For those still following this story and wanting to know what happens at dinner. Don't expect the next chapter to be available this quickly, but I hope not to make you wait too long. It's in very rough shape and may take a while to get it into a shape I feel like sharing.
Once again, my thanks to Resourceress7 (Marisa Bennett) for her thoughts and corrections.
Disclaimer: Auggie belongs to USA Network's Covert Affairs writers. I just like taking him out of the box and playing around with him.
Chapter Eight – Wanted: Dead? Or Alive?
"Are you sure you okay with this," Adam asked as he led Auggie towards the waiting rental car. He'd sent everyone else on ahead to the vehicle.
"Yeah. I'm fine," Auggie replied. "Why do you ask?"
"You've had that deer-in-the-headlights-look ever since we arrived."
Auggie closed his eyes and sighed softly. "Okay. Truth is: I am a bit nervous. This is all new to me and I'm kind of afraid that I'll embarrass myself."
Adam stopped short and turned to face his brother. "Are you forgetting that this is new to us, too? You've had what – a month? Five weeks? – to start adjusting to being blind. It's been three days since we learned that our baby brother, and son, was blinded in Iraq. Don't you think that we're nervous, too? I'm in charge of keeping my youngest brother safe tonight and I don't want to blow that either."
A wry smile briefly flitted across Auggie's face. His always-in-control big brother was admitting to being nervous about something. He never thought he'd see the day. "Just don't walk me into a wall, or let me trip over a chair and I'll be fine. Let's go and get this over with," he said lightly. "I'm glad you're driving and not me."
Adam made a brief annoyed sigh and Auggie could just imagine that he was rolling his eyes, too.
After what seemed to be twice as long as it should have taken to drive into Reston, Auggie asked, "Where are we going? You're not kidnapping me back to Illinois are you?"
"According to the directions she gave me, we're almost there. Your friend Marissa suggested the Olive Garden in Sterling. Oh, there it is, up on the right." Adam said with relief.
The Olive Garden in Sterling, Virginia – he'd been there several times before on dates. The one in Tyson's Corner had been closer, but it was tucked away in the basement of an office building and he liked the lake view of this one better. He'd even brought Natasha there a couple of times. Mentally he reviewed their menu – what of the multitude of offerings would he best be able to handle without making a fool of himself? And he tried to recall the layout of the place: foyer, hostess station, bar and restrooms. It had been a while and his memory of the inside layout was sketchy at best.
Auggie felt the car take a slow, sharp turn and then come to a stop. When he heard the other doors open, he opened the front passenger door and stepped out. Shaking out his cane, the folded sections snapped into place; he tapped it twice on the asphalt to make sure the sections were securely locked together. He listened intently to what was happening around him. He heard car doors closing, including the one beside him. A hand tapped the back of his left hand and he followed Adam's strong forearm up to grasp it just above the elbow. Since his brother was a novice sighed guide, Auggie kept his cane angled diagonally in front of him, its tip skimming the ground. Adam led him toward the rear of the car then they made a sharp left turn.
After a few more paces, Adam pronounced, "Door. I'm opening it out to the right" Auggie swept his cane to the right over the textured concrete and located the opened door. Keeping his left hand latched onto Adam's arm, Auggie shifted his cane to hold it pinched between the base of his thumb and the inside edge of his right hand, so he could press his fingers against the door to keep it open as he walked through.
Once inside Alfred Anderson requested a table for five away from the rest of the early diners. Adam led Auggie and the others to the table and placed Auggie's hand on the back of the chair. As he assessed the chair and sat, Auggie heard Adam settle in to the seat to his left. Until they spoke, Auggie would not be sure who had taken the seat to his right. He pulled his cane apart and wrapped the elastic cord around it and laid it to his right on the table. As surreptitiously as he could Auggie's fingers assessed the table in front of him. He located his wrapped flatware and what he took to be a menu. Lot of good that did him.
"Round table?" he whispered to Adam as he felt the contour of the edge of the table.
"Yeah. Mom's to your right," Adam whispered back. "Dad's to her right and Livie's to my left. There's one empty seat almost straight across from you."
Adam ordered a magnum of the house Rosato and an appetizer platter for the table. In a moment of careless abandon, Auggie picked up the laminated menu from the table and flipped it open as if he were still able to read it.
"August, what are you doing?" his mother asked suddenly, confusion evident in her tone.
"Pretending I can still read a menu," he calmly replied. The flicker of a smile floated across his lips.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked.
"Aren't the rest of you perusing your menus? Just wanted to fit in," he said dryly.
He felt the menu being tugged from his hands. "It would help the image a bit if you didn't have it upside down," Adam said, replacing the menu between Auggie's hands.
Auggie shook his head. "So much for that illusion." He smiled and winked in what he hoped was his mother's direction as he placed the menu back on the table.
"Auggie, do you want me to read the menu to you?" Abigail asked her son softly.
"No, Mom. I've been to an Olive Garden before. I know what I'd like for my dinner, the Lasagna Classico. I had considered the spaghetti, but I've always wound up with more of it on my lap than anywhere else. I'm sure that this," he waved his right hand in front on his eyes, "won't help that much."
"August!" his father exclaimed softly. "That wasn't necessary."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, Mom," he said in mock apology. "Just trying to lighten the mood. Ever since you came to the rehab center you've been acting like somebody died."
"Have not," Adam chimed in.
"Have too," Auggie quickly came back.
"Have not," Adam stated again.
Just as Auggie was about to reply with another 'Have too' when Alfred Anderson commanded, "Boys that will be quite enough."
"Yes, sir," the brothers said in unison, nudging each other with an elbow.
The opportunity for further brotherly banter ended when the server came back with the wine and took their food orders. He returned again in a few minutes with the appetizer platter and then a few minutes later with the salad bowl and breadsticks.
When the appetizer platter arrived, Adam served Auggie and told him what was on the plate before him. He also poured Auggie a glass of the wine and described its location according to the clock face, like Marissa had explained.
The smell of the food in front of him tantalized Auggie. He was very pleased that everything was finger foods for the moment. He located and popped a stuffed mushroom into his mouth, fully savoring its flavor, then a moment later a fried zucchini quickly followed. And, although it was not his beverage of choice, even the wine was good.
He was setting his wine glass back down when his hand collided with what could only be his mother's arm.
"Mom, what are you doing?" he asked with alarm.
"Just serving you some salad," she replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Oh, okay." It took a bit of self-control for him not to chastise his mother and let her know that he was perfectly capable of serving himself from the salad bowl. It might have been a bit awkward, but he could have done it. Then he heard his father tell her 'thank you' and understood that she'd dished him out some of the salad also. She hadn't served him because she didn't think that he could do it for himself. For that he was relieved.
A moment later he heard something clatter to the floor beside him. "What was that?" he asked quickly. He hadn't felt his arm brush against anything.
"I'm sorry, August. I knocked your cane off the table. I'll get it for you."
"That's okay, Mom. I'll get it later when we're ready to leave."
"You're sure you won't forget it."
"No, Mom. I won't forget it. Right now it's my best friend."
"Huh?" Those at the table responded almost in unison.
"That's what Marissa, my mobility instructor, calls it. Keeps me from running into trouble, and it comes with me almost everywhere."
As they ate the mood was tense, but light conversation ensued. Adam and Olivia caught Auggie up on the doings of his nieces and nephew; his mom caught him up on the rest of the family. His father was strangely quiet during the meal. Auggie was quietly pleased that some of his new-found skills had kept him from looking too inept under the scrutiny of his family.
"Why so silent, Dad?" Auggie finally inquired. "You said that you all wanted to talk to me, and I don't think that catching me up on the doings of the rest of the family was what you meant. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about and who are you still mad at? Me?"
"A little I guess," Alfred said with sadness. "Why did you not let Alan tell us you'd even been hurt? Why did you check into a rehabilitation facility so far from home when the Hines VA is just an hour away? Why were you hiding from us? Why did you have to volunteer to go back to Iraq? Isn't it bad enough that we had one son in a battle zone? Why did you have to go back and then get hurt? Don't you realize what all of the worry about her two sons in harm's way has done to you mother?" At each question he became louder and more agitated.
"Calm down, Fred," Abigail commanded. She reached out and touched her son's right hand
"Please, Dad," Auggie said firmly. "One question at a time. I'm an adult, but Mom worried about me when I was working in D.C. It's what mothers do. I realize that no matter how old I get, I'll always be her baby.
"When I was given the option of places to come to learn how to cope with my new situation I wanted to be somewhere close to home. My home – Washington D.C. I didn't want Alan to tell you and I hid because I didn't want anyone to see me in the state that I was in then. It was more of a gut reaction, sort of like an injured animal crawling off to lick its wounds until it either died or was well enough to rejoin the pack. Seeing me like that would have hurt Mom way more than not knowing where I was for a few weeks.
"When I was offered the job to go back to Iraq I didn't know that Alan was going to be there, too. But even if I had I'm not sure that would have changed my decision. I thought that I was going back over to make a difference in getting our guys back home in one piece. I had no idea that I wouldn't come home that way. I could have come home in a flag-draped box. Would you rather that? Would you?" Despite his attempt to stay calm, Auggie's voice rose in the end.
"Auggie, calm down," his mother said patting his hand. "Of course we don't want you dead. Why would you even think that?"
"I don't know, Mom. Just the irrational musings of a delirious mind?" He was perfectly aware of why he'd asked. He was now damaged goods. He needed to know that his family still accepted his as the less than whole person they'd raised. In his heart he knew that his father would never be as proud of him as his three older wealthy and highly successful brothers. But that was okay; he had always been happy with who he'd turned out to be, and now knew that eventually he would be able to get back into computer programming – something he'd loved to do since college. He could still be that person. Parts of him would be different now, but he was still the person that he'd been before the IED had claimed his sight.
"Dad?" Auggie looked toward the place he thought that his father sat.
"Of course I don't wish you dead. I just wish that you hadn't gotten hurt."
Damaged goods, Auggie heard himself think the phrase again.
His dad paused for a moment, then continued. "That didn't come out quite the way that I meant. Yes, I do wish that you hadn't been injured over there, but you were, but it doesn't make a difference. I still love you," he said as he rose to come and put his arms around Auggie. As his father pressed his cheek against his own, Auggie felt wetness on his father's cheek.
"Why are you crying, Dad?" He could not recall a single time when his father had cried in public.
"Because you are here, mostly in one piece, and seem to be coping with your new world quite well."
"I'm doing better now than I was a few weeks ago, but not as well as I'm told I will be in the future."
"What are your plans for the future," his mother asked as she pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. He felt tears on her face, too.
"Well, they said I'll be at the rehab center close to sixteen weeks. I've got another ten or so to go. When I'm done I'm told I'll be ready to work and live independently. I hope they know what they're talking about."
"If, for some reason, that's not the case, there's always room in our house for you," his mother said softly.
"Or with us," Olivia stated firmly.
"Thanks. I appreciate the offer, but I hope not to have to take you up on the generous offers," he said confidently. He was both pleased and confused that no one was insisting that he come back to Glencoe. "Do you think that sometime before I'm out of the center, Austin could come out for a few days? There's some stuff that I need to get rid of and I'd just as soon have him help me."
"Like what?" Adam asked. "I can stay on for a few extra days if you need me to."
"Thanks, but, I think Tony or Austin would be better at this. And of the two I figure that Austin would be the most willing. Power of Attorney and some other legal stuff are probably going to be needed."
"What on earth are you getting rid of that you'll need all of that?" his mother asked with surprise.
"My car and motorcycle. I won't be using them anymore, and I don't want to be taken advantage of when they're sold. Austin would be good at giving test drives and negotiating a decent price."
There was a quiet moment when everyone seemed to ponder the weight of what Auggie had just said. He'd never drive again – never see again – and the world might not always be friendly to a blind man.
"Hey, Did I tell you about all the cool computer equipment I'm learning to use? I can do everything without needing a mouse or a screen!" Auggie continued a few moments later.
The tension and somber reflection now starting to dissipate, Auggie and his family eased into more pleasant conversation, punctuated by a few bursts of table-wide laughter.
When he returned to his room later that evening, Auggie felt a peace that he'd not had since he'd woken up blind. A large weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Even though they might not have agreed with his hasty decisions, they had accepted them. And, more importantly, they had accepted him. Adam had begun to tease and joke with him just as he always had – no holds barred. He knew that his parents had reservations about his future, but they were going to be okay with his muddling through on his own for a while.
Of all the things that he would remember about this day, it would be Adam's attempt to make a blind joke when he'd misjudged where his water glass was and knocked it over. Auggie was not offended in the least; his heart had soared at his brother's apparent easy acceptance of the new August David Anderson.
Please read and review. Let me know what you think of my version of this part of Auggie's family.