Between Two Minds: Revelation

by D C Wright-Hammer

  Both kids looked at each other and then back at me.

  Joey spoke more clearly than I could ever remember. “Okay, Daddy. You get those bad guys. We’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”

  Lucy concurred. “Bad guys beware! My dad’s coming!”

  I reached down and picked up a kid in each arm, hugged them as tightly as I could, and plopped a smooch on each of their cheeks.

  Joey wasn’t so thrilled. “Yuck, Daddy! That was a wet one!”

  I put them down and headed for the door. I grabbed my camouflage jacket off the hook and threw it on. I pulled out my netphone to dial Chris and asked him to get me on the next flight out. He immediately texted me the confirmation, and everything was set for me to leave.

  I took one last look at my family before leaving. They were as perfect as perfect could be, and I couldn’t have been happier to be part of it. Sarah’s career had finally taken off. Lucy was growing into a strong young woman who didn’t take crap from anyone. And Joey was shaping up to be a thoughtful young man. He’d picked up reading much faster than anyone else in his class. Apparently, he hadn’t inherited the dyslexia that had plagued me when I was younger.

  It was amazing that I had helped to create such an awesome family considering where I’d come from. It seemed inevitable that we were all destined for great things, and I couldn’t wait to get home from my next tour to pick up where we left off and see what the future would hold. In daydreaming about my family, confusing thoughts bubbled to the surface.

  Why the hell would my CO contact a discharged marine to aid in the war efforts? And even if it was a legit request, why the hell was I considering it? The war changed me. There’s no way I’m going back.

  I pulled out my netphone to tell my CO that I wasn’t fit for duty. Looking through my accepted calls, I was surprised to see his number was nowhere to be found. Then, I looked at my sent and received messages, and the conversation I had just had with Chris seemed to have never happened. As one last check, I pulled up my contacts list. It was terrifying.

  The Padre

  The Padre

  The Padre

  The Padre

  The Padre

  The Padre

  I panicked and dropped my phone.

  Sarah walked over to pick it up and hand it to me. She tilted her held to look at me over her glasses, something she only did when she was pissed. “Charlie! Why the hell are you still here? Don’t you need to fly across the globe? Don’t you need to go to war? Don’t you need to go die in Pakistan?” She puffed. “It really is too bad you didn’t die the first time.”

  “What? Sarah! You can’t be—”

  Lucy interrupted with scorn in her voice. “Joey never knew how good it was when you were gone. We’d be better off with no daddy than with you.”

  My heart was already aching when Joey added the deathblow with fire in his eyes. “You’re the worst dad ever. I wish I was never born.”

  Their words ruptured my soul to the point of paralysis. I dropped to my knees, and Sarah and the kids began to approach me. I was powerless as they extended their hands toward my neck, got a firm grip, and began squeezing the life out of me. My ears popped. My nose began to bleed. After several seconds, I went completely numb, and I knew the end was near.

  Still, something in me wanted to fight it like hell. “No…no…no! I can’t breathe!”

  I jumped up, screaming, and scared the shit out of Helen, who’d been sleeping next to me.

  “Damn!” she yelled.

  I was gasping for air and sweating so profusely that I had soaked through my shirt and into the sheets.

  Helen gathered herself quickly and came to my side. “Ryan, it’s Helen. It was just another bad dream.”

  She was right, as always. Although I hadn’t experienced any new memories or visions as Charlie in the two months since dealing with the Padre, the nightmares still came every so often. Some of them were about his family. Some of them were about the work he did for the Padre. Others were about the war. Regardless, they all ended the same way. Suffocation.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Helen always helped me process the dreams, but at that moment, I wasn’t interested. “No. Let’s just get this day over with.”

  And what a day it was. Moving day. Even though things had been relatively normal, Helen and I hadn’t felt comfortable in my apartment since she’d been taken by the Padre’s goons. Luckily, we had found a decent, affordable place across the city where we could start anew.

  I stood up from the bed and debated showering. Since I would just get sweaty again moving boxes and furniture all day, I decided against it. Instead, I put on some comfortable clothes, brushed my teeth, and headed into the kitchen to make breakfast.

  My cooking skills had vastly improved over the last couple of months. In just a few minutes, I could whip up eggs and bacon that were almost as good as Mom’s, and they went great with starfruit juice. Still, our morning meals had one glaring problem. Our coffee maker was horrendous. Getting the water-to-grounds ratio just right was like doing advanced calculus. At a certain point, I would just hit brew and hope for the best. Each day seemed to alternate between coffee-flavored water and sludge in a cup. I was only able to choke down a cup or two before hating myself.

  Helen and I ate in a flash and got to moving. The auto-truck pulled up and parked in the alley right on time. In a couple of hours, we had the apartment mostly emptied. We picked up the last large piece of furniture with a grunt and steadied ourselves, walking gingerly toward the door.

  “What if we just threw this into the garbage?” Helen wasn’t especially fond of the couch. It was the location where we had first made love, but I had unconsciously called her by Charlie’s wife’s name shortly after.

  “We’ve been over this, Helen. I was literally out of my mind when that happened. Are you going to hold it against me for the rest of our lives?”

  “Only until we get rid of the couch.”

  I shrugged. “But it’s sturdy.”

  She shot an evil look in my direction. “Yes, but you’re understanding of women clearly isn’t.”

  I knew that even if I won the battle, I would inevitably lose the war. “Fine. Let’s post it on the Net so we can afford another one.”

  Her demeanor instantly improved. “Works for me!”

  Tipping the couch to its narrowest position, we squeezed through the balcony door and out onto the fire escape. This was the first day that either of us had used the fire escape since that awful night. We made our way to ground level, and I backed my end up into the bed of the auto-truck, gently placing it down. Helen followed closely but dropped her end with a thud.

  “Take that, awful couch!”

  I couldn’t help but snicker. “Whatever.”

  We headed back into the mostly empty apartment, and it really started sinking in that we were moving to a new place. For some couples, it would just be another milestone in a serious relationship. For us, it showed just how far we had come since our migrations. After our rocky start, the last month had made it seem like we were finally settling into a normal life. It wouldn’t have been possible without Junior’s help. After we took down his father, he did things for Helen and me that he never would have done when his father was a constant thorn in his side.

  Junior had covered all our tracks, trying to ensure that the police, or any of the Padre’s remaining henchmen, would never know who’d blown up the old Oceanic Laboratories building. He also announced that he would be transitioning to the private sector, a common move for police officers at his age. He’d become so widely respected on the force that no one thought twice about it. In fact, they’d helped him ride off into the sunset with an honorable career. He told the media that he felt like he had lived up to the promise he made when he joined the force. He served and protected the fine residents
of Marktown, and the town had thrived as a result. He said that he felt like he had lost his purpose as police chief, and someone with fresh new ideas could champion the town better moving forward.

  But Junior had told Helen and me the truth. It had been the disdain for his father that fueled his desire to become a cop in the first place. He only stayed on after his father supposedly died because he had a feeling it wasn’t true. He went on to say that the years of butting heads with his father were exhausting, but it was the enforcing of gentrification in Marktown that weighed the heaviest on him. He did things to innocent, struggling people that he would regret for the rest of his life, and with the threat of his father finally gone, he knew he couldn’t remain in that position.

  Becoming a private eye, he could maintain an income, keep his connections from the force, and most importantly, pick and choose his cases. His first job, which he provided free of charge, was to patrol outside our apartment, making sure that his plan to keep us safe had worked. I thought it was odd that he did all of that without once asking how I really knew his father. The times when I brought it up, he stopped me. I was more than grateful because I still didn’t have a logical explanation.

  Despite Junior’s efforts, the first month following the incident was rough. Between sleepless nights and escorting Helen to and from work, I was scared and exhausted all the time. It didn’t help that I hated the apartment and had too much time on my hands being out of work. Before I went completely mental, I had decided to scan the job postings. One stuck out to me immediately, and I’d gone right over to apply.

  “I’m here for the classic auto mechanic position,” I’d said when I arrived.

  In his reclined chair, the slightly overweight man was nearly laying parallel to the floor with his feet on the desk and the newspaper hologram in his face. His name tag read “Vintage Velocity – Jack – Manager.”

  Jack slowly reached for his glazed long john on the desk and methodically moved it over his cup of steaming coffee. With care, he dunked the pastry into the hot liquid then pulled it out and held it above the cup until the dripping subsided. He must have finished the line of the particular article he was reading when he turned his chin slightly to take a giant bite of the droopy donut. With a mouth full of soggy carbohydrates, Jack finally found time in his busy schedule to acknowledge my existence without even turning to look at me.

  “Any experience or certificates with gasoline-powered cars?” he mumbled.

  From the garage connected to the office, the sound of pneumatic ratchets intermittently drowned out his words, but I made them out clearly enough. “Not exactly.”

  Jack’s expression didn’t change. “Then, not interested.”

  I pleaded. “But if you give me a shot, I promise I can prove myself.”

  He barely shook his head. “You can apply on the Net, but don’t get your hopes up. We only hire qualified mechanics.”

  A second later, the commotion from the garage escalated and filled the office. Looking through the window between the rooms, I watched the large garage door open and a vintage Dodge pickup being rolled in.

  One of the mechanics shouted to another, “The owner says it drops suddenly as he gets to thirty kilometers per hour. I’ll give it a look, but it might take a while. Haven’t had one of these in years.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from diagnosing the ancient vehicle out loud. “Probably needs a new pressure control solenoid.”

  Jack’s eyebrow shot up as he finished another bite of his breakfast. For the first time, he turned to look at me. “What?”

  I pointed at the garage. “Old Dodges were known for having transmission problems. Sometimes you could get away with just replacing the solenoid. I’d have to take a look to be sure.”

  Judging by his face, I wasn’t sure if Jack was shocked or angry.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. It would only take me five minutes or so to see.”

  With a dazed look, Jack shouted at the open doorway between the rooms. “Bob! Get in here!”

  I was in awe as I watched a prototypical grease monkey stroll into the office. Oil-stained blue jump suit. Rolled-up sleeves. Permanent black gunk under his finger nails. He was wiping his hands on a shop rag, and an odd feeling came over me. In my previous life, I would have been repulsed by such a dirty job, but in this one, I felt like it was my calling.

  Bob seemed less than thrilled about being interrupted on the job. “Dammit, Jack. What is it now?”

  I butted in. “Let me take a look at that old Dodge. Might be as simple as a new solenoid.”

  Bob gave me the same look that John had at first. “Who the hell is he?”

  Jack shrugged. “Hell if I know. The kid just walked in a moment ago.”

  “My name’s Ryan. I work on old cars as a hobby.”

  Bob smiled through a frown and nodded at Jack. “Put him on the payroll for today. If he’s as good as he sounds, you can keep him there.”

  Working on older cars was strange for me. Prior to Charlie, I’d never touched one. Each time I looked under a hood, I was reminded of the last time I felt his presence. It was simultaneously nostalgic and depressing. Our short time together really taught me the meaning of friendship and the meaning of family. My only regret was that he would never know the Padre’s fate. In the end, it was probably a good thing Charlie was gone because it allowed Helen and me to move on. Still, there was no denying that I missed him.

  Shaking off the nostalgic thoughts, I stepped out on the balcony and looked down the street in either direction, taking in the city one last time from that vantage point. I looked down at the planter we were leaving. It had a few buds left from the season, and I hoped that the next tenant would take care of them. Then, I began my final sweep of the apartment. The living room was first, and it was as barren as we were going to get it. We had cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast and cleared out everything we wanted to take. Finally, I went down the hallway and checked each bedroom, confirming we’d packed everything. One last peek into our bedroom, and I was ready to say we were done.

  Something odd caught my eye. The entire time we had lived in the apartment I had never really noticed a piece of off colored wood on the wall next to the closet. We had had a dresser covering it, but it seemed like the kind of thing I would have noticed when moving in. But that was a crazy time for me back then, so it made sense that I would have missed something so subtle. With the room completely empty, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

  I knelt to confirm it was nothing, which appeared to be the case. I was about to get up and walk away, but an urge from inside had other plans.

  Crack!

  The heel of my hand had popped the wood up on one side.

  I removed the piece of wood, revealing a small, dark hole. My gut said to use my Netphone for a better view, but I was too curious to take my time. Blindly, I dipped my hand.

  “Ouch!”

  I pulled my hand back furiously with a nasty splinter from the roughly cut wood. Shaking off the pain, I still needed to know what was in the hole. Carefully, I reached in and felt nothing at first. When I reached the bottom, I felt something move. I pulled out a folded piece of old-style paper. It must have been quality stock back in its day because, in spite of the yellow staining and fraying edge, it was still relatively sturdy. With dread, I lifted the paper up to the light and slowly unfolded it.

  Charlie, I don’t know if you’ll ever find this letter, but I had to take a chance. I knew you did your best for us with Plan-B. Before leaving, they made me write that awful note for the drawer at their facility. It was in case you had gone crazy and came looking for us. I know you had your issues, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that you would hurt us. As a shot in the dark, I set up PO box 5-59-120 under the nickname for Lucy’s favorite toy and my maiden name. It’s paid in full for two years. Send us
a letter, and we’ll reply with a safe place to meet you, and maybe, just maybe, we can be a family again.

  Love always,

  Sarah

  Confused didn’t begin to describe how I felt. It was dated a month after Charlie went to jail. How did she not know where he was? For that matter, how the hell did the letter get in my apartment? Regardless, it almost seemed like a cruel twist of fate that, on the day I thought I was putting Charlie completely behind me, I was being pulled right back in. The optimism I had had all day was instantly replaced with despair, along with something else. Just like when I stared at the mirror in Junior’s car, an inner wistfulness began to fill my mind, beckoning me to act on the letter.

  “You okay?” Helen had entered the room and must have seen the puzzled look on my face.

  All I could do in response was hold up the letter.

  “What’s that?” She snatched it out of my hands and quickly read it. “What the hell? Where did you find this?”

  I pointed. “It was hidden behind this panel. Behind the dresser.”

  Helen shook her head. “Wait, what? Why would Sarah have come to this apartment all those years ago?”

  Her question stirred something up in me. At first, I’d felt at home in the apartment, and I never really thought much of it. But it made so much sense when I put it all together. It was the last place Charlie had called home. All I could do was laugh at the thought.

  Helen had little patience for it. “What the hell is so funny?”

  “This was Charlie’s apartment.”

  Her impatience turned into anger. “What? You asshole! Why in the hell would you have us stay at his old place?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t do it on purpose! Hell, I had no clue until I found this note.”

  “Well, then I’m really glad we’re moving. Now, we’re going to throw this away, right?”

  I shrugged.

  “Ryan!” Helen glared. “I thought we were done with this.”

  “We are. Well, we were. What if his family is still alive?”