Commitment (45 page)

Alex felt her heart skip at the sensual tone in her wife’s voice. She had missed Cassidy. “Cass, are you sure you are up to this? I mean…” Alex felt Cassidy’s weight above her and moved her hands to Cassidy’s hips.

“Alex, I told you. I need you. Right now I don’t want to think about siblings or parents. I don’t even want to think about Dylan or Mackenzie. I love them all. I just want you,” Cassidy implored her wife.

Alex kissed Cassidy slowly, her hands tracing circles on Cassidy’s back. The feel of Cassidy against her caused the fear Alex had suppressed over the last day to surge like a storm. Alex’s body reacted with a shudder as she recalled the desperation she felt to get home to her family. Instinctively, she pulled Cassidy closer to her, needing to remind herself that Cassidy was safe. Cassidy felt Alex’s kiss become more insistent and pulled back slightly. “Cass?” Alex asked in concern.

“Slow down, Alex. I’m not going anywhere,” Cassidy promised.

“I’m not either,” Alex responded as she attempted to swallow the lump in her throat. Alex closed her eyes. Within moments, Cassidy felt another shudder pass through her wife’s body.

“What is it?” Cassidy asked.

Alex opened her eyes. She kissed Cassidy softly. “I want to you give you what you need. I know you want it to be just me and you….but I……”

Cassidy suddenly understood how those hours Alex spent traveling home must have felt for her wife. She laid back down and placed her head on Alex’s chest. “Tell me.”

Alex brushed her lips across Cassidy’s head and attempted to find the right words. “I don’t know how to explain it. First, I thought something happened to Rose, then when Mom said it was you….I thought I would…I was so afraid. She said you were all right. It wasn’t even a second…not even that long that I felt relieved and then I stopped breathing again….wondering if the baby…”

“Oh, Alex….I’m sorry,” Cassidy said with a squeeze.

“You are with the baby every minute. You are with Dylan every day. That’s how it works. I get it. You need just to be Cassidy. I think I get that….But, I need to…”

“I understand.”

“You do?” Alex asked hopefully,

“I think so. Just hold me. Hold us. You’ll feel better,” Cassidy assured her wife.

“I already do,” Alex said as her eyelids grew heavy. “This is much better than squishy you,” Alex grumbled.

Cassidy snickered. “Mm….I will remember you said that in a few months.” Cassidy was ready to needle Alex some more when she realized that Alex had already drifted off to sleep. It was one of Alex’s natural abilities that Cassidy secretly envied. Alex was like an infant. She could be babbling one second and sound asleep the next. “I wonder if that’s a Toles’ trait or a Pappas’ quirk?” she mused. “What do you think, Mackenzie?” Cassidy smiled and let her own eyes fall shut. Alex’s arm was draped around her protectively, and Cassidy realized that she was truly at peace. “I love you, Alex,” she whispered as sleep finally began to claim her. She felt Alex’s embrace tighten gently. “We all love you.”

Monday, January 26
^th

“What are you doing up already?” Helen asked Alex.

“Mom, I’m always up this early,” Alex reminded her mother.

“I guess I just thought you would want to stay in bed this morning,” Helen said. “How is Cassidy?”

“Resting. I think maybe I should be asking you and Rose that question,” Alex admitted with a sigh as she gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from her mother. “You know Cass,” Alex said.

“I think I do,” Helen responded.

“So?” Alex asked. “How is she….really?”

Helen pursed her lips and leaned against the counter behind her. “She’s tired. It’s not easy having no control over so many things in your life,” Helen explained.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

“I mean that she has no control over most of what is happening right now. Her body is not cooperating. There’s all this craziness with Dylan’s father, and…”

Alex finished her mother’s statement, “and I am missing in action.”

Helen released a deep sigh. “Yes. She knows it comes with the territory,” Helen said. Alex looked at her mother with a deep sense of regret. “It does come with the territory,” Helen said flatly. “That doesn’t make it any easier.” Alex watched as her mother’s fingers played nervously over the coffee cup in her hands.

“You called Edmond,” Alex verbalized her suspicion.

“Yes.”

Alex reached for her temples. “How do you know….”

Helen looked up from her coffee cup to her daughter. “He’s your godfather, Alexis.” Alex looked at her mother in disbelief. She wiped her hand over her face as if to sweep away the entire exchange. “Why is that so surprising to you?” Helen asked pointedly. Alex bit her lip in frustration and Helen nodded. “Your father and Edmond were friends before I even met your father,” Helen explained. She watched as confusion played across her daughter’s face. “Alexis, I may not be a genius but I lived with your father for fifty years. You don’t honestly believe that I have no idea what it is that he did.”

“He told you?” Alex asked.

“No. He did not. My mother gave me some idea,” Helen told Alex.

“I know I did not hear that correctly,” Alex responded.

“Yes, you did,” Helen assured her daughter. “Do you want to have this conversation now?” Helen asked. Alex stared blankly at her mother. “All right then,” Helen agreed and directed Alex to sit. “You have always taken after your father….before you start arguing with me, listen. You would create challenges for yourself just to prove you could master them. Every time you mastered something you had to find another, more difficult one to overcome. Sometimes it was building bicycle ramps, other times it was in school. You were always moving. Nicky is more like me. I think that worked for you because he became a project too.”

“Nicky is not my project.”

“Mm-hm….he was, in the best of ways. You were able to teach him and protect him, and you thrived on that,” Helen said proudly.

“What does that have to do with YaYa?” Alex asked in frustration.

“Everything. One thing you have never mastered is patience,” Helen observed. Alex sighed and nodded for her mother to continue. “Jonathan is just like you,” Helen said.

“You knew?” Alex’s voice grew cold.

“That Jonathan was your brother? No. I didn’t. Not until I spoke with Edmond the other night. That you had a brother? Yes, Alexis, I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alex pleaded.

“And what would that have accomplished?” Helen asked. “Part of me didn’t want to believe it. I suppose I thought if I ignored it, somehow it would not be true. It hurt me, Alexis; more than you can imagine.”

“But you stayed with him,” Alex said.

“I loved him,” Helen said. “I married him. It was my….”

“Duty?” Alex asked.

Helen laughed. “No, it was my choice.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Alex admitted. “What about Dad and Edmond?”

“They went to Harvard together,” Helen said. “They were roommates when your father was in law school. That didn’t happen by chance. Their parents ensured it.”

“Why?” Alex asked.

“All of our parents met during the war,” Helen said. “They served together.”

“Grandpa Pappas and Edmond Callier’s father?” Alex asked. “Grandpa was in Greece, Mom. He didn’t serve in World War II.”

“No, Alexis. Your grandmother and Edmond’s father did.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex asked.

Helen sighed. “Your grandmother was not Greek, Alexis. You do know that?”

“Yeah. She was French,” Alex said.

“Richard is French. That was not her original name,” Helen said. “It was Kaufman.”

Alex pressed her temples firmly. “What are you telling me? YaYa was German?”

“YaYa was a German Jew, Alexis,” Helen explained. “She changed her name.”

“To avoid persecution,” Alex surmised.

“Partly. Only partly,” Helen said. “She worked in an office in Rastenburg.”

“Are you telling me she worked for the Nazis?”

Helen nodded. “They thought so,” Helen smiled. “She worked as a stenographer, Alexis. You take after her as well. She had an aptitude for language. Did you know that?” Helen asked. Alex studied her mother. She was growing more curious and more anxious with each second that passed. “YaYa spoke Greek, French, German, English, and Russian fluently,” Helen told a surprised Alex.

“She was a spy,” Alex said in disbelief.

“In a manner of speaking,” Helen confirmed. “She sent information about banking transactions to the allies. Specifically to a contact in France. A young French officer named Rene Callier.”

Helen watched as Alex attempted to process the story of her grandmother’s life. It was a fanciful story, but every word of it was true. Helen remembered the long conversation with her mother one stormy Sunday afternoon. Alex’s father had been away for nearly a month, and a very pregnant Helen was growing weary. She could not understand what business could manage to keep her husband overseas for such extended periods. It was a pattern that repeated throughout the early years of their marriage, and Helen was beginning to wonder how many mistresses her husband had. Her mother’s revelations seemed preposterous to Helen. As she listened to her mother, Helen came to embrace the idea that fiction is always born of truth. Helen looked at her daughter now and saw a familiar expression reflected back to her.

“It was no accident that I met your father,” Helen said quietly. “Your Grandfather Toles was stationed in France during the war.”

“Yes, I know,” Alex said.

“Your father, Edmond….even me….we were born into this life, Alexis. We did not find each other by accident. It was carefully orchestrated. Not unlike like you and Jonathan. Your father and Edmond….they were not given much choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Alex responded swiftly.

“Is there?” Helen challenged her daughter. “Maybe there is. Maybe it’s just part of who they were; just like you.”

“You think I am like Dad and Edmond? Do you have any idea the things they have done?” Alex chastised her mother for her assertion.

“I don’t need to know what they have done,” Helen said. “I do know that neither of them wanted his children to follow in his footsteps. And yet, you have.”

Alex shook her head. “I never wanted to be part of this, Mom. Not this,” Alex said.

“And you think they did?” Helen asked pointedly.

“It was their choice,” Alex offered her opinion.

“And, it is yours,” Helen responded in kind. “You are very quick to judge,” Helen reprimanded her daughter. “Particularly, when you don’t seem to know all the facts.”

“Are you defending them?” Alex asked. “They have financed warlords, drug dealers, sold weapons to terrorist. Jesus Christ, Mom…they’ve had people assassinated! What do you think killed Dad? A heart attack?”

“That’s enough, Alexis,” Helen demanded.

Anger and confusion poured through Alex’s body. Helen closed her eyes to calm her frustration. She pulled herself from her seat and made her way to her daughter. Helen pulled Alex’s hands away from their task of digging into her temples. She directed Alex to look at her and softened her tone. Gently, Helen pushed back her daughter’s hair just as she did when Alex was a child.

“I didn’t tell you this to hurt you, Alexis. It’s part of who you are; where you come from. You tell me that your father made choices. Edmond made choices. That’s true. I made choices. We all do. You chose to marry Cassidy. You chose to have this baby with her.” Helen began.

“I love her,” Alex said.

“Yes. I know you do. Your father loved me. He was always torn, Alexis; torn between what he felt he had to do, maybe even what he enjoyed doing.” Helen struggled to complete her thought as a myriad of memories flooded through her mind. “And, with being present for the people that he loved. He did love you, Alexis, but he was never very good at showing you that. He was gone so often, and when he was home, he was preoccupied with whatever would take him away next. So, yes…. we made choices. Now, you have to make some of your own. You think chasing the ghosts of the past will make your children’s future better?” Helen asked.

Alex’s eyes betrayed her doubt as she answered the question. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“They are that, Alexis….ghosts. They will haunt you if you let them. You have to decide now; what do you want? The past will always repeat itself unless you choose to stop it.”

“That’s what we are trying to do,” Alex defended her actions.

“Is it?” Helen questioned Alex. “You and Jonathan; you want to change the future? Or do you think somehow you can change the past?”

Helen’s frank question cut through Alex like a knife. “I…”

“The future is upstairs right now,” Helen said. “Not just your future….our future. So, now it’s your turn to decide how committed you really are to that. You can uncover all the secrets of the past. I’m confident of that. You might find some satisfaction in that, but you will never be able to change it.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Alex asked helplessly. “I have to protect them. I need to know…”

Helen smiled and patted Alex’s cheek. “You talk about choices, Alexis, and yet you see everything as right and wrong; absolutes. Only you can decide what choice is right and what choice is wrong. I can’t do that for you. In the end, it comes down to what you value most,” she said. “Talk to your brother,” Helen suggested.