Chapter 68: Lunchtime Leisure
"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of night." – Kahlil Gibran
"We often sing lullabyes to our children that we ourselves may sleep." – Kahlil Gibran
"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers." – Kahlil Gibran
Vaughn stopped, looking back over at his mother.
"You were kidnapped while coming out of a coffee house?"
"Yes…"
"What happened after that?" Amélie pressed.
"Well…I was unconscious, I don't know for how long, but when I woke up, I was tied up in the back of a truck and I had a horrible headache." He smiled slightly, but Amélie wasn't amused at all.
"Did you try to escape?" she asked.
"Of course!" Vaughn said somewhat offended, "What do you take me for? I am a spy after all mom!"
Amélie smiled, "Of course you are…I'm sorry, please continue."
Vaughn went back to the story; "I had no idea where I was, who had taken me – although I had a pretty good guess on that one – or where I was. I tried to get out of the binds they had me in, but I couldn't. The truck must have driven for hours. When it stopped, I tried to overpower the guard, which I did with some success, but his buddy showed up then and that ended my escape. I did walk away with a renewed headache though and several other bruises…"
Vaughn stopped, thinking before he continued again, "After the escape attempt, they kept a much closer eye on me. And they moved me to the compound where I would stay for the rest of my internment. I'm kinda hazy on details from there…I know they took me to the cell…" he stopped shivering slightly.
"Cell?" Amélie gasped.
"Yeah…and I remember meeting Sloane – he wanted to see his latest capture and I saw the rest of the men that would be my…well…they were pretty much my torture detail. Sark and Derevko were there too I think…I'm not sure…"
Amélie moved closer to her son, "What did they do to you Michael?"
He looked away, not meeting her eyes anymore. Before he started talking Amélie noted the distant look in his eyes, and it frightened her to no end.
"They did lots of things," he started looking down. In all honesty, he really didn't want to continue.
"Like what?" Amélie pressed.
"Beatings…burnings…" he glanced in his mother's direction trying to gauge her reaction, but her face was unreadable, "whippings…"
She stopped him after that one, "Whippings!"
He looked at her, "Yeah…"
"Oh my God Michael!" She said moving closer still.
He really didn't know what else to say and he really didn't want to add more either.
"I'm so sorry Michael," his mother said quietly, sensing that he didn't want to continue.
"It's not your fault."
"But I'm still sorry."
"Thank you," he said, meaning it.
Amélie looked at her watch, "Oh! It's time for your medication. Sydney said I should give it to you with lunch. What would you like? I'll make whatever you wish Michael."
He smiled, "Hmm…" he thought, "how about toasted cheese?"
"With tomato soup?" his mother asked smiling.
"Yeah," he said.
She smiled more broadly and moved over to kiss his head, "You're still my little boy Michael…"
He smiled, "I know…I'm just bigger now."
She moved into the kitchen and took out everything she'd need to make Michael's lunch.
She got the soup going and then made him the grilled cheese. She poured a glass of milk and put the pill bottles on the tray where she then placed the rest of his food. She carried it into the living room and pulled him up to a more sitting position.
"Is that comfortable?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's good," he answered.
With a nod she picked up the tray and sat it on his lap.
When he saw the lunch, he smiled, "No crusts?"
She look at him concerned, "Did you want crust?"
"No."
"If you did, I can make another one…"
"No, mom, no crust is great. I just don't think I've had no crust in years. Probably the last time you made me a sandwich."
He picked up the first part of the sandwich, still grinning because the sandwich was cut into fourths – four triangles. He dunked the sandwich in the soup and him mother watched happily as he downed the first quarter of the sandwich.
"I didn't know how many or which pills you were supposed to take, so I brought them all. I hope you know which ones," his mother explained, motioning to the bottles.
Vaughn stopped eating momentarily and looked at the array of pill bottles in front of him on the tray. His brow furrowed as he thought. He looked over to his mother whose eyebrows rose when he looked to her.
"You don't know either?" she asked, somewhat amused.
"Uh…well…Sydney usually just gives me a bunch and then I take them," he replied.
His mother continued to look at him.
"No," he admitted.
She smiled back.
"I think there's a sheet – I can figure it out…I have to take the ibuprofen and the naproxen for inflammation and pain. Usually I think she gives me both. Then I take either the Percocet or the Vicodin but usually not both, unless I have a muscle spasm, then I take, like, everything."
He looked at his mother again and she asked, "So how many pills do you have to take?"
"Uh…two of each of the ibuprofen and naproxen and two of either the Percocet or the Vicodin."
"Ok," Amélie moved over to the tray and opened the ibuprofen bottle, took two out and handed them to Vaughn. He took them and then waited until she opened the naproxen and gave him two of those. Then she stopped.
"Ok, which one?" she held up the last two bottles.
Vaughn looked between the two, "Uh…I don't care, you pick."
He went back to eating while Amélie decided.
She finally handed him two Vicodin and then took all of the pill bottles back into the kitchen.
When she returned, Vaughn was finishing the last quarter of his sandwich. That left the soup, and his brow moved down, obviously in thought.
"Hmm…" he said.
"What?" Amélie asked looking over at him again.
"Well…I'm good eating the sandwich with my right hand, but I'm not so good with utensils."
"Well, of course not," Amélie exclaimed, "you're left handed."
"Yeah…I know…"
"Well, then here…let me help you." Amélie moved over and sat on the couch next to her son.
She took the bowl of soup, got a spoonful and blew on it, making sure it wasn't too hot. Then she expertly lowered it down to Vaughn's mouth, not spilling a drop.
Vaughn settled into the couch, letting his mother help him.
Once he was finished, she wiped his mouth with a napkin and then took the tray into the kitchen, cleaning up.
When she was done she came back into the living room and sat down in the chair next to Vaughn.
He craned his neck slightly to look at her and said, "Thanks mom, it was great…you're very good at that."
"I've had practice," Amélie said smiling.
"What would you like to do now?" she asked.
"Mmm…don't know…what did you do when I was bored at home?"
Amélie thought a moment and smiled, obviously remembering something fond from Michael's childhood, "Well, honestly Michael, you were never very bored as a child. When you were, you found something to occupy yourself. Let's see…you'd read, or color, or go outside and play, watch a movie, we'd play games sometimes, you'd draw…things like that…"
"Mmm…well…I don't know…whatever you want."
"Should we read?"
"We can, but you'll have to turn the pages…"
She smiled, "Do you want me to read to you?"
Vaughn smiled back, "Yeah, I'd like that."
Amélie got up and went over to the bookshelf, browsing through the books.
She read off a few titles to Vaughn before stopping on one, smiling, and pulling it out gently.
"Well, well…" she said turning to show her son the cover of the book.
He returned the smile as he snuggled into the couch.
Amélie sat down in the chair next to the couch and opened the book.
She started, "Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Part One – The Old Buccaneer. The Old Sea-Dog At the Admiral Benbow. Squire Trelawney, Doctor Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and the brown old seaman, with the saber cut, first took up his lodging under our roof."
Amélie stopped, looking over at Vaughn as she paused between paragraphs. He was watching intently like it was the first time he ever heard her read this to him.
"Do you remember the first time I read you this book Michael?"
"Of course I do…I was seven…I had pneumonia and you'd spend hours just reading. Then at night when dad got home from work, he'd read to me too…the whole time I was sick…"
Amélie smiled, "You'd fall asleep every time I read…"
Vaughn smiled back.
She asked, "Would you like me to continue?"
He nodded enthusiastically, reminding her of how he acted when he was about seven.
She started again, "I remember as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hard-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over his shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails and the saber cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and the breaking out in that old sea-song that he sung so often afterward," Amélie paused looking over at Michael.
They said together, "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
The both chuckled and then Amélie continued, "in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been turned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at that cliffs and up at our signboard."
Amélie paused again, glancing at Michael, who smiled in return and followed it with a yawn.
Amélie continued, smiling knowingly, "'This is a hardy cove,' said he, at length; 'and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?'"
Vaughn broke in, "Mom, what's a grog-shop?"
Amélie looked at her son, "You've asked me that every time we've read this book…you know what it is by now Michael."
"I know…but there's no reason to stop asking now…"
She replied, "Well, Michael, a grog-shop is a shop or room where liquor is sold and where you can drink it…usually very hard liquor."
"Oh," he said.
"That's the same response you've given me every time too," Amélie said looking back at the book as she continued, "'My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.' 'Well then,' said he, 'this is the berth for me. Here you, matey,' he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; 'bring up alongside and held up my chest. I'll stay here bit,' he continued, 'I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at – there;' and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. 'You can tell me when I've worked through that,' said he, looking as fierce as a commander.'"
Amélie paused again in her reading, glancing over at her son. She smiled sweetly as she gazed upon Michael. He was fast asleep, her little boy, her angel. She moved over quietly, setting the book on the table, and covered him with a light blanket. Then she went back to the chair and began to read again to herself, while keeping a silent vigil over her slumbering son.
