A Season in Purgatory

Chapter 78

Anna tossed and turned, her maternal instincts telling her that something wasn't quite right. A shrill scream penetrated the night, jolting both her and Keith out of bed. She instantly knew the cries that woke her up weren't from Caleb but Brooke. She pulled open the door to Brooke's room and found the girl in the throes of a deep nightmare.

Keith slid into the room behind her, wielding a baseball bat at any potential intruders. Anna rushed to Brooke's side, gently trying to rouse the girl from her bad dreams. "Brooke, wake up," Anna soothingly uttered, as she gently rubbed Brooke's black satin pajama'd back. She jumped as Brooke abruptly sat up, blinking.

"Brooke, are you okay?" Keith hesitantly asked. "Did you hear a noise or a sound from outside?" She sat there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Anna turned her attention from her somewhat comical, baseball bat wielding husband and focused on the terrified girl beside her.

"I think I've got this one, Keith. Why don't you go get a bottle and feed Little Luke," she gently instructed, sensing that Brooke might feel better if they were alone. Keith lowered his bat and slowly headed toward the kitchen. Anna watched as Brooke struggled to breath, little gasps followed by huge swallows of air.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Anna quietly offered. "You can only run so far Brooke before the past catches up to you." Anna would know, having dodged enough apparitions from the past in her time.

Brooke suppressed a hiccup and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She'd had a dream where her stepbrother chased her down an alley, taunting her along the way. She thought she'd left these dreams behind with her old room and old house. "Talking doesn't fix things," she finally replied, knowing that Anna meant well. Brooke couldn't be upset about someone pushing her when that person was giving her a safe haven.

Anna leaned over and plucked a tissue from the ornate holder on Brooke's night stand. She handed Brooke the tissue and looked thoughtfully at the girl for a moment. "I want you to talk to a friend of mine."

Sighing, Brooke leaned back against her pile of black satin pillows. "What friend?" she suspiciously asked. Anna and Keith had been so laid back about hosting her that she'd begun to think there were no strings attached.

"I have a friend who is a psychologist. She volunteers at the women's crisis center and I think she could help you deal with your problems," Anna cautiously offered. Her friend had stressed that most girls were resistant to seeking help and Anna needed to avoid pushing her into counseling.

Brooke sighed at the idea of counseling. "Why does everyone assume that talking about things makes it better?" she demanded.

"I think you are stressed out and troubled. I think your dreams are the only place your fears can come out and you need to change that so you can get a good night's sleep," Anna softly replied, moving a strand of Brooke's hair behind her ear. "I went to a counselor when I graduated from college."

She looked up at the older woman in interest. "You did? Why were you seeing a shrink?"

Anna leaned back against the pillows with Brooke and delved into her past. She couldn't expect Brooke to trust her unless she could be honest about her own past. "I had a panic attack after Little Luke was born," she slowly began. "I was freaked out about being a mother because I've never really had a mother. Nothing in my life had prepared me for taking care of that little boy," Anna slowly began, wanting Brooke to understand where she was going with this.

"But you are a great mother," Brooke injected, stunned that Anna could be so hard on herself. She practically made Donna Reed look ineffective. "I'll eventually get to a great place, too".

"I don't want you to wait as long as I did to get help," Anna softly admitted. "I had a really rough childhood. My mother would take me to these drug parties late on school nights. While she was getting high in some back room, I was left with all these leering old men. And sometimes they acted inappropriately with me," she softly finished, noting that Brooke was intently hanging on her every word.

"I was nine, Brooke. And they destroyed part of me that I'll never get back," she regretfully finished. "I think you can relate to that." Brooke's eyes teared up at her words, both grateful that someone understood what she was going through, but sad for the little girls whose innocence had been shattered. She reached out and grabbed Anna's hand and squeezed it in solidarity.

"But you are okay now," Brooke insisted, needing to believe that . She could marry her version of Keith and have her own happiness.

Anna held on to Brooke's hand. She was guessing at what happened at Brooke's house, but she could see the signs of sexual abuse. The way she jumped when a person of the opposite sex unexpectedly touched her. Anna wasn't sure if it was her stepfather but she just instinctively knew what Brooke was going through. "Don't wait as long as I did to get help, Brooke. Don't waste a decade of your life living in fear and destroying relationships because you are drowning in pain. You don't have to stay in that dark place," Anna gently pushed, seeing that she had the younger girl's full attention. "It eventually gets better, especially if you have someone to talk to."

Brooke pushed her unruly hair out of her eyes and forced herself to breathe. For so long she'd focused on Luke's problems or on the plan, anything to avoid her own issues. "I have you to talk to," she plaintively replied. Brooke wasn't one to latch on to people but she felt so close to Anna.

Anna spontaneously reached out and pulled Brooke into a hug. "I feel the same way, but I'm not a trained professional," she gently reminded her. Anna could sympathize with Brooke but it wasn't the same thing as being able to counsel her.

Brooke did the only thing she could. "Okay. I'll go talk to your friend," she conceded. She didn't expect that talking could help her nightmares, but she would placate Anna. It's not like it mattered in the long run.

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Dan sleepily rubbed his eyes, wondering why he was taking late night constitutionals around his house. With Lucas living in his home, Dan's ability to sleep through the night had disappeared. His senses came alert as he rounded the corner and saw the light from under Luke's door seeping into the otherwise dark hallway.

Cautiously, Dan slowly pushed the door open, wondering what his son was doing up at 3 A.M. on a school night. He stepped into the room and saw Luke sprawled out on the bed, with a book folder across his chest.

Smiling down at the boy, Dan took a moment to really study his son. There was always so much tension between them that Dan could barely look at his son without a snarky remark. He looked much younger without anger marring his fine features. Dan wished he had the words to take all the pain away from his boy, but he'd failed every time he tried to talk to Lucas. Dan decided he could live with the boy's anger as long as Lucas was alive and healthy. The other stuff could wait until his son was in a more stable mindset.

He affectionately rubbed his son's fair hair for a second, before reaching out to move the book off his chest. He stopped as Luke's eyes snapped opened.

"What?" Luke asked Dan, more than a little irritated that the guy was skulking about in "his room". Not that Luke truly had a room in this house of horrors.

Dan took an unconscious step back, caught off guard by his now awake son. He could only imagine a time when he and Lucas could have a normal conversation.

"I saw your light on and came to check on you," he said, gesturing toward the book he'd removed the boy's chest. "I guess you just fell asleep while doing homework."

Lucas rubbed his eyes and refrained from snatching his book out of his father's hands. "It's not homework. I'm just reading it," he tersely replied, putting his hand out expectantly.

Dan examined the cover of the book, looking for anything to draw his son out into conversation. "An American Tragedy," he slowly read out, looking at his son in amusement. "A little light reading?" he asked.

Lucas took the book from his father's out stretched hand. "It's on my college reading list," he tersely noted.

Dan thought about that phrase, before smiling down at Lucas. "It's good to see you back on track with the academic stuff." He didn't know a lot about his oldest son but Dan knew he loved to read. In the past, he had his nose in a book most of the time Dan saw him. If Lucas was reading, it was a good sign he was getting back to normal.

Considering the older man's words, Lucas examined the book in his hands. He held it up for Dan to look at. "Are you familiar with this book?" Lucas had poked through the books that were in Dan's bookcase. The man didn't have great taste in literature, but there were several interesting titles there. He wondered if he got his taste in literature from his father.

Dan leaned forward and stared at the book and the author on the cover. "Nope. I've never read it," he slowly admitted, wondering where Lucas was going with this late night literature lesson.

Lucas stared at the cover for a moment, lost in thought. "It's the story of a morally corrupt social climber who gets a socially inferior woman pregnant and then plots to kill her and the child."

Stunned at the emotionally empty tone in his son's voice, Dan struggled to find a response. "That must of destroyed the man as much as it did the young girl." He was shocked that his son was spending his free time comparing his father to literary monsters. Part of Dan was sad that Luke couldn't see how far he'd evolved from that idiot he'd been at 18. Another part of him was concerned that Lucas could even draw a comparison between him and a heartless murderer.

"Well, it's Dreiser writing this, so I'm sure there's a social moral in there about self -destruction," he coldly replied. He wasn't shocked that Dan said nothing about the innocent life that was scarified by the father, but of course, Dan's first thought would always be about himself and not his child.

Dan reached out and slowly took the book from Luke's distracted hands. "Gee, I don't understand why some light bed time reading is keeping you up," Dan joked, desperately trying to lighten the mood. He probably didn't want to know what other thoughts ran through his son's mind. He looked at the beat up book , as he laid it on Luke's nightstand. "We ought to get you one of those new e readers so you can read more."

"No thanks," Luke casually dismissed his idea. "I like the smell and feel of an old book. I like knowing how far I am through it, and feeling the weight of it in my hands."

Dan nodding slowly, wondering how such a bright kid could be such a tech Luddite. Lucas hated the cell phone he'd been given and now was dissing modern reading tools. Dan had already ordered one for Luke's Christmas present and now he was going to have to return it the next day.

Dan looked over at his son and saw the boy starting at him in an appraising way. "What?" he gently asked, seeing something other than anger or hate in the boy's eyes.

Lucas played with the down comforter for a moment, unsure if he wanted to go down this path. Finally, curiosity got the better of him. "Did you ever try to get custody of me?" he asked, his voice unusually soft.

Dan took a step back in shock, not expecting those words to come out of his son. His mind raced, wondering how to handle the situation. "Where did that come from?" he asked, genuinely interested in why Lucas would be thinking about that.

Lucas dropped the comforter and focused his attention on his father. He had poured over the custody documents with Brooke a few days ago. Luke couldn't figure out why Dan put so much money and effort into having a lawyer draw those papers up only to drop it and drop out of his son's life. It was driving Lucas mental trying to figure out what he'd done to drive his father away. "I just wondered," he softly replied. "I just wonder if my mother discouraged you from asking for joint custody."

Dan's eyes widened at that comment. He knew Lucas was a bright kid but he had no idea how his son had stumbled onto the role Karen played in Dan's absence from his life. Avoiding Luke's question, Dan headed toward the door, desperately wanting to escape from this line of questioning. He hesitated before walking out of the door. "Do you remember your blue baby blanket?"

Squinting at his father, Luke slowly nodded his head. "I carried it for years until it was in tatters," he remembered. "How did you know about that blanket?"

"I bought it for you shortly after you were born," Dan shyly admitted. "It was Tar heel blue," he sheepishly added. Some traditions needed to start in the crib, Dan had thought at the time.

Leaning back against his pillows, Lucas stared at his father with narrow eyes. "Did you hate me when I was a baby, too?" he harshly asked, needing to know when his father started hating him.

Dan sighed and leaned against the door frame, resisting the urge to go sit on the boy's bed and have a heart to heart conversation. He couldn't justify his actions without revealing Karen's role in his absence and he owed it to Karen to protect their past mistakes. "I never hated you, son," he slowly began. "I was just a little bit older than you are now, and mistakes were made."

Realizing that Dan was totally avoiding the custody question, Lucas wondered what had gone on in the past. He could hear Brooke saying that Dan was protecting Karen in his head and wondered for the millionth time if that was true. "Did my mom make mistakes too?" he asked, searching Dan's face for any sense of honesty.

Dan forced himself to breath, knowing that his son couldn't possible know the truth. "Does it matter?" he finally replied. "We can't fix the past, son. Try to stop thinking so much and get some sleep," he gently admonished, before walking out the door.

Hola, dear readers. The time is growing to an end. I do believe that the story will be wrapped up in a couple of chapters. Of course, I'm not sure that's the end, but depending on feedback, I might be cajoled into writing the "what ever happened to" part of the story. I know that I've been a bad updater lately, but I have a seriously ill father and that's taken a lot of my time. It's very hard to write this story when you realize that your time with your parents is limited. It makes me want to have Luke and Dan work things out quickly. That said, it's not really part of the story. I've really had to resist the urge to let real life affect things. The good news is that for two scenes, this chapter was 7 pages. So the next chapter is already written and ready to go. Thanks to Doodle19 for making me edit and post this asap. Replies are always appreciated.