture wounds."
"If you're worried I'll tell, I won't," Simon told her. "But I have to return to Haven. I've lost quite a bit of blood already," he says. "I just don't want to pass out on the boat ride home."
She nodded. "I'll suture it. Just don't tell Dr. Guidry. I could lose my license over this."
"Your secret is safe with me," Simon assured her.
She readied the suture thread and needles, and gave Simon a shot to desensitize the skin around the area of the wound.
"So tell me, Mr. Crocker, how did you manage to get this wound?" Hannah asked.
"Sliced it on the boat," Simon grunted as she inserted the needle into his skin, drawing the flesh back together.
"Mm," Hannah answered, not believing him.
He couldn't quit looking at her. She is so beautiful, he thought, and toyed with the idea of kissing her on impulse. But best to wait till she isn't sewing my skin back together.
She was surprisingly efficient with the needle, and he said so.
"I have—had-an older brother. He was always getting into mischief," she said, and her face clouded. "He died in Vietnam. And here in the village, we can't often wait for a doctor to come and treat injuries. I've had to learn to do this," she said with not a little heat in her voice.
"I'm sorry," Simon answered. "About your brother."
"So am I, Mr. Crocker."
"Simon—please."
"Simon. So what is that you do, Simon?"
"I have a fishing boat," he told her. "But I was helping a friend with some mechanical issues, doing some welding," he went on, hoping his fib would hold. "That's how I got the cut."
"Simon—may I tell you something?" Hannah told him.
"By all means."
"This is not a wound from a piece of ship's metal. This is a knife wound," she told him. "Don't lie to your doctor. Or your nurse," she scolded gently, a faint smile playing around her lips.
Simon grinned in spite of himself. He had the sneaking suspicion that she liked him too.
"All right," he conceded. "I got it in a bar fight." Actually, he'd gotten it from the old man, but at least a bar fight was a more believable explanation.
"That sounds more reasonable," Hannah replied. "There. All stitched up," she went on. She spread some salve over the wound, and placed a clean compress against it.
She wound a clean bandage around his body, and Simon's nerves tingled as she put her arms around him, stretching the bandage.
"You need to change that every day. The stitches should be ready to come out in a few days," she informed him. "So—don't be getting in any more bar fights until then—Simon."
"I won't," Simon promised. "Thank you, Nurse Duke."
"Hannah."
"Hannah," Simon said. "A name as lovely as its owner."
She smiled then, and Simon thought that it was about the prettiest thing he'd seen in a long time.
It had taken him some persuading, but Hannah had finally gone out with him. She was unlike any woman he'd ever dated before, her gentle innocence, her caring heart, and he found himself falling more and more with love with her every day.
The relationship blossomed, and soon became more intimate. Unlike other women he'd been with, he was her first. They'd lain together that night out under the stars, her long hair swirled around them like an inky octopus as she'd given herself to him.
She'd gazed up at him with her brown eyes, her body pressed against his in the warmth of their zipped-together sleeping bags, the campfire burning low.
"I trust you, Simon," she'd told him. "I trust you because I love you."
He's taken aback; he's heard other women say the same thing to him. However, it's the first time that he's felt the same. But he wants this relationship to be honest. Even if it costs him the same relationship. He wants someone in his life to understand him, and why he's done the things he has.
"I'm not the man you think I am," he'd told her.
"I know what they say about you," Hannah spoke. "That you hunt and kill the cursed."
Simon lowered his eyes. "I don't want to," he admitted. "But—sometimes, they are just too dangerous to let run loose."
"I understand," she'd whispered. "I see the pain in your eyes when you talk about it. But we all must do things sometimes that we don't want to do. In spite of it—I know that you are a good man, Simon Crocker," she finished, and kissed him.
The relationship continued for a few months, and then suddenly, Hannah was gone, reassigned up north while he was away.
Simon tried to put her out of his mind, to no avail. He missed her terribly, hoping that she would be return, and had even gone so far to talk to the selectman and Reverend Driscoll to see if she might could be reassigned back to Haven.
But Driscoll's not happy about Hannah Duke. He's been hearing things about her. Bad things.
"I have word that she is one of them," he tells Simon. "That she's been helping the cursed escape north to Canada. When she does return, you must do what needs doing."
But even as Simon hears this, he knows it is a task he will never perform. That he would sooner die than to take her life because she is one of the Troubled.
Because he loves her.
Finally, word came that Hannah was back in Haven, and Simon made the trip by boat out to see her.
He knocked with a trembling hand on her door. It'd been six months since she'd left; and he couldn't wait to see her again.
It was a long time before he heard: "Who is it?"
"Simon. Open up, Hannah," he called.
There is a long silence on the other side of the door.
"Hannah! Please, honey, open the door," Simon tells her.
"Simon, you shouldn't be here," she answers.
"Why? Hannah, talk to me, please," he pleaded with her.
Another long pause, and he hears the lock click.
He opens the door, and he can see Hannah moving up the hallway slowly, as though she's injured.
"Hannah—Hannah," he called, following behind her. "Hannah, talk-" he trails off as she turns to face him.
He takes in her swollen belly, her solemn eyes. She is well into her pregnancy, from the look of her, and it made his heart hurt to realize that she must have known of it before she left—and she hadn't told him.
"Is this—my child?" he asks.
A nod. "Yes."
"Did you know you were pregnant before you left?"
Another nod. "Yes, I knew."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I know of your orders for me," she tells him, her hands cradling her middle. "That you know what I am. That you are sworn to destroy my kind." Her eyes have tears in them now and it stabs him to the heart to know that he is the cause of them.
He takes her in his arms, and tells her that she has nothing to fear from him, that he will keep her safe, that not one more Troubled person will die by his hand. They will leave this place behind, and never look back.
Because he loves her.
He doesn't do it just because she is pregnant with his child. He's had other children. Garrett, in Ireland, and Wade, who lives with his mother in New York.
But even as he tells her this, he knows that she is reluctant to leave her people. And that he cannot deny the way the blood of the Troubled makes him feel. He also knows that this child will be not be like its brothers. It will be Troubled, he knows it. Because he's Troubled, and its mother also.
He asks her what her Trouble is, and she shows him. That she can heal through her touch, mending a gash on his thumb to where all that remained was a pink line.
No wonder my stitches were ready to be removed in four days, he thinks. This is not a curse, it's a gift.
But Driscoll says differently, that her power does not come from God. She's one of them, he tells her. They are without God.
Simon stays with her that night. She tells him the birth will happen soon, before the next full moon. He can tell that it won't be long; the baby is low in her belly, and she's restless, rearranging the things she's purchased for the nursery, preparing for the arrival of their child.
They soon fall into their rhythm of being a couple again over the next two weeks.
Hannah tells him the midwife has predicted that the baby is a boy, and that he will be strong and wise, like his father.
Simon tells her that he hopes instead his son will be compassionate and kind like his mother.
He asks her to marry him, but she asks for him to wait until after the child is born.
Driscoll calls daily, but Simon ignores the calls, wanting instead to stay with Hannah, the baby due in less than a week.
He stays on the island until finally, he hears that Driscoll has sent out Max Hansen to deal with Hannah, because Simon has been 'compromised', in Driscoll's words.
Max is like him in many ways, and in some ways even more dangerous. His curse is that he cannot feel, which has made him a good hunting partner in the past. But now he and Hannah are the hunted ones.
Simon waylays Max, and begs him not to act until he's talked to Driscoll and the council again. Max reluctantly agrees, and Simon returns to Haven with him. To tell them that he will take Hannah away, far away, never to return.
He doesn't tell them that he loves her, even though he's certain they must know. Maybe they're just humoring him—but Driscoll agrees to it, that once the child is born, Simon must take her and their baby and leave Haven forever, if they wish to stay alive. For Simon, it is a small price to pay.
Elated, Simon makes the journey back to the island, to tell her of the news, and thinks about their future life together.
When he lands, one of the Mik'Maq men tell him, that Hannah's water had broken, her labor begun. It is not going well. That there is more pain, and more blood than there should be at this point. The doctor is there now, and has sent for help; but Simon knows it will be a long journey before help arrives, and will likely arrive too late when it does.
Simon runs to her house, frantic to be with her. He's failed her, he feels. When Hannah needed him most, he wasn't there.
The house is dark as he approaches, and fear fills his heart. He can hear the sounds of the weeping of the women inside.
He comes in to find Rosie crying, and he knows.
"Doctor did all he could do," she whispers, and Simon feels his heart break, never to be mended again. Hannah is gone from him forever. He realizes with a cruel irony that he'd fulfilled Driscoll's wishes after all, and he sinks to the sofa.
Simon can see a sheet-wrapped form on the bed in the darkness of the bedroom, and he averts his eyes. He doesn't want to see her body. Maybe if he doesn't, it won't be real, he reasons. Or maybe he wants to remember her as he last saw her, her beautiful eyes smiling at him, reflecting the love he felt for her in them as he'd kissed her goodbye yesterday.
Through the haze of tears in his own eyes, he sees Henry emerge from the room where Hannah's body is, and come over to him.
It takes him a moment to realize that Henry is holding something in his arms. He's holding a bundled-up blanket, and Simon hears a small squeaky cry issue from it. He looks up at Henry.
"Your son," Henry tells him.
Simon takes the bundle, opening it to see his newborn. He's tiny and red, like a new potato with a head full of black hair, still damp from birth. As Simon holds him, he wakes, and looks up at him through his mother's dark eyes.
"Did she get to see him?" he asks without looking at Henry.
"Yes—for a few moments." He pauses. "She gave him to you—even though she knew the cost would be her life for doing so."
Even though he hears Henry's words, Simon can't feel anything in his heart for this new child in his arms. He wants to tell Henry to give him to one of the village women to raise, that he never wants to lay eyes on him again. But he can't. Because Hannah gave her life to bring him into the world. Because this child in his arms is all Simon will ever have of Hannah Duke in his life again.
Simon knows that this child will be special, because of his bloodline. He is part of Hannah; but he is also a Crocker. Simon knows that he will teach him about his duty, his responsibility to Haven, in due time. He also knows that Driscoll and the council won't harm him or the baby, now that Hannah is gone.
"What is the child's name?" he hears someone say. The doctor, filling out paperwork.
Simon thinks a long moment, watching his son watch him. He's quiet, as though he knows that his mother is dead. If his son could not have his mother, he would at least share her name, just as he shared his own.
"Duke," Simon utters. "Duke Crocker."
The doctor scribbles it down on the birth certificate, and Simon signs it where it says FATHER'S NAME.
Simon returns to Haven the following day, the baby bundled against him inside his coat. He thinks of Marie, the barmaid he'd dallied with in Derry before he met Hannah.
He wasn't keen on the idea, but he knew that she wouldn't say no to a marriage proposal, on the condition that she accepted the baby as her own. And Driscoll would approve—Marie wasn't Troubled. And a newborn needed care, more than he can give him just now.
Marie is startled to find herself a bride-to-be and an instant mother, but she agrees to the marriage, and takes to caring for Duke reasonably well.
Driscoll comes to see him the day of he and Marie's wedding, and baptizes the baby. He is not fond of the choice of his name, but it is the one point that Simon will not give on; and Driscoll concedes.
"You have a fine son," he tells him. "He need never know of his start in life, Simon."
"No," Simon says dully. "He doesn't."
He and Marie marry; and they form some sort of life together, he and Marie and Duke.
His son grows to look more like Hannah with each passing year, a constant reminder to Simon of what might have been.
Duke does not have his mother's healing gift, exactly, but he always seems to know what to do when someone was injured, like when that kid had broken his arm last winter, the compound fracture sticking out of his coat. The adults had freaked. But Duke had remained calm, and had seen to it the kid got to the hospital.
Simon wants to tell him that he's special, wants to tell him of his duty to Haven, but he can't bring himself to say it. He knows that it isn't Duke's fault his mother died giving him life, he knows it; but he still feels that resentment towards the boy.
And he hasn't had time to tell Duke much of anything lately. The Troubles have returned, and so has Sarah. She is now called Lucy, with long dark hair, but with those same luminescent blue eyes. She is working with Garland Wuornos, a deputy on the Haven PD.
He makes his plans to be rid of Lucy or whatever her original name was. He couldn't figure out a way to make it look accidental until he found that she had befriended Duke.
On one hand, Simon was glad that his son had an adult that halfway cared for him; Marie couldn't have been bothered with him most times before she finally left him, and Simon was away more and more, Duke often left to fend for himself. When Simon would return home, half the time he'd be beaten to a pulp and expect Duke to have to look after him, the boy with his mother's dark eyes suspicious of the world, and especially, of himself.
He's only seven, and knows more distrust of adults than someone five times his age, Simon thought. Not that we haven't given him enough reason to. But he'll have to be tough to face the Troubles.
But Lucy watches over the boy, almost as though she knows how special he really is, and Simon decides to use it to his advantage in getting rid of Lucy once and for all.
He takes the boat out onto the sea, he and Lucy and Duke. When he puts her overboard, he will tell his son why he had to do it, how that when he grew up, he too would have to kill the cursed.
But there's a young man with her too—James Cogan. He squirreled himself away on Simon's boat, and while Lucy occupies Duke, he and James fight. Simon struggles with him, but as Glendowers emerge from the water, he knows this is a fight he will lose, and they pull him into the sea.
Luckily, he escapes them. But it's been at a heavy cost. The next day, Cogan is found murdered, and Lucy disappears. Simon and Max are questioned extensively about Lucy's disappearance and Cogan's murder, but nothing was ever able to be proven, and they were released.
Simon searches exhaustively for her, even tracks down an address for Lucy Ripley. But it is not the same woman. Somehow, Simon had known it wouldn't be. This Lucy Ripley that he spoke to knows more than she's told him, of that he's certain. But he knows the Lucy he wants is long gone. He also knows that she'll return again someday, with a new name. And it's his intention that his son will be ready for her when she does.
A few more years pass. Duke is almost in his adolescent phase, all arms, legs and attitude. He's going to be tall, like he is. He's nearly thirteen now, but Duke knows how to grift and hustle and steal to survive like a seasoned professional. Simon can also see that his son longs to escape Haven, its small-town mentality, and the fact that he's a Crocker, a name most people in Haven spoke like a curse.
And Simon understands. People frown down their noses at us—until it's their relative with a Trouble that needs to be taken care of, he thought. And then we're the saviors of Haven.
He takes Duke out on the boat. This time, he's going to tell Duke of his destiny. He will make him understand that he has to do these things, and to show him the power that lives in his blood. He's old enough to know now, he feels.
His old friend, Vincent, had shown him the Trouble in his own blood, and Simon had loved it from the start, that intense rush. He'd always promised himself that he could control it. But it has become an obsession for him of late. He knows the Guard has put a target on his back; and he's just not sure he can slip them this time.
"Duke," he calls to him. "Come here."
The boy slouches over, that ever-present suspicion in his eyes.
"What?" he asks sullenly.
"Duke, I want you to promise me something," Simon tells him.
"What?"
"You know about the Troubles."
"Yeah, Dad," Duke rolls his eyes. "I'm from Haven too, you know."
Simon resists the temptation to belt him for his insolence, and instead tells him, "I want your promise that when the Troubles return, that wherever you are in the world, when they return, you will come home to Haven."
"Why?"
"Promise me, Duke. I want your solemn word that if the Troubles return, you will return to Haven. Promise me!" he urges.
Duke can hear the urgency in his father's voice. This isn't like his dad, to elicit such a serious promise from him. Normally, he barely speaks to him at all.
"Okay, Dad. I promise."
"Swear. To God."
Duke's taken aback. If Simon Crocker was swearing to God, it must be serious. But Duke nods his agreement, and Simon puts a hand on his son's shoulder.
"I swear to God that if the Troubles come back, I'll return to Haven," Duke finally says.
"Good," Simon answers.
"Why, Dad?" Duke questions.
"Help me bring the boat around," Simon tells him. "I'll tell you why on the way home."
He goes towards the front of the boat, and Duke goes to the bridge to turn the boat.
Simon sees a flash in the water, and too late, he realizes that it's the Glendowers. This time, they wouldn't fail, he knew, as they drag him beneath the waves, the water pressure crushing the little air he had in his lungs from him. He thinks of Hannah, and of Duke.
Let me see him just once more, he pleads with his Maker as the water grows darker and deeper, the siren's song of the grave ringing in his ears. Let me see his mother's eyes just once more.
Two days later, Duke watches from the dock as they recover Simon's body from the ocean. He's alone in the world now. Marie is still around, but just long enough to recover the welfare checks she got for his care every month.
But Duke's had enough. Enough of her, enough of his dead father, and enough of Haven. The moment he graduates high school, he signs on with Mack Freemer's freighter, and watches from the deck as Haven grows smaller and smaller in the distance, the whole wide world open to him.
He swears to himself that he'll never come back to Haven. That he'd lied, just to placate his father.
But deep inside, he knows that he'll be back someday.