Progeny
Part 11
Spencer found Sara in the kitchen chopping vegetables. "Sara…"
"I'm a little busy, Spencer." She wouldn't look at him. "Why don't you and Hope go to the movies?"
He moved behind her and carefully took the knife from her hand, and turned her around to face him. "Sweetheart, we have to talk about this."
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "I just need some time, Spencer. I've got too much to do, and right now, I can't be distracted."
He kissed her forehead. "I love you."
Tears stung her eyes as she pulled him into a fierce hug. "I love you too." She composed herself. "I have a lot of work to do."
"Yeah, okay. I'll go see if Hope wants to go do something."
When he left the room, Sara turned back to her chopping board and began to cry.
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"We'll that was a complete waste of our time." Hope said as she walked out of the movie theater with Spencer.
"Don't blame me. You were the one who wanted to see it." He glanced at the poster for "Vampires Suck" and shook his head.
"At least the popcorn didn't suck."
Spencer glanced at his daughter. "Does your mom let you talk like that?"
She bit her bottom lip. "Not really," she shrugged. "By the way, Momma doesn't really let me see movies like that."
"Great!" He stopped in his tracks. "She's already ticked off at me. This is going to make it worse."
Hope sighed. "Sorry." She was quiet as they walked to the rental car. It wasn't until they pulled out of the parking lot that she spoke. "I don't think Momma's mad. I think that she just realized how dangerous your job is. I think I should stay at Nainie's tonight and you and Momma can talk."
Spencer smiled. "And you can avoid her wrath for conning me into taking you to a movie she wouldn't approve of."
She nodded. "Basically. In fact, you can take me straight to Nainie's. I already have everything that I need there."
"I think we should make some calls before we do that."
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Sara finished sealing the food that she was pre-packaging for the next day's dinner party. She would be doing the majority of the cooking at the client's home, but she was able to save time by doing the time consuming little things. She put everything in the refrigerator than washed her hands.
Hope had called and asked if she could stay with her aunt. She wanted to say no, but she knew that she and Spencer had a lot to talk about. Since her father was staying with her grandparents, nothing was stopping them.
Her nerves were on edge, so she did what she always did when she was feeling uneasy, she cooked. By the time Spencer got there, she had a full meal prepared.
"Wow, it smells incredible in here."
Sara was setting the table. "I hope you're hungry."
He nodded. "I am actually. Hope ate most of the popcorn."
"I should have warned you that she's a popcorn hog." She filled glasses with iced tea, and put them on the table. "What movie did you see?"
He scratched his head. "Yeah, about that…"
Sara laughed. "She conned you into seeing Vampires Suck?"
"Yeah."
She let out a sigh. "Better you than me. I told her she couldn't see it because I didn't want to."
Spencer relaxed and took the seat Sara pointed to at the table. Sara brought two plates out and set one in front of him. She then put her plate down and sat down.
"This looks delicious." He tasted it. "It is delicious."
"Thank you. It's my version of pot roast. I panfry the roast, boil the vegetables, and then make a gravy and throw it all together. I have rice if you want some."
He shook his head. "No, this is fine."
She took a bite. "So, um, I guess we should discuss the elephant in the room."
Spencer took a sip of his tea, added a lot of sugar, and nodded.
Sara put her fork down. "I guess I didn't equate danger with your job as a profiler. I mean, I just thought you studied human behavior and told the cops how to find the bad guy, but I guess it's more, huh?"
He put his fork down as well. His instinct was to tell her exactly what his job entailed, but his heart told him differently. "Yeah, it does."
She took a sip of her tea to quench her suddenly dry mouth. "So, how did you get shot?"
Spencer told her the details of how he'd pushed the doctor out of the way when the grieving father fired the gun.
"So that's what that scar is on your left leg?"
He nodded. "Yes."
She took it in, then slowly picked up her fork and continued eating. "That was really brave of you. Stupid, but brave."
He laughed nervously, and they finished their dinner in silence.
When they were finished, they did the dishes together and then went into the living room.
"Has anything else happened to you?" She finally spoke, sitting on the couch.
He sat next to her and clasped his hands between his knees. "Yeah, but I don't think..."
She silenced him when she put her hand on his thigh. "I don't want to have any secret between us. We're married, Spencer. I need … I need to know."
He nodded, but he didn't look her. Slowly, he recounted the story of Tobias Hankel and his subsequent addiction to Dilaudid. He told her about Emily and him being held hostage by Benjamin Cyrus, and how he'd contracted Anthrax .
Tears slipped down her face as she sat silently.
"Sara?"
She swallowed. "Do you love your job?"
Without hesitating, he replied, "Yes, I do."
She nodded as if she was formulating what to say. "Then it's something that I'm going to have to learn to live with. I'll take whatever piece of you I can get. I just wish you'd take better care of the pieces."
He pulled her onto his lap. "I promise you that I will make a conscientious effort to stay out of harm's way, but I can't guarantee I won't get injured again. I mean, I'm not at all what you'd call athletic. In fact, when it comes to…"
This time she silenced him with a kiss.
"You're extremely good at that."
She smiled sheepishly. "Why whatever do you mean?"
"You make me forget what I was going to say." He kissed her again. "So, what are we going to do about our daughter's manipulative ways."
Sara cackled. "Honey, you have so much you need to learn about fatherhood, and I guarantee you're not gonna find it in a book."
"Yeah, I think I'm going to have to profile her. Study her. Get inside her mind." He exaggerated every sentence.
She kissed him before getting up. "Follow me." She led him into the bedroom and pointed to the bed. "Have a seat."
As he did, Sara opened what looked like a dresser, but in actuality it hid a flat screen T.V. She opened a drawer beneath it and pulled out a box of DVDs. "This is your daughter. The first twelve years of her life."
Spencer took the box. "May I watch them?"
She laughed. "No, you have to sit there and hold them. Of course you can watch them." She opened the box and pulled one marked Year 1. She opened it, pulled out the DVD, and inserted it into the player.
As the television came to life, a very pregnant Sara appeared on the screen.
"Are you okay?" Her brother's voice could be heard.
"I'm in labor, and my back is killing me. I'm just peachy." She snarked.
"When are you going to the hospital?"
"Whenever you decide to stop filming me and drive me."
The next scene was of Sara in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and a fetal monitor.
"How ya feelin'?"
Sara's expression was goofy. "I'm feelin' nothin'. Kinda loopy. Drugs are good."
David continued to man the camera until it was time for Hope's birth. A nurse had taken over the duties, and the way she was shooting, 16 year old Sara's modesty was preserved.
Sydnie was holding Sara's hand as the teenager pushed. "Come on, sweetie, you can do it."
Sara was sweaty and obviously tired. "I swear, I'm gonna kill Spencer. This is his fault."
Spencer laughed. "Transference. It's a good thing I wasn't there. At sixteen, I would have been devastated by your rejection of me."
Sara kissed him and they continued to watch.
Seeing Hope's birth made both of her parents tear up.
"This is the first time I've watched this." She wiped her eyes. "It was originally on VHS, but David transferred what was on tape to DVD for last Mother's Day."
"How is your brother?"
Sara smiled. "He's doing well. He works for a TV station in Austin as a field reporter. He's married and has the sweetest little boy."
"That's nice." He continued to watch the television. The first year of his daughter's life flew by. As promised, he was able to see all of her firsts, Hope holding her head up, rolling over, pushing herself up on her hands, sitting up, first tooth, crawling, talking, standing, walking … Spencer was amazed.
"Oh, this is so cute," Sara pointed to the screen. "Hope was ten months old, and fascinated with books. She would sit there for hours pretending to read."
Spencer studied his daughter as she sat on the floor, surrounded by books. She slowly turned the pages. He looked closer. "Sara, she's not pretending. Hope's actually reading."
Sara shook her head. "There's no possible way, Spencer. She was a baby. Babies don't read at ten months old."
He pointed to the television screen. "Look at the tells." He got up and began to point them out. "See how her eyes are moving from left to right, how she lingers on each page. Her only difficulty she has is she lacks the dexterity to turn the pages cleanly." He laughed at the look on his daughter's face. "She's frustrated because she can't do the way she's seen you do it."
"But how would she…"
"From you. You read to her constantly, didn't you?"
Sara nodded. "Sometimes from my textbooks. She'd sit on my lap and I'd read to her. She would stare at the pages so intently I often thought she had gas."
"She was memorizing the shapes of the words. That young letters and words were just shapes to her. By memorizing the shapes, she taught herself to read."
"And here I thought she started reading at two."
"When did she start speaking in two word sentences?"
"Momma, weed too!"
Spencer looked to Sara.
"She kinda skipped those. By her first birthday, she was speaking in complete sentences."
"Wow, her developmental growth is six months faster than mine was." He joined her back on the bed.
"Yes, well, at seventeen it was weird. We'd go to 'Mommy and Me' classes, and the other mom's would look at me with disappointment because I was like ten years younger than most of them. Then they would baby talk to Hope, and she would speak to them so eloquently in her little baby voice. They began treating me with more respect."
He pushed her hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry it was so tough on you. I wish…" he took a deep breath. "You have raised an amazing daughter."
She smiled. "Thank you." Sara leaned forward and kissed him, and then yawned.
"Tired?" He kissed her forehead.
She nodded. "A little. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow. When I'm done, we need to start making plans for Hope and me to move to Virginia. Oh, wait a minute." Sara jumped off of the bed and ran out of the bedroom. About a minute or two later, she came back into the room with her arms full of mail. Most of them were large envelopes.
"You're popular."
"Not me, Miss Hope. These are all college acceptance packages."
Spencer perked up. "Ooh, let me see."
She handed him fifteen envelopes.
He leafed through them. His daughter had acceptances from all over the country, Harvard, Stanford, Cal Tech, University of Houston, University of Virginia, UCLA, University of Florida, Princeton, Yale, Rice, MIT, University of Texas, Texas A&M, Dartmouth, and … "The University of Hawaii?"
"She's always wanted to go there, the state, not necessarily the university."
"You must have spent a fortune on application fees."
"Not really." She pointed to some of the really big named universities. "Most of them waved their fees when they found out that they had an actual child prodigy. Hell, she was ready for college three years ago, but I really didn't think nine was a good age to start college, and I wasn't ready to let her go yet."
"You're still not."
"Nope, but now we have you. We'll find a house that's an easy commute for both of you, and we'll be the family we were meant to be."
Spencer framed her face with his hands, pushing his fingers into her hair. "I cannot wait find our house and start our life. This feeling … it's invigorating. I've never felt more like a normal person than when I'm with the two of you." He kissed her, passionately.
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