Trust is like joy - in that it is fragile, fleeting and fabulous.
If you trust someone once, will you trust them always? Is love synonymous with trust?
Can you risk everything for a moment of joy? For a moment of trust?
Both trust and joy are gifts. They spring unbidden from another... or from within yourself…if you cannot trust yourself no one will ever trust you.
If you trust another you place yourself in their hands, mind, body and soul. If you cannot find it in yourself, where will you get it from?
These thoughts occupied the predawn hours of Charlie Crews in his bedroom, circling his head like ripples from a rock thrown into a deep pool. He sat perched on a stiff wooden chair watching the still, sleeping form of his partner Dani Reese. She trusted him, but he was not at all certain that she trusted herself. Something in the past had severely shaken Dani's faith not only in others, but also in herself. One facet of her screamed I trust no one but myself, while another subtly hinted I don't really trust myself either. She wrestled with doubt daily and it troubled her even in sleep, when she should be at peace.
Charlie knew a lot about doubt. All those years in prison when everyone doubted his innocence….and for a while in the middle of all those years Charlie had to admit, he even began to believe - maybe he did it. Then he wondered if he were really there at all – was prison real - or was he trapped in his own mind. Years spent alone meant defining reality for himself and trusting that what he perceived was real. When he first got out of Pelican Bay, Charlie would dream he was still there - inside those claustrophobic greenish gray walls, flickering with sickly fluorescent light and the stillness of a mausoleum. He would wake in a panic, but only his mind kept him trapped; his body was free; so Charlie focused on freeing his mind – allowing himself to be present. Now.
Dani's mind was not free. She was still fleeing the past, which meant it clung to her in ways that kept her from being free. The chains of the mind are not something anyone else can release you from. There is no magical time at which they disappear. When you decide to walk away from them, they dissolve and suddenly you are free, perhaps for the very first time. Some how he wished he could give this gift to her, but realized it was not his to give.
Charlie tried hard to think about what released him – what allowed him to accept the freedom of his mind and the ability to be present. Then he realized that it might have been Ted.
Ted Early was not cut out for life in prison. Charlie's life in prison was hard even brutal, but as a cop he knew the realities of violent crime; Ted did not. But when Charlie chose to stop worrying about himself and instead placed his energy behind preventing Ted from being brutalized – his problems became secondary and he could be free of the prison of his own mind. He could work the problem of protecting Ted and in doing so; Charlie gained some measure of himself back. The selfless act of protecting someone weaker and less capable was the exact opposite of what everyone in prison did – they took, so Charlie gave. He gave support, assistance, counsel and protection and it freed him.
In the pink dawn hours, as the first rays of lights fractured though the windows making dust motes dance, Charlie realized something profound - for Dani, Sarah was Ted. By protecting her, Dani could free herself from the crushing pressure of worry about so many things in her life. He couldn't give her that – but he could give her the chance to do that - for Sarah.
They both needed someone to protect, someone to focus on that they loved more than themselves, someone that came first. For him it was Dani and while he was certain that Dani loved him, this was different, this was about earning your soul back, about giving yourself permission to be free and only selflessness could get you there. When you let go of yourself, you could truly be free; the bars and locks you built around yourself just fell away.
You could not change the past, but you did not have to live there and you did not have to carry it with you. Scars and reminders yes, but not the time – that time had passed and it would never come again – all that remained was to let it go – allow it to sink into the distant memories of a deep ocean - until all that remained was the timeless sea.
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Dani awoke in a strange place, but one that she knew; it only took her a moment, even before her eyes flickered open to recognize the feel, smell and sense the warmth of Charlie Crews. She smelled his aftershave where it clung to her cheeks and pillow, her arms and legs were tangled in the high thread count luxurious sheets of his massive bed and the sun beat down on her from the large bay window of his east facing bedroom. She couldn't remember how she got there, but knew instantly something was missing and with his name subconsciously tumbling from her lips, she blinked into the new day.
"Charlie" she breathed as she woke. He didn't move, he simply smiled, sitting there backlit by the rising sun, smiling one of those unbelievable, dazzling, hurt your eyes smiles that only Charlie and children under the age of ten seemed capable of delivering. His name on her lips, the one she'd been unable to keep herself from speaking as she woke, hung between them on the slivers of light.
"I love you," he said simply.
Dani found tears in her eyes again, but he there in an instant kissing them away. He worshipped her face with gentle kisses and brushed away her fears, like so many cobwebs in an attic and finally when he was certain she wouldn't cry - he leaned away to look at her.
He patiently and carefully explained what he'd learned from Boone and how he felt it affected Sarah. He explained that if one little girl vanished from the hundreds in child services, no one would really even look for her, all the while thinking about Rachel Seybolt how he could make her disappear there and appear here.
In his mind, Charlie was already planning how he would do it and just who he would get to help him – Jack Reese, the man with a soft spot for little lost girls who needed to redeem himself.
"If want you her – I can give you what you want, but I need to know Dani – is this really what you want?" he asked gently. "We are not going to find Sarah's parents. But we can be them if you want to." He offered her his heart - pinned to a little lost girl in a white sundress with daisies on it.
"How?" she asked incredulous. Charlie smiled inside and the sun shone in his heart, knowing that she made the first step – her concern was not for if it would get them into trouble, or what anyone would say, but simply how they would do it.
"Well, you might not have noticed…but I've got quite a bit of money" pausing for effect. "It's amazing what you can buy with a lot of money.... birth certificates, adoption papers, lots of cool stuff," Charlie teased. "So far I've only used my money for tractors and orange groves, fast cars and toys"
He paused again and his eyes became more serious. "I think that we could do something important here, but this is not a car or a tractor, this is life. This is you and me - in something forever. Are you ready for that?"
She examined him seriously for a moment. "We are partners" she paused and let the realization of her disclosure sink in.
As the realization dawned in Charlie's eyes, she asked "You know this is what I want….but what do you want Charlie?"
"I want you," he said without a moment's hesitation.
She rolled her eyes at him "you already have me… you could have asked for something more" she grinned at him.
"There isn't anything I want more than you" he said simply. An absolute truth.
She threw her arms around him and held him close. He sunk his head into her neck and inhaled the smell and feel of her. Laughing he then whispered very near her ear, so close and soft she thought maybe she imagined it, until he drew back and she saw the desire clouding his eyes. "Sarah won't be the only kid we have right? Cause I'd like to give making some of our own a try…"
Epilogue…..
Jack Reese knocked on the door to his daughter's house, the one she shared with Charlie Crews for the past five years. Waiting for the door to open and his wife to catch up, he thought back fifteen years when couldn't fathom a circumstances that would have him and Charlie Crews in the same room, much less for a happy event.
The door was opened by a winsome and wise beyond her years, 23 year old Rachel Seybolt, home from college for the summer, holding a tired three year old boy with bright red hair and bright blue eyes. Jack Crews was his father's son.
"Uncle Jack" Rachel smiled "come in - you know we don't lock doors…."
"Uh, huh" he said kissing Rachel's cheek and taking the boy from her.
"Can you help your aunt with the cake?" as he walked inside the foyer of the giant house.
Gone were the empty echoes of Crews uncluttered life. Instead there were soccer balls, tennis shoes and dog bone and radio controlled car strewn on the marble floor. The house had become a home.
Looking at the photos on the mantle, Jack could see ten year old Sarah's toothy grin; five year old Sam's shy smile that could just as easily be his Dani's, but instead was her daughter's and impish grin of three year old Jack.
In the backyard he caught flashes of the blonde hair and lanky build of Sarah springing lightly through the sprinkler, being pursued by her dark haired younger sister Samantha, so reminiscent of his Dani as a child. The girls were chased through the rainbows created by the water and sun, by a soaking wet golden retriever named, Stitch, who from time to time would stop to shake water from his coat, producing shrieks of delight and cascade of giggles from the Crews girls.
Jack wrestled away from him, climbing down and scampering into the kitchen pronouncing "hungry" to the world. His mother handed him a banana, earning her a vicious scowl and pronouncement of "hot dog" from the boy.
The elder Reese would not have believe the patience parenthood had bestowed on his daughter had he not seen it with his own eyes.
"Jack" she eyed him "you can not eat hot dogs for breakfast. You can have cereal or fruit" so focused on her temperamental son, she had not yet noticed her father. The three year old scowled fiercely and stated flatly "hot dog" again. Dani arched an eyebrow at him and offered an apple, which the boy flatly refused.
"Crews" she barked at her partner, both in work and in life, "deal with your son", she ordered. Charlie Crews looked up from a paper he was reading at his young son, who had inherited his father's looks and his mother's fierce temper. "Jack" he said to both grandfather and grandson.
"Why don't you let me take this one Crews?" the elder Reese said as Rachel and his wife came in carrying bags and a cake in a box. He winked at the younger man who was now a big part of his life. "Come're Jack"
"Don't you guys have a pool?" Jack Reese said motioning at the girls in the sprinkler.
"Yeah, but they like playing in the hose. Kids….right?" Charlie said with feigned exasperation, but a twinkle in his eyes as he disappeared into the kitchen.
In truth, the Crews children wanted for little and were rich beyond their father's bank account. Both Charlie and Dani continued to work as LAPD officers, they spent more time in the office than the field now. Dani was still his Charlie's boss, Captain of Detectives and Crews managing task force operations for the Department, they were seldom apart at work or at home. But their children were the center of their lives - both individually and collectively.
Mrs Reese deposited her bags on the counter and crouched down to her three year old grandson peeling back the banana skin began to talk quietly to him while smiling. To Dani's surprise, little Jack smiled back and took the banana and began to eat it cheerfully.
"How does she do that?" Dani wondered aloud about the magical abilities of her mother with regard to their singularly stubborn son. Charlie slid behind his wife, wrapping his arms around her and murmured in her hair "be thankful for grandma" while he held his wife for a moment. Dani who was almost always moving, stilled and let herself relax in her husband's arms as he reminded her absently to "just breathe" and they did, standing quietly in the sunshine watching their girls playing in the rainbows.
Later that day, after hamburgers and Jack Crews long dreamt of "hot dogs", they sat around the pool, except fair haired Sarah and Charlie who sat in the shade reading a book together. Rachel was sunning and listening to her I-Pod, Dani had put Jack down for a much needed nap and joined her husband in the shade. Charlie raised an arm and fit her perfectly against his side, never missing a word of the book. Jack Reese held his Samantha who was still damp from the sprinkler, while his wife tinkered in the kitchen.
Of all his grandchildren, Samantha was his favorite, she gave him a second chance to be the kind of man he wanted to be when Dani was small, but had failed to be – in his first effort. Sam just like Dani had a girl's name shortened into a boy's, but making her no less beautiful and perfect. She was a miniature of her mother, with her dark expressive eyes and shy smile. Sam snuggled close and sighed sleepily ready for a nap also.
In the quietness of the afternoon, Jack Reese quietly considered his family, which now included a man he had written off fifteen years ago. Charlie Crews was much more than he had ever anticipated. The peacefulness of Crews and his daughter's quiet "moments" shone in their eyes and in those of their happy and well adjusted children, even Sarah who remembered nothing of her past. There were no locks in their house or their hearts.
They chose St Patrick's Day, March 17th as Sarah's arbitrary birthday date. It was the day he and Charlie Crews committed a felony together. Stealing Sarah away from foster care and hiding her behind a forged adoption certificate had perhaps been the most meaningful act of deliberate misconduct in both their eventful and questionable pasts. A sin committed for the greater good of another - an act of redemption.
A fresh start for all of them and freedom from the chains of their past.
Author's Note: Children exist in every corner of this world, who are not treated as the exceptional gifts they are. They are used and abused, mistreated and traded like property.
Each life is precious and special, some darkness takes years to recover from, but children have the remarkable capacity to recover and grow strong, straight and true.
They don't need much but they do need protection. When you see a child being abused, say something, do something, be that someone who does instead of looking away.
The sun shines not on you, but in you; the brightest light is invisible, it shines though you and warms the universe.
Be that light to someone, give that light to someone and free yourself, from yourself.