Mac got a strange feeling as she walked out of the car in front of her building. Something wasn't quite right and she felt like she was being watched. Marilyn had just called her on the cell phone and asked if she could come over for that dinner the following Saturday. Both of her brothers were going to be there too.
She thought she heard something behind her and turned around hastily, however she couldn't see anyone. She kept walking, but kept her keys in her hand just in case. Just before the door to the building slammed shut behind her a hand grabbed hold of it and opened it wider again. Mac was on alert immediately and decided to use surprise to her advantage. She grabbed hold of the man coming in through the door behind her and pushed him up to the wall with his face against the wall and his hands behind his back.
"Why were you following me?" she asked.
"Let me go. I don't want to hurt you," the man said and even though he had spoken rather annoyed and with some anger in his voice, something in his voice still made her let him go against her better judgment.
He stretched out his arms and looked at her. His eyes froze at her face.
"I'm Zachary Schonke," he introduced himself when Mac didn't do anything and looked like she'd knock him out if he made one wrong move. As she heard his name she also noticed how much he looked like his father. He was just a younger version with less wrinkles and more and darker hair.
"Oh, "she said "You really shouldn't sneak up on people like that."
"So I see," he said and offered his hand to her.
"Sarah Mackenzie," she said and shook his hand. "Sorry about that."
"It's OK," he made a pause before he continued "I guess I should tell you why I followed you... I got a little suspicious when Mom and Dad called and told me all about this, so I wanted to make sure you weren't some kind of deceiver."
"And you don't believe that anymore because..." Mac said almost a little angry.
"Well, they said you looked so much like Diane and all, but I thought that maybe it was just because they wanted it to be like that and now I've seen for myself... I'm really sorry about that."
"Apology accepted," Mac said.
"So I guess I'll see you on Saturday."
"Yeah," Mac nodded.
"Do you want me to pick you up? I mean we could go over there together."
"Sure," Mac agreed.
The trip over to Baltimore had passed very quickly for Mac in Zachary's company. Despite the bad first impression they had both gotten from each other, they really hit it off and were talking and laughing for most of the drive. It turned out that they had both studied law at the same University and they were now sharing stories about the teachers there.
Eventually they arrived at their parent's house and Jim and Marilyn warmly welcomed Mac.
"Hey, you haven't forgotten about me, have you?" Zachary joked as he walked into the house behind Mac.
"It wouldn't hurt if you came by a little more often to refresh our memories," Jim joked back with him.
They had just walked into the living room when there was a new knock on the door.
"That must be Jimmy," Marilyn said and went to open the door.
Zachary smiled encouragingly at Mac, trying to put her at ease.
"I'm Jimmy, the annoying little brother," Jimmy said and shook her hand when he stepped into the living room.
"Sarah Mackenzie," she said and smiled. He looked nothing like she had imagined. He didn't really look like any of the other family members. He had blonde hair and was very tall and obviously had a lot of muscles. It wasn't hard to believe he was a Navy SEAL.
Jim came out of the kitchen and offered them each a welcoming drink.
"I'm sorry, I don't drink alcohol," Mac said and to come clean right away she added "I'm an alcoholic."
Jim smiled at her with support, but Marilyn, Zachary and Jimmy just looked down at their feet not sure what to do or say.
"Why don't you come with me to the kitchen and we'll see what we can offer you?" Jim suggested to her and she saw it as a way to escape the tensions.
Mac came with him and when they returned to the living room the thing seemed to have been forgotten.
Soon they were all five sitting at the dinner table. Jimmy kept asking Mac questions making his parents and brother a little uncomfortable, but none of them tried to make him stop since they were quite interested to learn more about her too.
"You don't have children, right?"
"No, I don't."
"Do you want to?"
"Someday yes."
"That will make Mom glad. She's been nagging us for grandchildren for I don't know how long."
"Well, I'm still missing some parts of the puzzle there, so I'm guessing it will be a while," Mac smiled at Marilyn's slightly embarrassed look.
"So you aren't seeing anyone?"
"Not really," Mac shook her head.
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not. OK?"
"For now. So have you been married?"
"Yes," Mac answered and knowing that he was going to ask "He's dead. I accidentally shot him." Mac took a bite of food hoping that the subject was going to be dropped.
"Oh, what happened?"
"Jimmy," Marilyn warned him he was going to far. She felt it was up to Sarah how much she wanted to tell about her past.
"I guess you'll find out some other way anyway," Mac said "I was just 18 when I married Chris and then he went to prison and I straightened up my life, but I never divorced him. Last year he showed up needing money. I gave it to him, but he still didn't go away," Mac paused. In the months that had passed since Chris' death she had come to terms with it, but it was still hard to tell these people that she was so eager to make a good impression on about it. "A friend of mine had tried to help me so he was also in Chris's hotel room when Chris pointed a gun at him. I wrestled with Chris for the gun as a shot got off and it killed Chris."
"I'm sorry, Sarah, that all of these really bad things seem to have happened to you. I wish we'd been there for you. I wish..." Jim, who sat beside Mac and now put his hand over hers in a gesture of support, said, but the brothers did as their mother and just tried to act as normal as they could, like nothing had happened.
The people around the table sat silent for a while and then Marilyn got up from the table and started to put all the plates together. Zachary and Jimmy helped her and Mac was going to follow their lead, but Jim nodded for Mac to follow him out on the porch.
"We should be having our dinner outside instead. It's such a warm day," Jim sat down on one of the white chairs. Mac sat down beside him.
"I'm sorry, if I'm not like you expected me to be," Mac said quietly, not able to ignore the tense feeling that had filled the room after her admissions.
"You are everything I expected you to be, Sarah," he looked at her "It seems to me like you've had to work really hard to get where you are today. You should be proud of that and not think about the mistakes you made on the way here."
"Thank you. It means a lot to me to hear you say that."
"You see, my father was an alcoholic too. After my mother died there was no one to shield us from his anger at the world and he took it out on us. I never told Marilyn or my children about that. I just said that he was dead, which is true now, but he died after I enlisted in the Navy. Enlisting was a way to get away from home and at the time it seemed like it was my only choice. However there isn't one day that goes by that hasn't has me wondering about what would have happened if I had stayed. What had become of me, my father and my brother."
"Did you go back there after you quit the Navy?" Mac asked. There had been no hints that he had had any of the same experiences that she had and now it felt so good to hear him tell these things about himself.
"No, I didn't, but I was notified of my brother death. He drove drunk and crashed into a tree..." Jim fell silent. Mac reached out to him and took her hand in his.
"I'm sorry about that," Mac said.
"At the time I hadn't seen him for almost 15 years. Afterwards I kept asking myself if I should have stayed there. Maybe things would have been different then."
"You couldn't have kept them from drinking, even if you had tried."
"I guess you're right about that, but it doesn't stop me from thinking."
"We're going to start with dessert now," Jimmy popped his head out through the door to the porch.
"We're coming," Jim told him and once Jimmy was back inside he turned to Mac "You don't have to worry about what they're thinking about you either. We are all just surprised and shocked I guess. You look so much like Diane and yet you two are so different. After Diane died, Marilyn hasn't accepted us to say anything negative about her and the boys have followed that. I guess I just think that we would honor her more if we remembered her the way she was with all of her good and bad traits. See, she let things happen to her. She rarely grabbed a hold of her life and really took it the direction she wanted it to go herself. She let some people walk all over her,.But we still loved her very much."
Mac nodded in response.
"She should have been here now. She's the one who never gave up hope that you would come back to us. The only one in the family who didn't. Eventually, I guess she got tired of being told that you weren't coming back, so she stopped talking about you. But I don't think she ever stopped believing."
Mac realized that this was something Diane had had in common with Harm. Believing against better knowledge that the people they loved weren't just gone forever. She wondered how come Diane had never told Harm about it. She must have known that Harm wasn't going to judge her for it. That fact told Mac something about how close they had really been.
"Did you know I was with Harm when he found her murderer?"
"No, I didn't. That Lieutenant..."
"Roberts," Mac filled in.
"Yes, a nice young man. He called and told us what had happened. It gave us a lot of closure."
The father and daughter remained silent for a while. Mac knew that they probably should go inside, but she enjoyed sitting out there with Jim so much that she didn't want to end it.
"They," he nodded inside to the house "see these things that they are unfamiliar with so much in black and white. An alcoholic is a bad person. They don't realize there's a person behind all of that. However I don't think we should count them out just yet. Once they get to know you they'll be able to see behind all of that."
Jim got up from his chair and Mac followed him inside to the living room again. The atmosphere was once again lively and free.
On the way back to Washington Zachary and Mac kept up the conversation.
"I hope you weren't offended by any of Jimmy's questions."
"No, it's OK," Mac answered "It's better you find out now from me than from anyone else."
"You sure have lived through a lot."
"I guess."
"Mom told me you know Harmon Rabb."
"I do. He's a friend of mine."
"Isn't it hard to be friends with him knowing what he did to our sister? I never knew what Diane saw in him," he said and Mac could hear him gritting his teeth.
"He's the best friend I've ever had," Mac simply said "I didn't know everything about him and Diane when I got to know him and I don't know if things had been different if I had known about that and the fact that Diane was my sister, but he's different now, he has changed. He's the best friend I've ever had," she repeated.
"So he's got you under his spell too. You better be careful there, Sarah."
"For you information, brother, I am very much capable of taking care of myself."
"It's an older brother prerogative to look out for his younger sisters," Zachary said and stressed the older and younger part. "I just don't want him to hurt you like he hurt..."
"Can we please not talk about that and just agree to disagree?" Mac interrupted. She had tried to joke it away and when that had failed she had decided to say it out straight.
"Sure," Zachary said and did drop the subject for this time They went on to talk about other things and the rest of the drive was spent in friendly companionship.
TBC