Silent Lives 5: Wanna Take a Ride with Me
By Maureen
A/N: thanks to Ducki, Mad Cow, Aricraze, & Arcadia for bugging me to get more written. Anyone know where Darkchilde is? And how is Bea?
Mucho graci-butt to Ami for literally sitting down one night and helping me talk through this ENTIRE chapter and part of the next chapter. I don't think this chapter would have been completed with out you. And to think....she doesn't even read/write fanfic or know anything about IaHB, she's just that awesome!
***
Jamie packed his schoolbooks in his messenger bag while Alex was in the shower. The events of the following night were still swimming around in his head. Not paying attention, he nearly walked out of his room before grabbing his wallet and keys.
"Bye Alex, I'm off!" Jamie yelled, grabbing his motorcycle helmet from the kitchen table. He hadn't told anyone about the information Faustus has given him the night before...he didn't really know what to do with it. This transcended anything like a simple genealogy project for school. This meant he might finally get some questions answered, regardless of whether he wanted them answered or not.
As he sped off to school on his motorcycle he realized he wasn't in the mood for school. Granted, he rarely was in the 'mood' for school, but this was the first time in a long time that he had considered either going in late or just skipping entirely. Skipping was beginning to sound better and better...
Two hours later, Jamie was speeding down I-95 heading nowhere. He had just felt like getting away and thinking. He had never ridden his bike this long continuously and was beginning to get sore.
With a start he saw a sign reading "Georgia, 200 miles". Georgia. Georgia was between Virginia and Florida. Florida. That's where they lived. His mother.
Why not? He had come this far.
That evening Jamie pulled into a gas station off the highway and headed to the bathroom to clean up. His school uniform was wrinkled, his hair was flattened beyond redemption and he had forgotten lunch. He shrugged and went to get gas.
A few minutes later, Jamie was back on the road.
***
The house was a one-story ranch with a large front yard. Tall trees kept the well-manicured lawn in semi-shade; a jump rope was curled next to the front door. Jamie sat out front on his bike feeling like he had stumbled into one of those "what does not belong" puzzles from Sesame Street.
With trepidation he managed to get himself to the front door. On the way up the front walk he realized something. He knew he was angry, knew that he wanted his questions answered and had even realized somewhere along the interstate earlier that afternoon that he wanted her approval for some strange reason. But now a new emotion was taking over.
Jealousy.
Steeling himself he rang the bell next to the large oaken door. A minute later the door opened, a small child peering up at him. Jamie's jaw dropped and nothing he tried seemed to work to close it. She was maybe six or seven. His half-whatever's were supposed to be in diapers, not answering the door!
When he had managed to get a hold of himself, he realized that she had closed the door. Calm down, Jamie told himself, breathe. Okay.
Collected once again, he rang the bell. This time a man answered the door, two children peering around him, the second child older than the one who had answered the door previously. The man wasn't any taller than Jamie was, but he had filled out where Jamie was lanky. His short brown hair was beginning to gray and contemporary thin, gold-framed glasses sat on his nose. He wore pressed khaki pants, casual but still nice and a polo shirt with a subtle green striping to it.
Suddenly Jamie felt like he was wearing year old grubby clothes that he reserved for especially dirty days, but it was now or never as Brooke had recently become fond of saying. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, please."
"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, sir," he repeated a minute later.
The man regarded the teenager at his door curiously. He had obviously just come from school, but wasn't wearing a uniform he recognized. "She's busy right now," he repeated. "Whatever you're selling, come back later."
"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, please," the boy repeated, in the odd, bored voice he had.
"I said -" the man began once again, becoming annoyed.
"I'm deaf. I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart," the teen finally said.
This took the man aback. "One minute," he said, holding up once finger. He closed the door for a minute and went back to the kitchen to get his wife.
"Can I help you?" she asked as she opened the door.
Once again, Jamie's brain refused to work. This was his mother. She was perhaps 5'2" with short, black hair and wore slacks and a blouse, one hand held a dishtowel.
Swallowing, he said, "My name is Jamie Waite."
***
In Kingsport, Alex looked at the clock in his office for what seemed to be the twelfth time in two minutes. Jamie was nearly thirty minutes late. He was never late for work anymore. And even when he had been late to work in the past it had never been by thirty minutes. And he wasn't returning his pages either.
"Brooke!" Alex roared, finally losing control. He was worried.
"Yes, Alex?" Brooke replied, running into his office with a stack of binders in his arms.
"Where is Jamie?" he asked quietly, realizing that his voice had drawn more than just Brooke's attention.
"I don't know, he should be here by now though."
Alex sighed, sitting back down in his chair and wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose, an old habit formed before he had started wearing contacts. "I know he should be here. He obviously isn't. Did he say he might be busy or anything to you?"
"Nope but he was checking his email every ten minutes yesterday. Maybe he was expecting something important."
"Okay, Brooke. Let me know if you see him or hear anything and have dispatch keep a watch for him at the hospital or police stations."
"No problem."
Alex didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong. Jamie always returned his pages or showed up a few minutes later. He never ignored it for this long. Alex sighed and tried to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him, but couldn't.
***
Mrs. Stewart dropped the dishtowel she was holding, gasping in disbelief. She grabbed her husband and held him tightly, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Who is he?" he asked, soft enough for only her to hear.
"He's my son, Richard," she replied, the tears now flowing down her cheeks and onto his shirt.
Richard visibly stiffened and took half a step back. He had been married to Mary for ten years now, they even had two young children. He had known she had been in at least one bad relationship in the past, but she had never mentioned children or a husband. She had rarely spoken of it, always saying that she lived in the present and wanted to leave the past where it belonged. Now he wasn't sure what to think.
"Um, come in," Richard said, motioning for Jamie to enter the house.
"Thanks," Jamie replied, not really sure what was going to happen. He had met his mother, now what?
He was shown to the living room, a large, open area where the kitchen and the dining room could be seen, although each was separate from each other. His mother sat down on the couch next to him, hastily wiping her tears away, while her husband had taken the children back upstairs and went to finish dinner.
They sat on the sofa awkwardly, not knowing what to say or how to say it. Finally, Jamie started. "Nice house."
His mother nodded, not certain how to respond. She knew he was deaf, but he wasn't deaf when she had left, what had happened? So many questions she wanted answered, so many she was sure he wanted answered and yet they could only look at each other trying not to meet the others eyes.
***
In the kitchen, Richard finished preparing dinner and surreptitiously watched his wife and her son sit on the couch. It was an uncomfortable silence and he didn't see any reason to help them out. She never told him that she had a kid. Or that he was deaf. How could she leave a deaf child? How could she leave any child? As he finished preparing dinner, he came to one conclusion, Mary was not the woman he thought he had married.
"Dinner!" he called, making sure he set an extra place at the table for their guest.
"What would you like to drink?" he asked Jamie, motioning to the empty glass.
"Water?" Jamie asked, not really sure what was being asked of him, but trying to make a safe guess.
Dinner was an awkward affair, with Mary and Richard speaking only when they had to and not explaining anything to their children about whom Jamie was or why he was there. Jamie ate his dinner and tried to pretend that he hadn't caused this disruption to an otherwise John Q. Normal family.
As soon as everyone had finished eating, Richard stood up to begin the dishes. "Kids," he said, "why don't you take Jamie to the park."
"Yay!" the younger child cried, pleased to be allowed to go to the park on a school night. "Come on, Jamie!" she grabbed his hand and began to pull him towards the door.
Jamie looked over his shoulder wondering what was happening and saw Mary making a shooing motion. "Okay," he said, uncertainly.
***
Jamie allowed himself to be dragged to a small park a few blocks away. "So...do you two have names or am I supposed to call you 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'?"
Two blank stares met his gaze. "Right. I'm Jamie. And I can't hear you, okay? So why don't you write your names down for me?" he held out his pad of paper and a small pen to the girls. The elder girl wrote 'Kristin' on the paper quickly before handing it to her sister. The younger girl wrote 'Shannon' on it more slowly, in large uneven block print.
Without waiting for a response, the sisters headed for the swings the younger one, Shannon, trying vainly to pump harder than her older sister. Jamie sighed and decided to do his ....brotherly?... best to keep an eye on them, which apparently included pushing Shannon to help her get higher.
Two normal little girls with matching almond eyes and straight dark brown hair, with loving parents in a good neighborhood, they probably went to a private school or at least never went to daycare or were latchkey kids. They were secure and confident that despite Jamie being a stranger, he would not hurt them because their parents had let him take them to the park.
This could have been me, Jamie thought.
The benign phrase echoed in his head, growing, becoming louder and louder with each passing second.
This could have been me.
Jamie pushed Shannon higher. She squealed with glee. This could have been me.
After they had finished swinging and had moved on to the monkey bars, with Jamie watching from a nearby bench for tired parents, he realized something else. He didn't hate them.
How could he hate these innocent little girls who had done nothing to him? It wasn't their fault they had a perfect life and he didn't. They didn't even know that they had a perfect life yet. They were innocents.
And try as he might, Jamie couldn't let go of those two phrases. This could have been me, but I can't hate them.
***
Alex paced the small apartment he and Jamie called home. It was small, but not cramped and perfect for the two men, but at the moment Alex felt like it was caving in on him, becoming claustrophobically small.
"Where the hell are you?" Alex shouted for the third time since coming home that evening. He had hoped that Jamie had simply felt sick and had gone home without telling anyone. But Jamie's motorcycle wasn't in its parking space and his book bag was missing as well.
Finally he picked up the phone and called the police. "Yes, Dr. Alex Freeman...I need to report a missing person. No...early this morning, around six-thirty. Wait! He's deaf-" the police hung up. Alex looked at the computer momentarily as the screen saver began scrolling again. 'Tis better to be pissed off than pissed on'.
"Damn straight," Alex muttered, "When I get my hands on you Jamie, you're going to be doing the station audit by yourself!"
***
As soon as the front door had closed Richard turned towards his wife seething. His arms crossed over his chest, he demanded an explanation.
Mary sat down at the table, crying again. "Before I met you I was married to Pete Waite. I met him in Japan. I was young, he was in the military. After he was discharged, he couldn't find a job and quickly became an alcoholic," she sighed and said quietly, "he hit me."
Richard stared at Mary not believing what he was hearing. He had known that she had been in a bad relationship before meeting him, but he had no idea that it had been as bad as this. He was torn, one hand wanting to be the loving husband and comfort her, but he had been elected as a judge on a platform of family values. These were not the values he supported. But he loved her.
"We had two children, both boys. Jamie is the youngest. Peter....I don't know where he is," Mary sat at the table, unable to look at her husband as she bared her soul to him. These were things that she had never told anybody and was ashamed to tell them now.
"I was pregnant a third time and Pete caused me to miscarry....and I couldn't forgive that. I started walking one morning and I never went back. I never planned to leave forever, I thought a day or so to clear my head. Then a week or two to get some money, I thought I'd get a job then go back for the boys. Then so long had passed and I met you and I didn't want to go back," as she spoke, her voice became slightly stronger, trying to justify her actions not only to her husband, but to herself. It was one thing to have to live with the skeletons in the closet, it was something else entirely to have to say them, acknowledging that they are indeed yours.
"I didn't know how to tell you, I was afraid you'd hate me. And the more time that passed, the more I was able to think about now and not then. I never thought they'd find me," she looked up at her husband, her eyes pleading forgiveness. She had never meant for any of this to happen.
"You left two children, one who is deaf, in a house with an abusive, alcoholic father?" Richard repeated, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"No! Jamie wasn't deaf when I left...I didn't know!" Mary began crying again.
"I don't know who you are anymore, Mary," Richard told her softly.
A/N: and the plot thickens....*cue hitchcockian music*
By Maureen
A/N: thanks to Ducki, Mad Cow, Aricraze, & Arcadia for bugging me to get more written. Anyone know where Darkchilde is? And how is Bea?
Mucho graci-butt to Ami for literally sitting down one night and helping me talk through this ENTIRE chapter and part of the next chapter. I don't think this chapter would have been completed with out you. And to think....she doesn't even read/write fanfic or know anything about IaHB, she's just that awesome!
***
Jamie packed his schoolbooks in his messenger bag while Alex was in the shower. The events of the following night were still swimming around in his head. Not paying attention, he nearly walked out of his room before grabbing his wallet and keys.
"Bye Alex, I'm off!" Jamie yelled, grabbing his motorcycle helmet from the kitchen table. He hadn't told anyone about the information Faustus has given him the night before...he didn't really know what to do with it. This transcended anything like a simple genealogy project for school. This meant he might finally get some questions answered, regardless of whether he wanted them answered or not.
As he sped off to school on his motorcycle he realized he wasn't in the mood for school. Granted, he rarely was in the 'mood' for school, but this was the first time in a long time that he had considered either going in late or just skipping entirely. Skipping was beginning to sound better and better...
Two hours later, Jamie was speeding down I-95 heading nowhere. He had just felt like getting away and thinking. He had never ridden his bike this long continuously and was beginning to get sore.
With a start he saw a sign reading "Georgia, 200 miles". Georgia. Georgia was between Virginia and Florida. Florida. That's where they lived. His mother.
Why not? He had come this far.
That evening Jamie pulled into a gas station off the highway and headed to the bathroom to clean up. His school uniform was wrinkled, his hair was flattened beyond redemption and he had forgotten lunch. He shrugged and went to get gas.
A few minutes later, Jamie was back on the road.
***
The house was a one-story ranch with a large front yard. Tall trees kept the well-manicured lawn in semi-shade; a jump rope was curled next to the front door. Jamie sat out front on his bike feeling like he had stumbled into one of those "what does not belong" puzzles from Sesame Street.
With trepidation he managed to get himself to the front door. On the way up the front walk he realized something. He knew he was angry, knew that he wanted his questions answered and had even realized somewhere along the interstate earlier that afternoon that he wanted her approval for some strange reason. But now a new emotion was taking over.
Jealousy.
Steeling himself he rang the bell next to the large oaken door. A minute later the door opened, a small child peering up at him. Jamie's jaw dropped and nothing he tried seemed to work to close it. She was maybe six or seven. His half-whatever's were supposed to be in diapers, not answering the door!
When he had managed to get a hold of himself, he realized that she had closed the door. Calm down, Jamie told himself, breathe. Okay.
Collected once again, he rang the bell. This time a man answered the door, two children peering around him, the second child older than the one who had answered the door previously. The man wasn't any taller than Jamie was, but he had filled out where Jamie was lanky. His short brown hair was beginning to gray and contemporary thin, gold-framed glasses sat on his nose. He wore pressed khaki pants, casual but still nice and a polo shirt with a subtle green striping to it.
Suddenly Jamie felt like he was wearing year old grubby clothes that he reserved for especially dirty days, but it was now or never as Brooke had recently become fond of saying. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, please."
"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, sir," he repeated a minute later.
The man regarded the teenager at his door curiously. He had obviously just come from school, but wasn't wearing a uniform he recognized. "She's busy right now," he repeated. "Whatever you're selling, come back later."
"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart, please," the boy repeated, in the odd, bored voice he had.
"I said -" the man began once again, becoming annoyed.
"I'm deaf. I'd like to speak to Mrs. Stewart," the teen finally said.
This took the man aback. "One minute," he said, holding up once finger. He closed the door for a minute and went back to the kitchen to get his wife.
"Can I help you?" she asked as she opened the door.
Once again, Jamie's brain refused to work. This was his mother. She was perhaps 5'2" with short, black hair and wore slacks and a blouse, one hand held a dishtowel.
Swallowing, he said, "My name is Jamie Waite."
***
In Kingsport, Alex looked at the clock in his office for what seemed to be the twelfth time in two minutes. Jamie was nearly thirty minutes late. He was never late for work anymore. And even when he had been late to work in the past it had never been by thirty minutes. And he wasn't returning his pages either.
"Brooke!" Alex roared, finally losing control. He was worried.
"Yes, Alex?" Brooke replied, running into his office with a stack of binders in his arms.
"Where is Jamie?" he asked quietly, realizing that his voice had drawn more than just Brooke's attention.
"I don't know, he should be here by now though."
Alex sighed, sitting back down in his chair and wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose, an old habit formed before he had started wearing contacts. "I know he should be here. He obviously isn't. Did he say he might be busy or anything to you?"
"Nope but he was checking his email every ten minutes yesterday. Maybe he was expecting something important."
"Okay, Brooke. Let me know if you see him or hear anything and have dispatch keep a watch for him at the hospital or police stations."
"No problem."
Alex didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong. Jamie always returned his pages or showed up a few minutes later. He never ignored it for this long. Alex sighed and tried to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him, but couldn't.
***
Mrs. Stewart dropped the dishtowel she was holding, gasping in disbelief. She grabbed her husband and held him tightly, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Who is he?" he asked, soft enough for only her to hear.
"He's my son, Richard," she replied, the tears now flowing down her cheeks and onto his shirt.
Richard visibly stiffened and took half a step back. He had been married to Mary for ten years now, they even had two young children. He had known she had been in at least one bad relationship in the past, but she had never mentioned children or a husband. She had rarely spoken of it, always saying that she lived in the present and wanted to leave the past where it belonged. Now he wasn't sure what to think.
"Um, come in," Richard said, motioning for Jamie to enter the house.
"Thanks," Jamie replied, not really sure what was going to happen. He had met his mother, now what?
He was shown to the living room, a large, open area where the kitchen and the dining room could be seen, although each was separate from each other. His mother sat down on the couch next to him, hastily wiping her tears away, while her husband had taken the children back upstairs and went to finish dinner.
They sat on the sofa awkwardly, not knowing what to say or how to say it. Finally, Jamie started. "Nice house."
His mother nodded, not certain how to respond. She knew he was deaf, but he wasn't deaf when she had left, what had happened? So many questions she wanted answered, so many she was sure he wanted answered and yet they could only look at each other trying not to meet the others eyes.
***
In the kitchen, Richard finished preparing dinner and surreptitiously watched his wife and her son sit on the couch. It was an uncomfortable silence and he didn't see any reason to help them out. She never told him that she had a kid. Or that he was deaf. How could she leave a deaf child? How could she leave any child? As he finished preparing dinner, he came to one conclusion, Mary was not the woman he thought he had married.
"Dinner!" he called, making sure he set an extra place at the table for their guest.
"What would you like to drink?" he asked Jamie, motioning to the empty glass.
"Water?" Jamie asked, not really sure what was being asked of him, but trying to make a safe guess.
Dinner was an awkward affair, with Mary and Richard speaking only when they had to and not explaining anything to their children about whom Jamie was or why he was there. Jamie ate his dinner and tried to pretend that he hadn't caused this disruption to an otherwise John Q. Normal family.
As soon as everyone had finished eating, Richard stood up to begin the dishes. "Kids," he said, "why don't you take Jamie to the park."
"Yay!" the younger child cried, pleased to be allowed to go to the park on a school night. "Come on, Jamie!" she grabbed his hand and began to pull him towards the door.
Jamie looked over his shoulder wondering what was happening and saw Mary making a shooing motion. "Okay," he said, uncertainly.
***
Jamie allowed himself to be dragged to a small park a few blocks away. "So...do you two have names or am I supposed to call you 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'?"
Two blank stares met his gaze. "Right. I'm Jamie. And I can't hear you, okay? So why don't you write your names down for me?" he held out his pad of paper and a small pen to the girls. The elder girl wrote 'Kristin' on the paper quickly before handing it to her sister. The younger girl wrote 'Shannon' on it more slowly, in large uneven block print.
Without waiting for a response, the sisters headed for the swings the younger one, Shannon, trying vainly to pump harder than her older sister. Jamie sighed and decided to do his ....brotherly?... best to keep an eye on them, which apparently included pushing Shannon to help her get higher.
Two normal little girls with matching almond eyes and straight dark brown hair, with loving parents in a good neighborhood, they probably went to a private school or at least never went to daycare or were latchkey kids. They were secure and confident that despite Jamie being a stranger, he would not hurt them because their parents had let him take them to the park.
This could have been me, Jamie thought.
The benign phrase echoed in his head, growing, becoming louder and louder with each passing second.
This could have been me.
Jamie pushed Shannon higher. She squealed with glee. This could have been me.
After they had finished swinging and had moved on to the monkey bars, with Jamie watching from a nearby bench for tired parents, he realized something else. He didn't hate them.
How could he hate these innocent little girls who had done nothing to him? It wasn't their fault they had a perfect life and he didn't. They didn't even know that they had a perfect life yet. They were innocents.
And try as he might, Jamie couldn't let go of those two phrases. This could have been me, but I can't hate them.
***
Alex paced the small apartment he and Jamie called home. It was small, but not cramped and perfect for the two men, but at the moment Alex felt like it was caving in on him, becoming claustrophobically small.
"Where the hell are you?" Alex shouted for the third time since coming home that evening. He had hoped that Jamie had simply felt sick and had gone home without telling anyone. But Jamie's motorcycle wasn't in its parking space and his book bag was missing as well.
Finally he picked up the phone and called the police. "Yes, Dr. Alex Freeman...I need to report a missing person. No...early this morning, around six-thirty. Wait! He's deaf-" the police hung up. Alex looked at the computer momentarily as the screen saver began scrolling again. 'Tis better to be pissed off than pissed on'.
"Damn straight," Alex muttered, "When I get my hands on you Jamie, you're going to be doing the station audit by yourself!"
***
As soon as the front door had closed Richard turned towards his wife seething. His arms crossed over his chest, he demanded an explanation.
Mary sat down at the table, crying again. "Before I met you I was married to Pete Waite. I met him in Japan. I was young, he was in the military. After he was discharged, he couldn't find a job and quickly became an alcoholic," she sighed and said quietly, "he hit me."
Richard stared at Mary not believing what he was hearing. He had known that she had been in a bad relationship before meeting him, but he had no idea that it had been as bad as this. He was torn, one hand wanting to be the loving husband and comfort her, but he had been elected as a judge on a platform of family values. These were not the values he supported. But he loved her.
"We had two children, both boys. Jamie is the youngest. Peter....I don't know where he is," Mary sat at the table, unable to look at her husband as she bared her soul to him. These were things that she had never told anybody and was ashamed to tell them now.
"I was pregnant a third time and Pete caused me to miscarry....and I couldn't forgive that. I started walking one morning and I never went back. I never planned to leave forever, I thought a day or so to clear my head. Then a week or two to get some money, I thought I'd get a job then go back for the boys. Then so long had passed and I met you and I didn't want to go back," as she spoke, her voice became slightly stronger, trying to justify her actions not only to her husband, but to herself. It was one thing to have to live with the skeletons in the closet, it was something else entirely to have to say them, acknowledging that they are indeed yours.
"I didn't know how to tell you, I was afraid you'd hate me. And the more time that passed, the more I was able to think about now and not then. I never thought they'd find me," she looked up at her husband, her eyes pleading forgiveness. She had never meant for any of this to happen.
"You left two children, one who is deaf, in a house with an abusive, alcoholic father?" Richard repeated, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"No! Jamie wasn't deaf when I left...I didn't know!" Mary began crying again.
"I don't know who you are anymore, Mary," Richard told her softly.
A/N: and the plot thickens....*cue hitchcockian music*