Discovering Normal

by Cynthia Henry

  Chris didn’t know a rat’s ass about farming when he and Beth had bought the land. He was a city boy--Philadelphia PA--and his life had been more stickball and cheese steak than crops and milking parlors. But he was smart and determined and he always managed to accomplish what he wanted to. He and Beth had some money. After the siege and Beth’s long journey back, they’d been the golden children of the Bureau. A hefty private gift from Hamilton Tweed, their combined severance and a small loan from Beth’s father had set them up in the best dairy-farm-style.

  They got married in a chapel just a mile from the farm and danced with two hundred of their closest friends until the sun was rising over the Garrity countryside the next morning. The bride and groom vetoed a honeymoon trip, opting instead to stumble home and spend the next week holed up in their newly purchased farmhouse which was in dire need of remodeling. They locked the door to the rest of the world and made love for six full days with barely a pause.

  And when the time came to emerge, Chris found that he loved the land, loved the animals and the air that was fresh and not tainted with smog and honking horns. And at first Beth had seemed to love it too. Loved learning, loved helping, loved curling on the porch swing with a book and a glass of iced tea.

  She loved being a mother--loved sharing every moment with their son who arrived on their first anniversary and then later their daughter. Beth was constantly snapping pictures and mailing fat envelops with colorful stickers attached to both of their families. Beth had smiled all the time and life was so damn good because they’d seen how infected and evil it could be when you weren’t as lucky as they were.

  Then something changed and Chris still couldn’t manage to figure out what the hell it was.

  Audrey wrapped her arms around Chris’ neck, gave a tight squeeze and squirmed down again. He watched her prance off--the little lady who was such a sharp contrast to any child he’d ever known--and turned back to Jack. “Always seems to work out in the end.”

  Jack gave Chris’ back another hearty slap. “Doesn’t it though? Come on over here. Want you to meet the Perrys’. They bought the old Dennison farm. Big plans.”

  Chris followed Jack to a table near the pool and didn’t look at Beth as he passed her. He knew she didn’t look at him either. They’d become those now--just figures who weren’t acknowledged until it was absolutely necessary.

  “Chris Stoddard, Rick Perry.”

  Chris extended his hand to the guy with big ears and a ruddy complexion evident under an awkward cowboy hat. Chris had to have ten years on the guy, but judging from his limp handshake, he wouldn’t last a year in the dairy business. “Hi, good to meet you.”

  “You’re the government agent, right? I heard them talking about you down at the diner. I can’t believe you’re my neighbor.”

  Some things just never left you. Chris smirked and slid onto the bench. “Used to be in another life.”

  “Wow, I remember watching the Jaelyn coverage on the news. I was riveted to the screen. And you gave that all up for this.” Rick looked around and then back.

  Chris took a long swig of beer.

  Rick’s homely wife linked her arm with his and pulled him near. “What’s this all about? Are you famous?” she asked.

  Rick nudged his hat back on his head with one finger and faced her. “You’ve gotta remember Jaelyn!”

  Jack balanced a hip on the edge of the table. “I’ll give you the Cliff Notes. The United States ambassador to Finland, Hamilton Tweed’s, sixteen-year-old daughter was kidnapped…how long ago now, Chris?”

  Chris sighed and extended his long legs under the table. “Twelve years.”

  “Right.” Jack turned back to the new neighbors. “She was taken at gunpoint from her boarding school in Sweden by the Flora Sky--a weird cult who left their message and their philosophy of female submission all over her dorm room. There was no word, nothing for months and then they get this film showing her saying shit like “Death to Liberty” and “I now serve ‘The Master’”. Completely brainwashed. But, the weird little twist, this psychotic group wants money. Lots of it. The government starts investigating because it’s a diplomat’s kid, and finds that this ‘master’ is really Harold Holden from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The guy was a thug in his day, but reinvented himself as this religious freak as a cover for drugs, guns, you name it. He had middle eastern dealings, all sorts of shit.” Jack caught himself then. He was in the presence of a lady, even if she was a butt-ugly one. “Sorry, all sorts of stuff, and about twenty ‘wives’ to sweeten the pot.

  “Turns out he’s lured tons of rich kids into this cult, bilked money from desperate parents who want their kids back. He always made sure to send a tape...parents will do anything when they see their kids on a video tape. Then when it was time to be released, some of them disappeared after the family was framed; some were found later, dead in deserts and washed up on the shore of the Arctic. He didn’t give a shit.”

  Chris sat and listened to the tale he’d heard told hundreds of times and raised his eyes to see the two starring in fascination as Jack relayed the story.

  “Well, when all this was finally determined, the Bureau of Special Services was called in. They brought their narcotics squad--the best of the best--piloted by none other than Farmer Stoddard here. But they need a way in, and they find that in Chris’ partner, profiler extraordinaire who specialized in psychological warfare. She also happens to be Chris’ wife and is dishing up lasagna right over there.”

  All eyes turned to Beth, still the most refined lasagna distributor Chris had ever seen. She’d pulled her ponytail down and her silky brown hair swung over her shoulder as she cut and served. It was almost impossible to remember that Beth had stumbled through learning to cook with quite a few dismal attempts before she finally proved victorious. Now she could make cobbler and pot roast and hand tossed pizza like it was nobody’s business. She’d become known as one of the best cooks in town. The phone rang constantly with of How did you do that? Why won’t mine rise?, and Why doesn’t it taste like yours?

  Chris looked back to the couple who were as mesmerized as if they were five and sitting at their grandfather’s knee to hear a yarn and Jack kept spinning. “Beth slipped in, established a relationship with the kid and got her out of there. The whole damn free world was watching, waiting, because it could’ve gone either way and came close to it quite a few times.” Jack paused. “You didn’t learn about this in school, Dora?”

  “I’m from Saskatchewan.”

  “Ahh,” Jack said as if it made any sense and continued. “Well, just when we stupid, naïve civilians thought that we were home free, they nabbed Beth and moved her to Jaelyn, this tiny island off the coast of Denmark. Harold Holden might’ve been slime, but he knew his stuff. He had such underground connections there was no way to find them, no way to trail them. It was like they disappeared off the face of the earth. Finally after about four months, they get a tip and Chris reached Jaelyn within twenty-four hours. But it wasn’t that easy.”

  Dora Perry’s jaw was hanging now as she clung to every word.

  “It was a setup. They wanted the Bureau to find them. Wanted to take down as many as they could because now Harold Holden from Tulsa was starting to believe his own press--starting to believe that he really was the ‘lord and master’. Eighteen law enforcement officers were killed, four were Special Services. After a bloody standoff, Chris and his team got in and got Beth. Problem was, she thought she was…what was her name again?”

  Chris glanced at his wife and back again. He sucked in a breath and muttered. “Farley-Fauna.”

  Jack chuckled, took a slug of his Molson and continued. “She went through almost a year of deprogramming--turned out Holden had put more into Beth’s submission than he had into little Gloria Tweed. Another power play--to make a United States agent his primary wife.” Jack tipped his bottle Chris’ way. “But everything came out in the wash they say. Beth remembered finally, she and Chris got married, moved here, bought t
heir farm, had two great kids…”

  “My goodness, Mr. Stoddard,” Dora looked absolutely dumbfounded.

  “Chris.”

  “And you’re our neighbor? We’ll come to your house when we need sugar and stuff?”

  Chris clinked Jack’s extended bottle. “We usually have plenty of sugar,” he said and polished off his brew.

  Chapter 2

  Beth quietly shut the door to Audrey’s room. A squeaky floorboard made its presence known and Beth did her best to avoid it as she had every day since Audrey had been a light-sleeping newborn.

  She peeked into Noah’s room on her way by and saw him sprawled across his bed, sleeping the comfortable and unencumbered rest of a child. She felt guilty in so many ways--guilty to be destroying the life that her children had always known, but justified too in the realization that they’d all be better once it was over and done and just part of their past.

  She pulled her robe tight, still feeling as relaxed as possible after her bath. In the distance she could hear firecrackers explode in celebration as she moved down the stairs. She glanced out of the pane in the front door and tried not to think about how much she’d miss this--this house she’d painstakingly re-designed and took more pride in than anything aside from her children. Would it be easier if she’d just left the dingy wallpaper and metal cabinets that the elderly former owners hadn’t minded? Would it be easier then to go?

  Beth poured a glass of wine from the bottle that sat on the antique dry sink and slid into the cushy chair that she’d talked Chris into stuffing into the back of the truck when they found it in a shop window on a quaint street in Montreal. She sipped, closed her eyes and rested her head against the back before she reached for the phone.

  It didn’t take long for an answer. “You’re late. Is he there?”

  “No, he’s not. He stayed at the picnic. He’ll be along soon though, and I didn’t say for sure that I’d call.”

  “Are you telling him tonight?”

  For some reason Beth found her eyes drawn to the framed family photo resting on a nearby shelf. It was a candid shot, not a posed one, but it was her very favorite. She had smiled so brightly that day with her arms laced around Noah who stood in front of her. Her head rested on Chris’ broad shoulder as he held Audrey, only about two-years-old then, to his chest. It must have been merely days later that things started to change--she’d begun to grow weary of sharing her husband with a herd of cows and meters of land.

  “If he gets home at a decent hour, yes. I’m going to tell him.”

  “Can you call me?”

  “George.”

  “Just get a hold of me when you can.”

  “All right. Good night.”

  “I’m thinking of you, Beth.”

  “Good night, George.” Beth disconnected and slid the receiver back to the cradle. Was it really him? Was George really a reason or was he an excuse, a crutch? She didn’t love him--at least not in the blazing and all-consuming way that she had once loved Chris. But maybe that’s why it had plummeted to the ground in a scalded heap. Maybe gentler assents were so much more realistic and long lasting.

  It was George Bauman who had first greeted the trembling twenty-one-year-old kid she’d been the day she first walked into the Bureau. A fellow profiler, so much more her equal than Chris ever could’ve been. Beth and George shared similar backgrounds, similar families; similar battles to wage when those families realized that their children wanted to spend their time cleaning up the world instead of organizing Junior League cookbooks. But no more than fifteen minutes after George escorted Beth into the building, she’d spotted Chris.

  He was then and remained the most handsome man she’d ever seen. The cocky smile, shaggy hair and silver stud glittering in his left lobe had hooked her, and his cool confidence and charm had reeled her in. When they’d first teamed against an organized crime affiliate and proved successful in bringing it down in just weeks, Beth found justifiable proof that they were meant to be partners in work, in love, in life. Never had she found such utter comfort and held such complete trust in another person.

  They clicked like a machine that had been designed in two parts only to form one in sync unit. They understood each other, often without words. From the first moment they’d kissed on the bow of a speedboat as it raced through Long Island Sound, to the first time they made love--so passionate and fiery in a little hotel room in Helsinki that they’d broken an antique lamp and laughed about it for days--there was just an inherent compatibility.

  But maybe they’d been wrong.

  Maybe they’d been wrong to give up the Bureau when it got a little rough and abandon their Boston lives for a quiet slice of land and the safety of a country that wasn’t so embroiled in the hugeness of itself. Perhaps they should’ve talked of past lovers and the future that each of them envisioned for themselves instead of surrendering to the moment, as delicious a moment as it was. Because ultimately the business of life came down to simply living and when the glow was done being basked, there had to be something left. Something besides fire and sex and attraction.

  Beth startled when she heard Chris’ truck pull into the drive--the familiar hum of the engine followed by the scilence. Crickets chirped and Sundance barked one low and mellow woof.

  Chris was inside in seconds flat, the result of long, strong legs that hurried with every step. Beth allowed her mind to wander back to the moment when she finally remembered after months and months of being so confused. Chris’ face was the first thing she saw, the first thing that jolted her into knowing. She later learned that he hadn’t left her side, stayed right there and waited for the person he missed to return. He took a leave of absence to spend months at the Toronto mental facility while the best specialists in the world worked to convince Farley-Fauna that she was in fact Beth Williams. Chris lived for close to a year without sex, without feedback to reaffirm that she still loved him too. He turned down presidential invitations, sent representatives to accept Bureau citations. He said ‘No Thank You’ to Time magazine and 60 Minutes while he remained poised with anticipation for the moment when she’d return. Why had he abandoned her now for so much less reason?

  Beth stood up and pulled her robe tight. “I hope the beer I saw you with two hours ago was the last you had.”

  He threw his keys to the corner table near the door and met her eyes. “Are you my mother?”

  “Not last I checked.”

  “Then I suggest you don’t worry about it.”

  Beth closed her eyes and massaged her temples. She didn’t want it this way. Didn’t want the annoying bickering before she told him that she couldn’t stay. “Chris, could you please sit down for a minute? I need to talk to you.”

  He stretched and then dragged his fingers through the waves of his hair. As if it were a poignant punishment, his wedding band caught a flash of light and winked at Beth as she stood waiting near the couch.

  He ambled over and plopped. “What?”

  Beth lowered to the rocker she had nursed, cuddled and sung to her children in. “I’m taking the kids to Connecticut.”

  He didn’t say anything, just looked.

  “I don’t mean for a visit. We’re moving there; we’re going to stay with my folks for a bit until I figure out what’s next for us.”

  He still just looked, just stared with those creamy brown eyes, heavy with lashes.

  “Do you hear me?” she asked. “Do you ever hear me?”

  Chris shook his head, one small movement. “Who the hell told you you could take my kids to Connecticut?”

  Beth exhaled and stood. “Fine. I should’ve known it would turn into a power play.”

  He hopped up and snatched her arm. “Did George tell you? Did he look into it for you? I’ll bet he’s waiting in a little room in Greenwich for his new family to arrive.”

  The words smashed into her heavy and real. “What are you talking about?” Though there was no mistaking the fact that he knew. She should’ve realiz
ed he’d know.

  He shook his head as if he pitied her soul. “Do you think I’m a fool, Beth?”

  “No,” she said with a voice that would’ve better suited Audrey.

  His grip tightened around her forearm. “Are you in love with him?”

  Beth wrenched it away, but realized he’d let her go. Had he intended to hold on, she never would’ve been successful. “It’s not about him. Yes, we’ve become close. He sensed that I was unhappy when we saw him last year at Deej’s wedding, but he’s not a reason, Chris. I was unhappy when we got there.”

  He shoved his hands into his jeans that still looked so good on him and glanced out at the star-filled night. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t know if I love him.”

  He turned to face her, looking more defeated than she would’ve thought, but Beth recognized anger brewing beneath. “Have you slept with him?”

  She shook her head before his words were even out. “No.”

  He looked back into the night. “Kind of hard to believe since you sure as hell haven’t been sleeping with me.”

  “Stop it. Why does everything have to turn into my fault? I’m trying to be honest here. I’m trying to tell the truth finally before we destroy each other with anger and resentment.”

  He spun around and the anger was there now, not masked at all any longer. “What do you want, Beth? Am I supposed to say go? Am I supposed to try and get you to stay? I don’t believe a thing you’re telling me, least of all that you haven’t screwed him.”

  She felt like a child, but she couldn’t remember how to be an adult as her foot stamped against the hardwood floor that Chris had worked so hard to install. “It’s not about him. I didn’t want you to know because I knew you’d think it was about him and it’s not. It’s about us. You and me and what we’re doing to Noah and Audrey. I haven’t slept with George, not yet, and I’m not sure if I love him--I’m only sure that I don’t love you. I have to get out of here--off of this farm so I can figure some things out. That’s all I know, Chris.”