Discovery

by Douglas E Roff

  Chapter 46

  The phone rang in his office, and normally Edward would ignore it. He was busy with something Misti had just told him about some new suggested advances in translating parts of the Book, and he was anxious to see if she was right. The phone stopped ringing and went straight to voicemail. It then started ringing again a few seconds later.

  “What is it?” Edward answered rudely, but absently.

  “What it is, Edward St. James, is that you are a horrible old man with disgusting phone manners. You should work on that. Seriously.” Hannah sounded upset, but she really wasn’t. It was just Edward being Edward and allowances for his mercurial and often curt behavior had to be made. Especially by Hannah, who had come to enjoy working with the toxic old fart.

  Edward’s eyes glanced to the caller ID and noted it was Hannah, though it was quite unnecessary. “Hannah dear. Delighted to hear from you. Anything amiss?”

  “Much better. Now work on your sincerity and people will think you’re almost normal.”

  “Hardly, but I may give it a try. For you. What’s up?”

  “So, have you been spying on me lately?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you are fully aware of my living arrangements?”

  “She’s lovely. Just wish I was young, tall, a girl and a lot less bat shit crazy. So yes, I’m aware.”

  “You’ve done a background check, I imagine.”

  “Did one when she popped up in Bitsie’s life and my own full meal deal when you moved in with her.”

  “And?”

  “All good. Squeaky clean, even her ex. Mom and Dad are clean as a whistle too, no brothers or sisters, and very little baggage. She’s gorgeous, rich and sophisticated. Overall, a dream to take home to mom and dad. How are things, by the by?”

  “Things are good, which is why I’m calling. I figured you’d be snooping around; it is, after all, what you do best. I also figured if there was a problem, I’d have known by now. We good so far?”

  “Very. What’s your point?”

  “Vera will be coming with me to London. We’re going to have to make some adjustments to the living arrangements and all that. Are you gonna be OK with this?”

  “Are you asking?”

  “No. Sadly, I am not.”

  “Good girl. I see much progress in you Hannah. I hope you do too.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Meaning the answer is yes, of course. I’m delighted. But a few things before we get all happy and break out the bubbly. Have you told her she may be in some danger?”

  “Yes. No details, just that being around me could be hazardous to her health.”

  “And?”

  “She thought about it for a couple of months, then said ‘fuck it’. She has no better understanding of the danger than I do, so there’s really not much more to say.”

  “Lifestyle issues? Crazy work schedule? Foreign country? All good?”

  “Edward, it’s London, not Somalia. She’s fine. And she’ll be fine.”

  “I need to run formal background check and get security clearances. Will she cooperate?”

  “I’ll ask, but I don’t see why not. But nobody comes to our home. Got it?”

  “I do. May I ask why? Probably easier if we do this quickly and quietly.”

  “No chance your minions get inside my home. And they better not have already visited. Are we clear?”

  “Are you asking or warning?”

  “Warning for now. But I’ll personally cut your dick off if I ever find out otherwise. Just sayin’.”

  “I like you Hannah. Can’t say I always felt that way but I really like you more and more each day. I think Vera has been terrifically good for you. Hope it continues.”

  “Me too.”

  “But if it ever turns out badly for you, just let me know.”

  “Why.”

  “To get rid of a problem for you, of course. What else?”

  “I hope you’re kidding but I know you’re not, you sick fuck. Love you dearly old man. Just don’t fuck this up for me.”

  “I won’t. Just sayin’, that’s all.”

  Chapter 47

  Vera was beyond excited waiting for Hannah to arrive home. When she did, she was like a teenager waiting to hear if her mom was going to let her go out on her first date.

  “Well?”

  “Well what, Vera love?” Hannah was being coy, a little mean and she knew Vera would be bursting at the seams with curiosity. “What is it you would like to know, Ms. Vera? And can I at least put my purse down and sit down for a moment on our lovely, comfy couch?”

  “No. You’re being cruel. Stop right this instant and tell me what he said.” Hannah smiled which told Vera everything she needed to know. But Vera wanted to hear the words spoken out loud, and to her. “Please, please, please tell me. I’ll be soooo good, or so very, very bad – up to you. Just tell me.”

  “Very, very bad? Will you let me do that one thing that…”?

  “Yes, yes, yes whatever. Spit it out! Talk!”

  “He said yes. He likes you, the old letch. Checked you out and said you’re fine.”

  “He knows who I am? Checked me out? What the …”

  “You happy or angry?” A slight frown crossed Vera’s face at the thought that someone might be poking around her past.

  Then, looking at the happiness in Hannah’s face and knowing it had to be nothing, she said, “Happy, muy, muy happy. What did you say, and what did he say? Tell me everything. Start at the very beginning.”

  Hannah filled Vera in on the details, including the background check. Plus, that Edward wanted to meet her and that would take place somewhere in Portland and sometime soon.

  “Can’t we have him over here? It’s private.”

  “No chance that old man ever sets foot in our home. Ever. Nor his family, friends or colleagues. This is our home and our refuge from what’s out there. You know, out there.”

  “Our home? Did you say ‘our’ home?”

  Hannah paused, thinking she had presumed a little too much.

  “Well, your home I mean. I just live here with you, I mean. I don’t mean to sound …”

  “Our home. It is our home, isn’t it? Your home and my home. You just never said that before. You don’t realize how happy that makes me. Our home. I’ll be right back.”

  Vera headed for the bedroom and Hannah asked what she was doing.

  “Changing the sheets to the new ones we bought last weekend. Throwing out the old sheets. All of them. Then I’ll be right back. Pour a glass, take a hit. Relax. I’ll only be a minute, then you can tell me all about the rest of your day. Clothing will be optional but if you don’t mind, let me help you with that.”

  “You’re turning into a pushy broad, Vera.”

  “I know, I know. I really like it too.”

  “So, do I sweetie, so do I.”

  Chapter 48

  Misti spent little time during her growing up years contemplating the nuances of her Catholic upbringing. Just as most Americans consider themselves “Christians” because of nothing more than being born into an American family and celebrating Christmas, so it was with Misti. Until Adam.

  Adam was from a funny and unusual little world in Barrows Bay she didn’t always fully understand. The academics at the Institute weren’t known for attendance at Chapel on Sunday morning. The vast majority, even those who had lived there the longest, might be hard pressed to even give directions to the small whitewashed building tucked neatly away from the main traffic paths on Institute grounds. But there it was, up on a rise, hidden among the evergreens, which Adam had always taken as symbolic of his own deep religious faith.

  In Adam’s family, Maria had always been the main proponent of committed faith in the Barrows Bay Clan. Agustin, for reasons more secular than spiritual, had long asked Maria to leave him out of any discussions of God, spirituality or religious affiliation. Ma
ria raised her small tribe of two other adherents to be practicing Catholics, journeying to the closest and largest congregation in Victoria, BC. Ice cream after early Mass was not forbidden by Canon Law, so this form of reward wasn’t viewed by Maria as a bribe. The boys had always been the focus of her tasty largesse, though it really was unnecessary – at least in Adam’s case.

  Chapel was the refuge chosen by Maria and Adam when solace and contemplation was sought, and where they went to pray when the Sunday drive to Victoria was simply too far given other family events, or the weather was just too foul. Maria enjoyed the community of the faithful, while Adam found it a way to silence the noise in his always overactive mind.

  Edward was a believer but in God alone. The rest of the trappings, he believed, were the artifices of Man, and therefore institutions of Man, and therefore not much more credible, reliable or honest than the average politician in any random country anywhere in the world. Though he prayed, he prayed to a God he believed to be universal, infinite and unknowable. When he prayed he asked only for spiritual guidance, courage in the face of adversity and the wisdom to confront a life he seldom understood – mainly his own.

  That other believers could, and often did, gain great strength in bearing up to the challenges of a corrupt world filled with hideous pain, was something he too wished for himself. He never found it himself but was pleased that others had. For Edward, there was no conflict between the obvious truths of both science and God. None.

  There were, however, religious fools and zealots in equal numbers to the scientific fools and zealots who made a cottage industry of disparaging the other. He didn’t accept that for one to be correct, the other, ipso facto, had therefore to be wrong. A zero-sum game. This was, in his view, the least nuanced form of ignorance he could imagine. He left such meaningless and idle prater to those to whom these opinions probably most mattered – the fools and zealots themselves. Were they truly seeking some immense truth about our mortal existence or was it some silly need to be right and win the argument? As if that were even possible. He didn’t know, and he had long since ceased to care.

  To Edward, the truth, if it was knowable, did not depend on his belief in it in any way. As he said to Adam and Rod many times, “A spoon is a spoon whether you believe in it or not.” Truth existed independent of belief, in his mind, and truth was elusive, complex and sometimes inscrutable – just like God. Be joyous in the delight of the vastness of the universe, he mused, and enjoy God’s most precious gift, or invention if you prefer, life - in all its complexity, diversity and beauty. Observe it, admire it and preserve it. And, partake in it if you so desire. Find a mate, create another life then watch the majesty of the world around you unfold. What could be more pleasing to God, in anyone’s conception of God?

  So, Mass on Sunday wasn’t for Edward, who preferred all manner of sports to a room full of people with whom he believed he held only the weakest - and sometimes strongest - of bonds. Humanity. He once told Augustin that while he loved humanity as a general proposition, it was the random guy or gal he could sometimes do without. Even Edward would allow that he was sometimes at odds with his own beliefs but that didn’t really matter either. They were his beliefs, forged from his own troubled life and sustaining him when such sustenance was demanded.

  Edward had no issue with Maria and her Catholic faith nor with his boys getting a strong dose of religious training. Soon enough they would choose their own way, staying on the path chosen by Maria, or finding the superhighway of some other new and more fitting world view.

  In the case of Rod, that path was never Sunday Mass, so he continued with Maria and Adam until the pleading, bribes and cajoling could no longer get him off the couch with Edward and Cindy watching a 10:00 am NFL football game or the early rounds of March Madness. Maria feared she’d lost Rod’s soul to Cindy’s Protestant persuasions, but the truth was Rod and Cindy made no such choices, didn’t think that way and just had other things to do. Cindy herself, like her parents, was at best a nominal Christian and Protestant. If asked why, her response would likely have been ‘Christmas’.

  While Adam and Maria went off most Sundays to Mass, Cindy, Rod, Edward, Agustin and the girls had breakfast – a big ole fashion Sunday mornin’, artery clogging, full on Midwestern breakfast – and the men did the cookin’. It was Edward’s idea and a passion he learned growing up on the family farm in Iowa. Even Mark and Julia came over from time to time, though Cindy thought that most Sunday mornings were designated as her parents “date time”. Mark liked to think himself religious and an observant Protestant, but Julia knew better.

  So, Adam went to Mass most every Sunday with Maria when he was home, with his favorite “tia” and her entourage when visiting family in Seattle and by himself whenever he was on the road. Some of his tios, and more than a few of his primos, thought him somewhat effeminate for hanging out with the girls instead of them on Sunday morning. But when a local kid once said something to him about his manhood and what a waste of time “goin’ to fuckin’ Mass” was, Adam had him on the ground in a chokehold, making the kid apologize to his tias for the insult to Holy Mother Church.

  Tia Aurelia made him confess this sin to the parish priest immediately, but Adam never had another problem with anyone about confusing his faith and devotion to the Church with his virility. His tios and primos decided to leave the boy be and his tias kept the incident buried and to themselves. Adam had enough problems with anger management, they thought, so the incident was mostly forgotten and never discussed. But in their eyes, he was the reincarnation of a Templar – a soldier of God.

  Forgotten, maybe, but not by Misti who heard the story from her mother, a devout Catholic and regular attendee with tia Aurelia. Carlos heard the story too and remembered it but for vastly different reasons. Carlos himself had issues with the Church and discouraged his daughter from “getting mixed up in all that witchcraft”, but she went with her mom, Soledad, from time to time to keep peace in an otherwise stressful family dynamic.

  Chapter 49

  Misti and Adam had made a guest appearance back in Seattle, staying at the old house in the Queen Anne District. Sunday morning came early after a long week and a raucous and late Saturday night. Misti sleepily reached out to draw a warm and passionate Adam closer to her, only to find an empty bed space, a cold pillow and a fully dressed boyfriend tip toeing toward the bedroom door.

  “Stop right there, mister!” It was Misti’s best early morning, half asleep bedroom voice. “Where do you think you’re going anyway? I’m cold and you’re … you’re not here under the covers with me where you belong. What gives? You leavin’ or somethin’?”

  “It’s Sunday morning, querida, and I’m already late. I gotta go. Tia’s waiting.” Adam looked down at Misti, wishing for once he could linger just a little longer with his girl. Getting out of bed, something he had never had a problem with ever before, had become a little harder each passing day he spent with Misti. He loved her and the depth of her physical passion, the way she pleased him and seemed to know just what he wanted, even before he knew he wanted it.

  But it was her touch, the warmth of her embrace, the gentle kisses and her eyes that kept him close. He could feel the contours of her smooth body, even when they were apart, and that smile, the one that foretold everything – and nothing. She was the promise of everything he had ever desired, and her closeness was something he could never, ever again do without.

  “You goin’ to Mass? Without me? You’re really mean and a horrible, horrible man! I can’t believe I still love you, abandoning me like this. And sneaking out too. That’s low, even for your gender.”

  Misti rolled over, facing away from Adam, and burying her face under the covers. Adam waited a few seconds before slowly snuggling up to her, unwrapping his amazing present and pushing his newly clean-shaven face into the cleft between her cheek and shoulder.

  “All right. You win!” was all Adam could say with a heavy sigh as manufactured
as Misti’s petulance.

  “I know.” She said, throwing her arms around Adam and pulling him closer with little kisses. “But you’re so easy. I always win with you.”

  “You always win because I let you win. And I let you win because I’m crazy mad in love with you. Or maybe it’s that sister of yours, I forget.” He laughed.

  “Hey, wait right there, buddy. I don’t have a sister.”

  “Then who was that evil twin look-alike I had filthy hot sex with last night? You?”

  “Oh, that sister. Yeah, I think I know the one you’re talking about. But, hey, I’m not responsible for all her disgusting behavior and such. I’m the good girl. You can ask anyone!”

  “You look a lot like her, you know.” Adam smiled and kissed Misti on the forehead. “The good girl would let me go off to Mass with her auntie, you know. And that bad girl, well the bad girl …”

  “will be waiting for you right here in bed for you to get home. Then we can finish what we started last night.”

  “We didn’t finish?”

  “Nope.”

  Chapter 50

  Adam thought he had been quiet as a church mouse opening the door silently, with barely a click of the deadbolt.

  “You home already?” Misti shouted from the kitchen, the smell of freshly brewed, freshly ground French roast coffee permeating the Sunday morning air.

  “I thought you’d still be asleep, querida. Why you up so early? Miss me?”

  “Yes. And I can’t seem to stay in bed alone any more. You’ve ruined me. You must love me now. Or I’ll never be able to sleep in again.”

  “I promise I will always love you from this day forward.”

  “I can remember when you weren’t so sure. You OK? Sick maybe?”

  “I don’t remember any such thing, and no, I’m fine. Besides, that was a different lifetime and a long, long time ago. I just didn’t realize that I’ve loved you all my life. Maybe longer, hard to say.”