Do Not Stand
By
Debbie
Kluge
Benton
Quest shivered in the chill spring air as he stood staring out across the
restless ocean in silence. He was tired
and depressed. It was late afternoon of what had been a long and difficult day. Race was angry, Jonny had been particularly
difficult, acting up in a way he seldom did, Jessie was sulking, Hadji was
bedridden. Changes and bad timing had
conspired against him to leave him stretched too thin. Right now, just trying
to make it through the end of this day seemed almost more than he could
do.
Thinking
about life in his home recently caused Benton to sigh deeply. When Race had come to him asking if he could
bring his daughter, Jessie, to spend part of the year with them, Benton hadn't
even hesitated. Of course Jessie could
join them, he had told Race. She would
be welcome for as long as she cared to stay.
But saying she was welcome and making the adjustment had been two
entirely different things.
Jessie
Bannon was the first female to live regularly with the Quests since Rachel had
died four years before. It's funny,
Benton thought to himself, watching the late afternoon clouds roll and churn in
the wind, how you don't realize the little differences until you have to
deal with them. Everything from
having to buy feminine hygiene products at the grocery story to the age-old
argument about leaving the toilet seat up.
It should be funny, but recently the humor of the situation seemed to
have dissipated.
Some
things had been easier than others.
Jessie was something of a tomboy and that had helped. She enjoyed many of the same things that
Jonny and Hadji did. And she seemed to
have an instinctive understanding of Hadji interest in his own heritage.
Unfortunately, she was also competitive.
In that respect she was very much like Jonny. That aspect had caused some problems.
Jessie
had missed her father intensely during their separation. It was also obvious from the first day she
had arrived that Race had missed her just as much. Without realizing it, Race appeared to have filled the void
created by his separation from his family by developing an extremely close bond
with Jonny. Benton would be eternally
grateful to Race for the support and attention he had given Jonny during the
time immediately following Rachel's death.
Benton knew Race had been instrumental in helping Jonny deal with her
loss, and Benton was certain that Jonny was as well adjusted as he was now
because of that time.
But
Jessie had needed his attention, as well, and she had not been in a position to
get it. So when she arrived, Race had
made every effort to spend time with her.
And that had caused friction, too.
It wasn't that Jonny begrudged the time Race spent with Jessie, but
after having all of Race's attention directed to him, to have to share it was
turning out to be extremely difficult.
And their competitive nature caused both of them to over-react on
occasion. Jessie had been with them
close to a month now, and the tension had been building the entire time.
Benton
guessed it shouldn't have surprised him that it would be today . . . of all
days . . . that it had finally erupted.
The explosion came at the breakfast table first thing this morning and
had just served to be the start of a really bad day. Jessie had asked Jonny a perfectly harmless question about what
they were going to do that day. When he
hadn't responded, she had asked again, more insistently. Jonny had responded that he didn't know and,
furthermore, why did she think he was going to do anything with
her. Jessie's reply had been quick and
angry. In the next instant, the two
kids were screaming at each other, and before either of the adults could
intercede, Jonny had hurdled his half-full cereal bowl at her. Thankfully, the bowl itself had not struck
her, but she was hit square in the face with flying cereal and milk. Only Race's swift intervention had prevented
a violent physical confrontation.
Benton
sighed again. He certainly hadn't
reacted well, losing his temper and yelling at both of them. Jonny had run off to his room to sulk and
Jessie had just sat at the table, crying.
It was Race who had taken over, leading his daughter to her room to
clean her up and console her. Benton
had gone to talk to his son, but Jonny just huddled on his bed with his back
turned and refused to say a word.
Finally, Benton had told himself that the best thing to do was to give
him some time to cool off and then try and talk to him later. But Benton knew all he was doing was
avoiding the situation. Not that it has
stopped him from walking away. And as
he walked down the hall past Jessie's room, he heard Race trying to explain why
Jonny was so on edge that morning.
That
reminder of this day's significance had simply fostered Benton's beginning
depression as he had fled back downstairs, out the back door and to the
lighthouse. He buried himself in work,
as he had done on this day for the last four years, in an attempt to just get
through the day. Every year he told himself
that it would get easier . . . that he could put it behind him and get on with
his life. And every year this day
rolled around and it seemed even harder than the one before.
As
it turned out, work had been just as disastrous as breakfast. First, he had problems testing a new
software program for the Quest mainframe.
Every time he tried to run anything, it had crashed, triggering a major
cascade fault that could only be fixed by taking down the whole system down and
rebooting it. Race, whose temper was on
edge anyway after the breakfast incident, had been beside himself. Rebooting the system took the entire
security grid down. Because of the nature of the fault triggered by the program
failure, every monitoring device had to be checked and brought back on line
manually. And the Quest Compound had a
very large perimeter and a lot of devices to check. After the third time, Race had literally been snarling and Benton
hadn't been much better. It took Benton
most of the day and five attempts to discover a set of defective chips and
replace them . . . a problem he should have recognized the first time the tests
failed.
It
didn't help matters that he had the additional distraction of worrying about
Hadji. The boy was down with a rather
severe stomach virus and had been confined to bed by Dr. Mason. Benton had spent the day running back and
forth between the main house and the lab, checking on him and debating on
getting the doctor to come out to the Compound again. Dr. Mason was a kind and caring woman, but her patience was
beginning to wear thin. She had assured
Benton several times that Hadji was in no danger. The medication they were giving him would help relieve the
symptoms. Beyond that, all that could
be done was to let the virus run it's course.
Benton
had also checked on Jonny several times throughout the day. Each time he'd tried to talk to his son
about the way he was feeling, but Jonny just continued to huddle on his bed,
refusing to answer. Benton couldn't
bring himself to coax his son because he felt like a knife had been planted in
his gut and was being twisted every time he tried. Benton knew they were both struggling to cope and were doing a
poor job of it. Jonny didn't know how,
and Benton couldn't find a way, either.
This was a situation where Benton knew he needed to lead by example, but
since he hadn't found a way to deal effectively, that was very difficult. The end result was that they both stayed
shut up and alone all day.
God,
he hated the anniversary of Rachel's death.
Jessie
Bannon sat quietly in Dr. Quest's big reading chair in the family room. Like everyone else in the Quest household,
she had been alone all day. Normally,
that wouldn't bother her, but today had been different . . . today everyone was
so tense it was awful. She would have
liked to talk to Hadji about it. It was
funny how easy it was to talk to him.
He was a whole lot different than Jonny Quest. But Hadji was sick and her father had given her strict orders to
leave him alone. And after what Jonny
had done this morning! Jessie tried to
be mad again, but found that she really couldn't. Somehow, things had changed.
She
thought about what her father had told her this morning about Jonny's mother .
. . how she had died when Jonny was little . . . and how bad things were when
he first came to stay here. Jessie
thought about that again as she sat there.
She had missed her father so much when he went away. But she remembered him sitting down with her
right before he left and telling her that if she ever really, really needed
him, she only had to say so and he would be there. She had done it once or twice, too, and he had come . . . just
like he said he would. But finally, her
mother had explained to her how what her father did was really important, and
how it was important not to disturb him unless it was an emergency. But for Jonny, there was no way to
call. His mother was gone forever. She knew how awful that must be and some
part of her was glad that her father had been able to help Jonny. He wasn't so bad . . . just a pain
sometimes.
Jessie
also thought about what her father had said about how Dr. Quest had never been
able to 'make peace' with his wife's death.
She hadn't understood what he meant by that and had asked him. He explained that it meant that Dr. Quest
felt alone and unhappy and couldn't seem to get better. He explained that things were so bad right
now because Mrs. Quest had died four years ago today. Jessie had asked if her father thought that the spirit of Mrs.
Quest haunted Dr. Quest . . . she was reading a lot of ghost stories right
now. Her father had replied that he
didn't think so . . . that he thought that perhaps the problem was that Rachel
Quest was gone forever and he was just really alone. As Jessie thought about that, she decided that maybe . . . just
maybe . . . she had something to say that might help. Abruptly, she rose from her chair and headed for the door. She guessed now was as good of a time as
any.
Benton
sensed movement to one side of him. He
turned his head, expecting to find Jonny, but was startled to see Jessie standing
next to him. She stood gazing out over
the sea, just as he had been doing, not saying a word. He eyed her uncertainly, then returned his
gaze to the restless waves and the two of them stood in silence, wrapped in
their own thoughts.
"My
grandfather is here."
Benton
jumped slightly, surprised at the girl's sudden words. Her voice was soft, and as he turned to look
at her questioningly, he saw her smile.
Before he could ask her any questions, she continued.
"When
my Daddy left, I really didn't know what to do. I was so sure I had done something wrong that caused him to
leave. Mom was angry all the time. And I couldn't talk to Daddy to find out
what I had done wrong. Mom said he was gone and was never coming back. I could tell she was hurting, too, and I
just couldn't talk to her, no matter how hard I tried. I was so frightened and
alone. After a while I started getting
into trouble." Jessie shrugged as
though responding to an often-heard question.
"I don't know why, but I did."
Benton
looked at this skinny girl with the brilliant red hair and green eyes out of
the corner of his eye and wondered what was going on. Her gaze was still locked on the waves that stirred restlessly
out on the open sea. After a time, she
continued.
"One
day, Mom came to me and said she had to leave for a dig deep in the
jungle. She said she had planned to
take me with her, but because I getting into so much trouble, she didn't think
it was safe to take me along." Her
green eyes locked with his for the first time and he could see indecision
flicker briefly in their depths.
"That's what she told me."
There was a brief hesitation and then her gaze returned to the sea again
and she said softly, "I believe
her." Benton wondered if she was
trying to convince herself of it. For a
long time, she was quiet. Just as
Benton decided that maybe it was time to say something and lead the young girl
back to the house, she began to speak again.
"Mom
decided it would be better if I spent the time with my grandparents. You know . . . a stable environment. She would have sent me to Grandmother and
Grandfather Velasquez, but they had decided to do some traveling, and Mom was
afraid I'd get into too much trouble.
So she sent me to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Bannon in Texas."
Now,
this was news. The day Race had come to
ask Benton if Jessie could join him at Quest Compound was the first time he had
ever openly discussed his past. He
talked about his ex-wife and daughter, explaining that he and Estella had been
divorced for almost six years and during that time, he had had very little
opportunity to spend time with Jessie.
But Race had not mentioned a word about his daughter spending time with
his parents. Benton wondered briefly if
Race even knew about it.
"Grandpa
Bannon was a funny man. He was always
laughing and joking. We spent a lot of
time together, doing all kinds of cool things.
He took me fishing and hiking in the country, taught me to ride horses, showed me how to build blinds so we
could sit by the lake in the early morning and watch the ducks and geese, and
all kinds of other really neat stuff.
It was like having Daddy back again . . . only better . . . he never had to go away on business or
anything. I was so happy." Suddenly, she turned and looked him squarely
in the face. "And then Grandpa
Bannon died."
She
said it so quietly and simply that it took a minute for the significance to
come home to Benton. He stood staring
at this young girl numbly, stunned by the extent of the devastation she must
have suffered. First to have lost her
father, and then to bond with her grandfather, only to lose him, too. He couldn't even begin to take it in. But, slowly, he realized that there was no
feel of overwhelming grief about her.
If anything, she seemed surrounded by an enduring sense of peace.
Jessie
turned and gazed out at the sea again.
This time, her eyes followed the soaring flight of an albatross that
rode the sky winds out over the open ocean in the gathering dusk. As he watched her, she smiled.
"For
a while, I thought my world had fallen in on me forever," she said
quietly. "I couldn't understand
what I had done to cause everyone I cared about to leave. Grandma Bannon called Mom and she came home
right away. But Daddy didn't come. I found out later that no one knew where he
was. Mom tried to take me back to
Colombia with her, but I couldn't leave.
Leaving meant walking away from a place I had been happy in for the
first time in a long time. So I ran
away and hid. Mom called the police and
they had all kinds of people out searching for me. They didn't find me. But
Gran did. She knew where to look." Suddenly, she turned and laid a small hand
on his arm, looking up at him with an intensity that surprised him.
"She
told me things about my Grandpa that I never knew. How he loved the out-of-doors so much, and how he never felt more
alive than when he outside working on the ranch or fishing or riding his
horses. And she told me things about
Daddy, too. Like how much he had loved
my Mom and me, and how much it had hurt him to leave both of us. But she explained how what Daddy did was
really, really important and how Grandpa had always told him he should do
those things. She also told me about
how Grandpa had told her how much he loved me, and how he would never, ever
leave me, no matter what happened. I
told her that he had left me . . . just like Daddy, but she shook her
head and told me it wasn't true. She said that she knew that
Grandpa would never leave either one of us, because he had promised. I remember she smiled at me then, and said
he was just with us a little different than before. And then she recited this
. . . this . . . poem. I've never forgotten it."
She
turned again, and in that same soft, even voice she began,
Do
not stand at my grave and weep.
I
am not there. I do not sleep.
I
am a thousand winds that blow,
I
am the diamond glint on snow.
I
am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I
am the gentle autumn rain.
When
you wake in morning hush,
I
am the swift, uplifting rush
Of
quiet birds in circling flight.
I
am the soft starlight at night.
Do
not stand at my grave and cry,
I
am not there. I did not die.
Her voice stopped, and Benton shivered
as the wind gusted suddenly, caressing his face in the same way Rachel used to
do as she kissed him. And mingled with
the soft sighing of the wind, he heard her again.
"And I understood that Grandpa
Bannon had loved me and would always be with me. I just had to know where to look." He turned to her, trying to think what to
say. Before he had the chance, he heard
Bandit begin barking sharply in the distance.
The barking was answered almost immediately by a sharp pee-ik . . . pee-ik . . . pee-ik.
Out of the gathering darkness, a slender, long-winged bird darted over
their heads on whirring wings, changing directions abruptly and rising rapidly,
only to dive like a stone after some night insect. Jessie's smile was brilliant even in the growing darkness as she
raised her hand to the flitting nighthawk and said reverently,
"Goodnight, Grandpa. I love you."
Without another word, Jessie turned and
walked back toward the house. As Benton
turned to watch her cross the lawn, the scurrying overcast suddenly parted and
a single star shown with breath-taking brilliance right over her head. Benton
caught his breath sharply. Rachel loved
stars. She used to wish on them.
I
am the soft starlight at night.
As
he stood gazing at that star, a sense of peace seemed to fill him, dispelling
the pain and grief that had been a constant part of his life since Rachel had
died. And suddenly he knew that grief
would never return. It had taken a
12-year-old girl to show him the truth . . . his wife was only lost if he
allowed himself to believe it.
Everything good that she loved . . . her work, her son, the world that
had surrounded her . . . was still here.
Even him. And if he would drop
the wall of grief that he had erected around himself, she would be with him
forever. He stood for a long time,
allowing himself to absorb that knowledge.
Finally, he raised his head and in an unconscious duplication of
Jessie's gesture, he reached out for that glimmering point of light.
"Goodnight,
Rachel . . . I love you."
And
with that enduring sense of peace filling him, he went in search of Jonny. It was time he began leading by example.
©
1998 Debbie Kluge
DISCLAIMER: The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and all
characters, logos, and likenesses therein, are trademarks of and copyrighted by
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., a Turner
company. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story. All
other material, copyright 1998 by Deborah A. Kluge. All rights reserved.
Characters and stories are in no way affiliated with, approved of or
endorsed by Hanna Barbera or Turner Productions. This is created by a fan for other
fans out of love and respect for the show, and is strictly a non-profit
endeavor.
