Amanda stood in front of her kitchen counter and pulled together the ingredients for tonight's meal of hamburgers and fries. The boys loved them and they were easy to fix and clear up afterward. She was hoping for a quick meal that left them plenty of time for the discussion she knew they had to have.
They would be home soon and she realized as she waited how much she had missed this, her home, her family and all that came with them. She had missed cooking dinner and listening to Phillip and Jamie tell her about their day. She had missed hearing about her mother's gardening club and her latest flying lesson with Captain Curt. She missed clearing up the dishes while her boys did their homework upstairs.
She missed tea with her mother at bedtime and she missed the inevitable tap tap tap on her window after she was alone and the house was quiet. Lee had continued to visit her late at night, when the house was asleep despite being a normal, expected visitor in the home. Amanda had thought it sweet and romantic and the sound of his fingertip on the windowpane always made her smile. It was that missing tap tap tap that had kept her working late into the night, away from her home and family.
Now she stared out the window over the sink, daring to believe that soon she would not only hear the tap but see the tapper as well. If only tonight turned out as she hoped, then soon...soon they could be the family they had longed to be.
But first she had to overcome the initial hurdle...make her boys understand why they had been lied to for so long and to make them see that it was for their own good. She hadn't had much practice in this particular type of conversation or any other in quite some time. She heard their rapid steps and energetic voices approaching and put a rusty smile on her face as she turned to wait for them. Their steps slowed and their voices dropped to whispers. Puzzled, Amanda stood nearer to the door to hear their conversation.
"Jamie, that's Mom's Jeep."
"Huh?"
"There, by the drive, that's Moms Jeep!" Phillip shoved the other boy around to look in the right direction.
"Quit Phillip! Oh boy, that is Mom's. She's never home this early. Let's go see..." Jamie began to move forward again, eager to get inside.
"Wait, Jamie, what if...?" Phillip was suddenly overcome with a sense of uncertainty about this situation.
"What, mud brain?" Jamie looked at his brother as if he had lost his mind.
"What if she's home because she had another accident? What if she's hurt, like last time?" The two boys stared at each other as they recalled how their mother had looked after her last run-in with the stairs at work.
Bruises had covered her arms and legs and she hadn't been able to walk or talk very good for about a week. Grandma had said that she had bruised ribs and sore muscles. Mom had just said not to worry and not much else, as usual.
Jamie thought this over and nodded. "You may be right, but the only thing we can do is go inside and see. If she's hurt, she may need us to help her. If not, I sure want to see her as much as possible!"
"You're right, let's go."
Just inside the door, Amanda swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and silently apologized to the boys for the fear and worry they had been through. She moved swiftly back to the counter and turned the burner on under the burgers and switched on the oven to bake the fries. She turned with a bright smile on her face and greeted her sons as they, with more than a little trepidation, entered through the back door.
"Hi fellas, did you have a good day?"
"Mom! You're okay?" Phillip blurted his worries out in one rushed breath.
"Oh guys, sure, I'm okay. I just took some time off this afternoon to be with you."
"Cool!" Jamie laid down his books and wrapped his arms around her waist. Expecting a quick squeeze and then to be released, he was surprised when she wrapped her arms around his back and laid her head on top of his. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you, too. Both of you, very much." She stretched her hand to include Phillip in the embrace and ruffled his hair. "Now you go get washed up for dinner because it's gonna be ready soon, burgers and fries."
"All right, Mom." Both boys rushed up the stairs, more eager than ever to return to this unexpected treat.
Amanda watched their retreating backs and smiled. She really had missed them. The sound of the front door opening and her Mother calling out to her friend, Marie, "Thanks for the ride, Marie. I'll see you tomorrow." roused her from her musings.
Dotty hurried into the kitchen muttering about long lines at the grocery store. She dropped her bags on the counter and began to strip off her jacket without ever once looking up. She sighed once then began to call out, "Boys, come on down and help me get the table set for dinner. I'll have something whipped up in a jiffy."
"Mother, it's already done. Just sit down and catch your breath."
"Oh thank you, Amanda, I believe I will...Amanda! Why, I mean, how, oh dear...are you hurt? Is something wrong?" She rushed to her daughter and ran her hands over her arms as if testing for broken bones or bruises.
"Motheeeer...I'm fine, really. I just took the afternoon off and decided to go ahead and cook dinner a little early." She shrugged and spread her hands in explanation. "That's all."
"Amanda, does this have something to do with Lee?" The question was whispered and more than a bit hopeful.
"Mother, not now. I just want to have nice meal with my family, then we'll talk, okay?"
"All right, whatever you say, dear." Dotty studied her for several minutes then seemed satisfied with what she saw. "It's going to be okay, Amanda. I just know it is." She patted her face affectionately then went upstairs to tidy herself for dinner.
Forty-five minutes and one platter of burgers later, Amanda sat back and looked at her family. What she saw looking back at her were three expectant faces, with questions ready to fire. "All right, guys. I know you're curious and I guess now is as good a time as any to start this family meeting."
Phillip and Jamie began to speak over each other, demanding to know what was going on and what she needed to tell them. Dotty hushed them and voiced the first coherent question.
"Okay, dear. What is it that you want to talk about, exactly?" Dotty spoke, then literally held her breath waiting on the answer, praying for the right one to be heard.
"I need to tell you a bunch of different things, but for now, I just want to talk about Lee." She drew in a deep breath and waited for the reactions to start. She didn't have to wait long.
Both boys immediately closed off, it was written all over their faces and bodies. They slouched in their chairs and Jamie hung his head low over his chest while Phillip crossed his arms in the near belligerent posture she knew so well.
Jamie just nodded his head sullenly and refused to meet anyone's eyes but Phillip's.
Phillip looked at his brother and briefly made eye contact. In the way that only siblings could, they exchanged a world of emotions and thoughts in that one look and silently agreed to continue dealing with this as they had for weeks now, the only way they had been able.
Their worlds had been altered just as dramatically as had hers and she had not done her part to help them rebalance it. Therefore they had done what they could, alone. They had unknowingly and unerringly mimicked her behavior. They had shut themselves off from their grief and done their best to forget Lee and his impact on their lives. At first they discussed him, alone at night in their room and how strangely their Mom was reacting to the news.
She normally cried over dead plants and she hadn't even shed one tear over Lee, at least not that they had seen. Of course, they had barely seen her for weeks now, so how were they to know what she had or hadn't done. Eventually they quit even speaking his name and just kept their memories to themselves.
"Mom, why? Why do we have to do this now? You're almost normal tonight and we miss you and if we do this now you're going to go weird again." Phillip demanded in his usual forthright way.
Jamie remained silent but his subtly straightened posture indicated that he was listening intently for her response.
Amanda observed their behavior and realized that she had no one to blame but herself. She hadn't been here for them when they'd learned of Lee's death. She had told them the bogus story of the car wreck and that there was not to be a memorial service, just a private viewing with his uncle and that she didn't think they should be there. Then she had promptly disappeared into her own little sheltered world and had not even tried to understand that she was needed and that she needed to help them understand.
Now, weeks later, she knew that her next words would determine if she could regain the confidence and trust she had always been privileged to have from her boys. She thought carefully about how to broach the sensitive subject. For now she had to push her own feelings and needs aside and help them to work through their remaining grief and anger so that they could accept the idea that Lee might still be alive and that she had to try to bring him back into their lives and this time into their home, forever.
"Well, first of all Phillip, let me say that I'm so very sorry for the way I've been the last few weeks. I know I haven't been what you needed me to be and I can never tell you how sorry I am about that. You needed me here and I just wasn't able to be here with you guys."
"Why mom, why couldn't you be here with us? I always thought that when you were sad that you needed to be around the ones who love you, like us and Grandma." Jamie spoke for the first time and asked the most difficult question of all, the one that Amanda had been dreading.
"Oh sweetheart, I'm not sure I can answer that completely," Amanda saw her boys swallow hard at the thought of more of the half truths they thought they had been given for weeks now, "but I am certainly going to try." She reached across the table and clasped their hands in her own. "You all know that Lee and I were very close before he...before his accident. He was visiting us a lot here at the house and you were even spending time alone with him while I worked, right?"
"Yeah, sure, he was your boyfriend after all. He was cool, we didn't mind. Well, I didn't mind." Phillip gave a pointed look at his brother.
"I didn't mind either, not at the end. I liked Lee, too. Really, Mom." Jamie's tone was pleading and perhaps even tinged with remorse that he had given Lee such a hard time in the beginning.
"Oh, baby, I know that you did. He was crazy about you two, as well. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we were in love, Lee and I, and when you're in love and you lose the person that you're in love with, sometimes you just can't see that there are other people around you who are hurting as badly as you are. Or if you can see it, and I could tell that you guys were very upset, don't ever think I didn't see that and know that you missed him, well; even then, I just hurt too much to be able to focus on you. I had so much pain of my own to deal with, that I just couldn't absorb any more pain. So I ran away. I ran away and I hid from the ones who needed me the most and whom I needed the most. I was just too blinded by my own grief to see it."
She felt the tears running down her face at the remembrance of the agony and aching loneliness she had felt then and still did now. She reached to brush them away, not wanting to disturb the boys. After all, she had to believe that the time for tears and grief was almost over.
Her boys, torn between fear in the face of her sorrow and the need to hear more of what she was saying, jumped up to comfort her, hugging her on both sides, and patting her back and hair.
She wrapped her arms around their waists and held on tightly for a few minutes. Finally, she pulled away and asked them to sit again. When they had done so, she started to go on, but was unsure of how to proceed. Once more, Jamie provided the out that she needed at that moment.
"Mom, we're glad that you felt that you could talk to us about this, but why now? I mean, it's been a while since Lee died." He darted a quick look at her face. The last time he had said those words to her she had jumped up and ran from the house, not answering his question and not returning for hours. He had never done so again for fear that he would get the same reaction. "So why do we have to talk about this now, just when you're feeling better? I mean, we really want our lives back and our Mom back, all the time."
Amanda nodded to acknowledge his concern and knew that this was the moment of truth. She glanced at her Mother, who had been silent up until now; unsure of how much Amanda was going to tell the boys. Amanda nodded again, in her direction, to indicate that she was going to tell them everything.
"I want that too, guys, and I think we can have it and more, if you can just listen for a little longer and try to understand what I have to say to you. Maybe I'm being selfish for wanting to hear you say that you understand or maybe I just need to know one way or the other. If you can't understand, then I may have to make some pretty big lifestyle changes."
Puzzled and intrigued, they nodded slowly and sat back in their chairs with their hands quietly lying on the table before them. Dotty stood behind them and laid a hand on each boy's shoulder. She smiled over their heads, radiating all her love and encouragement to her daughter.
"Lee and I didn't work for a film company. That is, IFF isn't really a film company. It's a front for a secret government agency. An intelligence agency." She could see that they didn't fully comprehend what she was saying so she decided to put it a little more bluntly. "Lee was a spy and he recruited me about five years ago and I've been working with him ever since."
"Whoa, my mom is a spy!" Phillip let out his reaction on an excited breath.
Jamie said nothing, preferring to wait for the other shoe to drop as he sensed it was going to. He was right.
"There was no car wreck. Lee was in a fire, an explosion at a warehouse; it was part of a case that we were working on at that time." Both young men hung their heads, saddened at hearing the details of how their friend had died. "The clean up team was never able to positively identify his body but he wasn't found anywhere else and was considered to be dead. Until now..."
Two light brown heads shot up and pinned her down with sharp stares. Their mouths started to work as a dozen questions popped into their minds. She held them off with her raised hands and continued to explain.
"I've had a tip, from an informant that Lee might not be dead, but instead has been held captive all this time..." she paused then went for broke, "and I'm going to try to find him and bring him back."
"Can you do that? I mean do you know how?" Phillip rapid fired the questions at her. "Can you fight and shoot and interrogate people?"
"Now boys, you stop interrogating your mother!" Dotty admonished, despite being quite curious about the answers herself.
"No Mother, it's okay. They need to know that I can take care of myself and I can. Yes, Phillip, I can shoot and interrogate and hold my own in hand to hand. And I had a very good teacher in interrogation and the finer points of the intelligence business."
Jamie voiced the question that had been bothering him since this particular line of conversation had been started. "Mom, if you're so good at taking care of yourself, why are you getting hurt so much? I'm betting that it isn't really all the accidents you are claiming to have."
Amanda grinned ruefully at her ever-inquisitive son. "Well, Jamie, I guess you can say that for a while I forgot that I needed to take care of myself. I've been so lonely for Lee and that I probably have been more daring and reckless than I should have been. At least that is what the Agency shrink would say. But no more. I've remembered what I have to live for and I'm going to do just that!" She stood and walked around to her boys and her mother and hugged them all.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Phillip?"
"What if it isn't Lee? Will you...well, will you go back to the way you've been?"
"No way. I need and love you guys just as much as I need and love Lee, just in a different way."
Satisfied with their answers, they sat down to the rest of standard 'need to know' lecture and agreed to abide by the rules at all times. They asked a few more questions, some were hard, like why had they not been told earlier. And others were easy, like what was her title and did she have a badge, and soon they were off to bed, not to sleep, Amanda suspected, but to rehash the nights happenings over and over again.
When they were alone, Amanda hugged her mother once again. "Thank you, Mother."
"For what? For once I didn't say anything!"
"No, your look said it all. Thank you for understanding and accepting my choices. It isn't easy for you, I know. The boys needed you and you were here when I couldn't be and that will never be forgotten, by any of us."
"In that case, I want to ask a favor..." Dotty appeared apprehensive suddenly.
"Anything."
"Tonight, when you go to wherever it is that you are going, is there any danger?"
"Not particularly. We're just going to look tonight. To try to get a feel for the place where he might be." She read the unspoken concern in her mother's eyes and answered it. "And yes, I will be very careful. I'm coming back to my home and my wonderful family, no matter what does or doesn't happen, I promise."
TBC
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.