The Fey (23 page)

Rebecca smiled softly remembering.

“
I got pregnant right away
which was probably a mistake. I see how much fun you and John have
without children and wonder what it would have been like. But I do
love babies. Anyway, you’ve heard me gush over babies
before.”

“
I have,” Alex said. She
touched her mother’s arm and they turned onto a path through the
deep shade cast by a grove of trees.

“
A couple hours after Sam
was born, I called my aunt, hoping she would tell mother about Sam
and everything would be all right. My aunt told me that mother was
dying. Cancer. She only had a few months to live and she did not
want to see me or Sam.

“
I... just lost it.”
Rebecca looked over at Alex. Alex’s face was blank as she listened
intently to what her mother was saying. Rebecca continued her
story.

“
Your father thought that
I was complete now that I had the baby. He kind of retreated into
work to give me space to enjoy the baby. He’ll tell you that we
were inseparable and so happy. And we were deliciously happy. Sam
is a beautiful woman. She was a gorgeous baby. I would sit and
watch her for hours. Mother died when Samantha was seven months
old… to the day. Then bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, everything fell
apart for me. Was it like that for you? Your
depression?”

“
No. It’s like walking
into a fog or under a waterfall. We can talk about it later. What
happened?”

“
They call it post-partum
depression these days. I left the house one day to go to the
grocery store. Sam was napping. The next door neighbor also had a
little girl and she agreed to watch Sam while I did both of our
grocery shopping. I came to myself outside of West Virginia. I was
driving home.”

“
Wow,” Alex said. She
couldn’t remember a time that her mother had done anything
irresponsible or, for that matter, on the spur of the moment. “You
must have been crazy.”

“
Thank you for that,”
Rebecca said. “I was crazy… and very young. I was twenty-four years
old going on twelve years old. I stopped at a gas station and
called your father. He begged me to return but I had to go home. I
just had to do it.

“
I stayed with my
grandmother. She was kind but had no idea what to do with me. I
spent every day at my mother’s home, the home I grew up in, going
through my mother’s things. My brothers appeared for the lawyer’s
appointment then disappeared as soon as they learned that mother
had no money in her own right. Everything reverted to
grandmother.”

“
That must have been a
shock,” Alex said wryly. Unbeknownst to Rebecca, Alex had
first-hand experience with her scumbag uncles.

“
They were furious. My
grandfather had given mother the house as a wedding present. So she
owned the house. My brothers wanted to throw mother’s things in the
trash and sell the house. I couldn’t do it. I had to go through
everything. I was under constant pressure from my brothers
and…”

Rebecca fell silent.

“
And?”

“
I was very depressed. I
ached for Patrick and Sam… but I couldn’t make myself go back. It’s
funny too. Patrick would never let me do something like that alone
now. No matter what was going on in his work or the world, he would
insist on helping. When my grandmother died, then left us all that
money, he was by my side every step of the way. He dealt with my
brothers, the lawyers, the probate, the trusts, everything. But
when my mother died? He didn’t know to insist and I didn’t know I
could even ask for his help. We had no idea how to have a
relationship then.”

They stopped at the edge of a large grass
field to watch a man play with his Border Collie. The man threw a
Frisbee and the dog would wait until the Frisbee had almost landed
before he took off to catch it. Then, proud of his catch, the black
and white dog raced back to his owner. Alex touched Rebecca’s arm
and they continued walking.

“
Please go on,” Alex
said.

“
My grandmother arranged a
little dinner party for my twenty-fifth birthday,” Rebecca sighed.
“Benjamin was there. I didn’t make it through dinner. When I
started crying at the dinner table, he offered to take me out. It
was the first time I’d been out in the world in almost two
years.

“
Charming, sophisticated
Benjamin and I went out on the town. We laughed, listened to music,
and drank. I felt like I was eighteen again–my father was still
alive, Philippe was by my side and my whole life was in front of
me. I was certain, utterly certain that Patrick was with…well, any
number of woman who hung on him all the time. He
wasn’t.”

“
Of course.”

“
Benjamin and I… we had a
wonderful, absolutely wonderful time. It was one of those nights,
I’m sure you’ve had them, where the stars line up and every single
thing is memorable. The food was wonderful. The wine was superb. We
saw, if you can believe it, Miles Davis in this tiny jazz bar.”
Rebecca smiled. “I’ve never had a night like it–before or since.
Certainly there are moments in time that stand out, but there was
something about that night that was special, star struck almost. He
took me back to his apartment. We hadn’t intended to… but one thing
led to another. I mean, it was the seventies and everyone was
sleeping with everyone.”

Rebecca smiled at the wry look on Alex’s
face.

“
I guess that’s an excuse.
The truth is that it was all wrong–for me and for him. I think we
noticed how wrong it was because everything else that night was so
perfect. I ached for Patrick and he wasn’t Patrick. He wanted…
well, probably Claire. Of course, she was six years old or
something then. Anyway, we were good enough friends that it wasn’t
weird and like I said, it was free love everywhere. We got dressed
and he took me to another bar where we saw another amazing jazz
act.” Rebecca smiled. “We saw another trumpet player. Benjamin
loves trumpet players. He became really famous, uh, Marsalis?
Something like that.”

“
You saw Wynton
Marsalis?”

“
He was just a kid,”
Rebecca nodded. “See what I mean? It was a very special night. We
stayed out all night going from one club to the next. And the sex
in the middle? If I wasn’t married? If I didn’t get pregnant?
Nothing against Ben, but I don’t know that I would have remembered
it.”

Rebecca stopped walking to look at her
daughter. She smiled. Of course it was a special night. It was the
night that brought her Alex and Max, her male-female identical
twins. Alex smiled at Rebecca.

“
The very next day, I put
mother’s house on the market and went home,” Rebecca said. “I was
probably gone… I don’t know three weeks, maybe a month
total.”

Rebecca fell silent as they walked. Turning
the corner, they walked along the Park Hill Golf Course. The shade
was deepening as the short Fall day retreated into afternoon.

“
That sounds very hard,”
Alex said.

“
Going home? It was hard,”
Rebecca continued. “Patrick wasn’t as mad as he was heart broken.
He’d never loved anyone before me, and I broke his heart. We talked
about getting a divorce and slept in separate bedrooms. Then I
realized I was pregnant. He was furious, absolutely furious. He
felt trapped by the baby. He’d never leave me while I was pregnant,
but he did not want to be with me or my ill begotten child. Then
the baby was twins–you and Max. Well, we expected boys. But you
know that.

“
I went into labor after a
little more than seven months. He took me to the hospital then went
back to work. He was mad and I deserved it. When they called him to
tell him you were born, he felt obligated to see you… you know, to
put on the show.” Rebecca chuckled a little and shook her head. “He
took one look at you guys and that was that. You’ll have to ask him
about it.

“
We’ve told you this part.
The hospital separated you. You would not eat or sleep. You just
cried. After three days, Max began to fail… probably that hole in
his heart they found when he was five years old. We didn’t expect
him to last the night. I was absolutely hysterical. I’d lost my
husband and now was losing my babies. They sedated me.”

Rebecca pressed her hand to her heart where
the intense feelings still lingered.

“
You were lying on
Patrick’s lap. You opened your eyes and growled at him. Growled!
You made this gesture with your hand. I’ve seen you make the same
gesture when you’re coming out of anesthesia. You reached for him,
for Max. Patrick says that he heard you say, clear as day, ‘I want
Max.’”

Rebecca smiled.

“
You and your father
shared this connection from the very start of your
life.”

Alex smiled, not sure of what to say. How
could they share a connection when they weren’t flesh and
blood?

“
Anyway, he jumped up,
putting you on his shoulder, and started arguing with the nurse
then the doctor then the hospital administrator. They were firm.
You might fail like Max was failing. When they left the room, he
put you in the incubator with Max.

“
You were tiny…a little
more than five pounds… and you reached for him. Max knew you were
there the moment you were together. He opened his eyes, the first
time he had, and took your hand. You made that face that you make
when you greet each other and suddenly he was better. He was
hungry! You were hungry! Patrick made the nurse bring me back to
the nursery. I held you and Patrick held Max. You both ate, a
little bit, then slept wrapped up in each other.

“
I don’t know what
happened or how it happened but we started talking while you slept.
For the first time in our relationship, we just talked. You would
wake up, eat, then sleep and we talked… for weeks. Months really.
Sami never left our side so we played and laughed with her. And we
talked.

“
I had loved Patrick,”
Rebecca paused trying to put the experience into words, “but I
didn’t know him very well. In those days and weeks, I learned a lot
about him and loved him even more. Ben came to see the babies, you
and Max. He and Patrick stayed up talking three or four nights in a
row. They weren’t best friends before that but somehow you guys
brought everyone together. It was a miracle.

“
So that’s it. That’s the
story of how Ben is your father and Patrick is your
father.”

“
Thank you for telling
me.”

“
You’ll tell
Max.”

Alex nodded.

They cut across the grass to the rose garden
near the Museum of Nature and Science. Alex stopped to smell one
red rose then touch a pink flower. She moved to a sunflower bush
covered with yellow blossoms. Alex laughed, reaching over her head
to touch the flowers that grew at least six feet off the
ground.

Rebecca watched her daughter mourning the
loss of her own roses and sunflowers that once lived in her own
yard outside her safe home.

“
It’s going to be all
right,” Rebecca said.

Alex’s head jerked to her mother. Her hand
closed over a dark red blossom while she hid her leaking eyes
behind the hand holding the cast iron heat register.

F

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Five hours later

September 9 – 5:13 P.M.
Denver, Colorado

“
I’m not going to call you
Papa,” Alex said answering her cell phone. She was standing at the
window of their hotel room with the door open to the suite sitting
room.

“
I’d be a little offended
if you did. It would be nice to not be the sperm donor
anymore.”

“
I’ll think about it,”
Alex said disagreeably. “Why didn’t you use protection?”

“
Because I planned on
marrying your mother. I thought…” Ben blew out a breath. “It was my
last chance at a normal life. She was gracious enough to want to be
with Patrick instead of me. She saved us both from a real
mess.”

“
Hmm,” Alex
said.

“
Property?”

“
Yes, let’s move on,” she
said.

“
There’s nothing in any of
the transcripts about a land or property of any kind. Raz ran one
of his programs and came up with nothing. You don’t remember the
call.”

“
I remember Eleazar
telling me that everyone was dead. I have this vague impression
that he screamed at me.” She shook her head and rubbed her
eyes.

“
Focus on the vague
impression.”

She sighed.

“
Ok… The feeling is that
he knew I tricked him.”

“
Tricked him?’

“
I mean, I wasn’t
surprised that he wanted this thing or that he was angry. And at
the same time…”

“
What?”

“
I felt like I lost
something important. Not lost, I put something somewhere but I
couldn’t remember where.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I don’t know what I mean.
I was distraught, bleeding, in tremendous pain and he was yelling
at me. I’m not very good when people yell.”

“
Let’s back
up. Is it some
thing
or something.”

“
Thing. Some
object.”

“
This property
exists.”

“
But I don’t have it. Yes,
that’s right.”