19 March 2004  

DINO

She's gone.  They both are.  Heather and Lachlan.  It's confusing, isn't it?  The events of the last few weeks have been unbelievable, even in this World of ours where the extraordinary is possible.  Uma's brush with Dea and subsequent disappearance was the first stone cast into the pond.  From that, the ripples traveled outward, touching those she loved and those who loved her.  Resonating, until they began to form ripples of their own.

The latest ripple to touch me began with a phone call.  Half way around the world, Uma called Heather.  Confused.  Terrified.  Desperate.  Told she was being exiled from the Game for displeasing the Goddess, unable to reach Terry and sick with dread that she knew the reason she was being expelled, she called with some last words, and as is typical of Uma's quick mind and giving heart, a warning. 

Save yourself.

I can't imagine what that call must have been like.  How do you even begin to say goodbye to that kind of love?  What words could possibly do such deep emotion justice?  And how do you listen to that, your heart breaking for people you love so dearly, knowing you might be next?  Yes, next.  Uma is not the only Sister carrying a child under her heart. 

I could see Heather in my mind's eye, phone pressed to her ear, eyes wide with shock and wet with tears, her hand wrapped protectively over her rounded belly.  So afraid for Uma.  Heartsick for what she knew it would do to Terry to lose her and their unborn child.  Terrified for herself and for Lachlan.  What if this Dea took her next?  Hadn't she done the same thing Uma was getting banished for?

It hit me while I was talking with Cort.  

DINO: I gotta get hold of Terry. My God, what can I tell him? Who might she have called? She had one hour.

CORT: Maybe Terry knows?

DINO: If he knew we would know... he's out of range... Heather... Terry's with Lachlan...

That's when I started looking at the bigger picture here.  Pulled back enough to work the problem at a different level in my mind.  And to be honest, it scared the shit out of me.  We'd already lost Uma.  Were we going to lose Heather too?  Was I going to lose her?  As soon as I got off with Cort, I called her with my heart in my throat. 

It rang and rang.  Machine picked up.  Fuck.  Please, God, just let her be sleeping or slow to get to the phone... anything but gone.  I waited for the beep.  "You there, honey?  Pick up... It's me... Come on.... pick up...."

"Dean?  Oh, thank God!"

"You OK, honey?"

She started crying.  "No... Uma called me and..."  Between these little hiccupy sobs, she told me what was said.  "And I can't reach Lach or, or Terry.... I tried everything..."

"Why didn't you call me?"  I tried to keep the reproach from my voice, aware getting short with her wouldn't do me any good.  She'd had to have received Uma's call more than 24 hours ago.  Why hadn't she contacted anyone? 

"I tried.... I tried everything.  Everyone.  It would ring and then I'd hear this click and a woman's voice would come on telling me she was sorry but the party I was trying to reach was unavailable.  It wasn't a recording though...."  Her breath hitched.  "It was really creepy and after trying for hours, I finally just gave up..."

"Shh... Breathe, honey...."  She needed to calm down.  I thought about the transcript I'd read.  Uma's conversation with Dea.  This woman's voice Heather said she heard.  I'd bet it was her.  Dea.  Fucking with us.  But why?  "Just take a minute and breathe, OK?"   

"I can't.  It hurts too much."

Is there any feeling in the world worse than helplessness?  I explained to her what we knew.  Admittedly, it wasn't much, but I knew just having what few facts we had would help calm her down a little.  It worked.  I poured a large splash of scotch into a glass and took a healthy swallow.  "What have you been doing since you stopped trying to call?"

"Writing."  

"Writing?"  With all due respect to this World, I had a hard time swallowing that one.  All this shit was going down and she was writing a diary?  I wondered if maybe she wasn't a bit closer to the edge than I thought.  It just didn't sound like the woman I knew. 

"A will," she said softly and it just took all the wind out of my sails.  She started crying again.  "And letters... to Lach, to the baby, to Terry, to Hando... to you..."

"Oh, honey...."  I took a another swallow from my glass and leafed through the paperwork sitting on my desk.  Did a swift mental calculation.  With Terry out of touch, everything was sitting square on my shoulders.  "I'll be there as soon as I can.  You know that, right?"  I was already mentally rearranging my schedule. 

"I know, Dean."

I didn't tell her everything was going to be OK.  To be honest, I didn't see how it could be.  I just told her that I loved her and that I'd call her tomorrow and we shared a few private words before I hung up. 

It took me two days to get things to a point where I could leave.  I slept on the plane.  It was the first sleep I'd gotten since Cort had called me.  I still hadn't been able to get a hold of either Terry or Lachlan.  My Island Girl was holding up better than I thought, considering the panic I'd first heard in her voice.  She was pale but steady when I got to her.  She fell into my arms and just held me so tight. 

It was a difficult few days for us both.  I worked the problem from my end, in every way that I could.  Did my level best to keep the business running as smooth as possible, all things considered.  It was a welcome diversion.  Heather mostly spent her time writing.  A record, she said.  Just in case. 

Just in case.

God.  How that choked me up.  I left her to it, though.  I knew she needed something to distract her, just as I did.  We spoke less than I thought we would and touched more.  She slept next to me every night, her tiny hand held fast in mine.  I thought of that night I called her after that shit in Dubrovnik and hoped she'd taken as much comfort from me as I'd taken from her.

Things were both better and worse after I finally got a hold of Terry.  Feeling like the burden had been lifted a little because it had been shared... but also knowing I'd just crushed his entire world in the space of a few seconds.  He and Curry left for home immediately.  I felt for Terry.  At least Lach would have the distraction of flying the plane.  Heather cried herself to sleep in my arms that night.  I could only imagine what was in her mind.   

She didn't sleep well.  Neither of us did.  I was alert to everything.  Every little noise made me want to hold her that much tighter, like wrapping her up in my arms could protect her from whatever force and taken Uma from this place.  It was foolish, and yet I couldn't stop myself.  She had vivid dreams.  Would cry out for Lachlan.  More than once, I woke to find her face wet with tears, seeping from under her lashes while she slept.  I ached for her but I ached for myself too.  Was this how Gen's last hours had been?  Watching how Heather had prepared made me wonder what last words Gen would have had for me.     

The morning dawned gray and cold.  Both of us were quiet.  Somber.  I think we were both gathering our strength, steeling ourselves for what was coming.  Terry and Lachlan would arrive sometime this afternoon and I had the sense she'd allowed me to carry her through this difficult time because soon, she would need to carry them.  She still carried inside her Uma's last words to Terry.  And I am sure that she had her own for Lachlan. 

Watching the wind blow her hair, I wondered if I was destined to lose all the women I'd ever loved.  Their arrival was pretty rough.  Seeing the old man so broken just killed me.  Seeing the way Heather embraced Lachlan hurt too.  Not like jealousy.  Something deeper than that.  More subtle.  There is a feeling of rightness inside me when I stand at her side.  I can't explain it any better than that.  It's not that I feel anger at having to step aside.  Especially not now.  I don't pine for her when we are apart.  But there is something that happens inside my chest when we are together and I notice it when it is gone.  And the simple truth is having to step aside and exist at the fringes of this was hard.

Seeing them all together like that brought home a truth for me.  For all the love and camaraderie and friendship between each one of us, I was not a part of what they were to each other in that moment as anything but an outsider.  They had shared an extraordinary journey in their quest to become parents and had grown close as only people who share the same journey can. 

It was not my journey but they would always be my friends.  I stayed in the shadows.  Protecting all of them in this time when they were so fragile.  I didn't sleep at all that night.  I sat out on the back deck under the stars, smoking.  Talking to myself.  Talking to God.  Talking to Gen.  We kept a silent vigil that night, sentinels standing guard over the precious souls inside. 

I was exhausted but knew I wouldn't have to hold out much longer.  Something inside me told me that my part in this would soon be finished.  In the morning, we were taking the jet to San Francisco where we would part ways.  They were going to the Temple.  I was going home.  To my haven.  After all this, I needed the peace of that place more than ever.   

Heather came to me just before the sunrise.  She tucked a mug of steaming coffee into my cold hands and a disk into my breast pocket.  "Just in case," she said.  Tears burned my eyes for the first time since this whole thing had started.  If she got taken like Uma did, would this small piece of plastic be all that remained of her? 

"Just in case, honey," I whispered back, touching the pocket that rested over my heart.  We watched the sunrise together and said a private goodbye afterwards.  That's twice in my life I'd kissed her in that golden hour and wished I could hold back the dawn.

We made it to San Francisco without incident and parted ways after a few heartfelt words.  The pale girl who'd needed me to carry her had been transformed.  Uma had told her to save herself.  To run away.  Heather intended to hold her ground.  She believed there was no place she could run where they would be safe.  She intended to face this Dea on her own turf.  To enter the Temple's inner sanctuary and take responsibility for what they'd done.  For the life they'd made.  To face the piper and see what price she would demand. 

She would have made a damn fine Marine.  She'd make a better mother.  

I went home and got drunk.  Felt a bit deflated after it was over, like coming down off the high you feel at the end of a combat tour when it's your turn to hand over the rifle to someone else and pull out.  My fight was over.  Theirs was just beginning. 

When I woke up the next morning, the little glass float I'd given Heather on our first night together was in my hand.  I knew then that she was gone.  Knew it in my heart before I had it confirmed from the Temple.  She and Lachlan had passed into the inner sanctuary and disappeared.  No thunder.  No lightning.  No smoke.  Just gone.

I sat there on my deck and turned that little glass float over in my fingers.  Heather had written about it once. 

He took his hand away, unveiling his gift.  I picked it up and turned it over in my fingers.  A small glass float.  Japanese fishermen use them on their nets.  It's rare for one to float across the Pacific intact but people do find them on the beach from time to time.  This wasn't just a float, however.  He'd taken it somewhere and had a small hole bored in it and a stopper put in.  It was half full of white sand, like the kind we'd played in that morning on Tortola.  I rolled it in my palms and the sand shifted inside the green glass, revealing a single white pearl.  Dino took the float from me and turned it in his fingers.  The pearl disappeared under the sand and then he gave it back to me.

I got the message.

Holding that bit of glass this morning, I got the message too.  Strange how life works, isn't it?  Back then, I'd been making a comment to her about her place in my life.  Three parts.  The glass.  The sand.  The pearl.  An elegant representation of the three of us.  Heather.  Terry.  Dino.  At first glance, you'd think Heather was the pearl and Terry the sand, which left me as the glass; the part that only gets to touch the pearl when the sand is shifted just right.  Which I suppose has some element of truth, but that wasn't the meaning I'd intended.

Heather wasn't the pearl.  Terry was.  

The glass and the sand both protect it.  It was a gift that revealed more of my heart that I thought I'd be able to share, but she's always had this way of making me want to give up my secrets.  And so I did.  Gave her a bit of glass and stone that told her I'd never considered Terry a rival for anything I'd ever felt with her.  In fact, I saw her as someone who'd protect him as I had always done.  That what we'd found existed outside of him, even if he was always a part of it. 

Laying in bed with her that morning, I'd turned the float in my fingers and she'd understood immediately.  And now, miraculously, it had found its way back to me.  The absolute finality of that scared me.  This piece of my heart had come back to me, and with it, an unspoken message. 

Look after Terry.             

I knew then, wherever she was, that it would be a long, long time before I saw her again.

It was several hours before I was ready to face the disk she left in my possession.  It contained several files.  Though we'd already spoken about much of what was on it, reading the words was still hard.  It was, however, her wish that I share it with you, her family, in the event banishment was the price the piper exacted for the transgression of making a child with the man she loves.  And so, I give you the words as she gave them to me.   

Dean,

What is there left to say that we have not already said in these last precious days?  I know you would carry whatever burden I ask, no matter how heavy, as I wish I could do for you now.  You were always the soldier standing at the edge of the mist to me and I know you will keep your vigil even if the light that once guided you home has faded.  Wherever I am, know this- there is no place Dea can banish me where the mist will ever be too thick for me to see you at the edge of it and remember. 

In the days since Uma's disappearance, I have poured out my heart, my thoughts and memories into these pages and entrusted them into your care so you can know, so they all can know, what we did and why we did it.  It is fitting, I think, that you of all people should remain my touchstone.  The man who welcomed me into this world with such easy warmth and who saw me out with such gentle grace.  The night you found me, it was with these words from an old song playing in my mind.

 

I walk to the horizon
And there I find another 

 

Maybe I'm just over the edge of that next horizon, Dean.  There are always two choices, two paths to take.  One is easy.  And its only reward is that it is easy. Wherever I am, I will always remember Tortola and a man who inspired me to write these words:

I am not a wise woman, but I can tell you this much- one chapter has closed on my life and another has begun in these pages.  I cannot say where it will go from here.  I do not know what I will find on the new horizon.  I can only share the journey until there are no more stories to tell and no more blank pages to fill.

Perhaps with what I've left for you to share here, all my pages are full.  Perhaps I'm only exchanging one horizon for another.  You know, a wise man once told me not to be afraid to take a risk.  I'm not sorry I took one with you.  I'm not sorry I took one and risked it all to make a child in love.  There are some prices worth paying.  Take care of Terry.  Take care of yourself.  I don't need to tell you what lies in my heart.  You have always known.   

 

Truly.  Deeply.  Always.

Heather

And so, strangely, even though neither of them was my secret to tell, I find myself the one revealing not only Uma's pregnancy, but Heather's as well.  She would like the curious balance in that.  I do.   

And to be honest, some of what she'd left here surprised me.  Not just an accounting of the events that lead them to this place, but also a handful of private letters and instructions to mail them out when the time was right.  I didn't touch the one addressed to myself.  It seemed too final.  Hope still burned within me. 

It killed me to see Lachlan's name in the list among those to whom she'd left letters and I hoped that wherever they were, they were together.  The only name in the list that surprised me was Maximus.  I hadn't realized their relationship was of the sort where any last words might be welcomed, and yet his file was the largest of all.  For all the emotional upheaval I'd been through in the last week, the very unexpectedness of it made me smile. 

Queen of Secrets she'd once called herself.  And I loved her all the more for them.  Both of us had always played our cards close to the chest and it was this little silly reminder, in all of this seriousness, that there was still this element of the unknown.  That we hadn't come to the end of the journey.  That we both still had secrets to share. 

I opened my mail to send the first of the letters and saw something strange.  An email with my name in the 'subject' and nothing in the 'from'.  Only Heather ever calls me Dean.  I clicked on it.  It said only one thing.

Tell him faith isn't faith until it is all you have.  

Typical that her last thoughts would be of him.  It is a statement I make not with jealousy but with understanding.  She doesn't ask me to look after him because she cares more for him than for me or because she's disregarding my personal feelings, but because she trusts me with his fragile heart.  I have done a lot of thinking in the last few days, more than I ever imagined, and I have seen parts of my friends' personal private lives that are almost never on display. 

It came to me while I was sitting on the deck that night.  She says that he is safe.  She has said that more than once.  She has said that she feels safe with me.  It is a small distinction, but an important one.  He is safe.  I am not.  It makes me smile.  Or maybe it's just the scotch and my exhaustion.  Or maybe it's just that I can hear her voice telling me it's better to laugh than to cry. 

Whatever the reason, I can't help but feel that she is wrong about one thing.  These words of hers she wishes me to share with you, they are not the last of her blank pages.  I know this simply because I know they do not contain the answers to all her secrets.  And I know in my heart that we will never be done until the last secret has been exchanged.  I miss her.  I miss all of them, and yet I still have hope.  I will still keep my lonely vigil.  And I will still share her words with you all when the time is right. 

As she left me with words, I in turn, leave some with you.