The End of a Lie (The Amy Mohr Chronicles Book 1)

by M A Moore

  At the first trash container she came across she deposited her old purple satchel that had been through so much in recent months. She hesitated to abandon the polycarbonate knife that had come in so handy, but she could get herself another when she got home. They’ve had my bag long enough to tamper with it. She was taking no chances.

  After she showered Amy changed into the soft gray jersey slacks and the embroidered shirt she purchased in town that afternoon. It felt good to be in clothes that were her own. It was cold in the room, so she took a bedspread and wrapped herself up in it. She made a cup of tea and sat on the balcony to watch the clouds streak across the skies. A storm rushed in from the west, and she caught herself napping when a knock at the door woke her.

  “I brought wine,” Mike said as she let him in. She was still cocooned in the comforter.

  “They do have heat here,” he remarked.

  Wind rattled the windows and the rain began in earnest. Sleet played a tattoo on the window panes. Mike closed the door to the balcony and secured the inside shutters. The room took on a warm glow as he got the gas fireplace going. Amy pulled the stuffed chairs closer to the flickering flames.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  Amy rooted around the refrigerator anyway and got out fruit and cheese. She placed two wine glasses on the table between them. Mike seemed more reserved than usual, and Amy was content to let him speak when he was ready. Mike opened the wine and poured them each a glass. It was a local red cabernet, and it fit the mood of the day -dark and stormy. They lounged in front of the fire in silence -Mike lost in his own dark thoughts and Amy waiting until he was ready to tell her what was on his mind. He was well into his second glass before he spoke.

  “Francoise took the baby and went back to France to stay with family. The newspaper headlines about the unrest in the unplanned settlements around Cape Town frightened her. Her mother talked her into it, I think. She never did consider me an appropriate match for her daughter.” Mike stared into the glowing flames for a few seconds. “But maybe it was all her idea. I don’t know.”

  Mike looked in Amy’s direction. “When I went to Lyon to talk to her, we mostly yelled at each other. She sent me away and I came home.”

  Amy reached out and squeezed his hand, “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  “She couldn’t even tell me person. She just left me a voice mail message on our answering machine at home in Cape Town. I didn’t find out where she was until I checked it when I returned from Kruger.”

  Amy waited before replying, “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do? We aren't legally married. Even if the child isn’t mine, and I am pretty sure it is….” Mike drained his second glass and refilled it.

  “Being a father means more than just being a sperm donor that contributes to the genetic make-up of a child. You lived with the woman for ten years. You took care of her while she was pregnant. All that counts.”

  “But I don’t know how to be a father, especially to a girl. I went to a boy’s boarding school for twelve years. Fathering was not in the curriculum.”

  Amy considered carefully before answering. “My dad grew up in an orphanage from the time he was three-years-old. He had no clue how to bring up daughters, and he had three of them. Being the first I was the experiment on which he honed his parenting skills. I think he learned as much from me as I did from him.” Amy held out her glass for a refill.

  “I was in my early twenties and home visiting on break from college when he and I sat at the kitchen table arguing about something. It was probably religion or politics. That’s what we usually argued about.” Amy took a sip of her wine and a tear leaked its way down her cheek as she relived the memory.

  “You aren’t going to cry are you?” Mike asked with concern.

  “Mike, women cry sometimes. We can’t help it, and alcohol depresses the central nervous system and lowers my inhibitions. Just live with it.” She stared into the flames.

  “That night as we sat around the table, I looked him in the eye and said ‘Sometimes you have to accept the fact that you have done the very best you could raising a child, and then you have to just let them go’.”

  Amy turned to face Mike. The single tear stained her cheek.

  “I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was as if he accepted me as an adult for the first time.” Amy took another large sip of wine. “He died over thirty years ago, but it is one of the clearest memories I have of him.”

  The storm continued to rage outside. Lightning struck nearby and the electric lights went out. The soft glow from the fireplace softened the darkness and reflected off their faces.

  Mike turned his head towards her, his face full of uncertainty and grief. “What should I do, Amy?

  Amy waited a few moments before replying “What do you think you should do?”

  “It’s getting late. I think I'd better leave.”

  “Please stay.” Amy whispered. “There’s a second bed. I don’t want to be alone in a storm like this.” Thunder crashed and lightning illuminated the room leaking in between the cracks in the shutters.

  Mike looked over at her. Her eyes were shut and her head was nodding. “I think you are over your one glass limit.”

  Mike took her half empty wine goblet and set it on the table. He got her to her feet and led her over to the bed. He pulled the blankets over her. She curled up on her side, and he stretched out on the other one with his hands behind his head. What did he want to do about Francoise and the baby? All he knew for sure was that he would have to talk to her face to face again. With that decision made he managed to doze off.

  He woke to the winds howling and Amy making distressing sounds in her sleep. He knew she had nightmares. She claimed she never remembered them, but he wondered if that was really true. He stood close to her bed. She was lying on her side with her back to him. He slipped off his shoes and dropped his clothes on the floor. He nestled next to her and pulled the covers over both of them. Hugging her close to his chest, he thought he could almost feel her heart beating frantically inside her.

  She didn’t struggle, but relaxed into him with a sigh. He wanted to make love to her, but he needed her to have the option of saying no, and he knew she wouldn’t or couldn’t right now. He held her tightly, his head on the pillow next to hers, his chin burrowed in her hair. It smelled of lavender and mint. That scent would always remind him of her. He couldn’t protect her from real world dangers. He knew she would never permit it. But maybe, at least this time, he could shelter her from the terrors in her dreams.

  He fell asleep listening to her breathe. And without realizing it took one step closer to being the man he wanted to become.

  The next morning the rain stopped and Mike still held her. With the shutters closed, the room was dark with just hints of daylight coming in the cracks. She woke first, turned on her back and then rolled on her side to see him better. She traced the lines of his face with her fingertips. She was at the curve of his chin when he woke up and smiled at her. She placed her index finger over his lips to keep him from talking. She kissed him fully on the mouth, and he returned the kiss in kind. His gray eyes asked permission of her sapphire orbs that never seemed to blink. He threw off the blankets and they proceeded to make love, patiently, but with real need and desire on both sides. When they had exhausted themselves with their efforts, they slept again with her curled around his back.

  When she woke up her arm was still draped over his waist, but she could sense he was awake.

  “Amy,” he whispered, “exactly who are you and what are you not telling me?”

  Amy closed her eyes. She didn’t want to relive that pain yet again. She returned to it too many times in her dreams and it wouldn’t let her go. Mike rolled over to face her, and she turned on her back and rested her legs over his bent thighs.

  “I’ve never lied to you Mike. Everything I ‘ve ever told you is true,” she began.

  “But what d
id you leave out?”

  She closed her eyes and the memory filled her with the despair she had tried so hard to put behind her, and time had not deadened.

  “I think I’ve earned your trust by now.” Mike waited patiently for her to begin.

  “I am a retired physics professor from a liberal arts college in upstate New York.” She took a breath. “I’d taught at a couple of other institutes of higher education. This one was not particularly high or interested in learning. I started taking yoga at a nearby gurukulum for exercise and as a diversion. I met Stephen there.”

  Amy withdrew into herself for a few seconds.

  “He taught yoga and then I got involved with his meditation classes. He introduced me to the works of ancient Hindu philosophers he claimed presaged modern atomic theory. After a couple of years he recruited me into his organization. We traveled to rather remarkable places and met some incredible people. Our cover was always scholarly, but we did bring back sensitive information from unstable areas of the world. The longer we collaborated, the more elaborate the missions became. Stephen demanded I take self-defense training classes. But the work was relatively routine, not dangerous -at least not at the beginning."

  “Were you lovers?” Mike asked. He wasn’t threatened by the thought of Amy having made love to other men. It would have shocked and saddened him if she had not had someone in her life before him.

  “No.” Amy paused and Mike waited until she was ready to speak. “We were there for each other, but we weren’t lovers in the physical sense. He remained married and had an adult daughter when I met him, but he and his wife hadn’t lived together for many years. He knew I had his back, and he always had mine.”

  “Until ….” Mike led her on.

  “Until Columbia. We were facilitating the escape of a political prisoner at an encampment outside of Cartagena. It was a mission that went terribly wrong almost from the start. It involved a drug cartel of course -probably more than one. I thought we were both going to die when the dogs came after us.”

  Amy reached for the scars on her thigh. Mike put his hand over hers and held it there.

  “Stephen tripped and refused to move. He ordered me to run, and I ran. They wouldn’t let me go back, but they told me there were three dead Dobermans near his body. Killing was something he avoided at all costs. He said killing accrued too much bad karma -too much cosmic guilt on his soul.”

  Mike thought she had finished, but she heaved a sigh and continued. “His last words to me before we entered the encampment were ‘I’ll always be here for you, Amy.’ I got out with my life and my scars, but it was that experience that made me realize that I didn’t have what it took to play with the big boys.”

  Amy sighed once more. Mike gently kissed her temple. She closed her eyes then said, “and that’s my story.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Over a year now,” she replied. “Your turn. What did Francoise have to say when you talked to her?”

  Mike pulled her closer. They were more than just lovers now. She was the friend and confidante that he never knew he wanted, never knew he needed, until Amy came into his life. “She wants me to leave South Africa and come live with her in France.”

  It was Amy’s turn to wait.

  “She feels this place is too dangerous to raise a child, and from what we’ve seen she's probably right.” Mike held on to her, but couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I can’t leave here permanently, Amy. This is my home. This is where I belong. A part of me would die if I had to live elsewhere. I’m afraid I'd lose myself.”

  Amy stroked the sad lines of his face. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Go talk to her again.”

  After showering together and getting dressed, they spent the afternoon visiting a nearby winery. He took her to a favorite restaurant high on a hill overlooking a vineyard near Frankenhoek. The place was at the foot of one of the surrounding mountains. The owner, a friend of his, sat them in front of a wood burning fireplace adjacent to a wall of glass that had a view of the valley beyond. They watched bands of rain and sleet blow through. They sipped a local pinotage and he fed her ostrich steak cooked tender and rare. It was dark when they returned to the inn. They spent the night in very sweet love making. Sleep seemed an unnecessary waste of time.

  Early the next morning they left for the Cape Town Airport. She was booked on a connecting flight to Johannesburg and on to JFK. He was heading directly to Lyon, France.

  His flight left before hers, so she walked him to his gate at the international terminal. Surrounded by hundreds of people pulling suitcases, and noisy children dragged along by parents overburdened with luggage, Mike held Amy in his arms.

  “Will I ever see you again?” he asked unwilling to let her go until he had to.

  “I don’t know. I’ve given up predicting the future. ”

  He kissed her full on the mouth and proceeded to board his flight. She watched his plane move onto the runway and fly off to France. She bought a newspaper at a kiosk on her way back to the domestic terminal and found a place to sit while she waited. She opened the paper and read about a major discovery in extrasolar astronomy.

  A man in a gray suit came up and sat next to her. “Dr. Mohr.”

  Amy glanced over at him. The suit could be different, the man might have a different face, but it was always the same tie. He handed her a manila envelope which she put it on the seat behind her back.

  “Mr. Stone will not be a problem?” he asked.

  “He will be otherwise occupied for the foreseeable future.” She paused. “I need to go home now.”

  “Take whatever time you deem necessary. This is all the information Stephen got to us before his last mission.”

  Amy stared at the man sitting next to her. He stood up and walked away. Amy went back to reading about the discovery of an Earthlike extrasolar planet only ten light years from Earth. She finished with the newspaper and put it in the closest trash bin. She almost did the same with the manila envelope, but she refrained. She stared at it for a minute or two, but she didn’t have the courage to open it yet.

  She was worn out. ‘Never show weakness’ Stephen had warned her. The scars on her thigh had faded, but she had little hope that the Colombia disaster would ever leave her alone -her psyche ached with that memory. She needed time to put Mike in his proper place too. She missed him already. Would she ever see him again?

  Unlikely.

  In some ways that was a comfort. Whatever terms he and Francoise and the baby worked out, he would be safer with them than he ever could be with her.

  Chapter 35

  Hinduism speaks of the four courses that men follow after death. The first, called devayana, way of the gods, is followed by spiritually advanced souls who lead an extremely pure life, devoting themselves to wholehearted meditation on Brahman, but who have not succeeded in attaining complete Self-knowledge before death. They repair to Brahmaloka, the highest heaven, and from there in due course attain liberation. - www.ramakrishna.org

  The return trip from Johannesburg was as tedious as it had been on the way there, but it felt good to be back home in the Catskills. Amy had missed spring, but summer was in full bloom. The fully leafed trees shaded her house from the worst of the noon day sun. Wild flowers brightened the roadsides and birds still sang in the forests. Her home in the woods pleased her. The neighbors were indifferent to her return. This pleased her as well.

  Her property abutted an undeveloped piece of county land that was still inhabited by native wildlife. White-tailed deer with their dappled fawns were a daily occurrence in the yard. Her absence had encouraged them to eat all her ornamental shrubs and they were doing their best to finish off the English Ivy she used as a ground cover. An occasional bear cut through her yard checking out her long empty birdfeeder hanging from the low branch of a pine tree. Since her return the resident groundhog had moved his burrow from beneath her deck to the woods across the street. But Amy would spot him grazing the swee
ter grasses that were becoming more rare as moss took over what had once been a lawn. Bear and white tailed deer were hardly a match for the rhinos and lions she left behind in Africa. But this was home. Yard work was a thankless job, but sweat and sore muscles were welcome. It left her tired enough to sleep well at night.

  The manila envelope remained sealed.

  Every morning she did her three Sun Salutes to stretch out the resisting muscles, but meditation failed her. She sat cross- legged sheltered by the outside deck forcing her body to relax. But her mind was too restless and the stillness she required eluded her. Communication with Stephen was her desire, but she didn't know how to reach him. Or perhaps she wasn't ready yet. Stephen sneered at the idea of a subconscious mind. For him there was only body, mind and consciousness. Discussions like this often found them in disagreement and lively debate.

  She still dreamt at night, and woke up the next morning knowing she had dreams. She refused to remember them –Cartagena, the dogs, any of it. For her, that meant sleeping well.

  She lolled comfortably in her bed waiting for the first light to come through the shades. She thought about Mike, and wished him well. She hoped he and Francoise had resolved their issues.

  The middle of August was approaching. For the first time in two decades she had no classes to prepare. She had time to think rather than simply to do what was necessary. She knew she needed to gain perspective – time to put her thoughts and emotions in order.

  Her aunt had taken the news of her son’s passing hard. Amy left out the parts of the story that showed him as the villain he was. His death as the result of a boating accident seemed to satisfy her. Her short term memory loss was worse, and often when Amy visited her, she would ask again about Robert. Amy explained patiently from the beginning, and her aunt’s eyes would get watery. She’d say that she remembered.

  Yoga practice was her daily salvation, and she could feel her body growing stronger. She had been a bit of a hermit since her return. She rarely ventured out except to collect the mail or buy groceries. For now yard work and yoga practice seemed to be enough.