§ § § - - October 8, 2009
On Thursday afternoon Anastasia decided to stay awake; and what was more, she chose to get fussy for one of the few times her parents could list. She wouldn't let go of Leslie, not even to go to Roarke; while she did consent to go to Christian, she clearly preferred to remain with Leslie for the most part. "This is unusual," Christian observed, watching Anastasia put her head stubbornly on her mother's shoulder and eye her surroundings with what looked like nothing so much as distrust. "She's always so easygoing, it's a surprise when she gets moody."
"I might have to take her with me into your memory," Leslie remarked with a faint sigh. "Unless we wait around a few minutes and see if she goes to sleep."
Christian smiled, edging over to stand just at her shoulder and slowly smooth the baby's hair with one palm. Anastasia didn't seem to mind this, as long as no one tried to move her; she peered at her father for a minute, then poked a thumb in her mouth and went back to staring warily toward the inner foyer.
Roarke regarded his daughter and son-in-law with just enough amusement that they took notice. "Something funny, Father?" Leslie asked.
"The two of you," said Roarke indulgently, "so eager to rush into each other's recollections that you must force patience with your recalcitrant child. I sometimes think you two would far rather simply be with each other than anything else in the world—including spending time with your children."
"We've been with this little turkey the entire day," Leslie said in mild protest, grinning. "I think she's just decided to see what we'll do if she gets cranky on us."
"Come on now, Stasia, try to sleep," Christian coaxed his daughter in a soft voice. "You missed your morning nap—I suspect that's what's making you so clingy now. If you go to sleep now, you'll never know we were gone, and when you wake, we'll be right there."
Leslie giggled. "Listen to you, my love, trying to reason with a baby."
"Who knows but that it just might work?" Christian returned whimsically, and they all laughed softly. "Perhaps if you continue to hold her, and I keep stroking her hair, it might make her drowsy enough to drift off."
"What have the older children been doing in school lately?" Roarke asked, and that gave them a chance to distract themselves while Christian and Leslie summarized the triplets' latest school activities. Their conversation turned to a few other subjects, including the progression of the plans to form an administrative committee that Leslie could oversee whether she happened to be on the island or in Lilla Jordsö; Roarke asked Leslie if she had spoken to Michiko and Camille about taking positions on it, and Leslie admitted she hadn't had the opportunity as yet.
"Which I find curious, since Michiko is next door and we should see her every day," Christian said. "Perhaps it shouldn't be; we don't see Grady and Maureen every day either. The latest in regard to Catalina, we heard last month, is that she and Michiko are on speaking terms, at least via e-mail. Apparently she sends her mother a few lines in the messages Michiko exchanges with her stepson the king, and now Cat has begun badgering Michiko to move back to Arcolos. It's hard to believe a child that young can be so stubborn; but I've heard of people to whom place is everything, who are so attached to one place from an amazingly early age that any attempt to transplant them somewhere else is doomed to spectacular failure. It seems Cat is one such."
Roarke smiled. "So it would appear. Of course, the great probability is that in the wake of Errico's death last year, being uprooted from her home was more traumatic change than young Catalina was prepared to withstand."
"It still amazes me that it would manifest in her this early in her life," Christian said. "In any case, Michiko keeps busy giving singing lessons to students from the Air Force base, and the last time Leslie spoke with her, Michiko reported that at least one Arcolosian publisher is interested in having her write her memoir."
"Indeed!" said Roarke, amused.
"She wasn't sure what to make of that," Leslie remarked with a grin. "She said something to me about how memoirs are for those in the twilight of their lives. I'm not calling her vain, but I think she's not exactly thrilled about being seen as old, even obliquely. She didn't like the thought of being the dowager queen either."
"Then she'd better not move back to Arcolos," Christian said, lifting a brow.
"I don't think she planned on it," Leslie told him, surprised. "Why do you ask?"
He cleared his throat a little and draped his right arm loosely over her right shoulder, still absently smoothing Anastasia's downy head. "I had e-mails from no fewer than three different family members: Gerhard—which was a surprise—Carl Johan, and Roald, asking if we had decided yet where we ultimately plan to live. They came last night, which was why I was in the library on the computer for so long. It's October, my Rose. We need to start making some hard-and-fast decisions about certain things."
She nodded reluctantly, and Roarke studied them. "This is, of course, entirely up to the two of you; but if you need any questions answered or simply wish for an impartial sounding board, you know you may always talk with me."
Relief filled Leslie's face, and Christian smiled. "I think we'd both like that, Mr. Roarke, thank you. Perhaps tomorrow or Saturday."
Roarke nodded and agreed, "Very well. I do suggest, however, that you at least talk a little before that meeting. I suspect you've both been putting it off because you still have time, but that time is rapidly running out, and you'll have to decide and begin implementing whatever it takes to carry through with those decisions." As Christian and Leslie nodded, he noticed the baby and smiled. "You seem to have soothed Anastasia to sleep. You can leave her in her crib in your old room, Leslie, and then you two can visit each other's memories."
"Don't worry, my Rose," Christian said softly on their way back downstairs after settling Anastasia. "We'll find a way, but please don't fret about it right this minute; I want you to enjoy these memories."
She squeezed his hand and paused long enough to smile at him. "Okay, my love...I'll do my best. I'm just...I'm just so glad I have you." She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her hard; neither of them saw Roarke standing near the desk, watching them with a wistful look about him. By the time they came out of their embrace, they saw only the same calm, courtly, smiling man they had known for years, crossing the room toward them to send them on their latest little adventure.
"I'm sure you two know what to do by now," Roarke said humorously, returning their grins. "Christian?"
"You may gain a little more insight into how I was beginning to think with this one," Christian said slowly. "I was sixteen in it and having something of a brother-to-brother talk with Carl Johan. You'll see what about when you get there."
Leslie nodded, feeling about as pensive as he looked at the moment. "Yours might be easier to take than mine. What you'll be seeing is my thirteenth birthday. It was just about three months before the fire. Keep an eye on my mother."
Roarke glanced back and forth between them, then asked gently, "Are you ready?"
They both nodded, and he gestured toward the doors; this time, they shared another long hug, as if trying to reassure each other, before venturing forth. When the doors had closed behind them both, Roarke drew in a long, steadying breath, let it out, and withdrew from an inner jacket pocket the two sheets of paper on which his daughter and son-in-law had written out memories to share. Tomorrow will be easier, he promised silently. Tomorrow will be happier. Let me give you all the gifts I can, while I have the ability. He flicked a glance toward the ceiling. The tribunal could just cool their heels for at least another day.
§ § § - May 6, 1978
At first Christian wasn't sure he was in the right place. Confused, he stared at the house and lawn before him, then frowned and began to pivot in place, checking out his surroundings. Ah yes, that's right, he realized. He could recall the other homes on Banner Street from his trip with Leslie to Susanville after a neighborhood boy had discovered the safe Shannon had left behind; but what he remembered otherwise was an overgrown vacant lot with a lone dead tree and a depression holding a small mountain of ashes and half-buried secrets. Not here, not at this time. The tree was vibrantly alive, verdant with spring leaves; the yard was neatly mowed, and there were flower beds along the front of the white two-story house. He stared at the structure in fascination; it had a slightly Swiss look to it, he thought, with the scrolling scalloped edge running along the gable that faced the street and the dark-green window shutters that actually had heart-shaped cutouts in them. Two double windows looked out from the upper story; the lower story held a bow window at the left of the front door and a window at the right that appeared to be half again the height of the upstairs ones. Christian gazed in amazement; Leslie had talked so much of her stingy biological father that he could hardly believe this was the house she had lived in with Shannon, Michael, Kristy and Kelly. Putting up appearances? he wondered. Making himself look good by providing a decent place to live, without allowing his wife to give their girls more than the bare minimum quality of things they needed? All he could do was shake his head.
A balmy breeze stirred his hair and lifted the corner of the pink-and-green cloth covering the picnic table that sat in the front yard. It looked deserted, but there were a few covered platters sitting on it, along with a stack of paper plates, another of napkins that had been anchored with a mustard bottle, and a small plastic basket holding plastic forks, knives and spoons. As he stood gazing at the scene, the front door flew open and out popped the twins, each one carrying a gaily wrapped present; Shannon came out behind them with what clearly had to be a covered cake plate. Christian pulled in a breath, ventured into the yard and skirted the table, giving Shannon, Kristy and Kelly a fairly wide berth as if he were afraid they would sense him there. But he had a purpose to his step, and the front door—which had no screen door, he saw—stood wide open. He trotted up the wooden stoop and into the house, emerging into a living room that contained a collection of worn fifties-vintage furniture. To the right was the dining room and, mostly hidden from view, the kitchen toward the back of the house, the way he remembered Leslie describing it in their 2002 visit here. A flight of stairs led out of the living room, beginning about ten feet directly in front of him, going up three steps to a landing and then continuing on at the left, vanishing behind the back wall. As he stood there taking in the layout of the Hamilton house, he heard a muted thump from upstairs and remembered why he'd gone in. A sense of anticipation swirled around his gut and he took the initial three steps in one quick leap, then the remaining stairs two at a time.
On the second floor he found himself standing in a hall that ran the width of the house; he was at the left-hand end over the living room, where he came around the railing on the edge of the stairwell and peered toward the other end, facing that way. At his left, just at the top of the steps, was a bathroom; across from that, to his right, was an open door revealing a room filled with little-girl artifacts: unmade twin beds; dolls and stuffed animals; a bookshelf jammed with a huge collection of children's novels; framed prints of kittens and little girls wearing bonnets and patched old-fashioned dresses, mounted on the walls. The far side of the room was half covered with unicorn drawings tacked to the wall, and he leaned in enough to gape at it before letting out a delighted laugh as the memory came back to him. This was clearly Kristy and Kelly's room.
Down the hall were two more doors, one on each side of the hall; he ventured forward and cautiously stuck his head into the door on the right. At first glance it seemed to be deserted; here, too, was a twin bed, this one neatly made up, and some worn furniture—a mirrored dresser, a tiny night table painted white to match the bed, a narrow bookshelf with another collection of novels therein. The shag carpeting so popular in 1970s homes covered the floor, in a peculiar shade of pale pink that looked like cotton candy; the walls were plain white, as were the curtains at the window, though they were ruffled and tied back to make a pretty frame for the scene outside. A short stack of folded clothing sat atop the bed; as Christian watched, Leslie emerged from another part of the room he couldn't see, lifting some of the items up and making to put them away in dresser drawers.
He scrutinized her minutely: this was the girl who, just three months from now, would lose just about everything she owned. This room, the furniture, those clothes she was putting away, the books on the shelf...soon it would all be a pile of ashes. In the oddly nauseating Easter-pastel pink and unrelieved white of the room, a splotch of vivid color caught his eye and he knelt to get a better look. Crammed under a low shelf on the night table lay a fraying red duffel bag with white straps. It gave him a jolt and he straightened abruptly, remembering Leslie telling him about that duffel and how it had contained everything she had left in the world when she was sent to Fantasy Island. My poor Rose, he thought, watching the girl moving serenely back and forth, if only it could have been different for you. And yet...if it had, would he ever have known her?
Through the open window he heard a voice call out from the front yard; Leslie heard it as well, shoving a stuck drawer back into its space before going to the window. "I'm almost done, Mom," she called out, her voice still a girl's but shading toward the adult voice he knew and loved. Shannon responded with something Christian couldn't make out; Leslie turned from the window and paused, looking around the room with critical eyes. She tucked away the last few bits of clothing, nodded, and headed out.
Christian followed her, thinking about the shabby little room Leslie had called her own for a few years, wondering at the same time if he had given her enough of what he felt she deserved. Even if he could never make up for what she had suffered at Michael's hands, he hoped at least that he could make the rest of her life as happy as possible; and in that second he made a crucial decision. Whatever it takes to make her happy, I'll agree to it, no questions asked, no protests made. He felt better when he'd made that vow, and emerged into the front yard behind the newly thirteen-year-old girl with a sense of hope, even in the midst of what he suspected he might see throughout the remainder of this memory.
Some neighborhood kids had gathered in the yard, including a somewhat chubby girl with wild straw-colored curls frothing around her face, wearing a T-shirt and shorts that she was clearly about to grow out of. Kristy and Kelly were running around the yard playing tag with a few other kids, and the curly-haired girl and three or four others gathered around Leslie, wishing her a happy birthday and handing her gifts. Shannon called everyone to the picnic table, and the party got under way, with everyone having sandwiches, potato salad, pickles both sweet and sour, and some store-brand soda to wash it down. For dessert there was the birthday cake; the group sang to Leslie, Shannon urged her to blow out the candles before the breeze did it for her, and soon everyone was enjoying the cake, along with some ice cream (hmm, not butter brickle, I see! Christian thought with amusement). The curly-haired girl, Christian had learned by now, was the infamous Cindy Lou Brooks; the others were evidently some of Leslie's school classmates. Leslie unwrapped several gifts—a book, a tiny silver puffed heart on a matching chain to go around her neck, a gray plush mouse with a pink ribbon tied around its neck—and Christian watched her thank each giver with a broad smile, painfully aware that these things, like the rest, would be burnt to ashes soon. For the first time, he chanced a look at Shannon; he found himself staring at the tortured expression on the woman's face as she gazed at her daughter opening birthday gifts.
"Mom, are you okay?" asked one of the twins while Leslie was thanking one of the older girls for her gift of a set of little notepads.
Shannon's head shot around to stare, and she managed a smile that Christian could see didn't fool the girl at all. "I'm fine, Kelly, why?"
" 'Cause you look funny," said Kelly frankly. "It's a birthday party, so you're s'posed to be happy. We're all having fun—" She cut herself off just then, at the same moment a large dark-blue sedan pulled into the empty driveway. Christian realized for the first time that the dusty white station wagon was gone; they must have traded it in for this new car at some point between Leslie's last memory and this one. The arrival attracted everyone else's attention, and a moment later Christian understood why: the driver got out, slammed the car door, and approached slowly, all the while staring at the little party in the yard. His face was lean and speckled with stubble; he was tall and wiry but a little scrawny, with muscular arms showing the outlines of major veins running down them, and dressed in worn jeans, an ancient T-shirt spotted with equally ancient stains, and dirty white sneakers. A tattered, dusty Boston Red Sox cap crowned his head, but Christian could see hair the color of dirty dishwater sticking out in short, straight spikes from beneath the rim. He squinted, not entirely from the sun, and paused a few feet from the picnic table, glaring.
"What the hell is all this?" he asked finally, in a sharp voice that still carried a fair load of Boston accent. Oddly, it reminded Christian of Ben Keller. "What're you doing?"
"We're celebrating Leslie's birthday," Shannon said evenly, meeting his malevolent stare with a quietly defiant one of her own. "You were supposed to be gone all day."
"Yeah, well, the golf game fell through," said Michael Hamilton, surveying the table with the remains of the cake, the empty paper plates, the wadded-up wrapping paper, the few small presents Leslie had received. "So I guess you figured you could go ahead and give that brat a party just for turning thirteen, since I wasn't here."
Christian, appalled, looked at Leslie, whose face was stony, with the red tint of angry embarrassment showing through despite the façade she tried to put up. Michael's last sentence seemed to goad her; she aimed a curled lip in his direction and sniped, "Wow, I can't believe you actually remembered how old I am."
Leslie's schoolmates looked nervously at one another; Cindy Lou giggled in a high-pitched voice, and Kelly began to snicker silently, both hands over her mouth. Kristy looked frightened; Shannon closed her eyes. "Leslie, please," she said softly.
"Dammit, you brat, keep it up and this'll be the last birthday you see," Michael threatened, moving a few steps in her direction as if to follow through on it.
Shannon shot to her feet and shouted, "Michael Hamilton, if you ever again make a threat like that, I'll make sure you regret it! Don't you ever, ever speak to my child like that again! Lay a hand on any of these girls, and I'll have you arrested!" As she spoke, she marched toward him till they stood toe to toe, and her enraged face was practically touching his. "Do you understand me?"
"You love me," Michael said with a small smirk. "You wouldn't dare."
"Try me," Shannon growled, low but deadly.
For a long moment Leslie's parents stood there facing off, and Christian had the sense of time stopping in that instant. Once more he looked at Leslie; she had her lips compressed, but her expression was unreadable. Kristy's chin was trembling; Kelly just sat there eyeing Michael as if waiting for him to test Shannon.
Then Michael gave in. "I'm going down to Sears and pick up some stuff," he said, his voice brusque with disgust. "Make sure all this crap is cleaned up and gone by the time I get back here."
"My daughters and I will celebrate as long as we like," Shannon informed him with an icy glare, "and you will not dictate terms to us. If you want no part of this, then you may as well find the nearest bar and start drowning yourself in the bottle, because I refuse to allow you to deprive Leslie of her birthday party just because you feel like being vindictive."
Michael expelled a few curses, stalked to the car, threw himself into it and backed out, then peeled rubber on his way out. Kristy dropped her head on the table and began to cry; Shannon went to her and soothed her, while Leslie's guests peered uneasily at her and Kelly ran into the street to blow a loud raspberry after the disappearing car.
"And that," Leslie muttered, face flaming, "was my so-called dad."
The girls were silent, as if unsure of what to say; Christian wanted to comfort Leslie in some way, tell her things would be better. But then Shannon came around and gathered Leslie's face in her hands. "I'm sorry, honey. I really thought he'd be gone all day."
"Mom, it wasn't your fault he came back," said Leslie. "He's just..." She seemed to see something in her mother's face and squinted up at her. "What's the matter? You look like something horrible's gonna happen."
Oh, my Rose! was all Christian could think, especially when Shannon's eyes flew wide for just a split second. Then she regrouped and managed another smile, no more convincing than her previous one had been. "Your father just made me very angry, that's all," Shannon assured her. She lifted her head and took in the group. "Come on, girls, let's have fun."
However, it was clear that Michael's intrusion had irretrievably destroyed the happy mood of the day, and one by one the girls made excuses and left, even Cindy Lou. There seemed to be little choice left but for Shannon, Leslie, Kristy and Kelly to start clearing off the table and putting things away. It didn't take long; the four of them together toted the now-bare picnic table out to the back yard, then gathered around the dining-room table in-side and looked gloomily at one another. Finally Kristy, her voice still a bit thick from crying, said, "I'm going upstairs and draw some stuff."
Kelly bolted upright in her chair. "Oh no, not more stupid unicorns! Geez, Kristy, really, come on...you already have a million of 'em on your side of the room."
"I do not," said Kristy with dignity, rising from her chair. "I have only forty-two—I counted." Regally she marched out of the room and up the stairs. Christian couldn't help laughing, watching her go.
"Geez," Kelly groaned again. "I'm going outside." So saying, she jumped up and ran out the back door, leaving Shannon and Leslie alone.
Leslie was thumbing the pages of her new book, staring at the tabletop without seeing it. Shannon reached out and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "Leslie, honey, I'm sorry. I know he embarrassed you in front of your friends..."
Leslie shrugged listlessly. "Yeah...he completely ruined my birthday."
"Next year's will be better," Shannon promised, startling Christian; he had been leaning against the archway into the dining room, and went alert, listening hard. "Next year, honey, everything will be different. I can promise you that and know for a fact it'll be true. It'll be different and it'll be much better."
The unusual conviction in her voice made Leslie look up, bewildered. "You sound like you're predicting the future, Mom."
Shannon smiled a desolate little smile. "Maybe I am," she murmured. "But whatever else happens, honey, remember, it will be better, and that's my solemn promise to you."
Apparently Leslie chose to believe this, for she smiled back, got up and hugged her mother. "Thanks, Mom."
Like a sidewalk painting washing away in the rain, the scene melted around Christian, and he opened the door before him, poked his head out and looked around the time-travel room, finding it empty. For some reason he felt drained; he wilted into the nearby chair and closed his eyes, waiting for Leslie, cementing his promise to her as he considered what he had just seen.