I Nearly Lost Him!

By Hemel Lass(ie)

Slightly revised, some grammar fixed...Amita is up next and this will be complete. Enjoy. SMB 6-14-2007

ALAN'S POV - Thoughts On Arrival At the Scene Part A

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Dear God in heaven, Margaret my love…We Nearly Lost Him! Not Don this time, but our Charlie – sweet, safe in his ivory tower in Academia, little Charlie! Plus, he put himself in harm's way,get this? For A DEAD Man, for heaven's sake.

What happened to the Charlie Don and I always thought was, well, a little chicken?

Okay, in fairness, I did always realize just how much courage it took our little boy to go into all those class rooms with all those bullying, angry 'he was on their turf' older boys. Let's face it, most of the girls in his classes weren't much better. They would bully and/or take advantage of him as well.

We both know the other children were never very kind to our little boy. They only wanted him around when they thought they could bully him into doing their homework for them. They grudgingly accepted his tutoring when he was the only thing standing between them and getting kicked off whichever team they were on for poor academic results, but, even those times, the acceptance was mixed with liberal doses of "well, it doesn't hurt to be a computer in gym shoes, does it, Chuckie?" Other kids can be so cruel. To an exceptional child like Charlie, they often took cruel to a whole new level. I know Charlie never let either of us or even Don, know how bad things really were.

Charlie has practiced his own kind of courage since the day we discovered his gifts, but this direct, action charged kind of courage? No, this I would not have conjured up a fear of happening, in a couple of million years. He was supposed to be our 'safe' son.

It isn't that we loved Don, any less.

Don would never have LET us protect him, shield him; the way Charlie needed and let himself be protected by us.

Truth be told, Donnie was an adrenaline junky from the start. Before little Charlie was even born, Don was that way. He loved the 'edge' that risk gave him. From the moment he decided learning to crawl would be too boring and skipped straight to standing up and walking. He took his share of lumps and bumps and bruises, but he wasn't a crier, our Donnie. He pretty much would be getting back up, dusting himself off before you could even get there to kiss the boo-boo better. That frustrated your mother hen instincts didn't it, sweetheart?

Don thinks we coddled Charlie and protected him too much. You know that, right, love? Perhaps, to a degree, he is right in this. But, until he produces some of those longed for grandchildren, what does HE know about the joys and terrors of parenting? Like all those without children of their own, he thinks he knows exactly what he would do. Hah! Let's see him when his first born has the croup…or needs his first set of diapers changed, even. Bet he will sing a different tune then, eh?

Don still does not fully appreciate how much or how often his younger brother took more than his share of lumps. Or the risks and injuries to both his self-worth and his physical well-being, Charlie pushed past to get the education his questing mind required and needed.

The wonders of 20/20 hindsight, eh, my love? We both know now that too often we nurtured Charlie's wonderful mind, without regard to the fact he was that physically and especially socially, he was still just a little, little boy from the time we knew he was 'special', in the brains department.

We could never have shielded him from all harm. I believe that passionately now, as I did at the time. It takes a certain amount of stress to grow strong roots. Still, he did suffer for his gift, whether Don realizes that or not. In fact, I don't think I understood it fully until after you left us. That forced me to begin to confront the reality, the enormous reality of what life was really like for our Charlie. It was easy to wonder why one of my sons' seemed so soft, when I didn't confront the fact that we had raised the genius, but inadvertently looked over certain aspects of raising the CHILD in him to full manhood. And, that was not his fault. Nor was it yours, Margaret. That he turned out as well as he did is more a testament to your hard work and patience than my own. Mea Culpa on that.

That's why I was so happy when Charlie accepted my little nudge on the camping trip thing and went to Don's therapy session. When I heard our grown, tenured, prize winning, world renowned youngest say that he didn't want to go because "I work with him now... and he, you know, let's me hang around him."

When I reacted to that, he said. "Yes, Dad, I know. I am still the younger brother." Or, words to that effect. Well, at that point, I knew that Donnie's therapy or not, Charlie needed the chance to set the record straight on a few things.

It was many years before Charlie admitted to the two of us what he had really done on that camping trip. To his mind, his logic was flawless. He was chagrined and dismayed at the unintended fall out, but, being a math minded individual, he had surmised the only way to balance things out that weekend, for his much loved, older brother was to remove himself, little, not wanted there, Charlie Eppes, from the equation. That is what you do in mathematics, after all. You reduce the equation until you can properly add or subtract the remaining items. The fact he was only eight didn't matter.

If he could endure the bullies at school, the constant ire and irritation of his big brother, Don and his Mom and Dad's efforts to socialize him more and get him outside in the fresh air for longer periods of time, he figured he could handle anything else he found along the road home. The funny thing is that a part of me thinks he probably was right. He would have eventually made it home on his own.

We would have been going crazy in the meantime, of course. But, maybe, in a way, we deserved that worry. Perhaps, being the genius he is, Charlie was right. We should have either of left him home with you and had a family party for Don at another time, or the whole family should have gone and you would have been with Charlie, so Don would not have been unfairly burdened on his birthday camp out. Again, 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it has little to do with the real world of things.

Remember how he begged us not to tell Don, when he made his confession? You and I both thought Don needed to know, to understand a little better some of what his little brother faced every day, but Charlie insisted it wouldn't change any thing in the grand scheme of things. He was afraid it would only hurt an already strained relationship. Remember?

"Please, Mom…Dad…he hates me enough for being wierd and a freak geek already. Please don't tell him what I really did."

I wonder if Don has begun to understand now.

Of course, what actually occurs in such counseling sessions are privileged, as well they should be, but, after Charlie changed his mind, agreed and went to the session with Bradford? The longed-for attitudinal adjustment in Don to Charlie and in Charlie's relating to Don seemed to be happening and I was quite content.

I didn't bargain on this one. I never would have conjured up Charlie charging to the rescue of a dying man in a very danger fraught situation. I just never would have thought of it. Perhaps I should have known though. Courage often only emerges when the proper pressure is applied.

After all, I was there when Don first heard from Charlie and recognized that something was very wrong at that hospital! I heard him snap out that Charlie needed to get security back up there right away, when Charlie relayed that the guard was gone from guarding Ashby.

Don dashed off, as Don must when that sort of situation emerges, but I blithely assumed it was just a matter of Charlie calling down to security and getting them back up there. I never considered the possibility that both our boys would be at risk.

That Charlie would realize just how dire the situation had become and leap, nervous but determined into the fray himself. My imagination would never have conjured that up in a thousand years.

So, why, why is it that, though I was scared to death when Don explained by phone the predicament regarding Charlie and not knowing really where to look for him, after he reached the hospital? Why is it that I didn't totally panic, when he admitted his kid brother was missing in a huge area hospital with so many hiding places that?

Well, I am no Charlie, but I knew that the odds were not good, that our youngest and his company of the at risk would be found before this awful scenario had played itself out, whatever way it would play itself out. I should have been as frightened for him as I always am for Don, but oddly, I wasn't. It was as if a part of me assumed that our Charlie would be all right. Why? That makes no sense. Don carries a gun and knows how to use it. Charlie carries a computer and does brilliant equations in his mind.

By the time I arrived at the hospital, David had already relayed to me that the nurse had called in from the nearest land line amidst those lower corridors. He told me that our Don, and like a thousand of LA's so-called finest, were all over making sure our youngest boy was taken care of, yet even at that point, it still wasn't Charlie, I feared for. What was that? Denial. We REALLY could have lost him, Margaret.

I knew long before I saw Don in the halls when I first arrived at the hospital that Charlie was physically safe.

I will never forget the look to Don's face, the expression on it, mingled pride and stunned astonishment and lingering fear of what might have been, as he caught up with me briefly, before I had a chance to see our youngest. There was a whole new quality in the way he looked as he spoke of Charlie. I am sure that same mix of pride and horror at the danger Charlie had taken on in his efforts to save a dying man for a bit longer was mirrored on my face. Don looked almost beside himself with worry, but that was mixed with an admiration and respect for his brother, that was light years beyond the one he has always had for Charlie's unique mental abilities.

This time Charlie had wittingly, willingly stepped in to his turf, the turf of action, not just theory. His kid brother had persevered and won the day. On his own! Don did not get a chance to rescue his little brother this time. Not the way he has always done before.

When our Donnie told me how Charlie had managed to pull his own, that nurse and the dying agent Ashby's collective posteriors out of the frying pan, there was no begrudging quality, no holding back of the admiration that made him say. "Dad, he saved himself and the other two…with an old prototype MRI machine. I mean, who, but, our Charlie would even have been able to think of that, under that kind of stress and fear? You know he had to be scared, Pop. But, he acted anyway. Please, Dad, don't give him too hard of a time for this. I know it is scary and I don't ever want to see him in this position again, but, Damn! …I have never been more proud of him. Still confused by him, by how he DOES this kind of thing. Yeah, I am, but I am also so damn proud. This was against his grain, but he did it. Hell, yes, he did it."

My answer to Don was simple. "The same here. I don't like that he did this. But I couldn't be more proud…of BOTH my boys."

Don's response to that was that smile we just don't see enough of. That all out, full blown, shit eating grin that says he is on top of the world! Whatever mistakes we made, Margaret, my love, rearing our extra complicated set of two boys? To produce two sons, so willing to lay it all on the line when it really counts? We must have done SOMETHING right!

I have to go actually see Charlie now, Margaret. See for myself that he is okay. You'll probably hear more from me soon.

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I Nearly Lost Him!

Alan's POV, Part B

Very short, but I needed to add this bit. I just did. Too sappy? So sorry, my bad…but writing this made me quite happy. Just one fan's thoughts on what might have been running through Papa Eppes mind. SMB Also, revised6-14-2007

When Don briefed me down in the halls before I went up to the ICU area, he said what he did, and, he was off to do whatever mop up work, it is his job demands. I get the feeling someone was about to be taken to task in a big way, for the danger Charlie had just gone through, by one very proud, but pissed off older brother! And when I say taken to task? I mean in a very up close and personal kind of way!

I proceeded up to where my hungry eyes first saw Charlie.

When I first saw him, Margaret, he was hunched over the ICU desk where he must first have realized something was amiss and probably conversed with Don and the nurse before they set out on their improvised rescue run. He looked, well, more than a bit done in. In fact, he looked rather like he was about to toss his cookeis if you know what I mean.

All I could think to ask, was. "Charlie, how are you?"

True to his science oriented core, our youngest was ruthlessly honest in self appraisal. "Dad, I just risked my life for a dying man, and, that's not me!" He was nearly breathless, as he paced and gestured; his words almost seemed to trip over each other, as they tumbled from his lips: he was in such a hurry to share them. "I acted recklessly; against my own instinct for self preservation, and yet, in a weird way, I have NEVER – "and, he paused a moment, before he firmly, with great emphasis, stated, "felt more EMPOWERED."

The way he said it, Margaret, the look in his eyes, the motion of his hands, the set of his jaw - you know that look, as do I. It is the look of a people oppressed again and again throughout history and yet, we emerge from it. And, we stand.

It is the heritage of the people whom Moses led out from slavery under Pharaoh; the haunted, lost look of the survivors of European and Russian pogroms exiled from country after country, village after village, but still a people, and, still we stand. The look of those who held to who they were in the face of the Spanish inquisition and torture; the look of the survivors of the Holocaust who were little more than walking skeletons, when they were liberated from the death camps; yet survivors of whom some went on to come stateside and work for social justice, while others went on to found the modern state of Israel, which still holds the line against those who want the Jewish race gone, obliterated, exterminated, wiped forever from the face of this earth.

Through it all, our people have emerged, again and again, to say. "This matters. This means some thing. We stand for something – for justice, for those who can NOT stand for themselves, for and with the blacks during the civil rights marches, and against the injustice of the war as we did in our protests in Don's youth, love. We stand still. Most of all, we STAND."

Though I have never been one for keeping the traditional Jewish faith; you know I lean more towards Unitarian Universalist or liberal Episcopal myself. Still, I felt stir within me, the heart of a more traditional Jewish father who, on his son's Bar Mitzvah, stands tall when he says the ancient words. "Today, my son, YOU ARE A MAN."

Charlie took my breath away a bit; but, the actual words that passed my lips, as they quirked in bemused pride. "You Sound Like Don." For, that too, was the truth.

He went on, still firm in his clear headed statement of his belief. "A mind this brilliant deserves to know that it didn't die in vain. That it didn't LIVE in vain."

My love, my Margaret, I know, like me, you must have been so proud. So very proud of our son. With all our errors, missteps and misjudgments in parenting, we have two wonderful, courageous sons, both of whom in the face of danger and self doubt, give back to the world with all they can…and than a bit more on top of that. That is our legacy, Margaret and, a true mitzvah, both a blessing from, and our gift back to G-d and the world.

And, yes, my dear. I thought of you with a wistful longing when Amita burst through the doors. I assume Don must have called her. This old father's heart was both nostalgically sad that you were not physically present to see it, while also, selfishly glad that I had lived to.

The way Amita flung herself into our youngest boy's arms and greeted him with a passion and fervor matching any sparks we ever produced, in our hey day, love.

Finally, a glimmer of real hope for those much longed for…..grandchildren!