Author's note: Normally I wait two episodes before I have Harm react to
them, but few people could lay off the Christmas episode and I'm not one of
them. Any feedback is good feedback so send it all my way.
0416 ZULU
COMMANDER RABB'S APARTMENT
NORTH OF UNION STATION, VIRGINIA
"How can you not love her?" Mattie's been going on like this since we climbed into my Lexus and headed home. We didn't spend any more time at the wall after Mac left. I guess we should have, but there'll be plenty of time for that. "Mac's great, we talked all the way to the wall, she really understands me you know?" And I don't? "Her corvette's awesome, plus she's got that little sister of hers, Chloe Madison. She told me she'd introduce us next time she came to visit." Climbing into the elevator, I shut the doors behind us as she keeps talking. I'd rather she just give me a moment peace. Thinking about Mac isn't one of my top priorities right now. Obviously, Mattie's forgotten all the times Mac and I have managed to hurt each other over the years, that or she's just forgiven all of Mac's transgressions. "After all she did for us how is it you..."
"Mattie! Stop, no more, understood?" She's killing me with those big eyes of hers. This is the first time I've really yelled at her and I'm sure it came as a shock to her that I was capable of it. By the time we reach the front door and walk in, I'm ready with an apology. "Mattie..." Okay, so maybe I'm not. "I'm sorry okay? I just don't want to talk about Mac right now."
Mattie doesn't even look at me. "Okay." Well that was easy, maybe too easy, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Okay then. You can have the bed until I figure something out."
"If Catherine's such a good girlfriend why wasn't she there for us in court?" Damn it. Turning around I see she hasn't moved an inch. "Or why didn't you tell that witch Lemoyne, that you had a significant other?"
"I thought I told you to drop it." We've been dating for two weeks; I didn't want Mattie based on the condition that I had a girlfriend at the time. Besides, I wouldn't call us significant just yet and I wouldn't want any potential breakup to cost me Mattie.
"I'm talking about Catherine, not Mac." Sure she is, everything that's been coming out of her mouth has been about Mac. This is just a back door entrance to the same topic.
"She's in Paris and you know it." I protested her move only briefly. In the end, it'll put another feather in her cap. It's only a three-week thing, but its right over Christmas. They took her because she's only single, senior attorney in the CIA. They don't care if she's pregnant or not and Mattie has yet to meet her.
"You love her, what's the problem?"
"I'm not sure if I'm in love with Catherine yet." Yeah I'm misunderstanding her intentionally, but I won't be dragged back into this topic of conversation. I thought we cleared this up a month ago.
"You know who I'm talking about."
"I don't think I do, because I distinctly remember telling you to back off that subject."
"Welcome to family life Harm. Family members tell it like it is. Get used to it."
There's more to it than that. "Here's something else to get used to; go to bed." When I think Mattie has a mind to do otherwise, I follow it up. "I seem to remember a young teenager making a promise to the judge. Something about not causing trouble and doing what she's told." Mattie bits her lip and I'm sure her tongue as well. She grumbles, but follows me to the bedroom. Grabbing the spare blankets for myself, I leave her there. Its eleven thirty, time for her to be in bed anyway. "Good night."
"Whatever". Her callous answer catches me off guard. How did it come to this so quickly? She's been in my care for less than an hour and she's already mad at me.
I spent an hour trying to sleep before I gave up and decided to pull out a book and do some reading. I meant to read, but instead I just stared at that picture of mom and dad. It looks so easy in that picture, being a family. I honestly don't remember any bad times while dad was with us. Everything was so easy back then, or at least it seemed to be. I get in a lot arguments where Mac is involved, but usually the argument is with her, not about her. If Mattie had given me some space to sort, some things out maybe I could have quantified my feelings about Mac and what she did. Given the way I treated her, what she did was incredible and I feel like such an ass because of it. There's something else at work there too. Sturgis; he's the reason I had to go to Mac in the first place. I'm so pissed at him right now I'd like to pound his face in. He told me he'd be there for me and at very moment I need him the most he's nowhere to be found. I would have used Terri, but she called me last week and told me her reserve unit was being mobilized for action in Iraq to relieve another unit already over there. Having to ask Mac drained me, after my encounter with Mrs. Lemoyne I just couldn't deal with any more criticism from women. The fact that Mac still came after I delivered my parting shot as I left her apartment reminds me of how amazing she really is. I didn't think I could feel any worse when she showed up, but I did. It got a lot worse after she started singing my praises.
'I've given a lot of thought to the kind of man that I would want to be the father of my children if I ever... Commander Rabb is that kind of man...'
Christ sake, if there was anything on Earth that could have made me feel worse at that moment I don't know what it might be. You know it occurred to me as I made my bed here on the couch that I didn't thank her, either in the courtroom or at the wall. I'll remedy that, and soon. I don't think it'll be tomorrow, because I'm not sure if I should leave Mattie here alone or not. I'll stop by Bud and Harriet's tomorrow and drop off the gifts for A.J and James. I bought Mac a gift; it's just a pair of gloves. Not too expensive, but nice. I happen to know she tore her favorite pair changing a flat on her car. Even if Mattie comes along, she's just going to have to wait in the car while when I drop those off. I knew I was right in keeping them separated, Mattie's match making is more than enough to be concerned about. I wish she'd let it go and just accept Catherine's place in my life... wow, I sound like mom. How many times did she say that to me about Frank? I'm going to have to lay down the law about her driving around town too.
I trace mom's smile in that picture before sliding it back into the book and setting it down on the table. I called her yesterday, she was... concerned. I think that's the best way to describe her reaction to Mattie. I don't know if its concern that I don't know what I'm doing or that I'll never get married and this is my way of having a family of my own. It scares me to think that anything less than marital or blood relation won't be good enough for her. Grandma's reaction was worse, I think. It's the first instance I can recall where she was in total agreement and then some with mom. She sounded more disappointed as well; I think part of it's the issue of the Rabb name being passed on. Sergei obviously isn't going to use it, which means I'm still the last Rabb male in the family. That's nothing new; Rabb men have always been in extremely short supply. My great Grandfather came to America in 1897; he was five at the time, traveling with his father and mother. His father and newborn sister both died of cholera within two years of moving to Pittsburgh. They lived on the outskirts of town working a small sharecropping farm until Great Grandpa took his new bride and his mother and moved to what is now the Belleville area. His mother died when he was twenty. Grandma never told me how; I don't think she knew herself. My Grandpa was born in 1921, the youngest of six children. He had five older sisters, only three of which survived a sweep of small pox across New England. There was a brother somewhere in the middle of all those girls, but he was still born. Naturally after that of course, my Grandfather and father each lived to sire a single son before heading off into combat and never returning, just enough to continue the line. Dad actually got to spend quite a lot of time with his grandfather before he died. Taught dad to farm, to hunt, how to fix an engine... I'd like to say he was trying to distract dad from following in Grandpa's footsteps, but Grandma always said that he had been immensely proud that at the very least his son had done his duty, and served with distinction. Grandpa wasn't shot down; he was credited with seven kills at the time. No, he died when he put his Wildcat into a stall trying to help his wingman. He never regained control and plunged into the sea. Mom helped me track down the few surviving members of his squadron to get that information for my grade school history project. As for Great Grandpa, he died in 1966. Grandma has been searching since 1973 for a photograph. I've never seen it, but Grandma says it's a picture of Great Grandpa, dad and I in the farmhouse kitchen when we came to celebrate my first birthday there with them. I'd love to see it; I don't remember him at all. So here I am, the last remaining Rabb of the three in that picture with no heir to uphold our name. That's part of the reason I don't call mom or Grandma that often. I long grew tired of fielding questions about how Mac was doing, how Renee was doing, ect. That, and the constant demand for children of my own.
Getting up I head to the kitchen for a drink and swing by the bedroom to check on Mattie. It looks like she's sound asleep. She's been one surprise after another. That judge has no idea of the challenges I really face. There are the challenges they're concerned about plus the ones they don't even know about. Things like her business and her house but more importantly her lack of faith in people, including me. I guess all the contingency plans I had about her business and home were kinda pointless. Hell, I didn't even have some of the most basic facts in my corner. Her dad's living in her house now, well I guess it's their house actually. He's going to make the house payments; he's gotten a job up there apparently. I don't know what he's doing and I don't care so long as he makes the payments. To be honest there's no way I could have made them on that house. We would've had to sell off every plane and piece of equipment in her business. As it is, I still don't know what we're going to do with all that stuff. Sarah's safe and sound in another hanger. There was no way I was going to let something happen to her. I've got to stop thinking like this. I have Mattie, that's all that matters right now.
"Harm?" I roll over on the couch, burying my face into the pillow. I don't want to get up. "Harm, wake up."
"Go to back to bed." I can't manage anything more than a mumble at this point. I can feel her tugging at my blankets a little. I think she's doing something. "Jeez your feet are cold!" She's got colder feet than anyone I know, she slipped one underneath the blankets and pressed it on the small of my back. Rolling over again I protect my back while pulling the blankets in close to me. Mattie smiles as she flops down on top of me. "Oh, you're way too big to be doing things like that to an old man."
Mattie laughs and pinches my cheek. "You're not old." We laugh together only briefly before she stops. "Look Harm, about last night..."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too. I just want you to be happy."
"You don't think I am? I've got you."
Mattie smiles at me and kisses me on the cheek. "I just thought you could be even more happy with Mac too."
I don't even know where to begin this anymore. "Mattie..."
"I know, I know. Catherine's your girlfriend not Mac, I understand. I'm sure she's a wonderful woman." She is that, and more. "I'm just..." She's what?
"Go on."
Mattie just sighs. "I guess my matchmaking for Mac wasn't entirely for your benefit." What? "I... I guess feel a little threatened by Catherine." Then why would she want Mac in the picture either? Both of them would take up the primary female role in my life.
"Mattie, you and Catherine occupy different parts of my life. Each of you has your own relationship..."
Mattie shakes her head interrupting me. "Not Catherine herself, I mean Catherine's baby." I guess that makes sense... no it doesn't. That doesn't make any sense at all. Something in me just wants to say 'What the fuck?'
"Why would you feel like that?"
Mattie hops off me and sits on the coffee table. I don't want that thing breaking so I sit up and pat the spot next to me on the couch. When she sits down and I cover her up with my blankets she answers. "I just... Harm you don't even know if that baby is yours or not and I know you wish it was." She's got me there, although that feeling has faded somewhat. I've got Catherine; the fact that she's pregnant is irrelevant. Well not irrelevant, but certainly of lesser importance than it was before. "Even if it isn't, I know you're going to love that child and I just thought... I thought you'd probably like the baby more than you'd like me." Well let's put her insecurity on the top of the list of things we're going to have to work on together.
Wrapping an arm around her, I pull her close. "Hey, if that were true don't you think I would have changed my mind when I started dating Catherine. Or maybe I would've just given up on you when things got tough?"
"I guess so."
"You have to believe me when I say there's nobody I want more than you."
Mattie's eyes water a little bit, but she doesn't shed any tears. They wouldn't have been sad tears anyway. "I'm sorry for doubting you on that."
"Its okay."
Mattie's leaning her head against my shoulder, but doesn't look up at me when she starts talking again. "Is it still okay if I talk to Mac and her sister?"
"Yeah its okay. Mac's a good friend and an even better role model. You're a lot like her you know?"
"Really?"
"Sure. You're both independent, intelligent and strong. You like to do things on your own. Chloe's pretty much the same way." I'd say Chloe's more of a typical teenager than Mattie is though. There's a lot more she shares with them that I won't mention, at least with Mac anyway; Alcoholic fathers, parents who abandon them, problems with trust, and an unbelievable stubborn streak. Mattie's a lot older than Chloe was when Mac first met her, I don't know if she'll be able to shape Mattie the way she did Chloe. Hold the phone moron, that's your job, not Mac's remember?
"Are we going anywhere today?"
"Not really. We've just got to drop off some gifts, then it's just you, me and all the Christmas cookies you can eat." The Admiral's working today with a few of the more unlucky junior officers. Tomorrow I have to come in with the rest of the junior officers to finish out the week.
2155 ZULU FALLS CHURCH YMCA FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
"Alright guys good practice today." Sturgis can't possibly mean that. John Mueller and Zach Tompkins, shot like shit and I'm so pissed at Sturgis that every part of my game sucked ass. Sturgis and I are the only ones from our floor playing in this basketball league. John and Zach are both from the family legal services department two floors down. The rest are from mix of specialties. One works in the judiciary branch, the other three are staffers from throughout the building I guess. Sturgis assembled this team while I was with the CIA so besides John and Zach they're all new faces to me. Sturgis called this practice after work today. He came in at noon to catch up on some paperwork or something. Despite the lack of personnel, I was fielding a lot of questions about Mattie today; thankfully, the Admiral wasn't there. I really didn't need to deal with him today. I don't need to get home that quickly; Mattie'll be fine on her for now. Taking a few free throws, I wonder how much longer it'll be home to me. I honestly don't know how I can reconfigure my place to give Mattie her own bedroom. If Child Services were to come back in two weeks and see that I hadn't made any progress, they'll take her away, I'm sure of that. I make six in a row before my last shot bounces of the iron and towards the sideline. "How come you didn't shoot that well during practice?" Sturgis, still in his gym clothes tosses the ball back at me. Ignoring him, I turn around and promptly miss the next shot too. I know why, I didn't have the latest source of my irritation staring me in the face every second. Sturgis tracks down that shot as well and holds the ball against his hip. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, gimme the ball back."
Sturgis shakes his head. "Like hell there isn't. You haven't said a word to me all day and frankly your game sucked today."
"I'm just having an off day." I don't know why I said that, I could have told him the truth. I guess part of me just wants to brood over what he did or didn't do in this case.
"No you aren't. Your mad at me from some reason." Idiot. It took you that long to figure it out and you still don't even know the reason why?
"Tell him what he's won Johnny."
"Knock it off and tell me why you've got that stick up your ass today."
"Where were you?"
"What?"
"Don't play games with me, where the fuck were you?"
"When?"
"You know when, damn it. Last Friday, where the hell were you? Shit, where were you all weekend? I tried your home, your cell, and your beeper. After that I called your dad, but he wasn't home either."
Sturgis looks like he's thinking back about what he was doing all that time. Because of him, I had to go to Mac on Friday night and ask for her help, because of him Mac and I got into a fight, because of him Mac made me look like an ass, and because of him, I feel like one too. Sturgis dribbles the ball a few times before draining a 20 footer. "I was with Verese Chestnut the whole time and I won't apologize for it either."
The ball bounces to me and I throw it at his head with as much force as I can. Sturgis ducks as the ball flies over his head and up into the bleachers. It wouldn't have hit him anyway. "Son of a Bitch! So you left me hanging out to dry while you chased a damn skirt?!"
"Verese is not some skirt!"
"Bullshit! You felt your weekend fling was more important than your promise to help me out in court!"
"Is there a problem here?" Looking over I see a manager heading our way, ball in hand.
Sturgis turns to face him as well. "No, we're just having a disagreement."
The manager gives the ball back to Sturgis hissing at both of us. "If you two can't settle down I'm going to ask you to leave. If you need to fight, find some other place else to do it."
The manager walks away and Sturgis turns back towards me. "If you're waiting for an apology, forget it. It's not going to happen, besides that's why you had two witnesses remember?"
"And she has an excuse I can accept. She's being deployed to Iraq with the rest of her unit. She couldn't be here to testify after she got her marching orders. I told you that, I trusted you, I was counting on you, and when the chips were down you weren't there for me. And because of you I had to go to Mac for help."
"And you got Mattie so what the hell are you bitching about?" He's doesn't know the half of it. The courts didn't give her to me; her father did, with Mac's help of course. I owe Mac a world of an apology and my thanks. Because of him, Mac's presence in my life has been strengthened and given our current relationships to CIA personnel, I'm not sure its such a good thing. Mic and Renee would testify to that. I don't need this right now. It'll just make Catherine more nervous and I'm not sure how Webb will react either. Where is it written that my life has to be this complicated? I don't how I feel about any of this anymore, it's all too damn complicated.
My anger subsiding I walk over to the bleachers to get my towel and water bottle and get out of here. "Forget it, you'll never understand."
"So I guess this means you're not going to represent me anymore?" Self absorbed little fucker aren't you?
Spinning around I stare him down. "I'll be there for you every step of the way because that's what I promised you I'd do. I never turn my back to a friend in need. Right now you don't even deserve my support, but I'm still going to defend you with everything I've got regardless of what you did to me." It feels like gravel in my mouth saying that, but I mean every word.
"Well aren't you mister goody two shoes." I'm not going to respond to that. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm tired of fighting, actually that seems to be the common theme among the senior officers lately. Now all three of us have been at each other's throats in the past few months. As I pass under the hoop, I hear him call out to me. "Harm I think Verese is the one." The anger has left his voice, replaced with a quality I'm not going to stand around and identify, but that still doesn't change anything.
Looking back at him, it isn't hard to see that he's telling the truth. "I hope so Sturgis, because anything less will be unacceptable."
"Hi Mattie, its me." I'm currently sitting in my car outside of Mac's apartment. I need to talk to her, but I needed to check up on Mattie first.
"Hey there, when are you coming home?"
"That's what I'm calling about. Are you going to be okay on your own for a few more hours?"
"I'll be fine, where are you now?"
"At Mac's."
"Yeah?" I can hear the smile on her face.
Here we go again. "I just needed to talk to her and drop off her gift."
"I wanted to come too."
"Mattie, right now I need to talk to her in private okay? Maybe some other time."
I can hear her sigh into the phone. "Okay, tell her Merry Christmas for me."
"I will. I'll be home soon, is there anything you'd like me to pick up on my way home?"
"A hamburger would be great, fries and a Coke too okay?
Maybe I should cook more often, she'll eat better than way. "Okay, I'll see you later. Call me on my cell if you need anything."
"I will, bye."
"Bye." She might not even be home. We stopped by yesterday and she wasn't here. Personally, I was glad for it. I don't know what I would have said to her. Even now, I've been working up the courage to get out of my car for the last twenty minutes. God, quit being a wuss Rabb, and get your ass in there.
It only took one knock on the door before she opens the door looking a little bit surprised herself. "Harm, hi."
Looking at her I can't think of a single thing to say. Instead, I take one big stride towards her and engulf her in a big hug. Its not until an involuntary shudder runs through me that I feel her return it. We remain like this for a while, my cheek against her head and my nose buried in her hair. She's showered or took a bath recently because her hair's still damp and smells like wildflowers in the summer. We remain like this for I don't know how long before I realize that I had better say something. "Thank you Mac, thank you so much for everything you did for me."
Mac pulls away from me to look me in the eyes. "Your welcome."
"I didn't deserve any of it especially after how I treated you."
"Its okay." Mac picks up a basket of laundry next to the door and takes it over to the couch. She must be washing nearly everything she has because there's three other basket loads there. She's only dressed in a pair of shorts and a Marine Corps tee shirt.
"No its not." I follow her into the living room and sit down on her chair next to the couch. "You didn't deserve any of it and I'm sorry."
"Why?"
What? "Why am I sorry?"
"No why did you say it?" I guess things have changed. In the past, she'd accept my apology and we'd move on. "I want to know what drove you to say something so mean."
This is going to be hard, but I guess if I want to keep my friendship with Mac I've got no other option to take. "That anger wasn't entirely directed entirely at you Mac."
"How's that?" She doesn't believe me. I don't blame her, I wouldn't believe me either.
"The woman the court sent to interview me and determine my suitability as a parent, Mrs. LaMoyne?"
"What about her?"
"Everything I did or said wasn't good enough for her. When I got more resistance from you I couldn't take it anymore and I lashed out."
"What resistance did I give you? I didn't say no."
I never even thought about that. She's right, she didn't say no, just like I didn't say it in Sydney. I guess I'm guilty of hearing without listening too. "You're right, but the lousy son comment cut me a lot more than you know. I've done everything I could to be a good son to both of my parents." That really did hurt.
Mac grimaces, as I'm sure she recalls it. "I'm sorry I said that. The things you did trying to find your father... you didn't deserve that either. You are a good son, but at the time you didn't seem that hurt by it."
"That's because I didn't want to get into an argument before I even asked you for vouch for me. Honestly, the last week or so, trying to get Mattie... I haven't been subjected to that much criticism from any one group of people since the Academy. I didn't handle it well, and I took it all out on you."
Mac looks at me with a disbelieving look on her face. "Harm I went through OCS, you don't know what criticism is until you've gone through that."
"How long is OCS?" I know the answer of course I just want her to say it.
"Ten weeks."
"The upperclassmen at the Academy didn't lay off me for an entire year."
"Why's that?"
I shrug my shoulders. "Because they were just kids, and I didn't like taking orders from kids." I did a lot of fighting those first two years, especially that first one. That's how I met Sturgis; the boxing ring was my best friend for a long time.
"Hold that thought." Mac runs into the kitchen to answer her phone. Those were difficult years. I had friends, but even they resented my stubbornness to obey orders. Mac comes back grumbling something about telemarketers. "Harm you were just a kid too."
No I wasn't. "Kids don't kill people Mac."
"They do now." True enough, but not like I did.
"Kids don't run around in foreign countries, using automatic weapons, explosives, and boasting a body count in the mid to upper thirties Mac. Maybe their eyes didn't carry the innocence of a six-year-old Mac, but compared to me they were all children. I'd seen and done things they couldn't have even imagined." I know Mac prides herself on the extensive weaponry training she's received, but if we were to race at rebuilding a stripped down M-16 or AK-47 I'd beat her everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Stryker wouldn't allow for anything less. There's nothing like the fear of death to motivate someone to learn something quickly, thoroughly and to complete that task rapidly if needed. "Kids don't have sealed files with the CIA and State Department before their seventeenth birthday." I looked my CIA file while I was on probation. It wasn't complete; they only had about half of what I actually did over there included in that file. MI-6 actually gave them the majority of information they did have. There were a few surveillance photos of me in the file from the assets on the ground the Brits must have had in place. I copied the best one and stuck it in my album once I received the clearance to do so.
"So what straightened you out?"
"At the end of my freshman year the Academy superintendent called me into his office. Basically, he said that if I didn't straighten out and fly right either I should look into transferring to another college or I'd be dropped from the Academy. I wanted to fly too badly to allow that to happen so I obeyed orders from then on. Even then, nothing really worked until I started talking to one of the psychologists there at the Academy."
Mac arches both eyebrows at me. "You went to a shrink?" I wish she wouldn't say it like that.
"I did what I had to do to stay in. Basically I needed someone to unload on who couldn't reveal to others what I told them."
"Why?"
"Mac, the guys I was running with, we broke... I don't know how many local and international laws we were violating on a daily basis. We were constantly avoiding Vietnamese patrols although sometimes that wasn't possible and we got into firefights. If we'd been captured it would have been a huge international incident. I couldn't risk that information getting out into the open. The Commander I talked to was shocked at my story. He couldn't believe some of the things I admitted to, but at least he could respond to it and give me some advice." When I got back the CIA and the State Department debriefed me. Both had different agendas though. The State Department just bitched at me, yelling about how much trouble I'd caused already and how much I could have caused if I'd been caught. The CIA just wanted as much intelligence as they could get. My debriefing was short compared to Stryker's. He was the one they really wanted.
"I suppose you're not going to tell me about any of it are you."
I just shrug my shoulders at her. "I can't tell you any thing specific; no dates, faces or places."
Mac taps her chin in response thinking it over. "You were just a kid back then. So what did they have you do?"
"Well I didn't start putting on all this height and mass until I turned 17 so I didn't have the power for hand to hand combat yet. That ruled out being a part of the insertion teams. So theoretically, while we were out in the field I could have held down two other specialties."
Mac smiles. "Of course, but theoretically speaking what might have been some of the things you did?" Good, just so we understand each other.
"Well because of my size at the time, I became quite the tunnel rat. Mostly everything we were doing or trying to do was simply intelligence gathering. The tunnels were often times the best places to do that. Sometimes I'd come back up with documentation about mass gravesites. Sometimes they were Viet Cong, sometimes they were ours. We'd stop and dig them up to retrieve dog tags or any other identification could find."
Mac stops folding her shirt, she looks as intrigued as I've ever seen her. "Did you find any dog tags?"
"A few, we mailed them to a Navy Chaplin stationed in Japan from Saigon. We included information about where we found them and how many bodies didn't have any identification on them. When the Army sent in recovery teams with Vietnamese consent years later they used quite a bit of the information we provided."
"What was it like in the tunnels?"
"Small, dark and damp. It smelled too. Everything smelled like mildew, mold, and rot. There's nothing I've experienced since that can match the claustrophobic feeling I got in some of those tunnels. Other than the threat of booby traps, the smell was still the worst part about it. I could wash up ten times after climbing out of those tunnels and still stink."
"You said you had two jobs. What was the other?"
"When the teams inserted into a village or a compound, I was the one covering them with sniper fire."
"They made you into sniper?"
"The guy I hung out with the most was this ex scout sniper. He had kept his own rifle from his two tours in Vietnam. He taught me how to do shoot, how to move, everything he was taught. I took to it like a duck to water too because I knew it was a combat role I had a chance of getting. I ended up making the bulk of my kills peering through a scope a few hundred yards away." There was a sadistic pleasure in doing it too. You know it started out feeling like I was getting a small piece of justice for what happened to dad. I know better now, but at the time, I was only 16 and full of anger. Then it got scary, I started to like the killing. There was a perverse thrill involved watching a man fall to the ground like a limp rag doll. I think Stryker knew what it was doing to me too. If he hadn't pulled us all out of there when he did I don't even want to consider how differently my life would have turned out. Over the years, I've owed my life to many. Meg, Mac, the Admiral; all of them have saved my life at one time or another. Stryker did too, but I know without a doubt that he saved my soul as well.
"I'm surprised you didn't go Marine out of the Academy and head into the infantry."
She's smiling and I'm glad, we needed the levity. "That was for my father. Besides, I still wanted to fly much too badly, I didn't want to do any more of that ground pounding ever again."
"That experience served you well in the future though." Sure it has, but how would she know that?
"Oh?"
Mac looks so coy. "When we got back from Red Rock Mesa, I looked up your service record. I had to know what you were about."
I can't help my laughter. "I can assure you, everything in there has a good explanation attached to it."
"I hope so, because I recall reading about an incident where you tracked an escaped Marine sniper who was going to be court marshaled into the hills and got the drop on him when his own students couldn't."
"He offered to train me ya know?"
"Sounds to me like you could have trained him." Doubt it, I'm good, but he was much better. I still can't believe I tripped that flare. Stryker would've had my ass back in the day.
"You know how it is. The training always comes back to you. Even after nearly sixteen years it wasn't hard to slip back into that role Mac."
"Then there was this story I heard from a bunch of fellow Marines when I was still stationed in Bosnia. Something about this crazy ass Navy lawyer who went in behind enemy lines to save a pilot who'd been shot down just to help win his case. Explain that one."
"It was good to find someone alive for once. Again, it's all about the training. Avoiding patrols was SOP for us. It was all second nature. Besides, Meg and the CAG won that case before I even made it back with the pilot."
"Here like this, soft edges facing outward." I never noticed it but I absently had started folding towels. I guess my hands needed something to do. Apparently, Mac has her own way of doing it because she took the last towel from me and refolded it. I told her most everything else I could about my romp through Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. "Harm did you ask anyone else to be a character witness for you?" Shit, I was hoping we were done talking about that.
Now I find I can't look her in the eyes anymore. "Yes."
She looks every bit as hurt as I thought she'd be. "Anyone I'd know?"
"Sturgis. We were on better terms than you and I. I thought he'd give me a better testimony."
Mac sits up straight on her couch a pair of jeans in her hands. "And he bailed on you, that's why you had to come to me isn't it?" She's far too smart for her own good. "Are you mad at him?"
"Damn right I'm mad at him. He was with some woman all weekend. I couldn't get a hold of him when he'd promised to help me."
"Not some woman, Verese Chestnut." Who the hell is that, and why is it everyone knows about her, but me?
"Who?"
Mac gets up, and walks over to her stereo and pulls a CD from her collection. "You know the Jazz singer?"
Oh, now I know whom they're talking about. "He's way out of his league." Her picture's on the back, Verese is a good-looking woman.
"Not according to Harriet. She invited Sturgis and his father to a club she was performing at." She might have invited them, but he went there thinking with his dick. If he hadn't, me and my court case would have popped into head at some point during the weekend and he would have called. "Does he know you're mad at him?"
"I threw a basketball at his head after practice today."
Mac looks at me in amazement and then instantly throws on her most cheerful attitude. "Well, why don't we find something else to talk about?"
Indeed, lets do that. I got just the thing too. "I got this for you. Sorry it's a little late." I took off my coat an hour ago, I've totally forgot about her gift until now.
"Thank you." Mac opens her gift as I refold the towels I did earlier. "These are wonderful Harm thank you very much."
"Your welcome, I would have given them to you yesterday, but you weren't home." I hope she doesn't feel the need to tell me what she was going with Webb.
"I got you something too." Opening it, the gift is a red, wool sweater. Mac then produces a second gift from behind her back. "I got you this one after I learned about Mattie." The second gift is an empty photo album. It's has a hard leather cover and looks thick enough to hold two lifetimes in it. "I know you have that album of your professional career Harm. I thought it was about time you had a personal one too."
God she's incredible. "Thank you Mac, this is very touching." Mac's warm smile is easy to return. "Mattie says Merry Christmas by the way."
"She's a good kid Harm."
"Well she's become your biggest fan." Mac almost blushes in response. "She reminds me a lot of you." Oh, shit. Mac's not blushing anymore. She's looking at me the same way I'm sure I looked at her when she admitted that I was the kind of man she wanted. I meant that, but I didn't mean to say it. God, I hope she let's that comment go. I don't think this is a good time to be discussing us.
"How's that?" Damn.
"Well, you're both strong and independent."
"And?"
"Smart and responsible."
Mac's enjoying this too much. "Go on." I'm not sure I can without revealing certain feelings, feelings that shouldn't be there.
"Serious most of the time, but you both have a playful side you don't reveal often."
Mac licks her lips, "What else?"
"Well you share a somewhat similar family history too." Mac nods and I can feel the pressure of her gaze moving off this subject and me. I knew she'd do it too, if there's one thing she likes to avoid its her past. We sit in silence for I don't know how long, folding clothes. Its not until I finish the last towel, set it aside and notice the underwear that had been underneath them that she says or does anything.
Mac immediately covers the basket with the shirt she was folding at the time as soon as she notices what I'm looking at. "Okay, why don't you put those towels away in my bathroom!" She's blushing so hard that normally I'd accuse her of only pretending to be Marine green when she's obviously scarlet red. However, the reason she's blushing tells me that I better not if I want to remain a fertile male. I'm pretty sure she'd crush my balls if I said anything. Its not until I'm putting the towels away in her bathroom, safely out of her reach that I start laughing out loud. "Shut up Harm!"
"You can look in my underwear drawer if that'll make you feel better." I call out to her. I know there's no comparison there, what was in that basket was a lot more risqué` than anything I'd ever own or admit to owning. The imagery running through my head is detailed and running the gambit of the selection I managed to see.
"I've already seen your boxers."
"Well then I guess we're even."
"Not even close flyboy."
"Well you can look again if you want." Coming back into the living room, she's still blushing and the underwear basket's nowhere to be found.
Mac hands me another basket. "Not even tempting. Now fold."
The basket's full of sweatshirts, jeans, and jogging pants. I pick one up before protesting her choice. "These are boring."
"After what you've seen, you owe me, so shut up, and fold." I'm trying, but I'm shaking from laughter. "If I even think you're picturing me in my underwear I'll crush your larynx with my fist."
It wouldn't be the first time, but its time to change the subject. "What the deal with all this laundry anyway, you moving or something?"
She's all too happy to change the subject as well. "No its just laundry day, plus I'm donating a bunch of the stuff I don't wear anymore away." That sounds reasonable enough, so long as she doesn't donate her underwear as well. I doubt that'd go over well with Good Will.
"Have you talked to Chloe at all?"
"Yesterday, she's coming to visit in a week. You should bring Mattie over." I don't know about that. Chloe and Mattie together, I don't think that's a good thing for either one of us. Catherine's coming home that week too and I don't want to be here when I should be spending time with her.
"I don't know if I want to spend my time hanging around with three women."
Mac laughs. "Who said anything about you being invited?"
Well you walked right into that one didn't you Rabb? "I'll think about it."
"Can I even drink this or is it capable of eating a hole through a steel plate?"
That gets Mac to laugh. "Don't worry, I weakened it for your soft, Navy issued stomach." Accepting the cup of coffee, I sip slowly. Can't be too careful with her.
"Good coffee." The coffee's only the latest distraction to a question I've been carrying around in the back of my mind since Mac showed up at the wall with Mattie. I was able to keep it on the back burner yesterday, but not today. Today, when I've been alone, I've been thinking about it a lot.
"What's the matter? Is there something wrong with the coffee?" I guess my concern is written all over my face if Mac felt compelled to ask that.
"No the coffee's fine."
"Then what is it?"
"Its about Mattie."
Mac sets down her own cup of coffee. "What about her?"
"I'm not going to be able to keep her am I?"
"What?"
"If her dad cleans up his act and turns his life around I'm not going to be awarded permanent custody of Mattie in May am I? Even if I fight it I'll lose won't I?"
"Harm the judge would look back at your actions for the past six month too."
I shake my head at her. "Mac lets be realistic here. He's her father and he stepped aside in the best interests of his child. You don't think the court's going to take that into consideration?"
"Harm there's always a chance..."
"Mac if I were your client what would you tell me? Realistically, what kind of odds would you give me?"
Mac takes another drink of coffee as she tries to come up with an answer for me. I know this isn't something she's considered and why should she? I'm going to be on the losing end of this battle. "If her father completes his treatment, finds a job..."
"He already has a job."
"Well... if he shows himself capable of caring for Mattie, I'd say you're looking at twenty. You've got a twenty percent chance of keeping Mattie even if you do everything to the letter. Thirty, if she still wants to live with you in six months." I thought as much, long odds. Meaning in six months I'm probably going to lose her. I know her father's going to clean himself up. He wouldn't have done what he did if he didn't love her. "I'm sorry Harm I never even gave it a second thought."
I dismiss her concern as best I can, but it's hard to acknowledge the truth. "Don't be. You've given me six months with her Mac. Without you I wouldn't have even had that."
"Harm there's always a chance..." She stops when I raise my hand. She knows as well as I do that I don't have much of anything.
"Mac he wouldn't have done what he did if he didn't love her and I'm not going to spend the next few months hoping that the man ruins his life for my benefit."
Mac nods in agreement. "Then I guess my advice to you would be to enjoy the time you do have together. Maybe you'll have her for the rest of your life or maybe in six months you'll have to give her up. Either way she'll always look up to you, whether you're her guardian or her friend." I haven't forgotten what else might happen in six months. You know at first it was almost a joke. No, it was a joke, something friends might say to each other at one time or another for laughs. We just worded it differently, made it sound serious. Then somewhere along the way it became a genuine offer. I think it happened on the Admiral's porch when I brought it up for the first time since we'd made the deal. Shit, I was the one who brought it up two years later too. Exactly whose biological clock is ringing here? Well she brought it up last week so I guess that means both of us. Whatever, the point is that we've almost there. Five years is staring me in the face and if we're not dating anyone what in the hell am I supposed to do then? "Harm? Hey, Harm?" Mac's waving her hand in front of my face.
Get in the game Rabb. "Sorry, what were you saying?"
"I wasn't saying anything. I was just wondering where you went." Nuh, uh. That's not a trip we're taking together.
"My place, I was just thinking I should head home." I should go; Mattie's probably starving and I don't want her filling up on Christmas cookies either.
"Well, drive safe and thanks for helping with the laundry."
"You really mean that?"
Mac cocks her head to one side to think about that. A slight blush returns to her cheeks as she recalls the underwear incident. "Oh, hell no I don't, and the threat still stands so don't even smile too hard."
Picking up my new sweater and my photo album, I make my way to the door, an easy smile on my face. "I'll see you Monday Mac."
"Hey Harm?"
"Yeah?"
"Bring Mattie with you next time."
"I will."
Mattie was lying on the couch flipping through T.V stations when I walked in through the door. "Finally I was getting so hungry thought I was going to have to borrow your Corvette and get something to eat myself."
I know she's just jerking my chain; we had a talk about driving around here. "Not if you want to live to see sixteen."
"So what did you get me?"
"What you asked me for; soy burgers."
Her facial expression begs to be captured on film and stored in my new photo album. "You're kidding right?"
"You only wish I was." I hoist the bag up from the Organic foods store I frequent occasionally. I only bought some replacement pots of herbs from there. I'm hiding her McDonald's order in the bag too. She dragging her feet from the living room over to the kitchen table where the bag is and the look on her face is priceless.
Before she gets to the table I reach in and Toss her burger at her, she catches it like it was a bomb or something. Then she sees the wrapper and smiles. "Oh... don't ever do that to me again."
I give her my biggest smile and most innocent face as I set her drink on the table as well. "Do what?"
Her face is almost comical. "Soy burgers? Yuck. Same goes for soy milk or anything else soy based."
"What about soy sauce?"
Mattie relents there. "Well I guess there's an exception to every rule."
"And soylent green?"
Mattie smiles at me. "That's not made out of soy. Soylent green is made out of people, its people, people!" Mattie's impression, complete with the flailing limbs and her screaming has me laughing hard.
"How did you know that?" That movie was years before her time, hell a whole generation or more.
Mattie sits down next to me. "My dad loves that movie." Once again, reality intrudes in on our happy little moment. "What?"
I could lie to her, tell her something trivial, but I want to address this. "I was just thinking about your dad."
"Not quite the monster you thought he'd be?"
"No. I was just thinking what he did for us."
Mattie bits her lip thinking about that. I can see her newfound appreciation for him in her eyes. "Yeah that was pretty selfless of him I guess."
"Mattie... if, if he wants to talk to you or see you anytime over the next six months. I'd like you to consider it."
She looks incredibly suspicious. "Why?"
"Because I can only wish I could have spent more time with my dad."
"Your dad didn't kill your mother."
He cheated on her though, and maybe once before he even left the Tico. "No he didn't, but our parents all make mistakes. As family members, we have to forgive one another. That's what being a family is all about. Mattie, I can't imagine what its like for him right now. Knowing that you're here with me over Christmas."
Mattie cocks her head to one side as she addresses me. "You really want me to spend time with him?"
"Only if you feel comfortable with it, I don't want to push this on you if you're not ready."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"We're going to have to there get some of your stuff from your house aren't we? He's gonna be there, and if he asks you, I just wanted you to be open to the possibility."
"Can't we just go when he won't be there?"
This is for her own good. "Like thieves in the night? Mattie, even if I wanted to do that I couldn't. With my job, I don't have that kind of free time on my hands and you're not driving there yourself. If you were caught, Child Services would give you a one-way ticket to foster home and you could forget about me ever regaining custody." That'll keep her off the roads. Besides, I want her to see him again. If he can step aside for her I had better learn to do the same because it's a lesson, I may need to repeat when this is all over.
"So this weekend?"
"Yeah, we'll call your dad tonight and decide on a good time." Mattie nods as she bites down into her cheeseburger.
"Are you going to come inside the house with me?"
I only shake my head at her. "Did you see him sitting in between us at church? I think it's best if I wait out in the car for you like he did for us."
"Harm." Mattie's pleading voice is hard to resist.
"You'll be fine. You're a strong, capable, young woman and I know you can handle this. Oh, and in case you don't know it. I'm very proud of you."
Mattie's face shines like the sun. "Yeah?"
"Lesser women would have cracked long ago."
Mattie gets up and wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind me. These are times I like the most. If we're only able to have six months together, I hope they're filled with moments like this one. From her new vantage point on my shoulder, Mattie can look down into the bag on the table. "You ate half of my fries!" I don't even understand what else she's saying, I'm too busy laughing, and enjoying the best Christmas present I've had in years.
0416 ZULU
COMMANDER RABB'S APARTMENT
NORTH OF UNION STATION, VIRGINIA
"How can you not love her?" Mattie's been going on like this since we climbed into my Lexus and headed home. We didn't spend any more time at the wall after Mac left. I guess we should have, but there'll be plenty of time for that. "Mac's great, we talked all the way to the wall, she really understands me you know?" And I don't? "Her corvette's awesome, plus she's got that little sister of hers, Chloe Madison. She told me she'd introduce us next time she came to visit." Climbing into the elevator, I shut the doors behind us as she keeps talking. I'd rather she just give me a moment peace. Thinking about Mac isn't one of my top priorities right now. Obviously, Mattie's forgotten all the times Mac and I have managed to hurt each other over the years, that or she's just forgiven all of Mac's transgressions. "After all she did for us how is it you..."
"Mattie! Stop, no more, understood?" She's killing me with those big eyes of hers. This is the first time I've really yelled at her and I'm sure it came as a shock to her that I was capable of it. By the time we reach the front door and walk in, I'm ready with an apology. "Mattie..." Okay, so maybe I'm not. "I'm sorry okay? I just don't want to talk about Mac right now."
Mattie doesn't even look at me. "Okay." Well that was easy, maybe too easy, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Okay then. You can have the bed until I figure something out."
"If Catherine's such a good girlfriend why wasn't she there for us in court?" Damn it. Turning around I see she hasn't moved an inch. "Or why didn't you tell that witch Lemoyne, that you had a significant other?"
"I thought I told you to drop it." We've been dating for two weeks; I didn't want Mattie based on the condition that I had a girlfriend at the time. Besides, I wouldn't call us significant just yet and I wouldn't want any potential breakup to cost me Mattie.
"I'm talking about Catherine, not Mac." Sure she is, everything that's been coming out of her mouth has been about Mac. This is just a back door entrance to the same topic.
"She's in Paris and you know it." I protested her move only briefly. In the end, it'll put another feather in her cap. It's only a three-week thing, but its right over Christmas. They took her because she's only single, senior attorney in the CIA. They don't care if she's pregnant or not and Mattie has yet to meet her.
"You love her, what's the problem?"
"I'm not sure if I'm in love with Catherine yet." Yeah I'm misunderstanding her intentionally, but I won't be dragged back into this topic of conversation. I thought we cleared this up a month ago.
"You know who I'm talking about."
"I don't think I do, because I distinctly remember telling you to back off that subject."
"Welcome to family life Harm. Family members tell it like it is. Get used to it."
There's more to it than that. "Here's something else to get used to; go to bed." When I think Mattie has a mind to do otherwise, I follow it up. "I seem to remember a young teenager making a promise to the judge. Something about not causing trouble and doing what she's told." Mattie bits her lip and I'm sure her tongue as well. She grumbles, but follows me to the bedroom. Grabbing the spare blankets for myself, I leave her there. Its eleven thirty, time for her to be in bed anyway. "Good night."
"Whatever". Her callous answer catches me off guard. How did it come to this so quickly? She's been in my care for less than an hour and she's already mad at me.
I spent an hour trying to sleep before I gave up and decided to pull out a book and do some reading. I meant to read, but instead I just stared at that picture of mom and dad. It looks so easy in that picture, being a family. I honestly don't remember any bad times while dad was with us. Everything was so easy back then, or at least it seemed to be. I get in a lot arguments where Mac is involved, but usually the argument is with her, not about her. If Mattie had given me some space to sort, some things out maybe I could have quantified my feelings about Mac and what she did. Given the way I treated her, what she did was incredible and I feel like such an ass because of it. There's something else at work there too. Sturgis; he's the reason I had to go to Mac in the first place. I'm so pissed at him right now I'd like to pound his face in. He told me he'd be there for me and at very moment I need him the most he's nowhere to be found. I would have used Terri, but she called me last week and told me her reserve unit was being mobilized for action in Iraq to relieve another unit already over there. Having to ask Mac drained me, after my encounter with Mrs. Lemoyne I just couldn't deal with any more criticism from women. The fact that Mac still came after I delivered my parting shot as I left her apartment reminds me of how amazing she really is. I didn't think I could feel any worse when she showed up, but I did. It got a lot worse after she started singing my praises.
'I've given a lot of thought to the kind of man that I would want to be the father of my children if I ever... Commander Rabb is that kind of man...'
Christ sake, if there was anything on Earth that could have made me feel worse at that moment I don't know what it might be. You know it occurred to me as I made my bed here on the couch that I didn't thank her, either in the courtroom or at the wall. I'll remedy that, and soon. I don't think it'll be tomorrow, because I'm not sure if I should leave Mattie here alone or not. I'll stop by Bud and Harriet's tomorrow and drop off the gifts for A.J and James. I bought Mac a gift; it's just a pair of gloves. Not too expensive, but nice. I happen to know she tore her favorite pair changing a flat on her car. Even if Mattie comes along, she's just going to have to wait in the car while when I drop those off. I knew I was right in keeping them separated, Mattie's match making is more than enough to be concerned about. I wish she'd let it go and just accept Catherine's place in my life... wow, I sound like mom. How many times did she say that to me about Frank? I'm going to have to lay down the law about her driving around town too.
I trace mom's smile in that picture before sliding it back into the book and setting it down on the table. I called her yesterday, she was... concerned. I think that's the best way to describe her reaction to Mattie. I don't know if its concern that I don't know what I'm doing or that I'll never get married and this is my way of having a family of my own. It scares me to think that anything less than marital or blood relation won't be good enough for her. Grandma's reaction was worse, I think. It's the first instance I can recall where she was in total agreement and then some with mom. She sounded more disappointed as well; I think part of it's the issue of the Rabb name being passed on. Sergei obviously isn't going to use it, which means I'm still the last Rabb male in the family. That's nothing new; Rabb men have always been in extremely short supply. My great Grandfather came to America in 1897; he was five at the time, traveling with his father and mother. His father and newborn sister both died of cholera within two years of moving to Pittsburgh. They lived on the outskirts of town working a small sharecropping farm until Great Grandpa took his new bride and his mother and moved to what is now the Belleville area. His mother died when he was twenty. Grandma never told me how; I don't think she knew herself. My Grandpa was born in 1921, the youngest of six children. He had five older sisters, only three of which survived a sweep of small pox across New England. There was a brother somewhere in the middle of all those girls, but he was still born. Naturally after that of course, my Grandfather and father each lived to sire a single son before heading off into combat and never returning, just enough to continue the line. Dad actually got to spend quite a lot of time with his grandfather before he died. Taught dad to farm, to hunt, how to fix an engine... I'd like to say he was trying to distract dad from following in Grandpa's footsteps, but Grandma always said that he had been immensely proud that at the very least his son had done his duty, and served with distinction. Grandpa wasn't shot down; he was credited with seven kills at the time. No, he died when he put his Wildcat into a stall trying to help his wingman. He never regained control and plunged into the sea. Mom helped me track down the few surviving members of his squadron to get that information for my grade school history project. As for Great Grandpa, he died in 1966. Grandma has been searching since 1973 for a photograph. I've never seen it, but Grandma says it's a picture of Great Grandpa, dad and I in the farmhouse kitchen when we came to celebrate my first birthday there with them. I'd love to see it; I don't remember him at all. So here I am, the last remaining Rabb of the three in that picture with no heir to uphold our name. That's part of the reason I don't call mom or Grandma that often. I long grew tired of fielding questions about how Mac was doing, how Renee was doing, ect. That, and the constant demand for children of my own.
Getting up I head to the kitchen for a drink and swing by the bedroom to check on Mattie. It looks like she's sound asleep. She's been one surprise after another. That judge has no idea of the challenges I really face. There are the challenges they're concerned about plus the ones they don't even know about. Things like her business and her house but more importantly her lack of faith in people, including me. I guess all the contingency plans I had about her business and home were kinda pointless. Hell, I didn't even have some of the most basic facts in my corner. Her dad's living in her house now, well I guess it's their house actually. He's going to make the house payments; he's gotten a job up there apparently. I don't know what he's doing and I don't care so long as he makes the payments. To be honest there's no way I could have made them on that house. We would've had to sell off every plane and piece of equipment in her business. As it is, I still don't know what we're going to do with all that stuff. Sarah's safe and sound in another hanger. There was no way I was going to let something happen to her. I've got to stop thinking like this. I have Mattie, that's all that matters right now.
"Harm?" I roll over on the couch, burying my face into the pillow. I don't want to get up. "Harm, wake up."
"Go to back to bed." I can't manage anything more than a mumble at this point. I can feel her tugging at my blankets a little. I think she's doing something. "Jeez your feet are cold!" She's got colder feet than anyone I know, she slipped one underneath the blankets and pressed it on the small of my back. Rolling over again I protect my back while pulling the blankets in close to me. Mattie smiles as she flops down on top of me. "Oh, you're way too big to be doing things like that to an old man."
Mattie laughs and pinches my cheek. "You're not old." We laugh together only briefly before she stops. "Look Harm, about last night..."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too. I just want you to be happy."
"You don't think I am? I've got you."
Mattie smiles at me and kisses me on the cheek. "I just thought you could be even more happy with Mac too."
I don't even know where to begin this anymore. "Mattie..."
"I know, I know. Catherine's your girlfriend not Mac, I understand. I'm sure she's a wonderful woman." She is that, and more. "I'm just..." She's what?
"Go on."
Mattie just sighs. "I guess my matchmaking for Mac wasn't entirely for your benefit." What? "I... I guess feel a little threatened by Catherine." Then why would she want Mac in the picture either? Both of them would take up the primary female role in my life.
"Mattie, you and Catherine occupy different parts of my life. Each of you has your own relationship..."
Mattie shakes her head interrupting me. "Not Catherine herself, I mean Catherine's baby." I guess that makes sense... no it doesn't. That doesn't make any sense at all. Something in me just wants to say 'What the fuck?'
"Why would you feel like that?"
Mattie hops off me and sits on the coffee table. I don't want that thing breaking so I sit up and pat the spot next to me on the couch. When she sits down and I cover her up with my blankets she answers. "I just... Harm you don't even know if that baby is yours or not and I know you wish it was." She's got me there, although that feeling has faded somewhat. I've got Catherine; the fact that she's pregnant is irrelevant. Well not irrelevant, but certainly of lesser importance than it was before. "Even if it isn't, I know you're going to love that child and I just thought... I thought you'd probably like the baby more than you'd like me." Well let's put her insecurity on the top of the list of things we're going to have to work on together.
Wrapping an arm around her, I pull her close. "Hey, if that were true don't you think I would have changed my mind when I started dating Catherine. Or maybe I would've just given up on you when things got tough?"
"I guess so."
"You have to believe me when I say there's nobody I want more than you."
Mattie's eyes water a little bit, but she doesn't shed any tears. They wouldn't have been sad tears anyway. "I'm sorry for doubting you on that."
"Its okay."
Mattie's leaning her head against my shoulder, but doesn't look up at me when she starts talking again. "Is it still okay if I talk to Mac and her sister?"
"Yeah its okay. Mac's a good friend and an even better role model. You're a lot like her you know?"
"Really?"
"Sure. You're both independent, intelligent and strong. You like to do things on your own. Chloe's pretty much the same way." I'd say Chloe's more of a typical teenager than Mattie is though. There's a lot more she shares with them that I won't mention, at least with Mac anyway; Alcoholic fathers, parents who abandon them, problems with trust, and an unbelievable stubborn streak. Mattie's a lot older than Chloe was when Mac first met her, I don't know if she'll be able to shape Mattie the way she did Chloe. Hold the phone moron, that's your job, not Mac's remember?
"Are we going anywhere today?"
"Not really. We've just got to drop off some gifts, then it's just you, me and all the Christmas cookies you can eat." The Admiral's working today with a few of the more unlucky junior officers. Tomorrow I have to come in with the rest of the junior officers to finish out the week.
2155 ZULU FALLS CHURCH YMCA FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
"Alright guys good practice today." Sturgis can't possibly mean that. John Mueller and Zach Tompkins, shot like shit and I'm so pissed at Sturgis that every part of my game sucked ass. Sturgis and I are the only ones from our floor playing in this basketball league. John and Zach are both from the family legal services department two floors down. The rest are from mix of specialties. One works in the judiciary branch, the other three are staffers from throughout the building I guess. Sturgis assembled this team while I was with the CIA so besides John and Zach they're all new faces to me. Sturgis called this practice after work today. He came in at noon to catch up on some paperwork or something. Despite the lack of personnel, I was fielding a lot of questions about Mattie today; thankfully, the Admiral wasn't there. I really didn't need to deal with him today. I don't need to get home that quickly; Mattie'll be fine on her for now. Taking a few free throws, I wonder how much longer it'll be home to me. I honestly don't know how I can reconfigure my place to give Mattie her own bedroom. If Child Services were to come back in two weeks and see that I hadn't made any progress, they'll take her away, I'm sure of that. I make six in a row before my last shot bounces of the iron and towards the sideline. "How come you didn't shoot that well during practice?" Sturgis, still in his gym clothes tosses the ball back at me. Ignoring him, I turn around and promptly miss the next shot too. I know why, I didn't have the latest source of my irritation staring me in the face every second. Sturgis tracks down that shot as well and holds the ball against his hip. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, gimme the ball back."
Sturgis shakes his head. "Like hell there isn't. You haven't said a word to me all day and frankly your game sucked today."
"I'm just having an off day." I don't know why I said that, I could have told him the truth. I guess part of me just wants to brood over what he did or didn't do in this case.
"No you aren't. Your mad at me from some reason." Idiot. It took you that long to figure it out and you still don't even know the reason why?
"Tell him what he's won Johnny."
"Knock it off and tell me why you've got that stick up your ass today."
"Where were you?"
"What?"
"Don't play games with me, where the fuck were you?"
"When?"
"You know when, damn it. Last Friday, where the hell were you? Shit, where were you all weekend? I tried your home, your cell, and your beeper. After that I called your dad, but he wasn't home either."
Sturgis looks like he's thinking back about what he was doing all that time. Because of him, I had to go to Mac on Friday night and ask for her help, because of him Mac and I got into a fight, because of him Mac made me look like an ass, and because of him, I feel like one too. Sturgis dribbles the ball a few times before draining a 20 footer. "I was with Verese Chestnut the whole time and I won't apologize for it either."
The ball bounces to me and I throw it at his head with as much force as I can. Sturgis ducks as the ball flies over his head and up into the bleachers. It wouldn't have hit him anyway. "Son of a Bitch! So you left me hanging out to dry while you chased a damn skirt?!"
"Verese is not some skirt!"
"Bullshit! You felt your weekend fling was more important than your promise to help me out in court!"
"Is there a problem here?" Looking over I see a manager heading our way, ball in hand.
Sturgis turns to face him as well. "No, we're just having a disagreement."
The manager gives the ball back to Sturgis hissing at both of us. "If you two can't settle down I'm going to ask you to leave. If you need to fight, find some other place else to do it."
The manager walks away and Sturgis turns back towards me. "If you're waiting for an apology, forget it. It's not going to happen, besides that's why you had two witnesses remember?"
"And she has an excuse I can accept. She's being deployed to Iraq with the rest of her unit. She couldn't be here to testify after she got her marching orders. I told you that, I trusted you, I was counting on you, and when the chips were down you weren't there for me. And because of you I had to go to Mac for help."
"And you got Mattie so what the hell are you bitching about?" He's doesn't know the half of it. The courts didn't give her to me; her father did, with Mac's help of course. I owe Mac a world of an apology and my thanks. Because of him, Mac's presence in my life has been strengthened and given our current relationships to CIA personnel, I'm not sure its such a good thing. Mic and Renee would testify to that. I don't need this right now. It'll just make Catherine more nervous and I'm not sure how Webb will react either. Where is it written that my life has to be this complicated? I don't how I feel about any of this anymore, it's all too damn complicated.
My anger subsiding I walk over to the bleachers to get my towel and water bottle and get out of here. "Forget it, you'll never understand."
"So I guess this means you're not going to represent me anymore?" Self absorbed little fucker aren't you?
Spinning around I stare him down. "I'll be there for you every step of the way because that's what I promised you I'd do. I never turn my back to a friend in need. Right now you don't even deserve my support, but I'm still going to defend you with everything I've got regardless of what you did to me." It feels like gravel in my mouth saying that, but I mean every word.
"Well aren't you mister goody two shoes." I'm not going to respond to that. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm tired of fighting, actually that seems to be the common theme among the senior officers lately. Now all three of us have been at each other's throats in the past few months. As I pass under the hoop, I hear him call out to me. "Harm I think Verese is the one." The anger has left his voice, replaced with a quality I'm not going to stand around and identify, but that still doesn't change anything.
Looking back at him, it isn't hard to see that he's telling the truth. "I hope so Sturgis, because anything less will be unacceptable."
"Hi Mattie, its me." I'm currently sitting in my car outside of Mac's apartment. I need to talk to her, but I needed to check up on Mattie first.
"Hey there, when are you coming home?"
"That's what I'm calling about. Are you going to be okay on your own for a few more hours?"
"I'll be fine, where are you now?"
"At Mac's."
"Yeah?" I can hear the smile on her face.
Here we go again. "I just needed to talk to her and drop off her gift."
"I wanted to come too."
"Mattie, right now I need to talk to her in private okay? Maybe some other time."
I can hear her sigh into the phone. "Okay, tell her Merry Christmas for me."
"I will. I'll be home soon, is there anything you'd like me to pick up on my way home?"
"A hamburger would be great, fries and a Coke too okay?
Maybe I should cook more often, she'll eat better than way. "Okay, I'll see you later. Call me on my cell if you need anything."
"I will, bye."
"Bye." She might not even be home. We stopped by yesterday and she wasn't here. Personally, I was glad for it. I don't know what I would have said to her. Even now, I've been working up the courage to get out of my car for the last twenty minutes. God, quit being a wuss Rabb, and get your ass in there.
It only took one knock on the door before she opens the door looking a little bit surprised herself. "Harm, hi."
Looking at her I can't think of a single thing to say. Instead, I take one big stride towards her and engulf her in a big hug. Its not until an involuntary shudder runs through me that I feel her return it. We remain like this for a while, my cheek against her head and my nose buried in her hair. She's showered or took a bath recently because her hair's still damp and smells like wildflowers in the summer. We remain like this for I don't know how long before I realize that I had better say something. "Thank you Mac, thank you so much for everything you did for me."
Mac pulls away from me to look me in the eyes. "Your welcome."
"I didn't deserve any of it especially after how I treated you."
"Its okay." Mac picks up a basket of laundry next to the door and takes it over to the couch. She must be washing nearly everything she has because there's three other basket loads there. She's only dressed in a pair of shorts and a Marine Corps tee shirt.
"No its not." I follow her into the living room and sit down on her chair next to the couch. "You didn't deserve any of it and I'm sorry."
"Why?"
What? "Why am I sorry?"
"No why did you say it?" I guess things have changed. In the past, she'd accept my apology and we'd move on. "I want to know what drove you to say something so mean."
This is going to be hard, but I guess if I want to keep my friendship with Mac I've got no other option to take. "That anger wasn't entirely directed entirely at you Mac."
"How's that?" She doesn't believe me. I don't blame her, I wouldn't believe me either.
"The woman the court sent to interview me and determine my suitability as a parent, Mrs. LaMoyne?"
"What about her?"
"Everything I did or said wasn't good enough for her. When I got more resistance from you I couldn't take it anymore and I lashed out."
"What resistance did I give you? I didn't say no."
I never even thought about that. She's right, she didn't say no, just like I didn't say it in Sydney. I guess I'm guilty of hearing without listening too. "You're right, but the lousy son comment cut me a lot more than you know. I've done everything I could to be a good son to both of my parents." That really did hurt.
Mac grimaces, as I'm sure she recalls it. "I'm sorry I said that. The things you did trying to find your father... you didn't deserve that either. You are a good son, but at the time you didn't seem that hurt by it."
"That's because I didn't want to get into an argument before I even asked you for vouch for me. Honestly, the last week or so, trying to get Mattie... I haven't been subjected to that much criticism from any one group of people since the Academy. I didn't handle it well, and I took it all out on you."
Mac looks at me with a disbelieving look on her face. "Harm I went through OCS, you don't know what criticism is until you've gone through that."
"How long is OCS?" I know the answer of course I just want her to say it.
"Ten weeks."
"The upperclassmen at the Academy didn't lay off me for an entire year."
"Why's that?"
I shrug my shoulders. "Because they were just kids, and I didn't like taking orders from kids." I did a lot of fighting those first two years, especially that first one. That's how I met Sturgis; the boxing ring was my best friend for a long time.
"Hold that thought." Mac runs into the kitchen to answer her phone. Those were difficult years. I had friends, but even they resented my stubbornness to obey orders. Mac comes back grumbling something about telemarketers. "Harm you were just a kid too."
No I wasn't. "Kids don't kill people Mac."
"They do now." True enough, but not like I did.
"Kids don't run around in foreign countries, using automatic weapons, explosives, and boasting a body count in the mid to upper thirties Mac. Maybe their eyes didn't carry the innocence of a six-year-old Mac, but compared to me they were all children. I'd seen and done things they couldn't have even imagined." I know Mac prides herself on the extensive weaponry training she's received, but if we were to race at rebuilding a stripped down M-16 or AK-47 I'd beat her everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Stryker wouldn't allow for anything less. There's nothing like the fear of death to motivate someone to learn something quickly, thoroughly and to complete that task rapidly if needed. "Kids don't have sealed files with the CIA and State Department before their seventeenth birthday." I looked my CIA file while I was on probation. It wasn't complete; they only had about half of what I actually did over there included in that file. MI-6 actually gave them the majority of information they did have. There were a few surveillance photos of me in the file from the assets on the ground the Brits must have had in place. I copied the best one and stuck it in my album once I received the clearance to do so.
"So what straightened you out?"
"At the end of my freshman year the Academy superintendent called me into his office. Basically, he said that if I didn't straighten out and fly right either I should look into transferring to another college or I'd be dropped from the Academy. I wanted to fly too badly to allow that to happen so I obeyed orders from then on. Even then, nothing really worked until I started talking to one of the psychologists there at the Academy."
Mac arches both eyebrows at me. "You went to a shrink?" I wish she wouldn't say it like that.
"I did what I had to do to stay in. Basically I needed someone to unload on who couldn't reveal to others what I told them."
"Why?"
"Mac, the guys I was running with, we broke... I don't know how many local and international laws we were violating on a daily basis. We were constantly avoiding Vietnamese patrols although sometimes that wasn't possible and we got into firefights. If we'd been captured it would have been a huge international incident. I couldn't risk that information getting out into the open. The Commander I talked to was shocked at my story. He couldn't believe some of the things I admitted to, but at least he could respond to it and give me some advice." When I got back the CIA and the State Department debriefed me. Both had different agendas though. The State Department just bitched at me, yelling about how much trouble I'd caused already and how much I could have caused if I'd been caught. The CIA just wanted as much intelligence as they could get. My debriefing was short compared to Stryker's. He was the one they really wanted.
"I suppose you're not going to tell me about any of it are you."
I just shrug my shoulders at her. "I can't tell you any thing specific; no dates, faces or places."
Mac taps her chin in response thinking it over. "You were just a kid back then. So what did they have you do?"
"Well I didn't start putting on all this height and mass until I turned 17 so I didn't have the power for hand to hand combat yet. That ruled out being a part of the insertion teams. So theoretically, while we were out in the field I could have held down two other specialties."
Mac smiles. "Of course, but theoretically speaking what might have been some of the things you did?" Good, just so we understand each other.
"Well because of my size at the time, I became quite the tunnel rat. Mostly everything we were doing or trying to do was simply intelligence gathering. The tunnels were often times the best places to do that. Sometimes I'd come back up with documentation about mass gravesites. Sometimes they were Viet Cong, sometimes they were ours. We'd stop and dig them up to retrieve dog tags or any other identification could find."
Mac stops folding her shirt, she looks as intrigued as I've ever seen her. "Did you find any dog tags?"
"A few, we mailed them to a Navy Chaplin stationed in Japan from Saigon. We included information about where we found them and how many bodies didn't have any identification on them. When the Army sent in recovery teams with Vietnamese consent years later they used quite a bit of the information we provided."
"What was it like in the tunnels?"
"Small, dark and damp. It smelled too. Everything smelled like mildew, mold, and rot. There's nothing I've experienced since that can match the claustrophobic feeling I got in some of those tunnels. Other than the threat of booby traps, the smell was still the worst part about it. I could wash up ten times after climbing out of those tunnels and still stink."
"You said you had two jobs. What was the other?"
"When the teams inserted into a village or a compound, I was the one covering them with sniper fire."
"They made you into sniper?"
"The guy I hung out with the most was this ex scout sniper. He had kept his own rifle from his two tours in Vietnam. He taught me how to do shoot, how to move, everything he was taught. I took to it like a duck to water too because I knew it was a combat role I had a chance of getting. I ended up making the bulk of my kills peering through a scope a few hundred yards away." There was a sadistic pleasure in doing it too. You know it started out feeling like I was getting a small piece of justice for what happened to dad. I know better now, but at the time, I was only 16 and full of anger. Then it got scary, I started to like the killing. There was a perverse thrill involved watching a man fall to the ground like a limp rag doll. I think Stryker knew what it was doing to me too. If he hadn't pulled us all out of there when he did I don't even want to consider how differently my life would have turned out. Over the years, I've owed my life to many. Meg, Mac, the Admiral; all of them have saved my life at one time or another. Stryker did too, but I know without a doubt that he saved my soul as well.
"I'm surprised you didn't go Marine out of the Academy and head into the infantry."
She's smiling and I'm glad, we needed the levity. "That was for my father. Besides, I still wanted to fly much too badly, I didn't want to do any more of that ground pounding ever again."
"That experience served you well in the future though." Sure it has, but how would she know that?
"Oh?"
Mac looks so coy. "When we got back from Red Rock Mesa, I looked up your service record. I had to know what you were about."
I can't help my laughter. "I can assure you, everything in there has a good explanation attached to it."
"I hope so, because I recall reading about an incident where you tracked an escaped Marine sniper who was going to be court marshaled into the hills and got the drop on him when his own students couldn't."
"He offered to train me ya know?"
"Sounds to me like you could have trained him." Doubt it, I'm good, but he was much better. I still can't believe I tripped that flare. Stryker would've had my ass back in the day.
"You know how it is. The training always comes back to you. Even after nearly sixteen years it wasn't hard to slip back into that role Mac."
"Then there was this story I heard from a bunch of fellow Marines when I was still stationed in Bosnia. Something about this crazy ass Navy lawyer who went in behind enemy lines to save a pilot who'd been shot down just to help win his case. Explain that one."
"It was good to find someone alive for once. Again, it's all about the training. Avoiding patrols was SOP for us. It was all second nature. Besides, Meg and the CAG won that case before I even made it back with the pilot."
"Here like this, soft edges facing outward." I never noticed it but I absently had started folding towels. I guess my hands needed something to do. Apparently, Mac has her own way of doing it because she took the last towel from me and refolded it. I told her most everything else I could about my romp through Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. "Harm did you ask anyone else to be a character witness for you?" Shit, I was hoping we were done talking about that.
Now I find I can't look her in the eyes anymore. "Yes."
She looks every bit as hurt as I thought she'd be. "Anyone I'd know?"
"Sturgis. We were on better terms than you and I. I thought he'd give me a better testimony."
Mac sits up straight on her couch a pair of jeans in her hands. "And he bailed on you, that's why you had to come to me isn't it?" She's far too smart for her own good. "Are you mad at him?"
"Damn right I'm mad at him. He was with some woman all weekend. I couldn't get a hold of him when he'd promised to help me."
"Not some woman, Verese Chestnut." Who the hell is that, and why is it everyone knows about her, but me?
"Who?"
Mac gets up, and walks over to her stereo and pulls a CD from her collection. "You know the Jazz singer?"
Oh, now I know whom they're talking about. "He's way out of his league." Her picture's on the back, Verese is a good-looking woman.
"Not according to Harriet. She invited Sturgis and his father to a club she was performing at." She might have invited them, but he went there thinking with his dick. If he hadn't, me and my court case would have popped into head at some point during the weekend and he would have called. "Does he know you're mad at him?"
"I threw a basketball at his head after practice today."
Mac looks at me in amazement and then instantly throws on her most cheerful attitude. "Well, why don't we find something else to talk about?"
Indeed, lets do that. I got just the thing too. "I got this for you. Sorry it's a little late." I took off my coat an hour ago, I've totally forgot about her gift until now.
"Thank you." Mac opens her gift as I refold the towels I did earlier. "These are wonderful Harm thank you very much."
"Your welcome, I would have given them to you yesterday, but you weren't home." I hope she doesn't feel the need to tell me what she was going with Webb.
"I got you something too." Opening it, the gift is a red, wool sweater. Mac then produces a second gift from behind her back. "I got you this one after I learned about Mattie." The second gift is an empty photo album. It's has a hard leather cover and looks thick enough to hold two lifetimes in it. "I know you have that album of your professional career Harm. I thought it was about time you had a personal one too."
God she's incredible. "Thank you Mac, this is very touching." Mac's warm smile is easy to return. "Mattie says Merry Christmas by the way."
"She's a good kid Harm."
"Well she's become your biggest fan." Mac almost blushes in response. "She reminds me a lot of you." Oh, shit. Mac's not blushing anymore. She's looking at me the same way I'm sure I looked at her when she admitted that I was the kind of man she wanted. I meant that, but I didn't mean to say it. God, I hope she let's that comment go. I don't think this is a good time to be discussing us.
"How's that?" Damn.
"Well, you're both strong and independent."
"And?"
"Smart and responsible."
Mac's enjoying this too much. "Go on." I'm not sure I can without revealing certain feelings, feelings that shouldn't be there.
"Serious most of the time, but you both have a playful side you don't reveal often."
Mac licks her lips, "What else?"
"Well you share a somewhat similar family history too." Mac nods and I can feel the pressure of her gaze moving off this subject and me. I knew she'd do it too, if there's one thing she likes to avoid its her past. We sit in silence for I don't know how long, folding clothes. Its not until I finish the last towel, set it aside and notice the underwear that had been underneath them that she says or does anything.
Mac immediately covers the basket with the shirt she was folding at the time as soon as she notices what I'm looking at. "Okay, why don't you put those towels away in my bathroom!" She's blushing so hard that normally I'd accuse her of only pretending to be Marine green when she's obviously scarlet red. However, the reason she's blushing tells me that I better not if I want to remain a fertile male. I'm pretty sure she'd crush my balls if I said anything. Its not until I'm putting the towels away in her bathroom, safely out of her reach that I start laughing out loud. "Shut up Harm!"
"You can look in my underwear drawer if that'll make you feel better." I call out to her. I know there's no comparison there, what was in that basket was a lot more risqué` than anything I'd ever own or admit to owning. The imagery running through my head is detailed and running the gambit of the selection I managed to see.
"I've already seen your boxers."
"Well then I guess we're even."
"Not even close flyboy."
"Well you can look again if you want." Coming back into the living room, she's still blushing and the underwear basket's nowhere to be found.
Mac hands me another basket. "Not even tempting. Now fold."
The basket's full of sweatshirts, jeans, and jogging pants. I pick one up before protesting her choice. "These are boring."
"After what you've seen, you owe me, so shut up, and fold." I'm trying, but I'm shaking from laughter. "If I even think you're picturing me in my underwear I'll crush your larynx with my fist."
It wouldn't be the first time, but its time to change the subject. "What the deal with all this laundry anyway, you moving or something?"
She's all too happy to change the subject as well. "No its just laundry day, plus I'm donating a bunch of the stuff I don't wear anymore away." That sounds reasonable enough, so long as she doesn't donate her underwear as well. I doubt that'd go over well with Good Will.
"Have you talked to Chloe at all?"
"Yesterday, she's coming to visit in a week. You should bring Mattie over." I don't know about that. Chloe and Mattie together, I don't think that's a good thing for either one of us. Catherine's coming home that week too and I don't want to be here when I should be spending time with her.
"I don't know if I want to spend my time hanging around with three women."
Mac laughs. "Who said anything about you being invited?"
Well you walked right into that one didn't you Rabb? "I'll think about it."
"Can I even drink this or is it capable of eating a hole through a steel plate?"
That gets Mac to laugh. "Don't worry, I weakened it for your soft, Navy issued stomach." Accepting the cup of coffee, I sip slowly. Can't be too careful with her.
"Good coffee." The coffee's only the latest distraction to a question I've been carrying around in the back of my mind since Mac showed up at the wall with Mattie. I was able to keep it on the back burner yesterday, but not today. Today, when I've been alone, I've been thinking about it a lot.
"What's the matter? Is there something wrong with the coffee?" I guess my concern is written all over my face if Mac felt compelled to ask that.
"No the coffee's fine."
"Then what is it?"
"Its about Mattie."
Mac sets down her own cup of coffee. "What about her?"
"I'm not going to be able to keep her am I?"
"What?"
"If her dad cleans up his act and turns his life around I'm not going to be awarded permanent custody of Mattie in May am I? Even if I fight it I'll lose won't I?"
"Harm the judge would look back at your actions for the past six month too."
I shake my head at her. "Mac lets be realistic here. He's her father and he stepped aside in the best interests of his child. You don't think the court's going to take that into consideration?"
"Harm there's always a chance..."
"Mac if I were your client what would you tell me? Realistically, what kind of odds would you give me?"
Mac takes another drink of coffee as she tries to come up with an answer for me. I know this isn't something she's considered and why should she? I'm going to be on the losing end of this battle. "If her father completes his treatment, finds a job..."
"He already has a job."
"Well... if he shows himself capable of caring for Mattie, I'd say you're looking at twenty. You've got a twenty percent chance of keeping Mattie even if you do everything to the letter. Thirty, if she still wants to live with you in six months." I thought as much, long odds. Meaning in six months I'm probably going to lose her. I know her father's going to clean himself up. He wouldn't have done what he did if he didn't love her. "I'm sorry Harm I never even gave it a second thought."
I dismiss her concern as best I can, but it's hard to acknowledge the truth. "Don't be. You've given me six months with her Mac. Without you I wouldn't have even had that."
"Harm there's always a chance..." She stops when I raise my hand. She knows as well as I do that I don't have much of anything.
"Mac he wouldn't have done what he did if he didn't love her and I'm not going to spend the next few months hoping that the man ruins his life for my benefit."
Mac nods in agreement. "Then I guess my advice to you would be to enjoy the time you do have together. Maybe you'll have her for the rest of your life or maybe in six months you'll have to give her up. Either way she'll always look up to you, whether you're her guardian or her friend." I haven't forgotten what else might happen in six months. You know at first it was almost a joke. No, it was a joke, something friends might say to each other at one time or another for laughs. We just worded it differently, made it sound serious. Then somewhere along the way it became a genuine offer. I think it happened on the Admiral's porch when I brought it up for the first time since we'd made the deal. Shit, I was the one who brought it up two years later too. Exactly whose biological clock is ringing here? Well she brought it up last week so I guess that means both of us. Whatever, the point is that we've almost there. Five years is staring me in the face and if we're not dating anyone what in the hell am I supposed to do then? "Harm? Hey, Harm?" Mac's waving her hand in front of my face.
Get in the game Rabb. "Sorry, what were you saying?"
"I wasn't saying anything. I was just wondering where you went." Nuh, uh. That's not a trip we're taking together.
"My place, I was just thinking I should head home." I should go; Mattie's probably starving and I don't want her filling up on Christmas cookies either.
"Well, drive safe and thanks for helping with the laundry."
"You really mean that?"
Mac cocks her head to one side to think about that. A slight blush returns to her cheeks as she recalls the underwear incident. "Oh, hell no I don't, and the threat still stands so don't even smile too hard."
Picking up my new sweater and my photo album, I make my way to the door, an easy smile on my face. "I'll see you Monday Mac."
"Hey Harm?"
"Yeah?"
"Bring Mattie with you next time."
"I will."
Mattie was lying on the couch flipping through T.V stations when I walked in through the door. "Finally I was getting so hungry thought I was going to have to borrow your Corvette and get something to eat myself."
I know she's just jerking my chain; we had a talk about driving around here. "Not if you want to live to see sixteen."
"So what did you get me?"
"What you asked me for; soy burgers."
Her facial expression begs to be captured on film and stored in my new photo album. "You're kidding right?"
"You only wish I was." I hoist the bag up from the Organic foods store I frequent occasionally. I only bought some replacement pots of herbs from there. I'm hiding her McDonald's order in the bag too. She dragging her feet from the living room over to the kitchen table where the bag is and the look on her face is priceless.
Before she gets to the table I reach in and Toss her burger at her, she catches it like it was a bomb or something. Then she sees the wrapper and smiles. "Oh... don't ever do that to me again."
I give her my biggest smile and most innocent face as I set her drink on the table as well. "Do what?"
Her face is almost comical. "Soy burgers? Yuck. Same goes for soy milk or anything else soy based."
"What about soy sauce?"
Mattie relents there. "Well I guess there's an exception to every rule."
"And soylent green?"
Mattie smiles at me. "That's not made out of soy. Soylent green is made out of people, its people, people!" Mattie's impression, complete with the flailing limbs and her screaming has me laughing hard.
"How did you know that?" That movie was years before her time, hell a whole generation or more.
Mattie sits down next to me. "My dad loves that movie." Once again, reality intrudes in on our happy little moment. "What?"
I could lie to her, tell her something trivial, but I want to address this. "I was just thinking about your dad."
"Not quite the monster you thought he'd be?"
"No. I was just thinking what he did for us."
Mattie bits her lip thinking about that. I can see her newfound appreciation for him in her eyes. "Yeah that was pretty selfless of him I guess."
"Mattie... if, if he wants to talk to you or see you anytime over the next six months. I'd like you to consider it."
She looks incredibly suspicious. "Why?"
"Because I can only wish I could have spent more time with my dad."
"Your dad didn't kill your mother."
He cheated on her though, and maybe once before he even left the Tico. "No he didn't, but our parents all make mistakes. As family members, we have to forgive one another. That's what being a family is all about. Mattie, I can't imagine what its like for him right now. Knowing that you're here with me over Christmas."
Mattie cocks her head to one side as she addresses me. "You really want me to spend time with him?"
"Only if you feel comfortable with it, I don't want to push this on you if you're not ready."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"We're going to have to there get some of your stuff from your house aren't we? He's gonna be there, and if he asks you, I just wanted you to be open to the possibility."
"Can't we just go when he won't be there?"
This is for her own good. "Like thieves in the night? Mattie, even if I wanted to do that I couldn't. With my job, I don't have that kind of free time on my hands and you're not driving there yourself. If you were caught, Child Services would give you a one-way ticket to foster home and you could forget about me ever regaining custody." That'll keep her off the roads. Besides, I want her to see him again. If he can step aside for her I had better learn to do the same because it's a lesson, I may need to repeat when this is all over.
"So this weekend?"
"Yeah, we'll call your dad tonight and decide on a good time." Mattie nods as she bites down into her cheeseburger.
"Are you going to come inside the house with me?"
I only shake my head at her. "Did you see him sitting in between us at church? I think it's best if I wait out in the car for you like he did for us."
"Harm." Mattie's pleading voice is hard to resist.
"You'll be fine. You're a strong, capable, young woman and I know you can handle this. Oh, and in case you don't know it. I'm very proud of you."
Mattie's face shines like the sun. "Yeah?"
"Lesser women would have cracked long ago."
Mattie gets up and wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind me. These are times I like the most. If we're only able to have six months together, I hope they're filled with moments like this one. From her new vantage point on my shoulder, Mattie can look down into the bag on the table. "You ate half of my fries!" I don't even understand what else she's saying, I'm too busy laughing, and enjoying the best Christmas present I've had in years.