A Voice Cries Out
Chapter 26
Charles exited the elevator with his granddaughter just as the team finished their meeting. JJ planned to go upstairs to help her mother pack supplies for the kids for the day, leaving Reid free to stay with the others.
"Hi Daddy!" Rosie was in the habit of greeting them each time she saw them.
Charles easily transferred his granddaughter into her father's waiting arms.
"Any word from the hospital this morning?"
"I spoke with his nurse. She says he's pretty alert today. Still needs some pain meds, but his liver and renal functions seem to be improving."
"So, he'll probably be able to speak to you a bit more." Charles studied his son-in-law, noticed the tightening in his jaw.
"I guess."
"Jennifer tells me he remembered about the status of your relationship."
Reid did his best not to react. "That's what I understand."
Charles Jareau had never pictured his daughter being with someone like Spencer Reid. Not that he'd found it easy to picture his daughter ever living with and loving 'another man' at all. That pretty much went with fatherhood, he supposed. But Charles had always thought his daughter would go for an athlete, someone whose interest and prowess in sports matched her own. Someone 'in charge'. An alpha male. Not someone like his son-in-law. Spencer Reid was a verifiable geek.
When Jennifer had first begun to mention him in the course of talking about her work and her team, it had gone right by Charles. But Sandy had heard it. A curiosity that gradually morphed into interest, and then respect, and then, a genuine honest 'like' for her colleague. It was his Sandy who first alerted Charles, that time long ago when Jennifer had told them her choice of a godfather for her firstborn.
"She thinks very highly of him, Charles. I know he's not family, but….what does it matter, if our daughter thinks he would be a good influence on her son?"
They'd met Reid at the christening. Even then, Charles had only paid perfunctory attention. After all, his daughter was living with another man, the father of her child. And how often did a godparent have to get involved in the raising of a child, anyway? At the ceremony, Spencer had performed his duties, looking fairly uncomfortable whenever he had to hold the infant Henry, and relieved when Penelope Garcia took the child from him. Afterward, Sandy had spoken a bit to Reid, perhaps even then sensing his lack of a maternal figure. But Charles had simply shaken his hand, made one or two unsuccessful attempts at conversation, and moved on. A subsequent meeting at one of Henry's birthday parties had gone no better.
The virtual non-relationship between the two men changed without their even coming together. The next time they'd actually spoken in person had been when Reid came to ask for Jennifer's hand. Whenever he thought back on that exchange, Charles grinned. He'd thought his future son-in-law might actually pass out from anxiety. And he hadn't made it easy for the young man. He'd challenged him, pushed him about his intentions, about his ability to be to Jennifer all that she might need him to be. For Charles, it had been merely an exercise, a test. He'd long since been converted to his daughter's faith in the man before him in that moment. He'd long since been aware of his devotion, and steadfast resolution. He'd demonstrated it when Jennifer had been so severely injured. But Reid had fielded it as a sincere question. And he'd risen to the occasion. He'd countered Charles, declared his intentions, pointed out his faithfulness in difficult times. And Charles had done the only thing he could have done. The thing he'd already known he would do. He and Sandy had given Reid the permission he sought…to love their daughter as they, themselves, had….unceasingly, and without reservation.
All of that history, and so much more, flashed through Charles' mind as he spoke to his son-in-law this morning. He was aware that there were parts of Spencer's history that had not yet been shared with him. But he was savvy enough to know that the man who loved his daughter, and was so dedicated to being a good father, had not, himself, been fathered. Charles recognized both the opportunity, and the need.
You may not be mine, son, but that doesn't mean I can't be a stand-in.
"Would you like to walk with me a bit, until they've gotten themselves organized?"
The two men set off down the sidewalk, Rosie a willing passenger in her father's arms. Charles had given thought to the conversation, but still felt the need to pray for wisdom.
"It must have been strange for you, before he remembered. Having him talk to you as a father would a son."
Reid knew Charles wasn't actually expecting a response. But he gave one anyway. "It was."
"You were very young when he left you, weren't you?"
"Eleven."
Charles nodded. "Very young. It's hard to imagine what would make a man walk out on his family."
Reid related to the statement…..and he didn't. He knew that he would find it literally impossible to ever consider such a thing. But, on the other hand, he knew exactly what made William walk out.
"Apparently all it takes is having a wife who is ill and a son who needs you."
Immediately after he'd started the sentence, he'd tried to stop the rest of it from coming out. But it wouldn't be stopped. The bitterness was still that strong, so strong that Charles actually flinched upon hearing it. The older man shook his head slowly back and forth as he responded.
"I'm sorry that happened to you, son. I can't conceive of it. Not to the point of actually walking out."
They were making a slow stroll around the block of the hotel, Rosie unusually quiet as she looked back over her father's shoulder. It was as though she understood the gravity of the conversation. Or maybe she just felt the sadness in her father's posture.
Reid had grown to love his father-in-law, once he got past the terror of telling Charles he wanted to marry his only remaining daughter. He relied on the man in the ways he wished he'd been able to rely on his own father. He trusted Charles with the care of his family, he valued his counsel, he treasured being called 'son'. He'd slowly become attuned to nuances in the man's words, and thus was brought to attention when Charles mitigated his verbal rebuke of William's behavior. He couldn't conceive of the elder Reid's behavior, he'd said. But then qualified it with 'not to the point of actually walking out'.
Reid needed to know. "What do you mean?"
Charles took a few steps to organize his thoughts. The most stressful time in the life of his family was long in the past, but the reverberations of it had threatened to tear them apart. Even now, so many years later, talking about it brought him right back to that period of anxiety. But he wanted to help his son-in-law
"You know, Spencer, when I was a much younger man, I looked at everything as either/or. Black or white. Right or wrong. For us or against us. But life taught me differently. Little by little, I started to learn that things just didn't work that way. And then, one day, I was thrown into a virtual sea of gray. My daughter had taken her own life. I'd failed her. I'd failed my wife, I'd failed Jennifer. I hadn't kept my own family safe. I wasn't the man I'd always wanted to be. I wasn't the man I'd thought I was."
Reid heard the pain still evident in Charles' voice, all these years later. "But….you were only human. It wasn't like you didn't want to prevent it."
Charles nodded. "That's what I told myself. I had all the best intentions in the world, and still I'd failed. And, after that, I nearly lost my wife. I could easily have lost the entire family I'd taken such pride in building."
He knew his daughter had shared that part of their story with her husband. Sandy had fallen into a long depression that had distanced her from her husband and remaining daughter. The family had been the subject of much gossip and finger-pointing. It could understandably have broken them all apart.
"But you didn't." You pulled it together. You stood firm, and gave JJ something to hold on to. Thank God.
"No, I didn't, thankfully. But I could have. And I realized that. It took away my pride, Spencer. It was…..it was the most humbling time of my life. I had to admit….to myself, first….and then to Sandy…my faults. A false pride in anything I'd accomplished, and the family I was gifted with. It was as though I'd been taking credit for having such good fortune. But if I took credit for the good, I had to take blame for the bad. And then, one day, finally, I realized…."
Reid stopped walking, and turned to his father-in-law. All week he'd felt like he was drowning in an ocean of doubt, and long-harbored ill will, and it felt as though Charles was about to throw him a life preserver. He found it hard to get beyond a whisper.
"What? What did you realize?"
"That it was all shades of gray. That a good man could fail. That evil is insidious. That none of us can accomplish anything on our own. I learned to be humble. I learned to seek out the strength in my wife, even when she felt at her weakest. I leaned on her…..and she leaned back on me….and we created a core that was firm enough to hold us together. But it would never have happened if I hadn't learned humility."
He wanted so badly for Charles to have the answer for him. To just remove the ambivalence and tell him how to feel about his father.
"Are you saying I need to be humble?" Reid's list of insecurities had dwindled since he'd been with JJ, but it wasn't empty. And yet, he also had a well-deserved ego about his intellectual prowess.
"I'm not trying to push you in one direction or the other, Spencer. Only you can decide, in the end, what kind of relationship you'll have, or not have, with your father. And I don't know that there is a right answer. I'm just suggesting that, if you're to figure this out at all…..you might need to be willing to enter the gray zone with him."
They walked another half block in silence, as Reid weighed Charles' words. He felt like there was still something he couldn't quite grasp about the dilemma. As they turned the corner and once again approached the main doors to the hotel, he spoke.
"I already know about the gray. I mean….I see it every day. We see unspeakable crimes committed by people who are often just…damaged. Not evil. Ask JJ…I'm probably the one who's most likely to try to relate to an unsub. I get them, sometimes. I can tell they're just lost."
Charles knew. "And yet?"
"I know. I know, it makes no sense. I can do it with a serial killer, but not with my own father."
They'd arrived at their destinations….the hotel, and the point of the conversation.
"Most eleven year olds are still living in black and white."
Reid's head shot sideways, reacting to a lightning bolt of recognition. When it came to his father, he measured his life in two segments. Before William left them, and after. Before age eleven, and after. White….and black. But maybe Charles was right. Maybe he needed to enter the gray zone. Maybe he'd been approaching his father from the standpoint of his eleven-year-old self. Maybe he needed to bring the adult Spencer Reid to the encounter.
Now all I have to figure out is whether I want to.
JJ decided to break through the quiet on their way to the hospital. She'd seen the unrest in her husband, and wisely taken the keys from him once again.
"You okay?"
It was a moment before her words penetrated the maelstrom of thought inside his head.
"Yeah, just…yeah."
In all his vast vocabulary, he couldn't find the words to express what was going on inside. Not to her, and not to himself. His emotions were trying to trump his intellect, and he didn't know what to do about it.
She'd seen him like this a few times in the past, and decided to take another approach. Sometimes it helped him come out of himself.
"Did you and Dad have a good talk?"
He wasn't ready for that, either, and tried to deflect. "We just walked around the block while you and your mom got the kids' stuff ready."
JJ threw him a sideways look. "Right."
He caught the look. "He's a good man, your dad."
No argument there. "The best."
"I thought I was the best." Maybe humor would help him divert the conversation.
The very wise JJ decided she was willing to let her husband keep his thoughts to himself, if that's what he needed. But she would temper his ego.
"All right, neither of you. Henry's the best."
While Reid checked in with the nurses, JJ fielded a phone call from Morgan.
"Garcia got a ping on a credit card. It belonged to the grandson's wife, but it was in her maiden name, so it took Baby Girl more than her usual magical minute. It was from a gas station about fifty miles south of Vegas, sounds like they were driving back to Arizona. Hotch has the state police looking for them, and Prentiss and I are headed in that direction now."
"Great. Are we thinking all three generations are traveling together?"
"No. Albrecht...the old man...lives in San Francisco. Garcia can't find a plane or train ticket for him, but we're thinking he might be traveling privately. He's got enough money. So Baby Girl's looking for connections to any private jets that might have been in or out of the airport in the past week. Hotch and Rossi are headed there now."
It wasn't quite where they wanted to be, but it was something. And they'd resolved cases with much less.
"All right. I'll tell Spence."
Morgan was as worried about his little brother as anyone. "Hey, Blondie…you tell him…..whatever he thinks is right….is. Don't let him get all up in his head like he does, okay?"
She smiled at the show of affection. I don't think I'll ever be able to keep him out of his head, Morgan. Nor was she sure she should try.
"I'll tell him you're behind him. Not that he doesn't already know."
They signed off just as Reid came back to the conference room.
"They said he had a good night, and might even be ready for discharge tomorrow. His liver function is back to normal, but the renal function is lagging behind."
"But it's still good enough for him to go home?"
"You have to be pretty sick to be in the hospital these days. They think he'll need some physical therapy, but the rest should just continue to improve on its own."
She could tell there was something bothering him…something besides everything…..but she couldn't make out what it was.
"Spence?"
His eyes dropped to the floor. "They were asking if someone would be there when he goes home. And I couldn't….."
She rescued him. "Of course you couldn't. You have a job and a family, thousands of miles away. We can arrange for an aide if he needs one." It doesn't have to be about your relationship.
He visibly brightened, relieved of the unexpected burden. "Right. An aide."
Reid looked even more encouraged when JJ told him Morgan's news. And his advice.
"You should listen to him, Spence. There isn't a single right answer here." She moved in close to him, patting his chest. "And I know this heart in here. It's good, and it's true, and it won't lead you astray. Listen to it."
He pulled her to him, lifting his chin so he could rest it atop her head. The conference room around him dissolved, and he saw himself standing at a crossroads, not certain of his direction, nor even his destination. He knew only that he couldn't remain in place, that life wasn't lived in stasis. He would have to move forward, in one direction or another. And he knew that, whichever path he took, he would have his life's companion at his side.
She'd felt the tension in every strand of sinew, and then felt it relax as he released her.
"Do you want me to go in with you?"
He took her face in his hands and brought her lips to his, lingering in the kiss. Then he pulled back and drank deeply from the blue in her eyes. Fortified, he was ready.
"No, it's okay. I think I need to do this alone."