Maddie observed the exchange between the two officers-Mac's concerned tenderness and Harm's willing acquiescence-with a new appreciation for their relationship, the one neither could see they were already in. Unconditional love isn't as elusive as they think it is, she mused.
In the beginning, she wasn't sure what discussing Harm's previous relationships would do to them. Sure, he reacted like any normal man having his love-life dissected. But, as of this moment, it didn't seem to faze Mac all that much. The only thing that seemed to upset her was the discussion of Harm's father, of which she was sure, was a protective mechanism. It had become quite apparent to Maddie that Harm and Mac protected each other intuitively, especially when the emotional well-being of the other was on the line.
Shuffling through the pages in their file, Maddie sought a clean sheet of paper to write on. They had only been seeing her for a week and now their folder was thicker than most clients' files were. She was certain that if they were to continue for a while, they'd probably need their own drawer in the file cabinet.
After organizing herself briefly, Maddie looked at Harm thoughtfully, wondering how to continue this discussion. Her earlier little outburst about his dangerous encounters left her feeling a little embarrassed. Usually her interjections into clients' sessions were thought provoking, clinical observations-not childish comments. Resolving to keep the banter to a minimum, she continued with a renewed confidence in her abilities.
"Tell me about losing your father," she said gently.
Harm sighed and made himself as comfortable as he could on the sofa, resting his right ankle on top of his left thigh. He knew he wasn't going to get out of this room without further talk of his father. Silently he hoped it would be over with quickly, if not painlessly. He was mentally exhausted already with the course of events so far today. For the first time in years, he longed for an afternoon nap to clear his head.
Mac braced herself. She wasn't sure where Maddie was taking all this. What she did know-nothing could drag her from this room and Harm's side. He needed her to help him get through this, just as he did in Russia. And damn it, I am not leaving him, she thought.
"Like I said before," Harm began with a deep breath, "Dad was shot down Christmas Eve, 1969, when I was six. The Navy had listed him as MIA. For the first year or so, every time the phone would ring or there was a knock on the door, we wondered if it was him, coming home."
Sighing a little while he recalled that time in his life, he continued, "Mom had some tapes he had sent, along with some letters. She let me listen to them and read them-I knew them by heart-every last syllable. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could hear his voice clearly in my head. As time went on, Mom had resigned herself that he wasn't coming back."
Maddie leaned forward, completely absorbed by Harm's story. She listened intently to his voice fraught with emotion, knowing that talking about all this was agonizing for him. If it were not for his bond with Josh, this probably would never have been brought up. But hearing how he spoke of his father, Maddie was getting the feeling that his dad was quite the driving force in his life-not just as a child but as an adult too.
Maddie hated to ask her next question, but she had to. "Did they ever find him?"
"No," he replied almost inaudibly. Harm was absentmindedly playing with his pant leg, keeping his eyes cast downward. He sighed and then looked over at Mac, finding her watching him attentively. Comforted by her presence, he managed a slight smile before he continued.
"Eventually any MIA were declared KIA by the government," he continued. "Mom kept up hope for as long as she could. We started getting on with our lives . . . at least she did. Mom started dating again and eventually remarried-Frank-my stepfather." Harm lingered in his thoughts for a moment, and then said, "I didn't listen to the tapes as much when I got older-I didn't have to."
"Was that hard for you-your mother remarrying?"
"Yeah, it was. In my mind, Dad was still alive and . . . out there somewhere. I couldn't believe that my mom had given up hope and found someone else. When I turned sixteen, I ran off to Southeast Asia to try to find him."
Maddie swallowed hard to avoid choking up. Hearing that as a teenager, he went in search of his lost father tore at her heart. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions where they belonged. Allowing herself to become so emotionally attached to them was beginning to take its toll on her.
Pulling herself together quickly, she continued, "What made you want to do that?"
For a moment, Harm thought about how he would answer that, distractedly picking lint from his pants to keep himself from making eye-contact with her. It wasn't that he didn't know the answer-he did-actually explaining it was a different story. What drove him then was the very same instinct that drew him to Russia in 1998.
Speaking with conviction, Harm answered Maddie's question, "Something in my gut-in my heart-told me he was still alive. I just had to act on it."
"You didn't find him, did you?" Maddie had surmised that he didn't, but she still needed him to acknowledge her question.
"No," he replied softly.
"Where did that leave your relationship with your stepfather?"
Harm knew how to answer to this one immediately. It wasn't until recently that they had come to terms with the past and put it to rest. But those years in between were far from smooth sailing.
"It was tense. Actually, at the time, I had resented him for marrying my mother. After that, Frank and I never had a close relationship-mostly my fault, I guess. Yet, I still respected him-because that's what I was taught to do."
Making note of this, Maddie then asked, "Did you resent your mother?"
Harm searched his heart, trying to find an honest answer. "I guess I did to some extent. She gave up the hope she had instilled in me. I still had it and . . . she lost it," he said with a wave of his hand for emphasis.
Pausing for a moment, he gave more thought to what he had said about his mom. Repositioning his legs, he added, "I know now she needed to get on with her life. I just didn't understand that then."
To some extent, Mac had known most of what Harm was telling Maddie-Trish remarrying, his relationship with Frank. Yet, hearing him use the word 'resent', astounded her. She had used it quite commonly to describe her own childhood, but it wasn't something she ever thought she'd hear Harm say about his mother and step-father. She admired him for being so honest about his life. Part of her expected him to be closed to this type of discussion, yet he surprised her with an openness she hadn't seen in a very long time.
Maddie wasn't shocked to hear how Harm felt about his mom and step-father. The loss of his father turned his world upside down in an instant. Righting it would take longer. She wondered for a moment if there was some underlying abandonment issues-not the physical kind, but the emotional ones that leave you feeling disconnected and alone.
Being an only child, it was just Harm and his mother in those early years after his father had died. They probably had developed a closeness-a bond-that he felt she had broken when she married Frank, Maddie surmised, making a few notes. A mother is the first woman a boy loves. If he feels that he has lost that love to another man, it-in all likelihood-might make him feel unworthy of another woman's love. Could this be Harm in a nut-shell? Rather than open this can of worms right now, Maddie decided to continue.
"What happened after you came back from Southeast Asia?"
"I did my best to get on with my life," Harm replied. "I had decided to try for an appointment to Annapolis. It was something that I had known I wanted to do-because of my father. I needed to follow in his footsteps."
"When did you decide that it was time to stop believing he was alive?"
Maddie's question caught him off guard a little. In a matter of seconds, he was spiraling back through time to the exact moment he found out. All those years, hoping and searching and wishing came to a jarring halt on a mountaintop in Russia one sunny afternoon. The only thing he could liken the experience to was his ramp strike-except the crushing pain he had felt was an all-consuming one centered in his heart.
"The day that I was told he was dead . . . four and a half years ago," he said in an anguished whisper.
Harm leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. Mac moved instinctively with him, moving her body closer to his, her left hand soothingly caressing his hair, moving down to his back. The tears his body had refused to let him shed were pooling in her eyes.
"Oh my God," Maddie muttered to herself disbelievingly, covering her mouth with her hand. Suddenly, she realized that she was right-the loss of his father was the compass that directed his life. She watched as Mac gently comforted him, whispering something inaudible into his ear. Harm nodded his head in reply to whatever it was she had said to him. He then leaned back against the sofa, composing himself.
Before Maddie could press him for further details, Harm was speaking again, his voice stronger than before. She was certain that Mac's presence-the love and concern she had shown-was the impetus for him to get through this.
"I had found some documents while investigating the death of a Navy pilot in 1997. It was a list of MIA's and POW's supposedly still alive and in Russia under KGB control." Harm paused to take a breath, "My dad's name was on that list."
"Incredible," Maddie sighed, leaning back against her chair, closing the file on her lap. She couldn't write now to save her life. More so, she was afraid that if she looked away, she'd miss a key element to his story.
"Several months later-in 1998-I was given a photograph of my dad. Written on the back was 'This one's real'. It was all the proof that I needed that he could still be alive."
Maddie felt like she had been dropped right in the middle of the greatest mystery novel ever written. "What did you do?" she gasped, trying to keep her heart from pounding in her chest.
"I went to Russia to find out if it was true-to find him. If he was alive, I wasn't leaving until I found him. There was no way in hell I was leaving him behind again."
Harm recalled how he had lied to the Admiral so he could secure time off to go to California to see his mom. He needed to make her understand that the possibility existed that his dad was still alive. When he showed his mother the picture of his father, he pretty much had guessed what her reaction would be and received just the same.
**Let it go, Harm.
I can't, Mom.**
Unable to bear the thought of reliving those years after her husband-his father-had died, she ran from him, upset and crying, leaving him alone on the patio with his step-father, Frank. What he wasn't prepared for was the support he received from Frank.
**You're the only son I ever had. Let me help you.**
Harm could see how much Frank loved him despite the fact he knew that he could never replace his father. He remembered how he told Josh at one time that he never gave his step-father a chance. Looking back now, he wondered if he had, would things have been different.
Trying to grasp everything he was telling her, Maddie fiddled with the pencil she had been holding in her hand, twirling it and then sticking it behind her ear. Even though she found what she was hearing hard to believe, she knew that there was no way in hell anyone could have had such an adventure like this one. Well, of course with the exception of Harmon Rabb Jr., she thought.
Needing to know more of the story, Maddie asked, "So you went to Russia alone to find your father?"
Harm looked at Mac as he answered Maddie's question, "Uh, no, Mac was with me. She followed me to the airport."
"You followed him?" Maddie asked, staring at Mac with a flabbergasted look on her face. Unbelievable, she thought to herself-quietly this time. She goes to Russia with him and he lets her-and they deny having any type of a relationship!
"I couldn't let him go alone," Mac responded honestly. "Besides, the Admiral thought it was for the best as well, unofficially of course. I spoke the language and . . . someone needed to watch Harm's six," she said with a quick glance in Harm's direction with a sly grin. Harm chuckled as he remembered her 'appearance' on the plane. Wild horses wouldn't have dragged her off that plane, he mused.
"And that compelled you to go with him? Didn't you worry about the danger involved? What if things turned out badly?" Maddie was throwing questions at Mac rapid-fire, her hands gesturing as she did so, nearly causing their file to go flying across the room.
Mac felt a little embarrassed by the commotion Maddie was making over the whole issue. Wanting to follow Harm to Russia wasn't something she had thought twice about. Truthfully, she hadn't thought-she reacted. Her place was with him despite the danger. In fact, she'd gone because of the danger-to protect him.
Deciding Maddie needed a little more background, Harm gave her the short-story version of the trip to Russia-Parlovsky, Alexi, Falcon, stealing the Mig-29 and the ejection from it after being shot down, the Gypsy brother and sister, trekking across Russia to find the answers to questions haunting him. It amused him to some extent watching the expressions on Maddie's face as he recounted his-their-tale. It reminded him of the first time Mac rode in an F-14 with him-she looked nauseous yet exhilarated.
Comprehending all this was starting to give Maddie a major-league headache. It was like trying to read a Tom Clancy novel written in a foreign language-it was maddening as hell. She rubbed her temples in an attempt to make the throbbing go away before deciding that it wouldn't without the help of some aspirin.
"Excuse me a minute," she said to Harm and Mac as she rose from her chair and headed toward her desk. Reaching into the top drawer, she pulled the economy sized bottle out and quickly retrieved the capsules. In one swift motion, she popped them into her mouth and quickly chugged some water from a glass on her desk. Her clients watched this little scene with confusion, then amusement.
"See what you've done," Mac whispered to Harm with the slightest touch of humor.
"Me? All I did was tell her about our trip to Russia . . . uh, I see your point," he replied with a raised eyebrow and a smile.
Mac's attempt at humor helped take the edge off. For the first time since all this discussion about his father started, Harm felt somewhat relaxed and relieved. Even though it was, at times, too heartbreaking to bear, he made it past the hard stuff unscathed. Having her by his side-supporting him-was exactly what he needed to get him through all this. He reached over and grasped her hand in his, giving it a quick squeeze before releasing it.
"Thanks," he said warmly to her, his blue eyes dancing.
"For what?" Mac asked with a curious look.
"For putting up with me."
"It's in the job description," she replied, matching the soft smile on his face with one of her own.
In the beginning, she wasn't sure what discussing Harm's previous relationships would do to them. Sure, he reacted like any normal man having his love-life dissected. But, as of this moment, it didn't seem to faze Mac all that much. The only thing that seemed to upset her was the discussion of Harm's father, of which she was sure, was a protective mechanism. It had become quite apparent to Maddie that Harm and Mac protected each other intuitively, especially when the emotional well-being of the other was on the line.
Shuffling through the pages in their file, Maddie sought a clean sheet of paper to write on. They had only been seeing her for a week and now their folder was thicker than most clients' files were. She was certain that if they were to continue for a while, they'd probably need their own drawer in the file cabinet.
After organizing herself briefly, Maddie looked at Harm thoughtfully, wondering how to continue this discussion. Her earlier little outburst about his dangerous encounters left her feeling a little embarrassed. Usually her interjections into clients' sessions were thought provoking, clinical observations-not childish comments. Resolving to keep the banter to a minimum, she continued with a renewed confidence in her abilities.
"Tell me about losing your father," she said gently.
Harm sighed and made himself as comfortable as he could on the sofa, resting his right ankle on top of his left thigh. He knew he wasn't going to get out of this room without further talk of his father. Silently he hoped it would be over with quickly, if not painlessly. He was mentally exhausted already with the course of events so far today. For the first time in years, he longed for an afternoon nap to clear his head.
Mac braced herself. She wasn't sure where Maddie was taking all this. What she did know-nothing could drag her from this room and Harm's side. He needed her to help him get through this, just as he did in Russia. And damn it, I am not leaving him, she thought.
"Like I said before," Harm began with a deep breath, "Dad was shot down Christmas Eve, 1969, when I was six. The Navy had listed him as MIA. For the first year or so, every time the phone would ring or there was a knock on the door, we wondered if it was him, coming home."
Sighing a little while he recalled that time in his life, he continued, "Mom had some tapes he had sent, along with some letters. She let me listen to them and read them-I knew them by heart-every last syllable. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could hear his voice clearly in my head. As time went on, Mom had resigned herself that he wasn't coming back."
Maddie leaned forward, completely absorbed by Harm's story. She listened intently to his voice fraught with emotion, knowing that talking about all this was agonizing for him. If it were not for his bond with Josh, this probably would never have been brought up. But hearing how he spoke of his father, Maddie was getting the feeling that his dad was quite the driving force in his life-not just as a child but as an adult too.
Maddie hated to ask her next question, but she had to. "Did they ever find him?"
"No," he replied almost inaudibly. Harm was absentmindedly playing with his pant leg, keeping his eyes cast downward. He sighed and then looked over at Mac, finding her watching him attentively. Comforted by her presence, he managed a slight smile before he continued.
"Eventually any MIA were declared KIA by the government," he continued. "Mom kept up hope for as long as she could. We started getting on with our lives . . . at least she did. Mom started dating again and eventually remarried-Frank-my stepfather." Harm lingered in his thoughts for a moment, and then said, "I didn't listen to the tapes as much when I got older-I didn't have to."
"Was that hard for you-your mother remarrying?"
"Yeah, it was. In my mind, Dad was still alive and . . . out there somewhere. I couldn't believe that my mom had given up hope and found someone else. When I turned sixteen, I ran off to Southeast Asia to try to find him."
Maddie swallowed hard to avoid choking up. Hearing that as a teenager, he went in search of his lost father tore at her heart. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions where they belonged. Allowing herself to become so emotionally attached to them was beginning to take its toll on her.
Pulling herself together quickly, she continued, "What made you want to do that?"
For a moment, Harm thought about how he would answer that, distractedly picking lint from his pants to keep himself from making eye-contact with her. It wasn't that he didn't know the answer-he did-actually explaining it was a different story. What drove him then was the very same instinct that drew him to Russia in 1998.
Speaking with conviction, Harm answered Maddie's question, "Something in my gut-in my heart-told me he was still alive. I just had to act on it."
"You didn't find him, did you?" Maddie had surmised that he didn't, but she still needed him to acknowledge her question.
"No," he replied softly.
"Where did that leave your relationship with your stepfather?"
Harm knew how to answer to this one immediately. It wasn't until recently that they had come to terms with the past and put it to rest. But those years in between were far from smooth sailing.
"It was tense. Actually, at the time, I had resented him for marrying my mother. After that, Frank and I never had a close relationship-mostly my fault, I guess. Yet, I still respected him-because that's what I was taught to do."
Making note of this, Maddie then asked, "Did you resent your mother?"
Harm searched his heart, trying to find an honest answer. "I guess I did to some extent. She gave up the hope she had instilled in me. I still had it and . . . she lost it," he said with a wave of his hand for emphasis.
Pausing for a moment, he gave more thought to what he had said about his mom. Repositioning his legs, he added, "I know now she needed to get on with her life. I just didn't understand that then."
To some extent, Mac had known most of what Harm was telling Maddie-Trish remarrying, his relationship with Frank. Yet, hearing him use the word 'resent', astounded her. She had used it quite commonly to describe her own childhood, but it wasn't something she ever thought she'd hear Harm say about his mother and step-father. She admired him for being so honest about his life. Part of her expected him to be closed to this type of discussion, yet he surprised her with an openness she hadn't seen in a very long time.
Maddie wasn't shocked to hear how Harm felt about his mom and step-father. The loss of his father turned his world upside down in an instant. Righting it would take longer. She wondered for a moment if there was some underlying abandonment issues-not the physical kind, but the emotional ones that leave you feeling disconnected and alone.
Being an only child, it was just Harm and his mother in those early years after his father had died. They probably had developed a closeness-a bond-that he felt she had broken when she married Frank, Maddie surmised, making a few notes. A mother is the first woman a boy loves. If he feels that he has lost that love to another man, it-in all likelihood-might make him feel unworthy of another woman's love. Could this be Harm in a nut-shell? Rather than open this can of worms right now, Maddie decided to continue.
"What happened after you came back from Southeast Asia?"
"I did my best to get on with my life," Harm replied. "I had decided to try for an appointment to Annapolis. It was something that I had known I wanted to do-because of my father. I needed to follow in his footsteps."
"When did you decide that it was time to stop believing he was alive?"
Maddie's question caught him off guard a little. In a matter of seconds, he was spiraling back through time to the exact moment he found out. All those years, hoping and searching and wishing came to a jarring halt on a mountaintop in Russia one sunny afternoon. The only thing he could liken the experience to was his ramp strike-except the crushing pain he had felt was an all-consuming one centered in his heart.
"The day that I was told he was dead . . . four and a half years ago," he said in an anguished whisper.
Harm leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. Mac moved instinctively with him, moving her body closer to his, her left hand soothingly caressing his hair, moving down to his back. The tears his body had refused to let him shed were pooling in her eyes.
"Oh my God," Maddie muttered to herself disbelievingly, covering her mouth with her hand. Suddenly, she realized that she was right-the loss of his father was the compass that directed his life. She watched as Mac gently comforted him, whispering something inaudible into his ear. Harm nodded his head in reply to whatever it was she had said to him. He then leaned back against the sofa, composing himself.
Before Maddie could press him for further details, Harm was speaking again, his voice stronger than before. She was certain that Mac's presence-the love and concern she had shown-was the impetus for him to get through this.
"I had found some documents while investigating the death of a Navy pilot in 1997. It was a list of MIA's and POW's supposedly still alive and in Russia under KGB control." Harm paused to take a breath, "My dad's name was on that list."
"Incredible," Maddie sighed, leaning back against her chair, closing the file on her lap. She couldn't write now to save her life. More so, she was afraid that if she looked away, she'd miss a key element to his story.
"Several months later-in 1998-I was given a photograph of my dad. Written on the back was 'This one's real'. It was all the proof that I needed that he could still be alive."
Maddie felt like she had been dropped right in the middle of the greatest mystery novel ever written. "What did you do?" she gasped, trying to keep her heart from pounding in her chest.
"I went to Russia to find out if it was true-to find him. If he was alive, I wasn't leaving until I found him. There was no way in hell I was leaving him behind again."
Harm recalled how he had lied to the Admiral so he could secure time off to go to California to see his mom. He needed to make her understand that the possibility existed that his dad was still alive. When he showed his mother the picture of his father, he pretty much had guessed what her reaction would be and received just the same.
**Let it go, Harm.
I can't, Mom.**
Unable to bear the thought of reliving those years after her husband-his father-had died, she ran from him, upset and crying, leaving him alone on the patio with his step-father, Frank. What he wasn't prepared for was the support he received from Frank.
**You're the only son I ever had. Let me help you.**
Harm could see how much Frank loved him despite the fact he knew that he could never replace his father. He remembered how he told Josh at one time that he never gave his step-father a chance. Looking back now, he wondered if he had, would things have been different.
Trying to grasp everything he was telling her, Maddie fiddled with the pencil she had been holding in her hand, twirling it and then sticking it behind her ear. Even though she found what she was hearing hard to believe, she knew that there was no way in hell anyone could have had such an adventure like this one. Well, of course with the exception of Harmon Rabb Jr., she thought.
Needing to know more of the story, Maddie asked, "So you went to Russia alone to find your father?"
Harm looked at Mac as he answered Maddie's question, "Uh, no, Mac was with me. She followed me to the airport."
"You followed him?" Maddie asked, staring at Mac with a flabbergasted look on her face. Unbelievable, she thought to herself-quietly this time. She goes to Russia with him and he lets her-and they deny having any type of a relationship!
"I couldn't let him go alone," Mac responded honestly. "Besides, the Admiral thought it was for the best as well, unofficially of course. I spoke the language and . . . someone needed to watch Harm's six," she said with a quick glance in Harm's direction with a sly grin. Harm chuckled as he remembered her 'appearance' on the plane. Wild horses wouldn't have dragged her off that plane, he mused.
"And that compelled you to go with him? Didn't you worry about the danger involved? What if things turned out badly?" Maddie was throwing questions at Mac rapid-fire, her hands gesturing as she did so, nearly causing their file to go flying across the room.
Mac felt a little embarrassed by the commotion Maddie was making over the whole issue. Wanting to follow Harm to Russia wasn't something she had thought twice about. Truthfully, she hadn't thought-she reacted. Her place was with him despite the danger. In fact, she'd gone because of the danger-to protect him.
Deciding Maddie needed a little more background, Harm gave her the short-story version of the trip to Russia-Parlovsky, Alexi, Falcon, stealing the Mig-29 and the ejection from it after being shot down, the Gypsy brother and sister, trekking across Russia to find the answers to questions haunting him. It amused him to some extent watching the expressions on Maddie's face as he recounted his-their-tale. It reminded him of the first time Mac rode in an F-14 with him-she looked nauseous yet exhilarated.
Comprehending all this was starting to give Maddie a major-league headache. It was like trying to read a Tom Clancy novel written in a foreign language-it was maddening as hell. She rubbed her temples in an attempt to make the throbbing go away before deciding that it wouldn't without the help of some aspirin.
"Excuse me a minute," she said to Harm and Mac as she rose from her chair and headed toward her desk. Reaching into the top drawer, she pulled the economy sized bottle out and quickly retrieved the capsules. In one swift motion, she popped them into her mouth and quickly chugged some water from a glass on her desk. Her clients watched this little scene with confusion, then amusement.
"See what you've done," Mac whispered to Harm with the slightest touch of humor.
"Me? All I did was tell her about our trip to Russia . . . uh, I see your point," he replied with a raised eyebrow and a smile.
Mac's attempt at humor helped take the edge off. For the first time since all this discussion about his father started, Harm felt somewhat relaxed and relieved. Even though it was, at times, too heartbreaking to bear, he made it past the hard stuff unscathed. Having her by his side-supporting him-was exactly what he needed to get him through all this. He reached over and grasped her hand in his, giving it a quick squeeze before releasing it.
"Thanks," he said warmly to her, his blue eyes dancing.
"For what?" Mac asked with a curious look.
"For putting up with me."
"It's in the job description," she replied, matching the soft smile on his face with one of her own.