Fires of Autumn (54 page)

Jack looked at her. “So his death remains a big mystery?”

Mother sighed faintly. “We’ll never know if Colt was the
intended target or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,”
she said softly. “All I know is that I was looking right at him when he was
shot.  I remember running towards him while the Secret Service was trying to
get the President back into the limousine and, much like Jackie Kennedy, I held
Colt’s bloody head in my lap until they physically separated us.  I remember
clinging to him and refusing to let go. His funeral was like a nightmare. He
was buried at Arlington with complete military honors, if you should ever want
to go and visit his grave sometime. But I don’t remember much after that. The
President gave me as much time off as I needed, but I was so grief-stricken
that I ended up taking almost six months off. Every time I went near the West
Wing, I’d have anxiety attacks.  Finally, I just quit my job because I couldn’t
go near the White House. Too many memories.”

Jack was subdued as he thought on his mother’s heartbreaking
horror. “And Senator Dane?”

Mother simply shrugged. “He waited a nominal amount of time
after Colt’s death before he came around again, trying to convince me to marry
him,” she sighed heavily. “I just didn’t have the strength to fight him off
anymore.”

“So you gave in.”

“I gave in to a man who I knew would be good to you and your
brothers. “

“You gave up.”

“Yes, I did. I admit it. I never loved Scott and he knew it,
but he married me anyway. It’s rather sad if you think about it.”

“But he remained a senator until his death,” Jack stated.
“You lived in Washington all that time and you never saw the President again?”

“No,” Mother shook her head. “He tried to contact me a few
times. So did Tracy. But I just couldn’t talk to them.  They both reminded me
too much of Colt.”

“And then Scott died in a plane crash.”

“By thirty-nine years old, I had been widowed twice.  Not
such a good record.”

Jack continued to pace, thoughtfully, perhaps with a little
agitation now that all of the news was setting in.

 “I had every right to know who my real father was,” he said
after a time. “You always told me it was Dane but, somehow, I knew that wasn’t
the truth.”

Mother didn’t seem particularly remorseful.
“You weren’t quite three when Colt was killed. I’m surprised you don’t remember
him, at least in some small way. You two were very attached to one another.”

Jack thought hard. “It’s possible that I do,”
he said thoughtfully. “I seem to have very early memories of a red race-car bed
and a man lying with me in it, reading books.  You always said it was Dane but
based on the pictures I’ve seen of the man, it wasn’t him. It was someone
else.”

Mother smiled faintly. “It was Colt,” she
confirmed softly. “Oh, how he doted on you. You were absolutely the apple of
his eye.”

Jack lingered on the faint memories of his
racecar bed. “I wish I’d known him.”

“I wish you had, too.”

Jack sighed faintly, becoming resigned to what
he’d been told.  There was no use in scolding Mother for withholding the
information for so long. It really didn’t matter, and she’d had her reasons.

 “Well,” he said after a moment.  “Thanks for
telling me.”

“You be sure and tell your children someday,
okay? Tell them what a great man their grandfather was. Colt deserves that.”

Jack simply nodded. Exhausted from all of the
talking, Mother faded off to sleep after that and Jack stood at the foot of her
bed, thinking on the earliest memories of his childhood and trying to recall
what he could of Colt Sheridan.  He couldn’t remember much, really, but there
were phantom images in his mind of a warm smile and deep, soft voice.  He
remembered someone tickling him.  The more he thought on it, the more depressed
he became. 

A glance over at Mother showed her to be
sleeping soundly, so Jack quietly left the room to ponder the revelations from
the past.

***

When Mother opened her eyes again, it was very
late and very quiet.  Soft rain pelted the windows of her hospital room and she
lay there a moment, watching the rain, recalling a dream where she had been
standing in Lafayette Square on a warm summer’s day.  A soft breeze blew and
she pushed stray pieces of hair from her eyes, watching Colt approach from
Pennsylvania Avenue as he crossed the street and waved at her.  She just stood
there and watched him, waving in return, seeing his handsome features as they
loomed closer and closer.  And then, she woke up to soft rain on the windows
and the cold reality of a hospital room.

With a sigh, she brought up a hand to rub her
eyes, disappointed that she had not been allowed to remain in her dream.  She
dreamt of Colt regularly, and had for forty three years, but tonight’s dream
had been different. She almost got to touch him.  As she rubbed her eyes, she
drew her hand back and happened to glance at it.

Her flesh wasn’t wrinkled and tissue-paper
thin any longer.  It was soft and creamy, as it had been in her youth. 
Confused, she looked at her other hand and noticed that it, too, was young and
supple.  Startled, she sat up, purely a reaction to her surprise when she
realized that she hadn’t been able to sit up in weeks.  Shocked, she looked at
her hands and arms, noticing how young and soft they were, so she climbed out
of bed.  She hadn’t been able to stand on her own in months, either.

The bathroom was to her left and she caught a
glimpse of herself.  The violet eyes widened as she saw herself as she had been
in her youth, a startling beauty with full lips and luminous eyes, staring back
in the reflection.  Mouth agape, Mother went to the bathroom mirror and turned
on the light, seeing herself as she had looked in her mid-thirties, the height
of her beauty and the time in her life when she had met Colt. It had been the
happiest time of her life. 

Casey touched her face, feeling the smooth
warm skin beneath her fingers.  She hadn’t touched that kind of skin in
decades.  Then she noticed her hair; the sleek caramel color with the heavy
fringe of bangs.  She laughed a little, with shock and glee, as she hadn’t had
that hairstyle in over thirty years.  She realized that she missed it.  Running
her fingers through her hair, she recognized the soft texture from years
past.   Thinking she was dreaming, she was more than happy to linger in this
wonderful dream. 

Exiting the bathroom, she noticed that she was
dressed in a long white gown that showed off her ample figure.  She had no idea
how she got into the gown because she didn’t remember putting it on.  As she
inspected the feather soft garment, a soft voice came from the hospital room
door.

“Hello, angel.”

Startled, she looked up to see Colt standing
in the doorway.  He looked the same way she always remembered him; enormously
tall and strong, his dark blond hair stylishly cut short, his dark eyes
glimmering at her from his exquisitely handsome face.  He was dressed in a
sleek dark suit, the expression on his face nothing short of adoring.  He was
worshiping her as he stared at her. A smile spread across Casey’s face as she
met his gaze.

“I must be dreaming,” she murmured. “Please, I
don’t want to wake up.”

His smile broadened as he stepped into the
room. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “You won’t.”

He was reaching out a hand to her and Casey
swiped at it, grabbing it, holding his big hand firmly in both of hers as if
afraid he was going to dissolve away and she would be left with only a painful
memory again.  She held him tightly.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, realizing that
she was actually touching him. “I… I can feel you.  I’ve dreamed about you so
much but I have never been able to actually feel you. Every time I get close, I
either wake up or you fade away. “

Colt put both arms around her and pulled her
into a crushing embrace. “Not this time,” he whispered. “God, I’ve missed you.
I love you so much.”

Casey threw her arms around his neck, holding
him with a death grip and terrified of letting go.  She could smell his
distinctive scent and feel the texture of his hair.  Euphoria swamped her.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered, closing
her eyes tightly. “The last time I held you, your brains were bleeding out into
my lap and the Secret Service was trying to separate us.  I wouldn’t let them
take you, though. I don’t know why; I knew you were dead. I guess I just didn’t
want to let you go.”

Colt released her long enough to cup her
beautiful face and kiss her soft lips. “I know,” he murmured. “I watched it
all. I tried to tell you it would be all right but you didn’t hear me.”

Casey looked at him, her euphoria now being
clouded by curiosity and confusion. “What do you mean that you watched it? You
were dead.”

He shrugged. “I guess I didn’t realize it for
a few minutes.  It took me that long to look at my feet and see myself lying
there with my head in your lap.  Then it made sense as to why no one was
responding on the radio, or ignoring me as they ran to protect the President. 
Once I saw myself on the ground and you crying, I figured out what had
happened.”

Casey had her hands on his face. “But here you
are…,” she grasped for words. “I can’t let you go, Colt. I can’t wake up from
this. It’ll just kill me.”

He smiled gently at her, grasped her by the
shoulders, and turned her around to the bed that was in the room.  Casey was
confused until she looked at the bed and saw a very old woman laying there. 
She peered closer as her expression loosened with recognition.

“That’s
me
,” she hissed, startled when
a couple of nurses suddenly ran in to the room and began going through the
check list of resuscitation.  Confused, she looked up at Colt. “What’s going
on?”

Colt wrapped her up in his big arms and hugged
her.  “I’ve been waiting forty three years, two months, seventy eight days and
sixteen hours for you,” he murmured. “I was supposed to cross over a long time
ago but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave you.”

She still wasn’t clear on what he was saying.
“Couldn’t
leave
me? What do you mean?”

He put his arm around her shoulders and began
to lead her towards the door of the room as more nurses came in and began CPR
on the old woman on the bed.  Monitors were going off and people were buzzing
in on the intercom, creating some chaos in the darkened room.

“Just what I said,” Colt replied softly. “I
wouldn’t leave you.  So I’ve been hanging around, waiting for your time to
come. I knew it would come soon so I’ve been waiting in this hospital until you
were ready. “

“Ready for what?”

“To die.”

Casey didn’t react for a moment.  Then her
eyes got wide and she paused in the doorway, grasping his big hands. “Is that
why I can touch you?” she asked, shocked. “I’m
dead
? This isn’t a
dream?”

He shook his head and kissed her forehead,
leading her out of the room. “It’s not a dream,” he assured her.  “It’s time
for you and I to move on to the next adventure.”

Casey gazed up at him, choking up. “Are you
serious, Colt?” she begged softly. “I’m really dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been waiting for me all this time
to
die
?”

“All this time,” he confirmed softly. “There
was no way I could leave you, Casey.  I’ve watched you go through hell and then
some over the years.  I’ve watched you remarry, knowing you had other husbands,
but still, I hung around because I knew that what you and I shared was special
above everything else.  Maybe that was arrogant of me, but I don’t think so. I
knew you felt the same way.”

She touched his face, blinking back the tears.
“Of course I did,” she whispered. “I married Kevin because he reminded me a lot
of you. But I married Scott because I was so emotionally crippled at the time
that I just couldn’t fight him off.  Besides, he took good care of the boys and
set up trust funds for their college.  He never lived long enough to see them
use it, though.”

“I know.”

Casey looked around, spookily. “You haven’t
seen him around here, have you?”

Colt laughed softly. “No,” he told her. “He
passed over a long time ago. He told me that you never got over me.”

“I didn’t.”

“I never got over you, either.”

They paused as they reached the waiting area
near the elevator banks.  Colt glanced over, seeing Jack sitting on the sofa
with his head in his hands as a nurse spoke softly to him.  Casey saw him, too,
and the tears came.

“My poor baby,” she whispered. “He’s not ready
for this.”

Colt watched his son as the man came to grips
with his mother’s passing.   His gaze was soft, warm, perhaps wistful.

“You’ve done such a wonderful job with him,
Casey,” he murmured. “He grew up into such a fine man.  I’m very proud of him
and of you.”

Casey sniffled, her head against his chest as
his big arms went around her. “Could… could you see him? As he grew up, I
mean?”