A/N: Ok, here I have NO CLUE what to say, but I'm going to say it really fast and then hide from your collective wrath. I'm-sorry-I-left-you-all-hanging-for-so-long-at-the-most-exciting-part-of-the-story-and-neglecting-to-post-ANYTHING-at-all-for-over-a-month!!!! Dives behind couch
Is it safe yet? Whew! I really am very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very sorry! (There, that was my penitence:-) I promise I will try not to ever, EVER leave you all hanging that long again! And a special apology to all who reviewed this so many times since I took my little coughvacationcough asking me to PLEASE post again. I hate to say it, but I probably would have just forgotten about this story entirely if not for them. Sooo...good job, guys:-)
There are twelve chapters and an epilogue to this story, so we're a little more than half-way done. So hang tight, try to remember the story up to here, and here we go!
(Btw...NICE JOB staff! The new format for posting is AWESOME:-)
Chapter Seven: Just Like My Father
"I am like a deaf man, who cannot hear,
like a mute, who cannot open his
mouth;
I have become like a man who does not
hear,
whose mouth can offer no reply."
-Psalms 38:13-14
I bet you think my life returned to how it was just after my wife died, don't you? I must admit I half expected it to myself. But I think my heart had learned a lesson, and it had found a way to take each new complication with ease. How could it not? I had lost so many dear people in my life, I was beginning to get numb. I would not have wished my life on my worst enemy.
My first thought as I walked slowly back to my house after my long night vigil at Éowyn's grave was, Now I know how my father felt. Now I understand how he could have blamed me. Only perhaps there was more cause in Feomir's case. But he had been playing around, and how could he know there was a snake there? Éowyn merely realized the danger, and he didn't. After all...he was only five.
But my heart would not listen. It kept repeating over and over, Just like my father, just like my father...
Just like my father?
What was the one thing I swore I would not be?
Just like my father.
That morning, a crucial decision had to be reached. Would I follow in his footsteps, or would I take the high road and forgive and forget? Did my heart still have the choice? Was I capable of it?
That morning, the shy was dark.
That morning, I decided I was not capable of it.
Feomir, my son, forgive me for my choice. Éowyn, my sweet jewel, forgive me. Boromir, my brother, forgive me, and Elboron, my Boromir look-alike, how could I put you in the impossible position my older brother had always been in? How? I am just a man full of regrets, my son.
Eru, God of all and maker of the universe...may I hope to be forgiven for what I did.
Time wore on. I told Feomir that there was no difference in my love for him, and we made a truce, but I was merely adding a lie to my list of wrongs. There was a difference---a very large one. I know Feomir saw and felt it, and eventually, others did too. But I am getting ahead of myself. The day after my son visited me I took Elboron out for a little shooting practice. He was not as astute at it as I had hoped he would be, and, again, I found myself thinking of Boromir. I had always bested him when it came to bow and arrows.
"Watch, Elboron," I said gently, pulling my bow back. "See how it arches into a fine curve? You must take a deep breath and exhale as the arrow is released, almost as if the arrow were a part of you that is being flown away on the wind. See?"
My son watched with a hopeless expression and nodded. "Aye, I can see when you do it, father. But when I do it, it is a totally different thing!"
I smiled (losing myself in the fine day and the fluidness of the weapons) and put my arms around him, helping him hold the bow up. "Now, move your hands along with mine," I said. We raised the weapon, fitted the arrow to it, pulled it back to his ear, and let the arrow fly. It went somewhat askance, but at least hit the target. "There," I said, "how was that?"
"Easier with you," he replied. I tousled his hair and handed him another arrow.
"Try again," I said, seating myself on the ground. "Always remember that nothing comes easily without practice."
He nodded, his small form intent on shooting the arrow. I frowned as I watched him---standing all wrong---let the arrow loose. It hit the outer ring of the target with a crooked motion. "Good," I smiled, though it really was not. He dropped the bow and sat beside me.
"Can we practice sword-play now?" he asked hopefully.
I shook my head. "No Elboron. You excel at that. This, on the other hand, you do not excel in. So..."
"Alright, alright," he sighed. He lay back in the grass, putting his hands behind his head and squinting up at the sky. "Father?" he asked.
"What?"
"Is there a God?" he murmured.
I was taken aback. My son had never asked such a deep question before; at least, not for a very long time. "Does this have anything to do with your mother?" I wondered. He nodded.
"Where is she?"
It was a question I had asked myself a million and one times, and I did not have an answer to it. I looked aside at my son, and I knew I could not lie to him. "I do not know," I answered. "I do not know if there is a God. I thought I knew, once."
"What happened?" he said, sitting up on his elbows and looking at me.
With a sigh, I pulled his bow to me and began running my hands over it. "A lot of things have happened to me, since I was young," I said. "So many people have died."
"Why father? Why did they all die?" he asked.
"I don't know!" I snapped, then hung my head. "I'm sorry, my son. Truthfully, I don't know why they died. That is why I don't think there is a God. Or if there is one..."
"What?" he urged.
"Then he has some terrible purpose for doing this to me. To us." I sighed again, and handed his bow to him. "All I wanted was for you to have a mother; an uncle; a grandmother. Why this has been denied to you and I, I don't know."
Elboron was quiet for a minute and I watched as his eyes sought out the flowers in the grass. "Sililian believes there is a God."
I stiffened. "Oh?"
"Yes. She tells us about him all the time, and she says he watches over everything and has a plan for everything. When Morwen asked her to sing that song she sings at night, she said she wasn't allowed because you didn't want her to, but that it was a good song anyway."
"Indeed," I replied. "Well Sililian and I will have a talk."
He looked up at me and said gently, "Don't be harsh with her. It's not her fault; she was raised that way."
I smiled vaguely. "I suppose so." Then I stood, picking up my large bow. "Well, let's get back to work."
Elboron and I shot for a while longer, and then I heard a soft step behind us. Turning, I saw my other son standing there, holding a small bow. He looked up at me fearfully, fingering the string on his weapon.
"I--I thought maybe I could practice too," he said.
I hesitated. Five really was too young to begin practicing on the bow. Maybe sword practice and training on a horse, but a bow? "Where did you get that?" I asked, nodding at the bow.
Feomir blushed slightly, looking down. "I found it in the arms closet, behind a stack of other weapons."
Memory flooded back to me, and I realized where we would have gotten a bow that small, made for a five year old. My father had had it made for me, and I had trained with it. I took a shuddering breath, remember how even at that young age I had striven to be good at it. "Yes, yes of course," I murmured. The child was trying to make it up to me. Mist clouded my eyes, but I blinked it away.
"Feomir, you are too young," I said gruffly, more gruffly than I meant to be. He bit his lip and turned away. "Wait!" I cried.
He turned back, and I saw myself so clearly depicted in those eyes (his mother's eyes) that I was about to take him in my arms when suddenly a voice whispered, What right has he to possess her eyes?
I shrank away from him, shaking my head. "G-go inside," I muttered. "And put the bow away."
Feomir nodded, and a tear trickled down his cheek as he hurried away. I closed my eyes and took deep, gulping breaths until Elboron touched my arm.
"Father?" he asked, his amazement betrayed through his voice. "What is it?"
I shook my head. "We're done here," I whispered.
Late into the night I pondered what had made me act so roughly with my son, and it was not until the wee hours of the morning that I drifted off.
With no answer to settle my mind.