Part 38

"He comes upon a person," David said to Donna, "suddenly and without warning, and you are under attack."

"I know," Donna said, sympathetically.

"From now on I'm going to look for him. Start conversations with him. See if that gets him off guard. Does it?"

"I don't know," Donna said. She laughed. "It's not done. Everyone avoids Cam. That's why he sneaks up on you, as you see."

"And has control that way."

"That's what he'd want!"

"In his twisted way, he cares about Alexander, and he's going to sneak up on him again."

"I don't like that."

"Maybe it'd be better if Zander could go to him. He'd be prepared, have control over time and place, and Cam might be really unnerved."

"I don't know if he would be unnerved or not. But it would be a big surprise. It might have that effect. I like the idea, though. It would let Alexander handle it without that element of being sneaked up on and having to handle it when he may not feel prepared."

Zander came to the doorway. "I've got to take a walk down the hall. I'll go crazy. I feel fine."

"OK," David said. He and Donna walked with Zander.

"David just had a brilliant idea about your Dad," Donna said.

"Oh, yeah?" Zander smiled. "You thought up a drug that will turn him into a person?"

David laughed. "I wish I could. But it's that he'll come upon you again, I'm sure. I thought some time, not now, not necessarily soon, but some time, you decide when to talk to him about it by sneaking up on him instead of the other way around, the way he usually does."

"I could try. I don't know how to find him, though," Zander said. He looked amused. "No one ever does that. People avoid him; they don't go looking for him. You're right, he won't expect that. You're a real pioneer, David."

"I'll stalk him for you, Alex," Donna said. "Maybe Brenda will help me. Find out where he goes."

"No, I'll do it," David said. "I'm in the same profession. Gives me an advantage, knowing how he lives."

"You don't have to do that, David. You've got a life," Zander said. "You don't deserve getting pulled into this family drama any more than you've already gotten stuck with."

"I'm going to help you with this," David answered.

They went out onto a terrace. "Fresh air," Zander said, happily, taking a deep breath.

"He's been reading books on fatherhood," Donna told David.

"Yeah, I'm not satisfied with just doing the opposite of what I think Dad does wrong," Zander said, leaning on the balcony and looking out. He'd read that this was what he was likely to do.

"If it's any comfort, I think he really does do what he thinks he should do," David said. "He really believes you need reigning in. He seems to think you are some sort of extra powerful force, that will be a danger to the world if not brought down a peg or two. From what he told me I also think it is very clear he was like that, or thinks he was, and his father treated him this way and it worked, in his opinion."

"That's exactly what I was reading about," Zander said. "How his father treated him - that's something I should find out about. Mom and I were talking and we can't come up with that much. How did you get it out of him?"

"He thinks he's competing with me now, and that I'm going to encourage you to follow your true nature, and that's going to be a danger to the world. I believe he thinks it's a danger to you too, but he won't admit he cares about that."

It was quiet a while. Then Zander said to David, "Would you have encouraged me to follow my true nature? You don't have to answer that right off. I know it's all speculation. I only want to know what you think. Think about it awhile if you'd rather. I know it's a lot to ask."

"I have thought about it."

"Really? What do you think?"

"It's only based on what I know of you, and that might not be much."

"Base it on you. And your father too. You remember him, right? You were twelve when he died, didn't you say?"

"Yes. He owned a pharmaceutical business. He did very well. Later my mother said it was mostly illegal. I'm not sure I believe her entirely. But I think he might have bent the law here and there."

Zander smiled.

"Well," David went on, "He was gone on business a lot. When he was around, he would take me places, talk to me, or play baseball, stuff like that. He thought I was very smart, or, at least, in front of me he only gave the impression he thought I was really smart. Sometimes I would tell him about something I was interested in, and he'd pretend he didn't know anything about it and go on about how great it was I had figured it all out for myself."

"Then Dad could be right."

"Probably. I think you would be way more confident of your brains. You'd do really well in school. Then again, you might have been really arrogant. You're not arrogant, you're a really nice guy. Maybe not because Cam intended it, but because he makes himself so obnoxious to you that you go out of your way to be the opposite. That's not a bad way to handle it, in fact, rather smart. You could see it didn't work well. Everybody avoids him. That can't be good, no matter how he rationalizes it."

"Dad is right. You're telling me I'm smart even with things as they are! But am I really, or do you think I have to be, because I have the genes?"

"That's an intelligent question, too! Really, it is! That's how it happens. You're around your parents and you absorb their opinions. I would have believed that all along, so you would have. Now Cam obviously thinks he has to reign himself in and have control over himself or he'll hurt somebody. He overdid trying to get you to do the same thing."

"I've lost control. I committed the kidnapping."

"How come?"

"To get away from the cops. I let her go right away, as soon as I'd gotten away from them."

"Sounds like a snap judgment to solve a problem. Illegal, but it solved the problem. I've done that."

"Not as violently. But I didn't intend to hurt her."

"But you probably did. Psychologically. Scarred her for life, I imagine. So you have to watch the way you use your brains to avoid hurting someone else, even if you don't intend it. There is some force in there, not always entirely in your control. Now make sure you understand, I'm not judging you. I've miscalculated too, many times. Cam tries to get you to mistrust yourself as a way of reigning these powers in. That only disables them. I'd rather even see them get out of control every once in a while rather than do that."

"I saved her life, too. She had gotten in way over her head. At the time I thought she was part of the plot to frame me. There was a plot to frame me; you can ask even her. I was in the illegal pharmaceutical trade too, you see. A higher up was going to pin a murder on me."

"Goodness, Alex," Donna said. "Do you think Cam knows about all this?"

"It would be easy for him to find out," Zander said. "Even if Emily hadn't told him. But you see, David, Dad is not entirely wrong. I did a lot of harm to Emily by kidnapping her."

"You saved her life," David smiled to himself. "Sometimes you have to do some harm in that process. Cam is like a lot of people. He knows, for example, he has to cut somebody open to save their life by doing heart surgery. He overlooks that and takes it for granted. He's got anesthesia to help him forget cutting somebody open is hurting them. With that, he gets that you have to do that little bit of hurt to get to where you can do something that allows for life to go on. Of course you've got to learn where it is really worth it as best you can, and recognize you're going to make mistakes."

"That's a hard one for Cam," Donna said. "He's a perfectionist. That's a deadly trait. And I think our minds work more on chemical traits than we might like to think. Every family probably learns to deal with its own chemistry. He was applying all his knowledge of Lewis chemistry that didn't apply to you, Alex. He must have been really frustrated. That made him crankier and crankier and less and less patient with you."

"I don't want to be perfectionist or impatient with Ginny."

"You won't be," Donna said. "But that trait led Cam right into expecting you to be good at things without any mistakes. Like hunting."

"I don't even like hunting," Zander said. "I never did. And Dad didn't go that often with us. Maybe we were in over our heads. I made a big mistake."

"He did," Donna said. "That's what he has a hard time with. He tries to avoid blaming himself because he's afraid he can't live with it."

"That I agree with," David said. "He should have let you get in over your head somewhere else. Not with guns. I don't care what he says about me not having experience with being a parent. I'd have known, or maybe almost anybody else would have known, that you shouldn't have been handling a gun when you weren't really all that interested."

"When you say you'd have known," Donna said to David, "it suggests there's some sort of instinct arising out of the genetics."

"Maybe," David said. "I could set it down to personality, but maybe. Cam would say it was spoiling him to let him do what he wanted, or not do what he didn't want, but when it came to something like that I can't imagine taking a kid who wasn't interested in hunting out hunting. Then again, maybe it was the brothers and father doing things together that was the point. With me, Alexander wouldn't have been as close to his brother, and maybe that's a loss, but there's a gain too. Less comparison."

"Cam barely allows for the age difference," Donna said. "He overlooks that, too. Why wouldn't Peter be more mature? He's older."

"Maybe he remembers what Pete did at my age," Zander said. "And thinks I'm behind."

"Everyone's different, though," Donna said. "Even if you were Cam's biological son, you would still be different; there'd be no reason to expect you to be exactly the same. But it would be like Cam to think he should spur you on by saying some other kid could do a thing to get you to prove you could do it, too."

"Did he say stuff like that, Zander?" David asked. "Pete could do that at your age, whatever it was?"

"I don't remember him specifically saying it," Zander said. "But you know, I think I felt like that was something he thought. But maybe it's not fair, it could have been my idea."

"Cam had a lot of say in what your ideas were," David said. "And it wouldn't be a surprise if you got compared to Cam too. Did he say that when he was your age himself he could do such and such a thing?"

"I don't remember that either, not a particular case," Zander said. "But you know, I feel like he must have either said that or really heavily implied it. I know for sure he went hunting as a kid. He bragged about a lot of things he did when he was a kid. He was 10 years old and was able to bag birds or take deer. He may well have had way more time than he gave me and Pete, to practice, too. Maybe he didn't mean it as a criticism of us and was only telling stories."

"It should have been clear he didn't expect you to do as well without the experience," Donna said. "And his demeanor wouldn't have been right, for just telling stories."

"Right," Zander said. "It was like he was always pressuring you. Me, I mean. Me and Pete. I think I always looked for what it was he was pressuring for no matter what he did or said. It's like I look for an underlying motive for everything he says. That's why I avoid him. He represents pressure. Sometimes you're just too damn tired to play. And he expects you too, and then you feel inadequate because you're not up to it, and that must be a flaw, like laziness."

"I have a feeling Ginny won't get enough pressure," David said. He smiled. "But that's OK. Nothing's perfect."

Zander smiled too. "And she'll never get compared to any other kid. Not by me."

"You wouldn't have had as much of that," David said. "You wouldn't be as close to your brother, and not just from logistics, either. But I wouldn't have regretted that, because you'd have had Leo, and his being your uncle and not your brother makes a difference even if he's not that much older. And it might not be entirely too late, for you and him."

"You've really helped me a lot, David," Zander said. "I feel way better about being able to be the father of Ginny. You haven't come along entirely too late, either."

"Well, I may be in way over my head like Cam says," David said. "But if I can be any help, I want to."