Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 30
Tony continued to glare across the kitchen at his father, aware in the back of his mind that standing there, in his running clothes, with Ziva only a few feet away, was not where he wanted to have this conversation. To be honest, he didn't want to have this conversation at all, which was probably why it was so long in the making.
"I opened my doors to you, allowed you to stay in my home and attend my party, and this is the thanks I get," Alessandro raged in his quietly-angry voice that had made Tony flinch as a child, the one that was laced with unspoken disappointments and failed expectations. It was that tone that made him, after watching a Godfather movie or three, convinced that his father was in the mob, because only a Mafioso could be that intimidating. "You embarrass me in front of countless clients and potential clients and business partners. You abduct one of my guests and take him God-knows-where to ask him God-knows-what about his business practices."
"Okay, first of all, that guest—," Tony began, his voice rising as his father's words made him more and more angry.
"That's what this was all along, wasn't it?" Alessandro interrupted him. "It wasn't about a weekend of leave to be spent in the Hamptons. You used our relationship to—"
"Relationship?" Tony cut him off with a bitter laugh. "What relationship? Almost twenty years, and the only indication I've gotten that you're still alive is the occasional wedding invitation. How is that a relationship?"
Alessandro's tanned face flushed at the words. "I am your father—"
"No, Dad," Tony interrupted again, making the syllable sound like an insult. "A father is someone who actually pays attention to his child, not just uses him as a means to express his frustrations."
"I never once laid a hand on you, Anthony, and for you to imply otherwise just further proves my point about your level of disrespect for me as a father. And as a person."
"I never said you hit me," Tony countered. "Doesn't mean you ever paid attention to me, though."
"Your mother gave you more than enough attention for the both of us."
Tony gave a bitter laugh to that. "A kid needs both parents, Dad. And then she got sick and started self-medicating with whatever booze she could find laying around, and I had none. After she died, I was just an inconvenience to be dealt with. And so you had other people deal with it."
"You were out of control. You needed the discipline—"
Tony gave a bitter chuckle. "And you thought military school was the best way to discipline me? You thought standing at attention and polishing shoes and learning how to salute would be the best way to make up for a lifetime of being ignored by my father?" He let that sink in for a second before he continued. "But you know what? Maybe you were right. Maybe that's what I needed, to learn how to do things by myself. Because I wouldn't have learned that if I stayed around here. I would've let you talk me into that damn job that we both know I wasn't qualified for and would have sucked at. My job may not be nearly as glamorous, and definitely doesn't pay as much, but it means something. So yeah, I'll admit it. I used you. A Navy doctor was kidnapped from her base in Afghanistan, and we found out that somebody who might have had something to do with that, who has made his fortune by shipping drugs and weapons around the world and keeping wars going, was going to be at your little soiree. And if putting that guy behind bars means that I'm going to cause you a little embarrassment, I'm okay with that."
He was aware that that was probably ten times the number of words he had spoken to his father at one time since he left for military school, but everything he said needed to be said, and he didn't regret it. If that meant that his father ordered them out of his house and never spoke to him again after this, well, it wasn't as if he was really losing anything. When the silence stretched on, he glanced over to Ziva, trying to see if he could gauge her reaction. Her expression was as unreadable as always, but she inched her hand over, resting her fingers on his, the contact so light he wasn't completely sure it was there. Somehow, knowing that she was still there was enough, giving him the strength to turn back to his father with a new determination.
Alessandro was still staring at him with an intense and angry expression on his face. "I hope you got everything you came here for," he said coldly before turning and purposefully walking out of the kitchen.
"And I hope you have a good six to twelve months with Tatyana," Tony muttered at his back. He saw the hitch in his father's step as the older man processed the words and debated responding to them before deciding it wasn't worth the effort and continuing on his way. Tony blinked as his father turned the corner out of view, aware in the back of his mind that that was that, that he would never have any sort of relationship, meaningful or otherwise, with his father again.
He was barely aware of the fingers placed against his jaw, but turned his head toward Ziva obligingly. She leaned forward and kissed him lightly before pulling away, a small but knowing smile on her face as she lowered her heels back to the floor, returning her attention to the breakfast that they had originally come into the kitchen for.
He smiled at the back of her head, again grateful that, even though she hadn't said anything and hadn't really done anything, that she was there for him during his one and only real confrontation with his father. The strange thing was, even after getting all of that off of his chest, he wasn't sure if anything had changed at all.
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Ziva quietly closed the door to the guestroom behind her as she walked through it. After the words he and his father had spoken to each other in the kitchen, Tony had been in one of his moods, the one where he turned everything into an exaggerated joke in an effort to make it look like he wasn't bothered by what had just happened. She had put up with that for just about as long as necessary—the amount of time it took her to pack her bag—before giving him a quick kiss and leaving him to his thoughts, whatever those might be. She was already calculating the amount of damage control she would have to do when they returned to DC. Remembering her own reactions to confrontations with her father a year and a half before, it might be a lot.
Once she was standing out the hallway, though, she realized she hadn't completely thought this through. Knowing that they had a long drive in front of them, and not knowing how much longer he would be lost in his thoughts, she didn't want to go out to the carport and sit in the Mustang, and it was still a little bit too cold out for her to enjoy a leisurely stroll around the estate's grounds. That left an exploration of the estate, most of which she had seen already, from planting the small cameras and microphones as well as her search for Tony before going to bed that morning.
There was one room on the first floor she hadn't seen, at the end of the hallway, a sunroom with walls of glass, showcasing one large item in the middle of the room, and she knew why Tony hadn't wandered here with her when he gave her a quick tour of the estate shortly after they arrived. She closed her eyes as she remembered a conversation from years before, the memory so sharp she could almost feel the cold air and smell the burnt paper and gunpowder.
"My mother used to make me take piano lessons from this woman who would hit my hands with a ruler when I made a mistake."
"Were you any good?"
"Yeah… she was."
She opened her eyes to again find herself in that sunroom, the bright day outside belying the early spring chill she felt on their run only a few hours before, the light practically illuminating the rich wood of the parlor grand piano. She lifted the cover over the keys and pressed a few randomly. Her eyebrows rose when she realized that it was still in tune; someone was keeping this piano in prime condition. She narrowed her eyes and smiled slightly.
The piano bench was filled with loose sheets of music, some of which she recognized, several unfamiliar pieces from familiar composers, and a few so unknown to her and the rest of the world that the notes were hand-written on score paper. She scanned through one quickly before putting it on the music stand and taking a seat on the piano bench.
She had always done well at piano recitals and competitions growing up, but her skill was at the memorized pieces—a near-eidetic memory went a long way when it came to piano playing. Her weakness was in sight-reading new music, a weakness her mother tried to correct, with only minimal results. So now, sitting in Tony's childhood home at the piano his mother likely played, she studied the notes on the paper, trying to get a feel for the rhythm before she began. Her eyes drifted toward the upper left corner of the first page for some hints at tempo, and her eyebrows rose again as she saw the name of the composer: Emma P. DiNozzo, the capital letters exaggerated dramatically in a way that was familiar enough to make her smile.
She began playing the piece, which she was able to tell quickly had been amateurly written; although the chords were solid and intervals well thought out, some of the phrases were slightly awkward, coming to unusual conclusions. Still, she continued playing, her fingers picking up the pace as they got a better feel for the music.
"It's been a long time since I've heard that." Her hands stilled over the keyboard as she spun toward the doorway, where Alessandro DiNozzo was standing, unsure of whether he should enter or not. Finally, he decided on yes, coming in a few feet before stopping again. "Nobody has played that piano in years."
"It is in beautiful condition," Ziva replied slowly, unsure of what she should say after Tony's confrontation with him just an hour before; for that matter, she was unsure of why he was even talking to her after said confrontation.
"I get it tuned every six months," Alessandro said, his eyes fixed on the piano, "and every time, I wonder why; it never gets played. But Emma had very strict rules about how her piano was taken care of."
"Tony's mother," she stated unnecessarily.
"Yes." He frowned slightly, as if remembering something that was both pleasant and painful at the same time. "I was in London to work at the Paddington firm after I graduated from college, to get some experience and do some networking before setting out on my own. Old Man Paddington had me over for dinner one evening. I was so nervous about making a good impression that I arrived twenty minutes early, when Emma was in the midst of practicing for her next recital, and I just stood there and watched her play and listened to the music. She was an amazing musician, studied music performance in Salzburg and was hoping to be given an invitation to audition for the London Philharmonic. Instead, she found herself moving to New York with me shortly after we got married, nine months after we met." His eyes got a faraway to them as his mind traveled back in time through the years, and after the time she had spent with his son, she knew better than to interrupt his thoughts by talking. "She always doted on Tony," he said when he resumed speaking. She quirked an eyebrow; that was the first time she had heard him refer to his son as anything other than 'Anthony'. "She always wanted a large family, but after he was born, we had a hard time getting pregnant again. Looking back, I wonder if it was the cancer, but back than, we just thought it wasn't meant to be, and that made her dote on him all the more." A slight smile tugged on his lips. "She was a bit eccentric at times, but she really did love him, and he her. But then she got sick…" He cleared his throat, and Ziva could see just how hard this was for him, even decades after the fact. "She didn't have the best coping skills, and neither did I, and Tony was just left in the middle. And then she died, and I was left with a ten-year-old I didn't know what to do with. In retrospect, maybe boarding school wasn't the best idea. I had this idea of the man I wanted him to become, but he just had so much of Emma of him, and I didn't know what to make of that."
"He is a good man," Ziva finally said, her eyes still not leaving those of the older man in front of her. "He is very caring, but does not always know how to show it. He is very good at his job, because he works hard and does not give up until the case is solved and he is satisfied."
"I never realized he was so angry at me," Alessandro murmured to himself. Ziva frowned at those words; how could he not know? How could he have thought decades of stilted conversations and lack of communication were anything else? She didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything. The two remained silent for several long minutes before he cleared his throat again. "Having this piano sitting here unused seems like a waste of a perfectly good instrument. If you want it, it's yours."
She blinked in surprise before chuckling low in her throat, shaking her head. She recognized the offer for what it was, an awkward attempt to mend bridges from a man who didn't know any other way to do so, but it just wasn't practical. "Thank you for the offer, but there is not enough space in my apartment for a grand piano." It was tight enough with the upright; she couldn't imagine being able to walk around in the space with anything larger.
"Well, if you change your mind, or move into a larger place, the offer will still stand," he replied with a smile that wasn't unkind, and she found herself smiling in reply.
"Hey, Sweetcheeks, time to hit the road." Both Ziva and Alessandro turned to face the door, where Tony just appeared, his duffle bag on one shoulder and the garment bag with their evening clothes on the other, his phone in his hand. He barely gave his father a passing glance, his attention focused on the woman on the piano bench. "Boss got the bat signal. Let's go."