The next installment of Symbiosis is nearly complete. In the meantime, please enjoy the little drabble below...
The Clearing
Too old to be orphaned, the man crouched in the cluttered attic believes he has felt that way all his life. It's only during the arduous process of clearing out the house that the only child registers how deeply alone he's always been. A condition that surrounding himself with others has never dimmed, regardless of beauty and skill. That the sense of isolation becomes more pronounced once his father is commended to the ground defies his understanding. The man, when alive, had never been a willing part of his namesake's life, a choice the aged man seemed to almost regret in the final months.
Almost.
The spring warmth adds nearly physical layers of staleness to the windowless room. An unsentimental man, Tony DiNozzo Sr. used the unfinished space as a storage shed of memories he preferred to dismiss on the basis that there was no profit in reminiscing. Objects filling the floor ranged from the forgotten belongings of former flames who'd failed to sustain the old man's interest to pieces of a dozen previous lives undertaken in flash and hurry. Junior missed most of the lies that his father had draped on every surface, having grown up in a state of exile. Hands brush over evidence of the old man's proclivities, tokens of others left behind as easily as the unwanted child. Two days in the ground and Tony can still feel the disapproving frown suspended over his bowed head.
The DiNozzo genetic code is designed for the revolving door.
A boredom with the familiar and a fear of entrapment makes for unreliable men. Veering toward forty, Tony counts the years until senility and knows the door's dizzying swing must be halted eventually. His father couldn't do it and for all his early determination to tread a dissimilar path, Tony's choices are no different. Weary of the game, he waits for something more. There is nothing more, the ghost of a jaded man assures him.
No part of Tony was kept in this house.
The tailored lawn bears the brunt of the work, the majority of boxes left unopened in the garish streaks of morning sun. Nothing contained in cardboard will heal decades of neglect. His father is not found in the things that will be discarded in a heap of loss and anger. Nor his mother, her presence noticeably lacking in the house where she'd taken her last breath. In his jilted mind, no good woman has passed between these walls since her death.
Until now.
He could ask how she found him, why she'd bothered, but the questions wither in his throat. Framed by a cobwebbed doorway and sharp sunlight, she is radiant. Missing the sight of her these last three days, Tony abandons the work to move within the waiting circle of her arms. He hadn't told anyone and yet she's here. Gratitude threatens a battalion of tears but he simply pulls her closer, absorbing her calm and telling his heart to be still. To take what she offers.
To just be.
She's whispering something that could be a prayer or a consolation but the words have blended into the breeze and the song of waking sparrows. Barely audible, it is enough to reduce him to a man dependent on nothing beyond what this embrace contains. Ziva will help him put the remnants of his family onto a truck. Put him back together with a softness for which she isn't known. No longer alone, the act of clearing will be finished. And Tony thinks he knows her now. Finally. This is the one he saved for the singular need of her presence. This is the one who stops the door from turning out of control.
One rescue is rewarded by another.