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25/04/98 Skeletons.
A big late model sedan pulled to a stop at the end of the leafy driveway and sat idling for a few moments before the driver shut the engine off. The man who emerged from the car was a distinguished looking fellow in his late sixties, dressed in a conservative dark suit and a long black coat. As he stood looking up at the house he slowly stripped off his fine leather driving gloves before folding them once and tucking them in a coat pocket. He had to knock three times at the worn oak door before someone answered. A pretty young pregnant woman with a long dark plait slung over one shoulder pulled the door open. She studied him curiously when he asked after Naomi, but she didn't hesitate to direct him around the side of the mellow old house, informing him that Naomi was working in the garden. He stepped off the porch and followed the uneven old paved path, aware that her eyes followed him until he was out of her sight. Naomi was just where the woman had said she would be, carefully pruning an ancient looking rose bush with an old pair of scissors. She turned to face him as he approached, and for a few moments he knew she didn't recognize the man he had been in the man he'd become. Then she did know him, and her sweet smile faded and her hand fell to her side, the scissors dropping harmlessly to the lawn. "Will," she whispered softly. "Hello, Naomi," he said cordially, accepting that it wasn't quite fair that he'd had time to prepare himself for this meeting and she was taken completely by surprise. To give her a few moments he bent over and retrieved the pruning scissors, dropping them carefully in her basket of gardening tools. But when he looked again her face was still unguarded and with a pang he remembered. After all, wasn't it one of the things he had most loved about her? Her complete inability to dissemble when it came to her feelings. Naomi Sandburg never wore a mask. "My god, Will, what are you doing here?" she finally asked, her eyes raking over him, probably noting all the changes the years had wrought. "I needed to see you," Will said. He stepped over the a bleached white bench and sat down. "I had my people track you down." Naomi's face grew sad for a moment. "You still have 'people' then?" "I am retired," he said stiffly. "But I have contacts." "I didn't know men like you ever retired," Naomi said bitterly, and then she was closing her eyes and breathing deeply. Will knew instantly that she was pushing the dark feeling away, that she was letting it go. It was frightening and somehow exhilarating to realize he still knew her so well after so long. "I didn't come here to rehash old arguments, Naomi," he said briskly. Naomi sat down in the soft green grass, her dress billowing around her slim graceful figure. "You're still beautiful," Will said without meaning to. She just looked at him through those great blue eyes, eyes that had haunted his dreams for years, eyes that had been in the faces of many women after she left, and that had recently smiled at him from the face of one young man. They reminded him why he was here. "Why did you come, Will?" "I need the truth, Naomi. I need to know if Blair is my son too." Expressions danced across the surface of those eyes, shock, fear, sorrow, acceptance. "Seems strange, Will, that you come demanding the truth from me," she finally said, without heat. "When all I ever heard from you were lies." "I was following orders," Will said, even though he no longer believed this himself. "The name and background I gave you was one assigned to me, I had no choice." "And letting me fall in love with you?" Naomi asked sadly. "Did you have no choice in that either?" Will shook his head wearily. "Naomi, it's thirty years too late for me to apologize for the arrogant SOB I was back then. I thought I was immortal, invincible, answering to no-one. It was a hell of a shock when my whole world went haywire and I had to rely on a seventeen year old hippie for help!" "Did you ever ask why I was the only one who could help you?" Will shook his head. "No. All I knew was that I had never been so vulnerable in my life. I tried to protect myself, and I convinced myself that maintaining my cover would help." "It didn't," Naomi recalled sadly. "No." Will looked down at his hands clenched in his lap. "I never meant to hurt you," he said slowly. "Back then it was all about me, my work, my needs. I am sorry about that." "Yes," Naomi said suddenly, meeting his eyes squarely as he looked up. "Of course he's your son. Whose else would he be?" Will released a great sigh and covered his face with his hands. "God forgive me," he moaned. He only dimly felt Naomi sit next to him on the bench and wrap an arm around his shoulders. "It's all right," she said comfortingly. "You don't know..." Will choked out. "I know he's a wonderful young man," Naomi said proudly. "A far better person than you or I. I know he's happy in his work and his life and that he's in love. If you knew these things you wouldn't be crying now." Will wiped at his face, attempting to get some control over himself. "You don't know everything, Naomi, how could you? The same arrogant bastard that got you pregnant lied to you about everything, including his name. When you found that picture of my wife and sons and left me I figured that eventually you'd come running back. It never occurred to me that you wouldn't come back, and that you might never learn my real name." Naomi caught Will's chin and swung his face around towards her, studying him intently, eyes sweeping over his broad forehead and piercing eyes. "How did you know about Blair, Will?" she asked, something like dread in her voice. "What is your real name?" A nerve ticked in Will's firm jaw, a mannerism so distinctive he could see the knowledge flaring in her eyes before he spoke. "Ellison," he said baldly. "William James Ellison." Naomi drew in a sharp breath and released it. She pulled away from him on the bench and stood up, putting several feet between them. "That is how I met Blair," Will said, standing to face her stiff back. "I didn't think anything of his name at first, although there was something very... familiar about his eyes. Then I saw a picture of the two of you and I knew he was mine. I just knew it." Naomi still remained silent, her face hidden from him. "You see why I had to know, Naomi. The two of them are... together." "You can't tell them," Naomi said with unshakable certainty, turning to face him. "You can never tell them." Will was speechless for long moments. He finally found his voice. "Naomi, are you mad? How can we not tell them? They're brothers!" "Only you and I know that," Naomi said, her tone becoming reasonable. "In the whole world only we two know that. Why should they ever have to know if we don't tell them?" Will searched for words. "Because it's wrong," he managed. "It's in-" "Don't say it!" Naomi sprang forward and put her hand over his lips. His horrified gaze met hers and she rushed into speech. "That only means something when there are children involved," she said insistently. "It's a cultural taboo that means nothing to these two men, in this situation. Why burden them with this? Why destroy their lives over it?" Will lifted a hand and gently carried her fingers from his lips. "Do you know what you are saying?" he asked deeply. "We both carry secrets, Will. Yours were national secrets and you sacrificed everything to carry them. Mine were the secrets I kept from my son all these years, about who and what his father was. Surely we can both carry this final secret? To protect our children?" Will groped for the bench behind him and sat down blindly. A thousand thoughts and memories were whirling in his head. "Jim's like me, you know," he said numbly. "At least, the way I was when we met." Naomi sat down next to him with a thump. "He has the gifts?" she gasped. Will nodded slowly. "Do you think Blair guides him the way I did you?" Naomi's tone was hushed. "Your son?" Will asked, a small wry smile on his lips. "How could he not?" "My god." Her hand gripped his tightly. "It went away after you left me," Will said, gazing into her deep blue eyes. "I made it go away." "Oh, Will," she said helplessly. "If he and Blair separate that will happen to him," he continued with certainty. "I won't do that to my son. Not again." "Then... you won't tell them?" "I won't tell them," Will repeated. They sat in silence for a long time as the afternoon deepened around them and the breeze grew chill. Finally William Ellison stood up and together they walked along the worn old path around the side of the house to the late model sedan on the edge of the leafy drive. Will pulled out his driving gloves and eased them onto his hands, flexing his fingers inside the fine leather. For a few moments longer they looked at one another through the dim shade of early twilight, and then Will climbed in the car and drove away. Naomi stood at the end of the leafy drive as the evening breeze teased at her hair and ruffled the hem of her dress. She lifted her face to its cool touch, and let it dry the tear tracks on her cheeks. The End.
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