The Perfect Weapon Chapter 2010: Part 1 Section 2 of 4
Chapter 2010 Part 1 Section 2 of 4
“What did you say?” Irina smiled as she wiped down the counter. “What did you call me this time?” She looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at Judy. He loved to torment her with a new name every day. She’d already decided what her name was but delayed telling him just to see what ridiculous appellation he’d use. She wrote the names down in a notebook she kept by her bedside, a new memory book Judy had suggested creating.
“I said-“
“I heard you. Are you drunk?” Irina retorted as she spun around and leaned against the counter. “Witchiepoo?”
“Witchiepoo? That’s from HR Pufenstuff!” Sydney cried out. “I watched that when I was little!”
“What is Sydney talking about?” Irina asked, her brow wrinkling.
“It’s just a television program. I remembered it because the Calfos have a picture of her and Francie dressed up for Halloween in costumes from the program. But that’s not why I called. I have a house I want you to look at with me. Tonight.”
“Witchiepoo is right,” Sydney mumbled as she looked at the photos in the listing. “That’s who would live here.”
“She’s going to love it.”
“No, she’s not!” Sydney argued. “Too much work.”
“I’ll make you a bet-“
“I’ll take it- Wait a minute. You never bet unless you know you can win.”
Jack smiled.
“He wants me to go with him to look at a house.” Irina sighed. “This will be the seventy-eighth... No. Seventy-ninth house.”
“Maybe this one will be the charm.”
Irina rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what he’s looking for.” She turned and pointed at Judy. “Why don’t you come with me? Perhaps Jack needs therapy for house-hunting-“
“I think that might be somewhat intrusive.”
“No. I’m serious.”
“Are...Are you worried he doesn’t really want to buy a home?”
“I...” Irina pressed her lips together. “Perhaps.”
Judy smiled. “I think you’re overanalyzing it-“
“A therapist is telling me I’m overanalyzing something.”
“Yes, which should tell you something. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“Hmm. True. You know, Judy. I’ve been meaning to ask you about this thing Jack does with his-“
“What?” Judy gaped in surprise. “We’re not in session.”
“So? You’re my therapist and you’re talking to me. Doesn’t that make it a session? It seems logical to me.”
“Yeah.” Judy picked up her spoon and began tapping it on the table with a suspicious look at Irina. “Are you asking me a serious question, trying to discomfit me or just gossiping about your sex life?”
“One of those.” Irina looked at Judy’s spoon, sliding back and forth between her fingers. “And when, might I inquire, was the last time you had sex?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The way you’re fondling that spoon, which some might consider a phallic object-“ Irina laughed as Judy carefully set the spoon down. “You should meet Dave.”
“I don’t understand how we got from phallic objects to Dave-“
“You don’t?” Irina rolled her eyes. “You American women are so naive. You, Sydney... I think perhaps I should open my own school using the lessons I learned at...well, I wouldn’t call it home. But.” Irina smiled. “I remember everything I’ve learned. I practice on Jack, you know. Just to keep my degree current. So. Would you like a tutorial?”
“Would I...what?” Judy got up and tossed her spoon into the sink, wincing as she heard the resulting metallic clang reverberate around the kitchen.
“Well, you’ve been so helpful to me, I’d like to return the favor.” Irina opened her eyes wide, pretending to innocence, a charade which fooled no one.
“Send me a box of chocolates,” Judy retorted, Judy retorted, half in involuntary irritation and half to see what the next step would be. Irina still needed therapy, but this taunting was close to a part of her real self. Clearly, what she also needed, as much as Jack, were some friends. Not a therapist, but real friends.
“Chocolate is really a sublimating device, you know.” Irina smiled. Being helpful to those whom you - yes, she did care about Judy. It was so amusing, being helpful. No wonder Jack enjoyed or had enjoyed teasing his friends in the past.
“And there’s this transportation device out front, called a car, into which we should place ourselves to go look at that house. Shouldn’t we?” Judy asked, picking up her purse. “I’ll drive. You can ride back home with Jack.”
“Of course. Maybe we’ll make a stop somewhere on the way home.” Irina looked over her shoulder as she led the way toward the door, just to watch Judy fight the urge to roll her eyes. Or to imagine she was watching Judy do that. The woman could be so...placid, it was irritating and made her want to prick a reaction out of her any way possible. She shrugged and pointed north. “The beach where he proposed to me isn’t far, after all.”
Judy nodded as she backed out of the driveway and listened to Irina tell the short version of Jack’s proposal. She’d heard it before, but it was clearly a favorite of Irina’s. Which was fine. The story was undeniably romantic and told her more about both of her patients than she might have gleaned from hours of intense therapy. But the rest of this conversation... When had she so completely lost control of this conversation?
Maybe the minute she’d made the decision to visit the Bristows’ home - no, Irina had said it was a house, not a home. She turned a speculative glance on Irina. The progress the woman had made in two months was nothing short of astonishing. Jack had been correct when he had chosen to have faith in her potential, in her accomplishments when she focused. And why now, was she focusing on her therapist’s personal life? Why? Or was this her idea of being friendly? Good god. Where was a pencil when she needed one? Or was that a sublimating device as well? She started and knocked her purse from the break between the seats.
Irina picked it up and shoved the contents back inside. Except for the chocolate bar. She held it up and twisted her wrist to swing it like a pendulum. “Portable sublimation device, Dr. Barnett? I really must inform you -“
“I have a degree. I know about sublimation-“
“Yes. Oddly enough, your degree is from the university we all attended. Jack. Me. And...Dave. Same department - isn’t it odd that you never knew each other?”
“Actually-“
Irina shook her head as she looked at her watch. “If it wasn’t time for Dave’s physical therapy session, I’d say we should go over to the hospital and...what’s the phrase? Take him out? No...”
“Bust him out?” Judy glanced at Irina out of the corner of her eyes. She was glad she’d come over this afternoon. Irina’s face had shown more animation and more of the real woman this afternoon than she’d seen in two months of sessions. Yes, there was no substitute for real life. Her own catch phrase; she’d have to use it on Jack.
“Yes. I have weapons, I could protect him-“ Irina opened her purse and showed Judy the contents.
Judy rolled her eyes. A wallet, a compact, a lipstick and a gun. Oh, and a small knife. The compact and lipstick were probably weapons as well. What every woman carried these days. “Oh, of that I have no doubt, but-“
“You should meet him. He could help you with your...spoon problem.”
“My what?” Judy choked and glared over at Irina. In the passenger seat. Hmm. Was this conversation a tactic to gain a measure of control in the relationship? Irina was accustomed to being in control and no doubt preferred that, generally. The last few months she had been struggling, trying to find her place, trying to find her self and now...This was probably a good sign, an excellent sign. She was ready to begin to move onto another phase. Judy smiled.
“Your spoon problem. I’ll talk in euphemisms, if it makes you more comfortable-“
“Please don’t-“ Judy said quickly. Or she’d never be able to put a spoon in her mouth again without choking with laughter. Jack had told her that Irina was often amusing, but this conversation was one of the few times she’d ever seen evidence of that aspect of her personality. This visit had been a good idea indeed. Even if she had to put up with inappropriate conversation. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She actually liked her, this woman she was meeting today.
“Okay. No euphemisms. I think you’re too uptight. You need to relax. Sex is good for that. With the right partner.” Irina smiled. She had spoken in short, concise sentences. Even repressed Judy should be able to understand that. And she’d spoken without any accent whatsoever. She needed to practice a flat American accent anyway for use in their cover story that she was from...Iowa. Good god, Iowa. It was a logical choice, helped explain any potential missteps they might make with Dave about their earlier life together. But...Iowa? Why couldn’t Dave have been from... Wait, Judy was babbling. This was so enjoyable. They needed to get Judy out of the office more often. Irina smiled over at her.
“I really don’t think-“
“You don’t have to think. With the right partner. Speaking of which. Dave...You know he took over for Jack on those in and outs when Jack resigned, shall we say, from that work? He had to know what he was doing. And given what I heard from his assortment of girlfriends over the years, he did-“
“IRINA!” Judy blustered. As always, she cursed her fair skin as she felt heat flood it. “What, are you, his pimp?”
“No, of course not. There’s nothing in it for me.” Irina shook her head. Ha. She’d finally gotten a reaction out of Dr. Barnett. Her work here was done. She shoved the chocolate bar back into the purse and snapped it shut. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
Judy snorted. “How blonde do you think I am, anyway?”
“I dunno, Dad.” Sydney shook her head and pointed at the comments on the listing. “‘A fixer-upper, just waiting for loving hands to restore it to its former glory?’ Is that us?”
“We would have the time -- After we deal with Sloane, your mother and I are planning on taking a leave of absence for a while. To decide on our plans for the future. Remember? We talked about that.”
“I remember...” Sydney ran her finger around the square and somewhat dark photo on the listing.
“Good. Working on a house would be a wonderful project. And that one-“ Jack nodded toward the listing.
"But still, is it us? Working on--"
“It has potential...” Jack said quietly as he drove quickly toward their destination. He looked into his rearview mirror. Where had the Calfos' car gone? They really needed to learn how to keep up. “I like working on things with potential.”
“I...see.” Sydney folded her hands in her lap. “You mean Mom.”
Jack’s head snapped to the right to look at his daughter. She had made an unexpected connection and overture. A doubleplay. Well, he was nothing if not opportunistic. “Yes. I know...I know that you are having trouble understanding why she left and why she didn’t return for so long.”
“I am, I am!” Sydney turned to face her father eagerly, hoping he would have an answer. The answer. “Do you...Do you understand it?”
“Sweetheart...” Jack pulled the car around a corner and onto the highway. As he accelerated, he pointed to his head. “I understand it here. I do. But here...” He pointed to his heart. “That’s harder. For me and I think, for you. But tell me what's the hardest part of it for you."
"The hardest part is..." Sydney frowned. "I understand you. Dr. Barnett has explained it to me, the Post-Traumatic Stress. It makes sense. And I...can feel...after Danny, the guilt I feel, felt about him, how I felt afterward, I can imagine being pushed too far the way you were and...withdrawing."
Jack said quickly, "Be that as it may, I still have no excuse and can only ask for the gift of forgiveness. But let's talk about you and your mother. Save me for another time," he urged. Sydney was trying to avoid hitting the target. He lowered his voice and asked in a soft tone, "What is the hardest part? Can you tell me?"
"I can’t imagine voluntarily keeping myself away from my family," Sydney blurted out and then slapped her hand over her mouth.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Jack said and gently pried her hand away from her mouth. "It's just you and me."
“I...” Sydney whispered. “I’m having trouble. I don't how how to understand that choice because...it was a choice she kept making every day. For years and...”
“I think... This may be a situation where you have to accept that you may never understand fully, not in your heart. Just accept it. Accept the reality, the result, the apology and the desire to move on. If you can trust her. Because I knew what was going on, because I saw her struggle in Panama, I had more time to accept it, to have my faith rewarded, than you did.”
Sydney nodded slowly. She took a deep breath, then another, calming herself. Return to something comfortable, she told herself. “Judy said that you and I are wired similarly. And that wiring is in some ways different from Mom.”
“Yes.” Jack tightened his grip on the steering wheel. This path with his daughter was a difficult one to navigate.
“But...I don’t understand.” Sydney once again curled her hands convulsively over Francie’s recipe box. “She seems so happy with us now. Why didn’t she come home?”
“She...” Jack struggled for the right words to his daughter’s simple question as he pulled into the passing lane. She had asked the question calmly, but it was still the cry of a confused child. How he wished Judy or Dave were here, but...Judy had warned him that moments of opportunity with children often came at the most inopportune or unexpected moments. “I tease her, as you know, about being Dorothy lost on the yellow brick road.”
“Yes. I’ve heard you.” Sydney circled back again over familiar territory, trying to find the right path through the thicket surrounding them. “I’ve also heard you refer to those years after she left as a time when you felt lost, lost behind a glass wall you couldn’t break.”
Jack nodded even as he acknowledged Sydney’s tendency to circle back. He had no idea from whom she’d gotten that tendency. “Exactly. And then...I could. Slowly. When you discovered the truth about SD-6 and Arvin, when you lost Danny, when you pressed me for a relationship and forced me to see a therapist, Judy's hard work, when Irina came back and her return forced me to confront...everything. Dave's portfolio. It took all of that to break that wall. Chink by chink. And...for your mother...”
“Do you think she returned... maybe a part of her wanted to come back to us?” Sydney asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” Jack said firmly. “She had...” He pressed his lips together and then nodded. “I’ve said this to her and if you weren’t our daughter I wouldn’t repeat it. But, I told her that she had too much pride to just come home. Pride is...”
“It’s called a deadly sin for a reason, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And...” Jack opened his grip on the wheel and forced himself to relax. He started when Sydney’s hand lightly covered his. He looked over at her and nodded. He could do this. He had to, for her sake. “I had my share too. But right now, I want to talk about your mother because this is important. To her, to you, to us all-“
Sydney blurted out, “Mom told me once, when we were shopping - she was looking for some jeans for you...”
“She went shopping with you at the mall because you wanted to,” Jack corrected. He bit back a smile as he remembered Irina’s confusion over the request.
Sydney smiled as she remembered the sheer oddness of watching her mother, once on the CIA’s most wanted list, shopping for jeans for her husband. Surreal hadn’t begun to describe it. And then she’d casually dropped a bomb of insight that weeks later still crept into Sydney’s mind at times. “She said that after she came back - the first time - she thought you wore your dignity like..” She deepened her voice to imitate her mother. “He wore his dignity like his damn suits. To cover his nakedness in layers of protective armor.”
“She did?” Jack started. He shook his head. Sometimes her ability to see into him was uncanny. Thank god she was focusing that ability now for their benefit - all of their benefit. Thank god there were no more hidden agendas, no schemes, no need to hide anymore. “She has her moments.”
“But...she didn’t all those years.”
“No. Pride got in the way. She had to have some game plan, some excuse and even then...”
“Even then...” Sydney smiled. “She had the pride and you had the prejudice. Your favorite book.”
“Yes.”
“But...” Sydney looked down at the box again, taking comfort from it. She knew Francie would tell her to be strong and confront her fears, just as she had so long ago about asking a boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance. “If you’d accepted her immediately - I get it. It wouldn’t have worked. Because she would have kept believing that what she’d done was...no big deal. Maybe Madagascar was even helpful in that regard?”
“Perhaps.” Jack said nothing, waiting for Sydney to keep going, to keep making the connections. Finally.
“But even then, she still wasn’t...with us. And then came Panama. So. You...played Human Battleship with her in Panama. I’ve heard you two refer to it many times,” Sydney hinted. Would her father take the cue, would he keep talking? She had to take this opportunity.
“One of my least favorite memories in my own memory book,” Jack admitted. “Panama was our last chance with her. I knew it. So, I tried everything I could. One tactic was what we call Human Battleship - in which the weapon was the truth. Stored away all those years...”
“In airtight canisters deep underground in unmarked silos so that no one could ever find it?” Sydney looked appraisingly at her father. That description would suit his love just as well.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Something like that. I even used that damn Wizard of Oz then too. I called her the Tin Man.”
“Frozen in place, without a heart?” Sydney nodded, then winced. “Ouch.”
“And Dave’s portfolio and a conversation he’d had with her even before you were born - they were critical, as well. Essential.”
“That was the wizard, the man behind the curtain?” Sydney asked with a faint smile.
“Yes. Love was.” Jack grimaced. “Do I sound maudlin?”
“No.” Sydney smiled encouragingly. He had never talked like this outside of a session in Judy’s office.
“Well, uh...good.” Jack breathed a sigh of relief as he spotted the correct exit sign and swerved off the highway, ignoring Sydney’s indrawn hiss and grab at the door handle.
“Dad...” Sydney closed her eyes for a second. Why did her father have to drive like this, anyway? What was the rush? Did he hope to get to their destination before they’d finished talking? “Panama, remember? Tell me before we get to house number seventy-nine, okay?”
“In Panama, I didn’t know if she was going to come home with us. I didn’t have any real reason for faith yet or hope or...” Jack trailed off as he took careful note of the street they were on. Hmm. This could be just....
“Love?” Sydney whispered.
“No. I...I didn’t until I heard her talking - to Dave, although I didn’t know it then - and then she smashed a mirror. I was afraid she might have hurt herself and so I came out-“
“Where were you?” Sydney asked as her father slowed down - finally - to check house numbers
“In the bathroom. Waiting. I’d done all I could. She had to make the last part of the journey on her own. It had to be her choice.” Jack pulled the car to a stop and parked it.
“Free will.”
“Yes.” Jack spared a glance for the house they’d come to see, froze, and then refocused on Sydney. “Or it wasn’t real at all. And I heard her smash the mirror, came out and saw her standing there, surrounded by slivers of silver glass and...”
“And?”
“And I looked into her eyes and knew. She had started to come back to us.” Jack looked out the window past Sydney’s shoulder and shook his head. Then he smiled slightly and looked into his daughter’s face again. “Then I offered to help her clean up and she threatened to hit me with the wastebasket.” He laughed. “That was so...her. The huge momentous change had happened and what does she do? She wants to clean up and threatens to hurt me. She needed time to herself to understand what was going on, but still. It was her.”
“The woman you loved, could love. Whatever her name was.”
“Yes. And I knew that we were on our way home. Could be, should be.”
“Then what?” Sydney waited. Her father had never spoken in such detail of that night in Panama.
“I took a shower.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“What?” Sydney blinked. She hadn’t been expecting such a mundane answer. She’d expected some vastly-complicated strategy. He’d taken a shower?
“I was...” Jack pressed his lips together and then realized that tactic was counterproductive. Sydney needed to hear about his own fears and doubts. Just say it, he prodded himself. He opened his mouth and blurted, “God, Sydney, I was wet with sweat. Or felt like I was. My heart was pounding.”
“You were nervous?” Sydney realized.
“I knew she was ready, but she had to make that last step. She had to come to me.”
“And she did. Obviously.”
“Yes, after she finished cleaning up her mess.”
Sydney nodded. Her mother could be so picky, always had been. These days, she wondered if part of it wasn’t a coping mechanism. It probably had been in Panama. She ...could ask her mother. "I should ask her about this, shouldn't I? What she was thinking then, as she cleaned up."
“Yes, you should ask her about that because of course, she did it on her own. No help.” Jack prompted.
Sydney rolled her eyes. Even now, she had seen her mother’s stubbornness in wanting to achieve everything on her own. Thankfully, Dr. Barnett excelled at forcing her mother to examine that tendency. “So she came in and then...”
“She was so determined. Anxious, though. So anxious. And so was I.”
“You were?” Sydney asked in surprise. Her father had always spoken of his faith in regards to his wife. She didn’t recall him talking of his fears before. Or had he? Had she ignored them and only now heard them?
“Yes. This moment was one of those moments in life that you know will change everything. Everything.”
“It’s like it’s in slow motion?”
“Yes. If she’d changed her mind at the last minute...”
Sydney held up the sheet with the house listing in her hand. If her mother had changed her mind, her father wouldn’t have been spending his time looking for a home, he would have been planning a strategy to put Irina Derevko in the big house, as they used to say in those film noir movies she and Dave loved so much. She casually looked over her shoulder and then froze. She twisted her head to look upward. Was that what she thought it was? Holy s***. “We wouldn’t be here right now.”
“No. Then, that morning...I held out my hand and asked her to take that leap of faith with me, to me, to us.”
“And...she did.” Sydney blinked and turned around to face her father.
“She did.” Jack lifted his hand from the gear shift and held it out to Sydney. “I’d like you to take a leap too. Talk to her. Talk and talk and talk and do things with her until you can find a way to build a bridge to span that gap of understanding.”
Sydney curled her hand around her father’s. “Good analogy, Dad.” She sighed. “And good advice, too. Thank you.”
“I wish I’d said it before, or said it as clearly before,” Jack said softly. “It helped?”
“Yes. It did. Thank you for letting me ramble. Thank you for talking to me.” Sydney leaned forward and kissed her father’s cheek. Pressing her face against his, she whispered, “It helps me to know about your worries and fears. You don’t always have to be strong, you know.”
“But...”
“No buts.” Sydney kissed him again and then leaned back as she heard the toot of a car horn.
“Here are the Calfos. What took them so long?” Jack grumbled as he opened his car door.
“Not everyone drives like a bat out of hell, Dad.” Sydney laughed as she exited the car.
“I don’t drive-“
“The fact that you always are aleast ten minutes earlier to a destination than everyone else means-“
“That I know how to negotiate traffic properly.” Jack slammed his car door.
“You need to turn right up here,” Irina told Judy, looking at the GPS in Judy’s car. “And then we’ll be almost there.”
“It’s not that far from your current place,” Judy noted. Anything was better than more of Irina’s ‘advice’ on her love life. Or lack thereof.
“No. Sometimes the best things are right there. Like, for example, did you know that Dave’s hospital is not far either?”
Judy sighed. Jack had also been right about his wife’s tendency to focus too much on occasion. “You have a one-track mind. It’s called obsessive.”
“Let me guess. You have a degree.”
“Irina. We’ve spoken about this issue before and-“
“It’s not one track. Not if you know what you’re doing. And Dave-“ Irina rubbed the lower half of her face with her hand to hide what she knew would be a wide grin. “You know, Jack has said that Dave and I have some similarities. He might have a one -track mind too, you know.”
“What are you-“ Judy bit her words off. Why in the hell had she asked a question? Now, damn it, she’d probably hear an answer.
“I’m talking about the fact that I, uh, overheard...” Irina stopped as Judy snorted in derision. She ignored it and continued. It was never a bad idea to prime the pump, as it were. Ahem. “Dave was a captive for a long time.”
“Yes, I know-“
“And so he didn’t have any opportunities for female companionship, so the woman who gets him now will be, shall we say, lucky?”
Judy goggled at Irina. “I. Cannot. Believe-“
“And consider this!” Irina tapped the dashboard. It was just seconds until she would score a point. Victory was imminent. “He’s a big guy, too. Isn’t that a good sign?”
“The only sign I want to find right now is the correct street sign so I can dump you off!”
“Wait a minute.” Sydney shielded her eyes from the late afternoon sun. “That’s awfully big. And tall. Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, Princess, it is.” Jack looked over at his daughter’s excited face. “Is that a good thing?”
“It’s mine. Mine.” Sydney nodded decisively, wondering at the look of bemusement her father’s face had worn at her words.
“What do you think, Jack?” Reuben asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up. “It is awfully big...”
“Don’t be silly.” Pam waved her hands dismissively. “ Bigger is-“
“Better.” Sydney giggled as Mrs. Calfo began to giggle as well.
“Oh god. Where is she?” Jack groaned, looking down the street for Irina’s car.
“I like this street,” Irina said slowly as they passed house after house, looking for the right one. She looked up as the sunlight dappling through trees cast lacy grey shadows on everything below. Everything below...so familiar and yet... Shadows, she thought, the shadows of a missed opportunity. Abruptly, she asked with a thick accent, “Could you...stop? Judy, could you stop? Just pull over.”
“Of course.” Judy looked in her rearview mirror and immediately pulled over to the curb under a tree. The smug look of mixed triumph and amusement Irina had been wearing had evaporated almost instantly upon reaching this, the correct street. She turned the car off and gently touched Irina’s arm. It was cold to the touch. She looked down. Goosebumps. Judy curled her hand around Irina’s forearm and asked softly, “Are you--”
“I’m... I need to walk. I need to walk.” Irina pushed open the car door with a jerky motion. “I need to walk before we get to the house. I need-“
“Okay.” Judy stepped out of the car, retrieved their purses and handed Irina’s to her as she walked around to the curb. “Is there something wrong or right or...” Judy trailed off as Irina started walking slowly forward on the sidewalk. It was a hot afternoon, walking slowly was the right choice, but somehow she didn’t think the heat was the problem as Irina stopped and looked around. She stared at an empty porch, a bike abandoned on a front walkway, a flower bed that was nearly dead for lack of water.
What was she seeing, Judy wondered, that made her appear so disoriented, as if she was seeing something she’d never seen before? The sights were nothing extraordinary. And the smell of steak barbecuing on a grill or the underlying sweetness of a nearby pot of petunias could not be what had caused the look of confusion on Irina’s face as she looked around, almost frantically, and resumed walking.
Irina stopped as they rounded a slight bend and she saw Jack, Sydney and two strangers up ahead in the distance. They must be the Calfos. She moved slightly to touch a mailbox and looked ahead. Sydney was talking to the strangers, her back facing them. But Jack...
Jack was looking for her; he was waiting, she realized as she saw his face don a welcoming smile. This time he knew she was coming. This time he waved and beckoned her forward. Would he have done so thirty years before had he known what awaited him? She smiled as his face and his gesture grew impatient. She waved slightly back and turned to Judy and asked urgently, “Did you ever have a moment that was like deja vu, only it wasn’t?”
“Yes.” Judy waited. Irina was seeing something from her past in the present, she realized. Something important. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Irina heaved a deep sigh and shook her head. She looked out in the street. Watched a car go by. It was hot, almost oppressively hot today. The heat was shimmering over the concrete road, making her vision a little blurry. She closed her eyes and listened as she heard a girl screaming at her little brother to ‘Stop it or I’ll tell Mom!’ She smiled as she heard a taunt, then a slap, and then a wail.
“Irina?” Judy asked in a whisper as she watched Irina absorb...something. She looked around. A normal street on a perfectly-normal day. Nothing odd. Nothing spectacular. Nothing but... Hmmm. Judy prompted, “The deja vu. It can be disconcerting...”
Irina started when Judy once again touched her arm. “You’ve had that experience too. So, I’m not crazy?”
“Those of us with degrees frown on the use of the word crazy,” Judy quipped, trying to give Irina a moment to compose herself since she clearly did not want to talk at the moment. Later.
Irina smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered and let go of the mailbox and took a step. Then another. As they neared her family, she looked over at Judy and whispered, “I’ve been here before.” Not this street, no, not this exact street. But this place, yes, she'd been here before. "I've been here before," she repeated.
“Have you?”
“Yes. The last time I left...this place behind me. This time I won’t....” Irina strode forward with a determined step.
“I’m here.” Irina announced as she and Judy reached Jack and Sydney. Judy looked up at the house and her eyes widened. It looked like the haunted mansion at DisneyLand to her. What was Jack thinking? She smiled automatically at the Calfos standing on the porch as Mrs. Calfo tried to shove open the front door while Mr. Calfo held the screen door.
“This is it.” Sydney shoved her hands in her pockets and nodded toward the house.
“Is it?” Irina asked absently, noting Sydney’s body language.
“Yes. It has a turret.” Sydney looked over at Judy and pointed upward. “Look! It has a turret!”
“Yes, it does,” Judy laughed. Her eyes flashed between mother and daughter.
“So it does.” Irina sighed regretfully at the restraint between her and her daughter. Well, it would probably work to their advantage in this, her first real interaction with civilians. She looked up at the house. Then up higher still. It did have a turret. A turret? No one made houses any more with turrets. This was an old home with many stories hidden in its walls. And on its wonderful front porch. Three stories of three different kinds of shingles. Approximately a million windows - what a pain to clean. Sagging front steps. A few broken porch balusters. The greyness of wood long unpainted. Paint was easy. Making a home, that was difficult. “What color do you think? Yellow?”
Jack shrugged. Apparently, she’d made a decision. “Whatever you-“
“Jack. What color do you want?” Irina pressed, without taking her eyes away from the house. A home with history. She liked that. Building on the past. Because no one truly had a clean, white tabula rasa, did they? Certainly not them.
Jack pursed his lips as he looked up at the house. Couldn’t she just make the decision like she used to? He looked down at her obdurate face. Apparently not. “Blue. Okay? Blue. I like blue.”
“You never change.” Irina smiled absently.
“You could do both,” Sydney offered. “It might be fun to pick out colors for the outside.”
“Yes.” Irina nodded as she stared at the house. It had history. And... potential. Yes. It needed work and attention and...
“Honey?” Jack asked. “Are you okay?”
Irina shook her head to clear it and rubbed her hand across her forehead. “I’m fine. I’m...fine. It’s hot out, isn’t it?”
Next to Irina, Judy felt her tremble. She slid her hand around Irina’s elbow and squeezed tightly, then pressed herself into the side of her body.
Jack nodded as he noted Irina’s flattened accent in case anyone overheard. Good job. Of course. “Yes. It is. Do you need a drink? I have water in the car-“
“That would be great.” Irina smiled at him, then returned her gaze to the house.
“I’ll get it,” Sydney offered. Opening the car door, she grabbed a water bottle and touched Francie’s box. She could do this, she told herself as she handed the bottle to her mother.
“It has a screen door,” Irina whispered as the Calfos beckoned them toward the house. “Does it slam?”
“Yes, it does!” Jack teased. “You’ll love it - it hasn’t been oiled in years.”
“What does that mean?” Sydney asked, frowning when no one answered and the silence lengthened.
Bang
TBC at Chapter 2010 Part 1 section 3 of 4