Chapter 5: Clutch of circumstance

Boston, 11th of December 2018

The lab confirmed that our cat did not die of natural causes. Not even three weeks prior to the day when someone snapped his neck, I had spelled out how afraid I was to lose him. This. My family.

It is as if someone can peek into my innermost fears. I feel toyed with. I believe this is the sort of feeling I resent the most.

I once read an autobiography from a Holocaust survivor, a woman who wrote she had not recognized her neighbors' antisemitic beliefs until the day the National Socialists got elected and she had to flee Germany because of her Jewish descent. She had not recognized their animosity toward her, even though they had poisoned her family's pets many years prior to that fateful day in 1933.

To snap a pet's neck is more than a silly prank. It is an act of brutality. If someone is willing to go through the lengths of killing a harmless, innocent animal, then they are capable of doing a lot more than just that. It is a deliberate act of hate, a calculated anticipation of destroying a bond we formed.

We stowed away his things, the feeding dishes, the blankets and toys. For what purpose, I have no idea. Certainly, I don't want any other pet than Bass living here in the future. I never wanted the cat to begin with. I still find his hairs on the sofa. There is a scratch on my wrist from playing with him. Soon, no sign of him will be left.

I try to tell myself that there is a silver lining to the circumstance of his death. Small things, such as, come spring, he won't bring flees home, or that we won't have to find a sitter for him when we go back to Ethiopia next year.

And bigger topics: the situation gives us the opportunity to talk to the children about the significance of death before someone who is truly close to them leaves. More so, to remind them what they already know, which in Charra's case might mean that he could get a clearer understanding of how his biological mother is not with him anymore.

All in all, it's an utterly pathetic and pitiful attempt. I miss him. I cannot even bring myself to write down his name. Yes, I truly miss that poor creature. My seat here, in front of my desk, is dreadfully empty without him. Whatever that unknown person wants, or needs, I honestly do not care. I just want this to stop. Why did he or she have to punish us at a pet's expense? What if next time...

.

Jane,

I am not even sure I should write to you, make this into another letter to you. I want to share all of this, all of me, with you. I really do. Yet, I feel misunderstood before even starting.

Not only my heart, but also my mind tells me that this is ridiculous; that with you I have made different experiences; that you are usually the one who understands. You even were, probably, the first person to ever understand me.

However, I'm afraid to put myself out in the open; each and every thing inside of me is confusing in itself – both its processing and its content –, and therefore ought to be misunderstood. If I am strong enough to keep following the path we took, which is made of complete trust in each other, then this is exactly my motivation: I yearn for completion.

.

Why did you keep that letter you wrote during my abduction? And why did you keep it in your box? Isn't it exclusive for treasures? Of what is it supposed to remind you?

I went through the things you keep there. It made me want to catalog them, an impulse which is probably similar to you counting the stones from the metaphor-jar. There are 83 objects and 211 snippets and sheets of paper. Did you know that?

Some are self-explanatory, like the crown cap of a Bedele-bottle, your favorite Ethiopian beer. Others are not. There is a necklace made of pink flowers, which I simply cannot imagine you wearing; I wonder why it made its way into the tool box. On the other hand, I can totally see you wearing that hideous (broken) wrist watch that has a dinosaur claw made of rubber attached to the clock face.

You said I should keep the letter. I read it about seven times now. It is raw and unfinished. I tried to draw something hopeful from it, but that is an attempt that gets harder each time I go over your lines.

I decided to attach it to this diary. May it find its rest here.

Boston, 10th of May 2016

Maura,

are you conscious?

The boys have finally agreed with whoever to take a nap, Charra only cause he's exhausted though, out of his mind really. poor, tiny fellow. Just as I am.

Are you hurt?

We found blood at the crime scene, not yours, no, but in case you managed to do that to your captor who knows what you got in return. Yeah. Who knows exactly!? please-

I don't know. Theres nothing I could ask from you right now, is there?

As if being taken because of me ain't punishment enough. Your rips barely healed from the mess I pulled you in back in Ethiopia and now you have to endure even more. Why the fuck does it make so much sense that the person I love can be hurt because of me. by me. How does it make sense that especially because of that great amount of love the whole family suffers?

I should've looked out for you better. Korsak tried to console me this morning that I looked out for the weakest link first and that you'd be capable to handle... whatever this situation will ask of you.

You coming home from Ethiopia is nothing like I imagined.

Picking you up from the airport was great. All kisses and only a few tears and not one thought wasted on the people staring at the four of us. Except the one thought that had me recognize those people, admittedly.

Alban was smiling widely, bouncing up and down in your arms, all excited. And Charra gazed around curiously, attentive, but okay with the world. His world. Ours.

Stepping inside the house, also ours, was fulfilling. The smell of Ma's food welcomed us as invasive and enveloping as all the hugs and kisses and questions. It ain't hard to admit: For once it wasn't too much. It was endearing.

Settling in was not great. It simply didn't happen. Just like that, everything I looked forward to, have found myself hoping for, got ripped from under my nose. Too much to ask to make something good last?

You are everything, Maura. Not the burned down apartment, nor the taunts and threats.

So where the hell are you?

I am the weakest link.

I get the sense I should be ashamed of the fact itself, or at least of remarking it so bluntly, but I'm not. I am certain of it with utter conviction. It is an established truth. We have been over this a hundred times. My intelligence quotient does nothing to indicate my social skills, which truly is a weakness of this sort of rating system.

I am the one most likely to be conned. Past incidents have proven that. Dennis Rockmond, the ordeal with Brad Adams or even my abduction by Joe Harris would not have happened if I were capable of seeing through people's bad intentions. What makes it worse is that I even fell for two of them. Three, if I count Garrett. Four with criminal charges, if I count Ian in, which I am a little reluctant to do, though.

Alban and Charra require protection, yes, but that's because it is in their nature of being children. I am the weakest link in our family, because I shouldn't be the weakest one. I should know better. I should be better.

I have a strange inkling that, in order to improve in that area, I need to do something that could easily be perceived as a step in the opposite direction. Something that could worsen our situation, because that kind of topic carries a connotation of a great force in weakening a person.

How can something, anything really, be two things at once? How can something feel right and wrong, be perspicuous and abstruse at the same time? And how come I feel both insecure and trusting? Did you think about something similar when you wrote that letter and contemplated how love can cause so much hurt?

I believe I am torn between different Mauras. Each is all of the things above; but in particular, each version I picture seems to consist of rights and wrongs, which is an issue I have never had with myself before.

I spent my whole life trying to be accurate. Yes, to live with precision, wouldn't you agree? I don't make assumptions, I don't take guesses. I regained the power of white lies and lying for the sake of a joke, but other than that, I still resent the art of it.

You are aware of what Arthur put me through with his stupid-ass infidelity. However, neither he nor that lie I had to carry are the reason why I honor honesty to begin with.

Something entirely different is behind all of that. At a very young age, quite some time before Arthur's request, I had already decided that pure honesty needed to be the formula of my life, and that I would never drift away from the path I proclaimed to be clear, and definite, and righteous for myself. As well as for anyone else, for that matter.

I have to admit, committing to honesty the way I do is a form of escape, and therefore has something dishonest about it. I realize that now. As I said, two things at the same time, two sides of a coin.

Which is, for example, why you were absolutely right to accuse me of hiding behind science when I wouldn't tell you about how they planned to arrest Tommy.

Back then, my body had told me that I was wrong, as it does naturally in my case. I should have chosen the higher truth; my loyalty to you. My body knew, the stomach ache was very real, but I held on to the regulations; I stood by what was at hand for me. It hurt a lot to see what my actions did to you, to our relationship. I was learning the hard way that playing by the rules didn't mean it was right – nor that I was on the safe side.

During that case, I sensed that not each kind of honesty equals a good kind of honesty. And that the good kind may come in disguise. Only now am I beginning to grasp what this truly means, and how this kind of knowledge comes with specific consequences.

.

I am sorry. It was efficiently clarifying for me to write this letter, even to talk to an invisible you. However, I cannot give this to you; it bears too many questions I am not prepared to answer. Yet.

I promise, I will. At one point, I will be ready, even if the time may never be right.

I love you. No matter what, this is the highest truth.

Maura.

A/N: The story from the Holocaust survivor belongs to Eva Seligmann, a German teacher.

A comment on the show I wanted to make ever since that episode aired: I have a love-hate relationship with that scene from 6x08 when Maura tells Jane about her father's infidelity. I love the way Sasha Alexander portrayed it and the joke Jane makes in the beginning makes me laugh every time I watch it. But I hate the bad continuation of Maura's life story. She simply shouldn't have had a best friend's mother, and even if she did, she shouldn't have been home to witness her father's actions, because she was supposed to be at a boarding school... Since I used all of the information concerning her in my story, I'd say she ran into her father and his mistress during summer break, and the thing with the other best friend – let's just forget about that person and never name her again :P

And a comment on the premiere: (I know, many people are frustrated shippers, and it's getting hard for some (or a lot) of them to see past the non-existent Rizzles-Relationship) – BUT I think it's a quite interesting decision to challenge Maura the way they do, cause they are taking away one of her strongest suits: the reliableness of her brilliant mind. In a way, that's what my story is all about: Maura handling being WAY (!) out of her comfort zone because of having to forgo something that previously was intrinsically tied to her life. I am very curious of how the head injury story line will play out throughout the season.

Okay. Done. Oh no, one more thing: If you find Maura out of character because she's swearing, then you might be right. My Maura, however, has a reason, actually reasons, to be out of character that way.