He was right. Tommy was right about all of it.
It had been one month since we got married and we just left the Child Protective Services. With proof of Tommy's income, and us getting married they said that us being able to adopt Steven is looking better, but the actual cost of it would be far beyond our financial reach for many years. However, just as soon as the news let us down, they said we could possibly foster Steven.
"We can do that?" Tommy asked.
"Well you will have to fill out a lot of paper work. We will have to run a background check on you…" and that's when Tommy and I looked at each other, because we both knew of his mentally unstable background ever since the incident with Michael Myers when he was eight years old.
But, I let Tommy decide. We sat there for only one quiet moment before he took the fostering forms out of my hands that had been handed to me. We left and let them know we had some prior engagements and that we would fill out the paper work at home.
"I have to try," were the only words Tommy spoke of it, on the way home. I said nothing. I knew our chances didn't look too bright.
Tonight is a quiet night with stars a bright contrast for the perfect black night sky and I couldn't resist. I've never been on the roof of our house and it just feels right, on a blanket getting lost in the vastness of it.
"I thought I would find you out here."
I start at the sound of a voice and look around to find Tommy crawling out of the window onto the roof. He sits down beside me and it's nice for a long moment.
"Kara, I've been thinking, I don't know about fostering Stephen."
"What?" I ask turning to him, "Why?"
His sigh is long suffering, much like the sound of a man that works all day and the pressures of that and the domestic home life getting to him. "Because, if we foster, there's a chance that if we divorce like we plan to in a couple of years, that they won't let us keep Steven."
"Don't get all selfless on me now, Tommy."
"Kara, you'll never be able to have what you want if you sign up for this."
"You can say it, you know, love isn't a bad word."
Tommy turns his head away, uncomfortable. "Okay, you won't be able to find someone to love if you stay married to me just to foster Steven."
"Tommy?"
"What?"
"If by chance, I ever fell in love with you, how would you react?"
"But you're not in love with me," he says in form of a question.
"No. But I see so much good in you; the determination to make this whole domestic scene work, how good you are with Danny. You're not unattractive."
"And you're gorgeous, incredibly smart, maybe the strongest woman I've seen since Lourie Stode. But, just because you're all of those things, doesn't change who I am up here," he says pointing to his temple.
"So we're both attractive, smart, and have the ability to survive nightmares. You're incredibly messed up in the head and I'm learning how to help people that are messed up in the head. Doesn't that stir anything in you?"
"Kara, you're treading on dangerous ground."
"But why does it have to be dangerous?"
"Maybe I should put it like this. Every emotion, deep emotion I have, ties into one thing."
"Fury, hatred, revenge," I say, and he nods yes.
"So let's say, you saw a beautiful woman and something stirred in you and you became attracted to her, are you saying that you would want to hurt her?"
"It's happened before," he says, " not the actual hurting her part, but wanting to."
"Is that because it makes you feel weak?"
"It's more like… it makes me- you know what- forget…"
"Don't tell me to forget it, I'm your wife, I have a right to know. I let you live in the same house as my son. I have the right to know, Tommy."
Tommy shakes his head and laughs and unbelieving sound. "Okay, psych major. Here it is on a silver platter. Feeling attracted to something physically, all the way down to feeling things for someone like I want to be around them, I want to know them, getting attached to them, kicks open a door in my head that's been locked shut, and behind that door is all of the childish fears, vulnerability, all of the things that made me a victim. See, Kara? I know myself far better than you give me credit for. And yes, it pisses me off when someone threatens to even knock on that door in my head because I never, and I repeat never want to feel that weak again."
"I understand that, completely. Because when I think of someone knocking on the closed door in my heart, it immediately takes me back to Danny's father and all of the terrible thing my son and I endured. Because I don't ever want to be preyed upon the way David preyed on me, getting me to fall in love with him, and only turning into a terror behind closed doors."
Tommy thinks for a moment before he speaks. "I guess you do have a little experience surviving a madman."
"More than a little, and so does Danny."
Tommy's eyes go from understanding to furious in zero point two seconds and it sort of makes me want to go back inside. "Cursed men I understand, but normal people I don't get. So this David have a last name?"
I scoot a few more inches away than he already was, "Tommy, no! You can't!"
"I just want to be informed."
"You sit here and tell me that every emotion is tied into hatred and revenge and you want me to swallow that you just want to be informed?"
"Last name, Kara," he demands.
"No. Cursed men, yes, but you can't just go around hurting abusive, mentally ill men."
"You're protecting him?" he asks incredulously.
"Do you really expect anything different?" I ask.
Tommy looks away running his fingers through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut against the onslaught of emotions. "No," he breathes out, "I guess not."
"He's Danny's father. Even if I want him nowhere near him, what would I tell him if he grows up and wants to know where he is? I wouldn't be able to look him in the eye if you let all of your rage out on him and he doesn't live through it."
Tommy rubs a hand exhaustedly over his face. "Yeah, excuses. But I'll give you this… I won't go find him."
"Thank you, Tommy. That's all I ask."
"I hate these talks, Kara."
"I like them."
He laughs. "I know you do," but on a more serious note, "I don't want to hurt you."
"How come you have no problem being attached to children, fathering them, providing for them. Danny has become your little shadow, and you seem to like being a sudden father figure to him, and to Stephen for that short time. Why are those feelings any different from anything else?"
"Because, protecting is what I do. I remember what it is to feel unsafe as a child, and that comes easy for me to do."
"But don't you know that's love, Tommy?"
He chews on that for a moment. "I do."
"So what the difference? It's an emotion."
"Because it is different, Kara. I've never lost a child before, if I had it would be different. I know this may sound crazy to someone else, and the feelings weren't mutual, hell she didn't even know I felt that way, but the last person I was in love with was Lourie Strode."
Oh… wow… so we're getting somewhere. "Okay, so… you don't want to feel that way ever again, because it brings about fear of losing that person, even though she just disappeared and is alive somewhere, she's gone. And because it happened once, and in your mind, if it happened once, it can happen again."
"Now that you've stripped me down naked, are you pleased with yourself?"
"Kind of," I admit and he smiles at my honesty.
"My brutal honesty seems to be wearing off on you," he says.
"Glad to have your approval," I say smiling back.
His smile turns sour. "You have no idea how much I grieved, and once I was done grieving, there was nothing left."
"I wish I could wipe your memory clean."
"No you don't. You still need a hero, everyone does."
"And who saves you, Tommy?" I ask, and he grabs the cross that's hanging at his chest and says nothing.
"Would it really be so bad if I loved you, Tommy?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it would make me love you back. I don't want to be the next David in your life."
"Funny you say that. I was just wishing that I were Lourie Strode. The only woman the town's hero ever loved."
"That's sounds like a bad summary to a b-rated film," he says.
"I think I'm being way too honest tonight," I finally realize.
"Yes, Kara, you are."
"Tommy?"
"Yeah?"
"If I ever do, you know, cause you to unleash your anger, will you make me a promise?"
"What's that?"
"If you have to take it out on someone, take it out on me, and not Danny."
Tommy's face falls at the thought. "I hate that I would ever have to make such a promise, Kara. But I promise. I will do everything in my power never to hurt either of you, especially Danny."
"Okay. Feel like calling it a night?"
"I think I will stay out here a bit longer," he says, "I need to recover from this last therapy session."
I roll my eyes. "Shut up. And go to bed soon. You look exhausted and work comes early in the morning."
"Yeah –yeah, go to bed," he replies and I slip back into the house.