Zach stood braced against the breakfast bar, his hands clutching the edge, his eyes closed, feeling David’s warmth all along his back, his steady, strong artist’s hands easing the tension in Zach’s neck and head. “About Esteban,” he began, but David cut him off.
“Don’t talk about him if you don’t want to,” he said firmly.
“I don’t want to,” Zach admitted. “But I want you to understand.”
David’s hands slid down to Zach’s shoulders and turned him around to face David. “I understand, Zach. I don’t need to know anything. Tell me whatever you want, whenever you want. But I know enough. I know you. Nothing you can tell me will change any bit of that.” He cupped Zach’s face with his warm, steady hands. “I love you. Sometimes love isn’t enough. And sometimes it is.”
Zach closed his eyes again. “I don’t know, Taff. There’s so much you don’t know, so much I haven’t told you. How do I know that when you’ve heard it all that you’ll feel the same way about me? And if—when—I talk to that journalist guy, you’ll hear it. All of it.”
“Have your parents heard all of it?”
Zach shook his head. “Most of it they know. But not all.”
“Will they still love you after they hear what you have to say?”
Blinking, Zach said, “Well, yeah… I guess. They know the worst, anyway. About what I did to Esteban.”
David snorted. “You think that’s the worst? You are such a dweeb, dweeb.”
“What can be worse than knowing your kid is a murderer?”
“A., you’re not a murderer. I’ll bet that Esteban dude killed a shitload of people before you took him out. Your doing that was justifiable homicide in my book, for that reason alone, not only because of what he did to you. And B., knowing about practically anything he did to you is a lot worse than hearing that you killed him.” David dragged Zach’s head down onto his shoulder and kissed his ear. “I try not to think about it, but just the little you’ve told me breaks my fucking heart, love. It just makes me insane, knowing you went through shit I can’t even imagine. And still came out in one piece.”
“Well, not quite. I’m sort of back in one piece, more or less,” Zach mumbled into his neck. “After years of therapy.”
“No. He didn’t break you.”
Zach pulled back. “Sure he did. I broke, Taff. I buckled under, did what he said, was what he wanted me to be. I never expected to get out of there; I just expected to eventually die. How is that not broken?”
“Because, dweeb, when you had your chance, you took it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people back down when they had their chance, afraid of the risk, afraid to be brave. And they weren’t in a situation as… as fraught as yours. Hell, there have been times when I didn’t take a chance, because I was scared. And it wasn’t life or death—it was just… just life.” He drew back and cupped Zach’s face again, his brown eyes searching Zach’s earnestly. “A broken man wouldn’t have even tried to kill Esteban,” he said urgently. “A broken man wouldn’t have even thought about it. You did it. You took the chance. And you got out. You won. He lost. And you aren’t letting what happened to you stop you anymore. Like last night. You went out with old friends. You laughed and made jokes and ate pizza and there wasn’t anything about Esteban there to haunt you, was there? Not until that asshole made his move.”
“No. It was… it was normal,” Zach admitted. “I mean, it was what I think of as normal, and the guys seemed to think it was normal. No weirdness at all involved.” His fingers closed around David’s wrists. “Kind of a far cry from what I was doing when you first came home—the pickups, the drinking….”
“Hey,” David said, “that was just another way for you to fight back. You weren’t going to be what he tried to make you. You aren’t what he tried to make you.”
Zach closed his eyes. “I’m still not where I want to be,” he said. “I’m still, I don’t know, still afraid.”
“News for you, dweeb. Everybody’s afraid. You just gotta suck it up and move on.” He kissed Zach gently. “Deal with what you can and back-burner the things you can’t. Just like you’re doing.”
“I don’t know how I’ll get along without you in Boston,” Zach said.
David snorted. “You’ll do fine. We’ve got a whole year to work on your confidence. Hell, kids way younger than you go off to college on their own; kids who have their own hang-ups and issues. You’ll be in good company. You think I was okay when I went off to UCLA? Hell, no.”
“No?”
“No. Because it was only a year after I lost my best friend and the love of my life.” He bumped foreheads with Zach. “You won’t have that problem, because you will never lose me. I will be here.”
“Forever and always.”
“Forever and always,” David echoed. He pulled Zach close and rested his head on Zach’s shoulder. “I’m tired, dweeb. What say we crawl into bed and catch a few hours of sleep before you have your therapy session?”
“Is that what you want to do?” Zach asked.
“Why? What do you want to do?” David raised his head and grinned at him.
“Well, drag you into the bedroom and make love to you until you can’t see anything but me, of course.”
David grinned. “News for you, dweeb,” he said again. “I already can’t see anything but you.”
“OKAY, IT’S set,” Brian said, and sat down in the chair across from the couch. “I’m going to use this recording solely for reference, to support my notes. Once the article is completed to both our satisfactions, the tape will be destroyed to protect your privacy, as per the agreement we just signed. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes,” Zach said. His voice shook.
On his left, Richard squeezed his arm gently. Jane took his right hand and laced her fingers through it. But it was at David that Zach looked, turning his head to where his lover sat behind the couch, his arms folded on the back. David met his eyes, his own warm, and reached out one hand to touch Zach’s cheek. I love you, he mouthed, and Zach’s lip quirked upward in an attempt at a smile. Then Zach turned back and took a deep breath.
“The last thing I remember is walking out of the airport in Costa Rica. It was humid, but cooler than I’d expected…”
Four years later
“IT’S A particular honor for me to be here today,” Richard said to the crowd in Killian Court. And crowd it was; at last count, more than twelve thousand tickets had been accounted for. His own family had two; Jane and David sat together somewhere in that vast sea of faces. “Not only as a graduate of this school, though that is something that I have always been proud of. But today my pride goes beyond just that of a graduate of—in my humble opinion—the best science and engineering school on the planet.” That won a roar of approval from the students and spectators. “No, today my pride, and my gratitude, is all wrapped up in the people of MIT: students, professors, staff, administrators. I am proud of my son and what he has accomplished in the past three years here. But I am equally proud of the school that took him in and helped him accomplish those things. Your support and protection and education and encouragement means the world to me and to my family.
“Unless you live under a rock—and I think history has shown that MIT students live very much in the world—” another laugh of approval, “you know about my son Zach. It was technology that helped us find him five, nearly six, years ago when the world believed—when I believed—him dead. Technology that drew on inventions and developments pioneered here and at other schools. Technology that shows the truth of what we do: that whatever the plan or process or product, what we do affects what we become and defines what we are. The world tends to see us as ‘ivory tower’ academics, or wild-haired geniuses, or evil scientists; we may see ourselves as dedicated scholars and researchers; but one thing we cannot forget is that we are also people. We bear the same few chromosomes; we are made up of the same chemicals. We are fragile. We break.”
He looked at the
students until he found Zach’s face. “But we are also strong, strong enough to survive horrific situations; and strong enough to reach out to each other, to offer a hand or a shoulder to another human being….”
“HE’S SUCH a good speaker,” Jane whispered, her hand in David’s. The brim of her straw picture hat shadowed her blue eyes, but they were still as crystal-clear as Zach’s as she looked up at him. “He totally hates public speaking, but he does so well at it. I’d be a nervous wreck, shaking in my shoes.”
He smiled down at her, then shifted on his hip so that he could pull out the ball cap he had stuffed in his back pants pocket, shook it out, and put it on his head, pushing his Wayfarers up on his nose. That was better. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the sun was fierce and he needed the extra shade the cap bill gave him. Jane looked at him and giggled. Okay, he thought, grinning back at her, maybe the virulent purple cap with the fluorescent orange “MIT” on the front didn’t exactly go with the neat cream linen suit he wore, but Zach had given it to him last night for this very purpose. “It’s gonna be hot as hell out there in the sun,” he’d told David, “and everyone’s supposed to tell their guests to wear hats. So since I knew you wouldn’t have one, I got you one.”
“Could you have found one a little more, I don’t know, gaudy? This is awful conservative,” David had replied dryly. Zach had laughed, and kissed him, and one thing led to another, and all in all it was a pretty nice reunion. Zach had come pretty far in the last couple of years. There had been times after the article had been published that Zach had backslid into reclusiveness and fear and belligerence, and he still had plenty of hang-ups that he was still working out, but being on his own and among his peers here had given him a lot more confidence, just as David had promised him when he’d left on his own that first year. He’d been terrified even to get on the plane, and it had taken all of David’s resolve to let him go alone. David had cried, and so had Jane, and Richard had held onto both of them as they watched Zach walk down the terminal on his own. It had had horrible echoes of that plane trip to Costa Rica. And Hell, and points south.
But this time it was okay. This time he’d gotten to where he was going, and after a few hysterical phone calls, had settled into life as an undergraduate. He’d even gotten to the point of being able to tease David about running off with some hot young science geek. But he hadn’t. When he’d come home for holidays and on break, it was always to David.
And last night, David had given a graduation gift to Zach, in a sense—a new job for David at Foothill College in Palo Alto, and a lease on a townhouse in Mountain View, for the both of them. An easy commute for David to school, and Zach to Stanford, where he’d be pursuing a graduate degree with a concentration in nanoscience. School for Zach, and mountains for David. The Santa Cruz range wasn’t exactly the Rockies, but then, the Rockies didn’t have surf spots within an hour’s drive. David grinned to himself. He was so looking forward to teaching Zach to surf. Had to keep ahead of the kid somehow….
Richard finished his speech to roaring applause and went to sit with the rest of the speakers. Jane let out a long sigh. “Well, that was good,” she said in relief. “He did a nice job.”
“Yep,” David said. He put his arm around Jane and squeezed gently. “Both of them. And you. You did a nice job too.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Jane said, smiling up at him. “But today… no. Not today.”
THE MASSACHUSETTS sun is warm on my face and hands, and a cool breeze stirs the tassels on the caps of the students in front of me. I listen to the speeches and try not to react when my father mentions me. It’s a good speech, despite that. The memories it brings back are ones I’ve come to terms with. And the listeners seem to enjoy it.
Then the speeches are suddenly done and names are being called. The time passes in a blur until suddenly I’m standing at the edge of the stage, and the university president is calling, “Zachary John Tyler.” It takes a second, but then I realize it’s me.
I’m not sure for a moment as I walk across the stage to shake his hand that it’s actually real. That these past few years weren’t a dream. That I won’t still wake in the cage that still occasionally haunts my nightmares. But it’s real, all of it. The stage floor squeaks quietly as I walk across it, the president’s hand is slightly damp from all the warm palms that have pressed it before, the leather of the diploma case he hands me is padded and soft in my fingers. The roar of the students chanting, “Zach! Zach! Zach!’ is a shocker; I turn in surprise and see them on their feet, grinning in approval.
I guess I’ve made friends here. That’s good.
I step down from the stage and return to my seat, to let the rest have their moment. It’s good I’m at the end of the alphabet; it’s not much later that the final benediction closes the ceremony. My heart is too full, and I’m afraid I’ll start to cry. Already some of my female classmates are in tears.
I will miss them. Miss here. But I’ve got a graduate spot at Stanford waiting for me, and I’m excited about that too. I want to try California. I want to learn to surf.
The final congratulations and then the air is filled with flying mortarboards. I’d always thought that tradition was kind of stupid, but here I am, caught up in the moment, hurling my own cap into the air and laughing and screaming just like any other kid.
I might be older than a lot of them, but today I am just like any other kid. The thought takes my breath away.
Hugging and kissing and shaking hands, my classmates and I are gradually separated by the influx of family members hungry for their own hugs and kisses and photo ops. I’ve already arranged to skip that part of the festivities and just buy the professional photos; Dad is going to meet me at the entrance to the Court and walk with me to the reception at the Kresge Oval.
He’s there, grinning and damp with the nervous sweat he gets whenever he has to speak in public. I ignore that and hug him tightly. There’s the flash of cameras; not from paparazzi this time, but from my friends and their families. That’s okay.
Then we walk out of the court and down Massachusetts Avenue with the rest of my classmates to the reception.
I see them right away. Mom, looking beautiful and so much younger than she is; Annie, grinning like a girl; Maggie and Alex and Annabel, with Annabel’s little sister Jessamyn in Alex’s arms; Sandy and Alison, both of them waving like idiots; Mike Pritzger and Captain Rogers; Jesse and Jeff and Tai and Billy and Frankie; Brian, in this company looking uncomfortable for the first time since I’ve met him. When he sees me, though, a smile lights his handsome face. I grin back.
And then I’m walking over the sun-warmed grass toward them—no. Not toward them.
For five years, I dared not dream of him; these days my dreams are rarely without him. We’ve survived kidnappings and death and anger and sorrow and loss; months of separation and the pitiless light of publicity. David has been my anchor, my ballast, my north star. As he once promised, he has been with me the whole way, even while I was here at school and he thousands of miles away in his beloved mountains. He will be at my side when I leave for Stanford. He has been at my side through it all.
I walk across the grass in the sunlight, into his arms.
I am home.
An unrepentant biblioholic, ROWAN SPEEDWELL spends half her time pretending to be a law librarian, half her time pretending to be a database manager, half her time pretending to be a fifteenth-century Aragonese noblewoman, half her time… wait a minute… hmm. Well, one thing she doesn’t pretend to be is good at math. She is good at pretending, though.
In her copious spare time (ha!), she does needlework, calligraphy, and illumination, and makes jewelry. She has a master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago, is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and lives in a Chicago suburb with the obligatory Writer’s Cat and way too many books.
Song lyric included in text is from “Little Boxes”—
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds;
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copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company
renewed 1990.
By ROWAN SPEEDWELL
Finding Zach
The Florentine Caper
Hopes and Fears
Kindred Hearts
Love, Like Water
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
To the Eventers:
without your encouragement I wouldn’t have tried,
and without your support I wouldn’t have succeeded.
Part 1
Chapter 1
DAN LIKES the routine of the job, the rhythm of it all. He likes knowing that the horses expect to be fed at six, two, and eight o’clock, and will try to kick their stalls down if their expectations aren’t met. He likes it that every piece of equipment in the barn has a home, and every piece of tack has its own hook or rack to rest on. And he likes the riding, the “warm up, work, take a break, work, cool down” pattern. It lets him turn his brain off a little, lets him stop thinking and just work on doing. On being.
So he’s not exactly welcoming when something happens to break the rhythm. Molly and Karl both know this and generally try to shield him from intrusions. Not because he’s a prima donna, just because they’re caring people—caring people who don’t like it when their head trainer yells at prospective buyers.
They try, but they don’t always try hard enough, Dan realizes as he sees Molly waving at him from outside the ring. He sighs and brings Chaucer to a walk. They were just getting somewhere, too, with the big gelding finally seeming to realize that his nose doesn’t need to go up to the sky every time he’s asked to change paces. As a final reminder, Dan asks Chaucer to trot on the way over to Molly, and then go back down to the walk. Both times Chaucer’s nose stays where it should be, so Dan gives him a congratulatory slap on the neck and lets him have his head.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 27
