“I want to go,” she hesitated. “Mathew is like no man I’ve ever met.” She went back to gripping one hand with the other to steady her nerves.
“Is this about John Henry?”
She nodded.
Given how their exchange struggled to get going, Steve decided to keep leading her along, hoping to save her some embarrassment.
“John Henry was challenging to be married to, wasn’t he?” he asked.
She blushed. “Difficult is one way to describe our life together.”
“Callie what happened between you two is over. Mathew understands the man wanted things you found objectionable,” Steve said.
“I am unworthy of Mathew.”
“He is a 41-year-old man. He has been in relationships. He’s not a starry-eyed teenager,” Steve said, trying to ground Callie in reality.
“He’s a much a better person than I am,” she said.
“Deep inside, you are a worthy woman,” Steve said in a softened tone. “Even if you might feel tarnished, the people close to you recognize your inherent sweetness.”
She sat with her head curved down as if ashamed. Steve figured sharing aspects of his history might help her come to grips with her troubles.
“I went through a bad time beginning about ten years ago or so,” Steve said. “I gave up on romance and relationships. I picked up women in hotel bars when I traveled to circumvent any obligations. This went on for years until I became sick of it. One night I talked with Mathew about love and our conversation started me on a journey of self-exploration.”
He had been staring ahead at the vineyard while he talked, but now he glanced over at Callie, thankful to find her expression more interested than disgusted by his former lifestyle.
“The opportunity for real love, the kind my parents enjoyed, enticed me and I juggled that around in my brain for some time,” he continued. “While the possibility scared the bejesus out of me, I committed to taking a private expedition to find more of myself. I ended my long string of one-night stands. Inside I resonated with hollowness. Back then I centered all my attention on my work for the Bureau. Off hours, I only hung out with other agents and most of them I could not call friends.”
A hummingbird came over and hovered right in front of Callie’s face as if evaluating her level of sugariness. The flittering bird buzzed right by Steve, pressing on to what Ivy called ‘the friendly garden’ planted a surfeit of perennials to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The day before when he went there to think about the case, the active little patch amazed him. Sitting on the rustic woven willow bench placed in the center, he became so busy watching the activity among the flowers he never did think about the case, although the respite refreshed him.
“I became what we in jest called an FBI monk,” Steve said, resuming his recount of the changes in his personal life. “No one shared even a night with me from the time I started searching, until Ivy. I do not recommend taking so long.”
“How then?” Callie said in a whisper. “I feel I need to do penance.”
Steve stayed quiet for a few moments, trying to find an inspired alternative for Callie. “Why don’t you go away to a retreat offering spiritual cleansing? A place where you can go to think and put the past in perspective? If this approach might work for you, go out with Mathew and tell him your plans.”
“I’m going to a psychologist. She said recovery will take years,” Callie said.
Steve was not fond of the concept of recovery. He felt a person could have experiences from which recovery was not possible, but a person could move on by putting adverse experiences in the past.
“Do we recover or do we reconcile ourselves with our past?” he asked. He spoke slowly to let Callie appreciate the import of the difference. “The answers are all inside you. We each contain dark sides and dark times. What matters is whether we can shove the darkness we have in a virtual closet, click the lock shut and keep the murky horrors at bay. You spent nearly ten years with John Henry. How many of those made you happy?”
“None. Even the first one was tainted,” Callie said
“Don’t you think you squandered enough years on that man?” Steve said, with a little harsh impatience. Quickly he pulled himself away from his disgust with her husband back to helping Callie, and he softened his tone. “Think ahead to the future. Bask in the light inside of yourself. The glow of your most inner self is what Mathew sees. Reach back to remember your true nature and let that young woman come back.”
Callie sat digging the toe of her shoe into a little anthill in the grass. “Can the transition be so simple?”
“I wallowed in dread of finding myself way too long – afraid the emptiness might be endemic. My method took too much time, but I did find my soul and my heart. While I will always work at transforming into a fuller person, I am growing into the man I want to be. You can become the woman you want to be. Go back to more innocent times and bring the kernel from the earlier days to refresh who you are now. Souls are the essence of our being. They thrive in the good and the light.”
“I like your phrase ‘souls thrive in the good and the light,'” Callie spoke in a wistful tone.
“Back on the night when Mathew and I first conversed about love, I asked him where he anticipated finding this paragon he sought. Any idea what he said?”
She shook her head.
“He believed she dealt with personal struggles on her path to him. He’s not seeking the flawless mythical virgin. He wants a woman with enough experience to appreciate him and with the depth of character to help fulfill his dreams.” Steve turned to face Callie and noticed a smile begin to curve her lips. She breathed in deeply and pushed her shoulders back.
“Thank you,” Callie whispered. She sat for some time in silence. A few tears trickled down her face, running just to the edge of her mouth as it curved in a little smile. She wiped the tears away with the soft sleeve of her cotton peasant blouse.
She stood, bent down and kissed him on the forehead. “Uncle Rick characterized you as the best of men – a good friend, a kind listener and a no-nonsense advisor. Hearing his praise gave me the courage to come and talk with you. You helped more than I can say. Now I must build on the hopefulness you gave me.”
Callie left by walking across the grass and up the stone pathway to the steps near the front of the house, going on her way alone but not lonely. Before she disappeared, she turned around. A broad smile came to her face, and she waved in the way a child might, full of bright cheerfulness.
Steve lingered for a few minutes to enjoy the sun and the open air. Before the fall rains started, he and Ivy needed to find time to sit outdoors and enjoy the tumbling rhapsody of the informal gardens. They remained vibrant with the blues of asters and the rusts and yellows of mums and dahlias, even in late autumn. Too bad they had these troubles – some intruder spying on them, a mysterious continuation of the Fuentes saga, the aftermath of Susannah’s kidnapping. Would their lives ever settle into a normal pattern? Or was this normal for them?
He went into the house smiling to himself. Since he needed to sluice off the chlorinated water before he sat down for lunch with Ivy, he took the little-used elevator up to their bedroom. They had put the lift in during construction in case doing stairs ever became a problem, due to injury or infirmity. Thinking that Ivy might be curious about why Callie wanted to talk with him, he needed a few extra minutes to organize his thoughts. Then again, she might not probe him with questions. He never knew with Ivy, and he liked those little mysteries about her.
Early the next morning, Steve woke up before four, made coffee and went downstairs to work. Delighted to find a message from his son, he opened it, surprised by his eagerness to hear what he had to say.
Email from Jeremy to Steve, 7th October 2014
Steve,
Thanks for reaching out to me. I want to ask a favor, but the situation is awkward. George, my adoptive Dad, has a thriving business here and will one day turn it over. He had a so
n in his first marriage who is a few months younger than I am. While we both work at George’s firm, he might give the lead to his blood son, with me in a secondary role.
His son and I have certain resemblances. For example, our eyes are the color and shape of George’s eyes, plus our builds are similar. Mom knew George for some time before you two divorced. Did she start an affair with George back before my birth, making it plausible that I am his biological son? You and I don’t seem much alike.
Will you be willing to take a DNA test with the results forwarded to a lab here in D.C.? The lab can compare my genes to yours and if they don’t match, I can talk first to my mom and then to George. This is a hard thing to request, but asking you is easier since we never see each other.
Jeremy
Steve sat back in his chair struck by the irony of this entreaty from his son popping up while they were conducting a genetic study of the Fuentes. Might Jeremy not be his son? Steve shook his head in disbelief, forcing himself to think rationally. He read the words again and thought back more than thirty years to his first marriage. As typical of his career, he had worked away from home for most of those three years that he was married. The baby had come along near the end of the second year. After that their relationship had deteriorated, his wife moved out, after what she claimed had been a fling of six months with George.
She had wanted the D.C. social scene George lived as an up and coming lobbyist. With the obligations of a career federal agent, Steve had dedicated himself to his work. As he recalled, the man had left his first wife and shacked up with Jeremy’s mother in an apartment in Georgetown, how appropriate, until their divorces came through. What gob-smacked Steve was he had never suspected his wife had cheated on him earlier in the marriage and Jeremy could be George’s son. Had he been firing blanks all these years or wearing a blindfold?
Did George realize Jeremy might be his natural son? If their eyes were the same, he must suspect, and he had been adamant about raising the boy as his. Steve had retained rights to visit Jeremy, and he had paid child support. Did George chuckle to himself when the support payments had come in each month?
“What’s wrong?” Ivy asked as she walked into the room. “Did a ghost just whoosh past you?”
“Ghost of my bygone marriage. You remember I told you I reached out to my son? He responded this morning.”
“You wanted to hear from him, right?” Ivy asked, puzzled by Steve’s reaction.
“He doesn’t think I’m his real father,” Steve blurted out. “Read what he sent.”
He stood to let Ivy sit in his chair. She read through the text, gaped up at him and reread it. Will Ivy think less of him if he never produced a child? She jumped up and took two strides over, taking him in her arms and pulling him close to her.
“Am I bloody sterile or what?” he said and pressed against her, wanting her reassurance.
“You didn’t use protection?”
“Not always.”
She pushed back to kiss him full on the mouth before saying, “No one could ever doubt your masculinity or sexual performance. You are a sensual, giving lover. This upsets you, but nothing changes between us.”
Ivy was more than he deserved. Her words warmed his heart and made him want to take her to bed right then. Sensing his desire and his rattled ego, she pulled him towards the stairs. They hurried up the steps, never letting go of each other, went into their bedroom and shut the door. She towed him into their big bathroom, tore off his robe, threw hers over on the tub and tossed her filmy nightgown up over her head, letting it drift down to the floor in a silken cloud.
“Let’s shower together today,” Ivy said. “I want to be warm, wet and in your arms.”
She didn’t need to say those words twice. Steve had built the big, glass, two-headed shower stall with thoughts of intimacy in mind. What if he was sterile? For chrissakes at 62, he had the loveliest of wives who wanted him and his equipment still functioned. The past lay behind him, unchangeable. His present was bursting with the joy of living, and he wanted to spend his days building on his love with Ivy.
An hour later, she sat next to him on the bed, tugging on a pair of black leggings under a loose red sweater. Damp from their watery lovemaking, her hair fell around her shoulders in ringlets.
“What will you do?” Ivy asked.
“About Jeremy? Get the test done,” Steve said in his decisive way. “I failed to do much right by him. I can do this.”
“Make a morning appointment and you can take me for some Thai food afterward. We need a break,” Ivy said.
“You won’t think I’m a failure as a man if he isn’t mine?”
“Do I need to drag you into bed this time, Nielsen?”
“Not yet. Just remember, I may require more assurance over the next few days,” Steve said.
Ivy saw the hurt in his eyes and wanted to do whatever she could to help him reconcile himself to this new circumstance. “Don’t we make love often enough?”
“Ivy, I want to make love with you morning, noon, and night,” Steve said his eyes turning from hurt to passionate. “At least in my mind, I like to think I possess such stamina at my age, and yet the frequency would wear away the sweetness in our lovemaking, making it mundane.”
“I do love you, Steve Nielsen,” Ivy said. “You are an incredible lover.
Steve took her right hand in his, pulled it to his lips and brushed the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. He should be more upset and yet telling Ivy about his son took away the sting of learning he may not be a father. Talking with his emotions raw and unsettled represented a big step for him. This morning marked a growth milestone in their union as a couple, making it deeper and more solid. A man could not ask for more.
Chapter 15
Not until the following afternoon had Julio and Cruze escaped to a safe enough location to talk. When they neared the hotel in Caracas, a car tracked along behind them. Julio cruised past the entrance and hooked a sharp left. They twisted and turned their way through the city until they lost the tail. He pulled over and jumped out, hailing a cab back to get their baggage and leaving Cruze to drive the car out to the airport, return it and go to the terminal to wait.
Julio told the driver to drop him at the little-used far entrance to the hotel where he slipped into the building using his room key. He took an elevator up three floors, switched to the stairs for four flights, and went back to an elevator to the fifteenth floor. Julio slithered down the hall, clinging to the wall and peering around as he went. None of the three motion sensors he placed in the suite transmitted signals to his phone registering movement.
In a flash he flung the door open while pulling out his gun. Nothing moved in the room. He took the two suitcases, resting one on top of the other and walked to the door, rolling the luggage behind him, then he hastened out of the room to scan the hallway. Seeing no one, he quick-stepped his way to the elevators and rode down, again exiting through the far door and hopping into a taxi at the corner.
Julio gave the cabbie the address of a restaurant, calling as he rode to arrange a private jet to leave as soon as the pilot filed a flight plan, hopped out when the taxi stopped and sprang into another cab to meet Cruze. They flew back to Nassau, catching some sleep on the plane. Conversation was sparse as each of their minds were filled with what they just learned. He had tried to get Julio to talk during their flight from Caracas, but Julio put him off, remaining stubbornly silent.
Cruze had all he could do to hold back his tears. His brothers were dead. The filament of hope that he clung to that they might yet be alive had snapped, leaving him bereft, empty and scared.
Arriving in Nassau at dawn after their six-hour flight, they took a taxi to the harbor and prepared to take off in Julio’s speedy yacht. Once ready, they zoomed out of the harbor, traveled to an out-of-the-way lagoon on the far side of the big island of Andros and dropped anchor.
Julio opened a bottle of chilled Taittinger Rosé Champagne, and they sat on the sunny de
ck to talk. He pulled out a couple of fishing rods and put them in holders on the side of the boat. If anyone passed by, they would appear to be vacationers out for sun and fish. He sat down in a chair next to Cruze.
“What I am going to tell you will be painful, for me to tell and for you to hear. I know you are deeply aggrieved about your brothers, as am I, but we need to talk about this now,” Julio said.
Cruze nodded even though he squirmed from a premonition about the revelations to be disclosed.
“The summer when they sent you to juvie, I turned sixteen. You know my father harbored a deep fondness for me?”
“Back then you were the fun and lively Annetta we grew up with,” Cruze said. “I remember that your father doted on you, always hovering nearby at family gatherings and often buying you presents.”
“What you do not understand is his affection was meant to disguise his lust. For years he abused me sexually.”
Cruze turned to her, his mouth dropped open in shock.
“I don’t mean intercourse,” Julio continued. “He touched me in private places and made me watch him jack himself off. Once I became a teenager, the exploitation became more flagrant and more frequent. Whenever he gave me new clothes or jewelry, he would come into my bedroom, commanding me to stroke him. If I didn’t, he would . . . well, he would hurt me.”
Julio stopped speaking and took what for him was a big swallow of champagne and then a second one. He hated even to think of those days, much less reveal to Cruze the misery that transpired.
“On my sixteenth birthday, he raped me. I screamed and screamed. My mother never came to stop him. He left me with a promise of more gifts. You cannot imagine the depth of my disgust and despair,” Julio said reaching for his champagne and taking a third big swallow.
Cruze refilled the glass silently. He snuck a glance at his cousin and noticed that he had gone very pale. Cruze understood that this retelling of events brought back to Julio the horror of his childhood, back when Julio was Annetta.
New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) Page 14