It was a moment before he answered. He rolled himself off the bed and on to his feet, then walked across the room to pick up his cigar with a grunt. By that time, she was sitting up herself, watching him suspiciously, a pillow clutched to her stomach like a shield. But he looked different now, no longer a threat, just a tired old man, his bald head shining with sweat. Still breathing heavily, he sat down in the chair she had vacated, holding the cigar he’d retrieved, gone out now, and slightly bent, negligently between his fingers. “I suppose I had that coming,” he finally said. “But everything I did, I did for you . . . and for Ethan.”
“You’ve been lying to me all these years,” she said. “I don’t think you’re turning over a new leaf now.”
He made a gesture with the hand holding the cigar, as if to brush aside her words, then seemed to notice the damaged state of the cigar for the first time. He set it down on a glass table alongside the chair. “I was going to send for you,” he said. “I was going to tell you everything. But then the mother superior told me you’d gone. Vanished.”
“There was no reason to stay. Not after I learned that my son was still alive. Not after I learned that you lied to me, told me my baby had died and then taken him and given him to someone else to raise.”
“And how did you learn that, by the way?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
She hated his smugness, his attitude of superiority. “It was an angel.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I believe Ethan, so why shouldn’t I believe you? Did he have a name, this angel?”
“Gabriel,” she said.
“I see. What else did he tell you?”
“Believe me, he told me enough.”
“Did he tell you about Conversatio? The Congregation and Grand Inquisitor?”
Kate stared at him blankly. She had never heard these names before.
“No, I didn’t think so,” said Papa Jim, his satisfaction plain. “Ethan has enemies, Kate. He had enemies even before he was born. Just because of who he is and what he’s been sent here to do. I took Ethan away from you because I wanted him to live. I wanted both of you to live. I never wanted to lie to you, but there was no other way. Please, you have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she said defiantly.
Papa Jim sighed, then said, “No, no, you don’t, Kate. But I’m asking you to listen to me. To give me the benefit of the doubt. If not for my sake, then for Ethan’s.”
She studied him intently, trying to decide whether he was lying to her. She assumed that he was, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some truth mixed in. “Go on.”
“The Congregation is Ethan’s greatest enemy. It’s what used to be called the Inquisition, an organization within the Catholic Church devoted to identifying and killing the second Son, whenever and wherever he should appear.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“Because as far as they’re concerned, Ethan is the Antichrist.”
“Is that who tried to kill him at the press conference?”
Papa Jim nodded. “A Congregation agent infiltrated my munchies, I’m ashamed to say. But luckily, Ethan was protected by Lisa. She was more than just his adoptive mother, she was an agent for an organization opposed to the Congregation, a secret society made up of men and women devoted to protecting the second Son. It’s called Conversatio. That’s Latin for ‘the way.’ I’ve been a member of Conversatio for years, Kate. I’m one of the directors, in fact. I knew almost from the first that your son was what we call a ‘high potential’—a boy with a strong probability of being the second Son, the Son of man. That’s why I had you taken to the Convent of Santa Marta. It’s a Conversatio facility, much like the place we’re in now. I thought it would be a safe place for you to deliver your child.”
“If it was so safe, why did you take Ethan away from me immediately after I gave birth to him? Why did you tell me that he was dead? For God’s sake, Papa Jim, I held his body in my arms! Do you have any idea what that was like?” She couldn’t hold back the tears now. Didn’t even try. Just clutched the pillow tighter.
Papa Jim at least had the grace to look discomfited. “I know, and I regret the necessity of it. The baby you held was born dead, to a Conversatio agent. Meanwhile, I had Ethan spirited away and given to Lisa Brown and her husband, Gordon. They were two of our best agents, specially trained to raise him in a way that would keep him safe from the Congregation and Grand Inquisitor.”
“Grand Inquisitor? Who’s that?”
“Not who: what. It’s a machine. A computer so advanced that the Conversatio eggheads tell me it’s as conscious as you or I, and a hell of a lot smarter. GI is hooked into every node of electronic communication imaginable, and it uses its connections to search the data streams for high potentials like Ethan. It never sleeps, never gets distracted. It never fails. At least, until now.”
“Why now?”
“First of all, because Ethan is who he is. About ten years ago, Ethan made a mistake. He spoke out when he should have kept silent, and that was enough for Grand Inquisitor to locate him. An agent was dispatched. He killed Gordon and very nearly killed Lisa and Ethan, too. But Ethan lashed out instinctively in self-defense and performed a miracle. He made GI forget about his existence. He made everybody forget about it.”
“Not me,” said Kate. “I never forgot.”
“Didn’t you?” said Papa Jim, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting. But you were the only one who didn’t. Everyone else, including Grand Inquisitor and Ethan himself, forgot that he was the second Son. Until the day before yesterday, when Lisa was fatally injured in a car accident.”
“Yes, I saw that on TV. She died, and then Ethan brought her back to life and healed all those people.” Kate nodded grimly. “Oh, I see. Then Grand Inquisitor found him again because of that.”
“Very good,” said Papa Jim. “That’s exactly what happened. At the same time, everyone who had forgotten about Ethan remembered him.”
Kate gave a sudden gasp. “That’s when Gabriel appeared to me! He said that it was time, that Ethan needed me.”
“And so he does,” said Papa Jim.
“Does he know about me?”
“He knows that Lisa and Gordon weren’t his biological parents. He knows that you exist, and that you’re my granddaughter, but that’s all he knows about you, Kate. At least, I haven’t told him any more than that.”
“Then he is here.”
“Yes, he is. He’s close by, and he’s fine.”
“Has . . . has he asked about me?”
“Of course he has,” said Papa Jim. “He’s got a lot of questions for you. And I’m sure you’ve got plenty of your own for him.”
“I want to see him, Papa Jim. Now.”
“Of course,” he repeated, but made no move to get up from the chair.
She realized that it wasn’t going to be so easy. “What do you want?” she asked wearily, tired of playing games.
“I promise you, Kate, I personally want to make up to you, and to Ethan, for everything I’ve done, all that I robbed you of. But even more than that, I want Ethan to succeed in his mission. I want to help him bring this country back to God. I think that’s the most important thing of all. It’s what Lisa and Gordon gave their lives for. I’m willing to give my life as well, if it comes to that. I know you must feel the same. Every mother would.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” she said stubbornly.
“Convince him to accept my protection,” he said. “I mean my munchies, along with the resources of Conversatio, and those of Homeland Security as well, insofar as they can be trusted, of course. Will you do it, Kate? Will you help me?”
“Yes,” she said. She would have agreed to anything in order to see Ethan. But in her heart she reserved the right to change her mind. She didn’t trust him by a long shot. “I’ll h
elp you, Papa Jim.”
“God bless you, baby girl,” he said. “I hope that in time you’ll think better of me than you do now. Maybe even love me again like you used to. And forgive me.”
She couldn’t help laughing, though it was a bitter laugh. “I think at this point that would take a miracle, Papa Jim.”
“Shoot, is that all?” he said with a cocky grin, looking something like his old self again. “I’ve got a feeling that from here on out, we’re gonna have more miracles than you can shake a stick at.”
The only miracle that mattered to Kate, however, took place minutes later, when Papa Jim led her out of her room and to the room next door where Ethan was waiting. Kate couldn’t believe that he had been so close to her all this time. Just on the other side of a wall.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Papa Jim asked outside the door. “Introduce you?”
What absurd questions to be asking a woman about her own son! Yet they only made Kate more aware of the gulf that separated her from Ethan, wider than this door, wider even than the ocean that, until yesterday, had stood between them: a gulf of time, of experience. Of history. All the moments they should have shared, the skinned knees of boyhood, his first day of school, his first crush, the holiday traditions of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, the vacations, the laughter and the tears; all of those things that other mothers and sons could take for granted had been stolen from her and Ethan, stolen by a man she’d trusted and loved as much as she trusted and loved anybody in her life. How was she to get those moments back? It wasn’t possible. Yet she knew that she had to try. She had to go through that door and establish a relationship with her son that was based on something more than what had been lost. Something that began in blood but went beyond it. She didn’t know what it would turn out to be, this relationship with the stranger who was her son, but she had faith that it would exist in time.
“No,” she told Papa Jim. “You’ve done enough.”
That seemed to strike home, and she was glad to see that it did. He didn’t say another word, just lowered his eye to the scanner and then quickly pressed in a code on the keyboard that hung on the wall beside the door, blocking her view with his body, so that she could see nothing. But she heard the click when the lock disengaged.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, standing aside. “Just call if you need me.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” she replied and pushed past him, opening the door and stepping into the room beyond.
It was a room identical to hers in every way, except that her room didn’t have a handsome young man looking up at her with gold-flecked brown eyes from the edge of the bed.
Ethan.
Kate’s heart nearly stopped in her chest, and she froze, unable to move as the door swung shut behind her. Nevertheless, she felt an impulse to turn and run, as if she were facing her greatest nightmare instead of her deepest desire. She was terrified that he wouldn’t want anything to do with her, that he would blame her somehow for what had happened, hate her for abandoning him, for not wanting him. Who knew what lies Papa Jim had told him? He might already be poisoned against her. And even if he wasn’t, how could Kate assert any claim to motherhood under such bizarre and tragic circumstances as these, with the woman who’d adopted him, raised him, and, Kate knew, loved him, murdered before his eyes less than forty-eight hours ago in a scene that had been captured by cameras and broadcasted around the clock ever since? It seemed presumptuous, to say the least.
Then Ethan rose to his feet with a smile. Could it be that he recognized her, even though she hadn’t said a word? Oh God . . . he was coming toward her . . .
“You must be Kate,” he said.
And suddenly his arms were around her, and all the awkwardness fell away. Kate stopped holding back and let herself embrace him too, as sobs wracked her body. She felt as if she were melting into him, or he into her. It was a recognition of the bond they shared, as if their bodies didn’t care about such petty annoyances as the lies that had kept them apart for almost twenty years. On some visceral level where such things didn’t matter, they knew each other as mother and son, knew it absolutely, in a way that didn’t diminish anything they had experienced in the meantime but instead transcended it. Revalued it. Kate felt more than understood all this in the blink of an eye. Was it a miracle wrought by Ethan? Or just the ordinary miracle of the human heart which knows no impediments of time or space when it comes to love? She didn’t know or care. She just hung on for dear life as her parched heart soaked up the nearness of him.
Yet the embrace couldn’t go on forever, much as she wanted it to. If time had drawn off, she could still sense its presence hovering near, trembling as if with the effort of holding itself back. But for a while at least, a timeless interval carved out of time, it seemed to Kate that there was nothing else in the world but the two of them, as if the peace and sanctuary of the womb had once again enveloped them. And even when it was over, when the flow of time could hold itself back no longer and had resumed, and they drew apart, looking at each other through eyes that shone with tears and joy, Kate could still feel the warmth of that embrace lingering around and within her like a blessing that would never fade.
She reached out with a trembling hand to touch Ethan’s face, and he let her fingers trail along the smooth curve of his cheek and jaw. “Is it really you?” she whispered. Even now she was afraid that he was just another of Papa Jim’s lies.
“It’s really me,” he said. “Ethan, your son.”
She literally didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. “They told me you were dead,” she said. “God, I’m so sorry, Ethan! I should have never believed . . .” She couldn’t go on.
“Shh,” he said, cupping her hand in his own. “It’s okay. You couldn’t know. The important thing is, we’ve found each other. We’re together now.”
She nodded, forcing the flood of emotions back by an act of sheer will. “I watched your press conference. I was so proud! And I’m so, so sorry about Lisa . . . about your mother. I know I can’t take her place. I’m not even going to try. But I hope you’ll let me love you and be there for you . . .” She choked up again.
“Of course I will,” Ethan said. “I wish you could have known her. I think you would have been friends.” As he spoke, he led her across the room to the bed and guided her down to sit there. He sat beside her, clasping her hand.
Kate gave an embarrassed laugh, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her free hand. “This is so strange! I feel like I’ve known you forever, but we’re really strangers, aren’t we?”
“I guess we have a lot of catching up to do, at that,” Ethan said with a smile.
Back in Kate’s room, Papa Jim was seated comfortably, smoking a fresh cigar and watching Kate and Ethan on the wall screen. The picture was crystal clear, as was the sound; he might almost have been in the room with them. He hadn’t been certain how Ethan would react to Kate’s appearance, whether he’d accept her as his birth mother or hold back emotionally, suspecting Papa Jim of sending in a Conversatio agent to act the part: which, to be fair, he would have done in a heartbeat if not for the fact that he had the genuine article at hand. He couldn’t figure Ethan out, didn’t understand the extent of his miraculous abilities. He was a walking bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, he seemed like any young man his age, brash in some respects yet confused in others, still feeling his way forward into adulthood, while on the other hand, he was capable of surprising wisdom and flashes of intelligence that were downright uncanny. But now it looked like his worries had been groundless. Ethan had taken the bait. Papa Jim settled back in the chair and put his feet up, ready to enjoy the show.
“I guess we have a lot of catching up to do, at that,” Ethan was saying.
The screen went dark.
The sound vanished.
“What the hell?” Papa Jim sat up straight, pointing the remote at the screen and hitting the on/off button repeatedly. Nothing.
&nbs
p; His implant crackled to life. Sir, we’ve lost audio and video.
“Well, get ’em back,” he snapped.
We can’t. It’s like the room’s been cut off from the rest of the facility.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he said. And laughed.
Sir? Your orders? Should we send a team in there?
“Hell, no,” he said. He thought it unlikely that they would be able to force the door, not as long as Ethan wanted them out, but he didn’t bother mentioning it. “Don’t you think they deserve a little privacy?”
Yes, sir.
Papa Jim sat back again, still chuckling to himself. The boy had pulled a fast one on him; he’d known all along that Papa Jim was watching. Papa Jim was sure of it. But he wasn’t angry. Instead, he felt a flush of pride. That’s my great-grandson, he thought. His daddy may be God Almighty, but he’s got something of ol’ Papa Jim in him too.
But great-grandson or no great-grandson, he wasn’t going to underestimate Ethan again.
After an hour or so, the TV flickered back to life. Ethan’s face filled the screen, looking directly into the camera and, it seemed, directly into the eyes of Papa Jim.
“I know you’re watching, Mr. Osbourne,” he said. “Why don’t you come on over and join the party?”
That was one invitation Papa Jim had no intention of refusing.
A moment later, he entered the room to find Ethan and Kate sitting side by side on the bed, just where they’d been when he’d last seen them. “I hope you two had a good visit,” he said. “I’m just glad I was able to bring you together after so long.”
Kate looked as if she might say something, but then decided against it.
Ethan said, “I’m grateful to you for that, Mr. Osbourne.”
“Please,” he said, smiling. “Papa Jim.”
“I’ve thought over what you said, and discussed it with Kate, and I’ve decided to accept your offer of protection for now.”
“That’s great!” He was about to say more, but Ethan broke in before he could do so.
“I’d like Lisa to be buried next to Gordon,” he said. “I’d like you to organize the burial as soon as possible. Tomorrow or the day after, at the latest.”
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