The Perfect Weapon Chapter 2010: Part 1 Section 4 of 4
Chapter 2010 Part 1 section 4 of 4
“Life in the suburbs is dangerous apparently,” Irina mused, avoiding meeting anyone's eyes. “Who knew?”
“So, that’s why the two lots are included. The estate bought out the lots from the neighbors to avoid lawsuits - “
“What happened to the owner?” Judy asked, looking back at the house, faded and dark.
“He was found legally insane and was committed and then...”
“He committed suicide?” Jack asked.
“Yes.” Pam heaved a sigh. “It’s all pretty sordid.”
Judy turned to Irina. “I told you I felt vibes.”
Irina shook her head. “It’s nothing that a can of air freshener can’t handle. Jack - does the history bother you?”
“Doesn’t bother me.” Jack shrugged. “Honey?”
“Not a problem.” Irina turned to her daughter. “Sydney?”
Sydney shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear as she looked up at the house. “As long as I get the turret room and... can we put in a pool?”
Jack nodded. “Indoor or outdoor?”
“Maybe a pool house with a retractable wall,” Irina mused, pointing to the side. “So you can have both, depending upon the weather.”
“I don’t know.” Jack shook his head. “I think I’d rather have a pool that looks like a pond in a natural landscape.”
“No. A classic regulation-Olympic rectangle so when I swim laps I can easily measure the distance I’ve gone and how far I still need to go.”
“I really think--”
“Stop it!” Sydney hissed. “Not again.” She threw up her hands and walked around to the back of the house.
Pam stared, mouth agape. “She doesn’t like it when you argue? Even about inconsequentials?”
“No.” Jack and Irina answered together. Jack sighed. “I’ll go get her.” He followed his daughter.
Irina took a step or two to follow him, then stopped. She turned back, tucked her hair behind her ear and shrugged.
“Has anyone ever mentioned...” Pam began, then clamped her mouth shut.
“Yes?” Irina prompted.
“I should have kept my mouth shut, but since there is no staple gun nearby...” Pam smiled ruefully. “My mouth is my downfall.”
“Well, keep falling.” Irina smiled. She looked over at Judy who appeared as if she wanted to roll her eyes but would refrain. “Tell me whatever it is that you were about to say.”
Well, keep falling, Judy scoffed to herself. That sounded like nothing Irina Derevko would ever say and if she'd said it, you shouldn't trust her to catch you. This woman was another story. This woman was good. Very good.
“It’s just somewhat...odd. The resemblance between you and Sydney.”
“Oh that!” Irina laughed. “I’ve heard it before.” She shrugged and leaned forward to whisper to Pam. “Apparently, Jack has a type.”
“Tall. Brunette,” Reuben told them.
“Smart mouthed,” Judy added helpfully. She smiled innocently as Irina glared at her.
“Oh.” Pam frowned. “That doesn’t bother you, Irina?”
“No. I have a type too. Tall. Gorgeous. Looks good when he bends over in jeans...” Irina smiled over at Jack as he came back around the house with Sydney by his side. She suppressed a broader smile at the pouty look on Sydney’s face. It reminded her of the time Sydney had flown off of the roof and Jack, for once, had smacked her bottom. Sometimes she thought the girl needed a few more smacks on her bottom. She looked back at Jack and shook her head as she heard him talking about that cottage garden they could plant. He was too much of a softie. And they were probably planning that overgrown bed of multi-colored petunias they'd both loved so much and had made such a dirty mess of themselves. Ah well, Jack would still look very good dripping water after she sprayed him with a hose. Yes, he woud.
“I can see that,” Pam noted, watching the softness on Irina’s face as she looked from Sydney and then back to Jack. That woman loved that man. Maybe Jack had needed someone to love him like that all these years. How stupid. Of course, that was what he’d needed. How this woman had ever broken through that wall surrounding him, she didn’t know, but thank god. She wondered if Sydney felt the same way. “Sydney’s a good child,” Pam asserted. “She was too quiet initially, but my Francie could always get her going.”
“Could she? How?”
Pam smiled somewhat sadly. “Oh, the stories I could tell you.”
“Could you?” Irina pressed. Then she fell back. She had a story or two she should tell Sydney. “I mean...I’d like to understand her. Find a way to...”
Pam patted Irina’s shoulder. “I understand. It’s difficult at any time, I would think, to enter a family. And Sydney can be stubborn.”
Reuben smiled. “Yes, she can.” He nodded toward the car.
“Can she?” Irina laughed, following Pam as the Calfos went toward their car. “She must get that from her mother. Jack’s not stubborn.”
“Isn’t he?” Pam asked curiously. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t know him very well, even after all those years.”
“No?” Irina frowned, once again realizing how isolated Jack had made himself. The Calfos were nice people, good people, good sense of humor. Before, he would have made friends with them quickly. Sometimes she still had trouble understanding the changes in him after her foolish choice and its consequences.
“I think I’ve exchanged more words with him tonight than in the previous fifteen years.” Pam smiled and patted Irina once again. “You must have a good influence on him.”
“I hope so, I hope so,” Irina whispered.
Pam smiled reassuringly. She opened her car door and then stopped to turn back. “Perhaps you and Jack would like to come over one night for coffee, dinner? Reuben already promised Jack copies of photos of Sydney that we have-“
“You have photos?” Irina asked eagerly. “I’d love to see them, hear your stories. I want...I hope Sydney will...” She broke off as Sydney and Jack came up. “Sydney...” Irina smiled hopefully and then relaxed as Sydney put her hand out. Irina took it and held on tightly.
“Sydney...” Pam mused. “I always wondered about that name. It wouldn’t have been common at the time.”
“Her mother chose it. A family name,” Jack said quickly.
“What?” Sydney gaped. “I never knew that.”
“Well.” Pam smiled as she stepped into her car. “What do they say about learning something new every day?”
“I’m a little tired of that myself,” Sydney muttered as her parents spoke with Pam about signing papers. They all waved as the Calfos drove off.
Judy opened her purse. “I have a camera. Why don’t I take a picture of the three of you in front of your new house?” She poked them backward and took several pictures. “All done!” She called out. As they walked toward her, Irina looked back at the house again and again.
“Judy, could we go across the street and take some wide shots?” Irina asked.
“Of course.” Crossing the street, they stood in a driveway while Judy took the photographs Irina requested.
As Jack and Judy spoke of sending the images via email, Irina stopped and touched the mailbox next to the driveway. She looked up and down the street, then whispered, “Sydney?”
“Yes?” Sydney frowned at her mother’s grip on the mailbox. “What is it? Why are you holding onto that mailbox?”
“It’s...part of the story.”
Judy and Jack froze and took a step closer. “What story?” Jack asked, touching his wife’s shoulder and then lightly stroking her hair.
“The story of...not turning back when I should have.” Irina laughed mirthlessly. “Apparently, that’s a continuing theme in my life story, isn’t it? The first time was on a street...” She looked around. “This street. This story.”
“This street?” Judy conjectured. “And why it upset you when we came down it?”
“Very good.” Irina smiled sadly. “You are...very good at what you do, Judy. Paying attention is the key, isn’t it?”
“Yes, actually, it is.”
“So Dave told me. A long time ago. But it’s still true.” Irina looked up at Sydney. “The truth never changes, never fails...”
“Like love?” Jack asked.
“Love never fails? That argument you had with Dave over the readings at our wedding?” Irina nodded. “The truth doesn’t either. We do. And I’ve failed. I failed, as I said to Judy, the last time I was on this street. I won’t do it this time.”
“What are you talking about?” Sydney asked, shoving her trembling hands into her pockets. Her mother was making her nervous. She was so intent, no...intense was the correct word.
“I’ve been thinking about how to tell you this...detail. This detail of my story.And I have to believe that now is the time. Because this street...”
“This street means something to you?” Judy prompted. “And a mailbox does too? Doesn’t it?” she pressed. The time was now. Every instinct in her was screaming at her to press Irina. She wanted to tell this truth, whatever it was, but was stalling. Fear... “Have faith in your story, Irina. Tell us. Tell us about this street and the mailbox.”
Sydney looked at her father in confusion. He looked back and nodded.
Irina ran her fingertips lightly over the mailbox. “I...took your name from a mailbox,” she said abruptly.
“What?” Sydney gaped at her mother.
“I wondered about that. The origins of her name.” Jack put his hand over Irina’s, stilling her nervous movements. “I realized after you left that your story that Sydney was your grandfather’s name was not true.”
“No...” Irina shook her head. “It’s about the glider.”
“The glider?” Jack shook his head. “And 'thereby hangs a tale'?”
"As You Like It?" Sydney supplied automatically. All the world's a stage, she thought silently, looking at her parents. The ultimate players.
Judy nodded. Good. The quotations game, something the three of them had in common.
“Yes.” Irina smiled slowly. “I never told you why I wanted that glider so much.”
“No, you didn’t. You just wanted it...” Jack smiled as he remembered her dogged desire for that glider and her dismay when she realized that they were no longer readily available.
“And so, you - and Dave - found one for me.”
“Of course.”
“I...didn’t really understand why I wanted that glider so much.”
“You didn’t want that glider, honey. You needed that glider. I could tell that it meant something important to you.”
“Yes. It did. I didn’t know the difference between want and need. I thought I did, but I didn’t...” Irina looked down the street. “The glider was on the porch of a house on the street...”
Sydney smiled uncertainly. “A bump on a log on...”
“Yes, like that,” Judy agreed when Irina stayed silent. “This street, Irina. You said you had a sense of deja vu when we came down it. Can you explain that to us?”
“It was...a hot day,” Irina began.
“In the summer?” Jack asked. “That’s when your story begins?”
“Yes. The summer before...I started attending your school. The summer I drove out here from New York. Oh, I-“ Irina slapped the mailbox and took a few quick steps away, then stopped and turned back around. She smiled ruefully as she returned. "I was avoiding saying this -- the trip was on my way to meet you, Jack. My...mark."
Jack held out his hand and Irina took it. “Go on,” he urged. “Apparently, you flew into New York, I’m guessing? Then drove out here - why? To get a feel for the country?”
“Yes. That’s it. Like most foreigners, I had no sense of how large the country is - not as large as the Soviet Union, of course, but much bigger than France or any other country I knew in those days.”
“When you were young?” Jack once again stroke her hair. “We were so young.”
“Yes. And foolish. But the trip... It took longer than I expected and...” Irina nodded at the road. “I drove it in the days before every car had air conditioning. So, I’d stop for a break every so often.”
“Did you stop at Stuckey’s?” Judy asked, remembering car trips from the Seventies.
Irina began to laugh. “And their pecan logs? Yes. I’d forgotten about that. But sometimes, I’d just get off a random exit. To get a drink. Stretch my legs. Look around. The country was not only bigger than I expected, but much more varied. It made me aware of what I didn't know. So...yes. I paid attention to the details, trying to absorb them, knowing that one never knows when a detail might come in handy..."
"Just in case?" Jack teased lightly, sensing the turmoil within his wife.
"Yes, just in case. And one day...”
“Something happened besides eating a chili dog at Stuckey’s?” Judy asked, trying to interject some lightness so that the pressure she felt building in Irina would not slam a door shut. “On this journey west.”
“Yes. Something happened. It was the day I... I guess, it was the day I started to change and I didn’t know it, didn’t realize it. Or...maybe Dave is right and we don’t change, we merely pull back layers that hide our true selves. For better or worse.” Irina grimaced and picked at the outline of old letters on the mailbox. Jack put his hand over hers and she stopped. This wasn’t her mailbox after all. Although why whoever owned this house didn’t fix the letters, she didn’t know. She should be glad, she thought suddenly, that the owners weren’t home or they might take issue with the woman who’d slapped and now picked at their mailbox. Not a good way to meet the neighbors.
“So...what does this trip have to do with a mailbox and my name choice?” Sydney asked.
“I pulled off the highway somewhere. I don’t know where. Or if I did know at one time, I’ve long since forgotten. Or told myself to forget or...In any case, I couldn’t find it on a map anyway. And that’s not important. It’s not in my imagination, though. This place was real...”
Judy nodded. What an opportunity. She was so glad she’d thought to visit the Bristows outside of the office. She looked at Irina’s hand on the mailbox. Thinking outside the box, indeed. “Why was this place so real, so true to you, Irina?”
“It just seemed so...My senses were so alive as I walked down this street. A street like so many others. A street...just like this one...” Irina’s eyes touched on the street, the nearby houses, “A street you’ve all seen a million times and never thought twice about. But for me...I didn’t realize it, I didn’t realize it until just a few months ago, that walk down that street, that journey was the beginning of my chance to come home.”
“Come home?” Sydney parroted. “You’d never been there before so how could you come home?”
“I...I don’t know how to explain,” Irina turned to Judy. “I...”
“Go back. Your senses were so alive,” Judy repeated. “Was it overwhelming? The sights, the sounds, the smells?”
“Yes.” Irina looked up at Jack. “It was, in some ways, like the experience in Panama, when you were trying to reach me and had to almost, overload me with input. I had to be overwhelmed in order to find the nugget of gold underneath everything.”
“What do you mean? What was the nugget of gold on this street?” Jack pressed.
When Irina stayed silent, Judy spoke up. “Can you describe walking down this street for us?”
“Yes.” Irina nodded. That she could do. “It was hot and dusty. My feet got dusty in my sandals. I wanted a drink of water, but no one sold bottles of water in those days. I noticed, first, I think, because I was thirsty, some kids drinking out of a hose. Then I noticed the children, playing. Yelling, laughing. I heard some woman yelling at her husband. I heard a door slam...” Irina smiled when Jack began to chuckle.
“The wooden screen door? That had to slam?” Jack reached out and tugged his wife’s hair in a gesture that Sydney recognized from the past and present. She smiled as she realized her father would probably do that to her mother forever. It was his way.
“Yes. That door.” Irina smiled and looked over at Sydney. “Dave and your father could probably tell you a story about the time they tried to oil the squeak out of the screen door and I was...unhappy-“
“You had a fit.” Jack smiled smugly.
“I most certainly did not.”
“We’ll ask Dave.”
“Ugh.” Irina rolled her eyes. “But yes, that slam was a sound I heard that day. It was imprinted on my mind as a sound I wanted in my life.”
Judy nodded. “It’s odd how certain smells, certain colors, certain sounds are imprinted on us so deeply. How they can have meanings far beyond-“
“Yes!” Irina agreed eagerly. “That’s it. But that slam wasn’t the only sound.”
“The squeak.” Jack nodded. “The squeak and the slam were paired in your mind, weren’t they?”
Irina sighed and touched Jack’s cheek. “You always...You always knew how important it was to me. You didn’t know why and neither did I, but...”
“So you encountered this squeak on this walk?” Judy asked softly. Jack looked at her sharply, realizing that she was conducting a session here on the street, in public, in late afternoon. She was just as opportunistic as he was.
Irina nodded. “And then I came to the house with the squeak. I... didn’t even know what the squeak was.”
“Why? Hadn’t you... Oh. You’d never seen or heard one of those old-fashioned gliders before,” Jack realized. “That’s why you didn’t know they were old-fashioned when you wanted to buy one.”
“Yes, that was a mistake on my part with you. Laura should have known that.” Irina slapped her own thigh in frustration. A poor play in the game.
“It’s all water under the bridge, now,” Jack shrugged.
“I really wish you wouldn’t use that analogy,” Sydney requested in a tight voice. “Given how Laura died.”
“Point taken,” Irina said sharply. She looked down as Jack’s hand moved in a soothing motion up and down her arm and missed the equally sharp look he sent toward their daughter.
“I’m sorry. Go on.” Sydney straightened her shoulders. “I am dying to know how you got my name from this mailbox on this street.”
“Your name, yes. I was walking down this street, marveling at it. It was so foreign to me, like one of those American films with Judy Garland and Andy Rooney or...We’d been told over and over that America was this evil place. And yes, there were slums and poverty and everything else, but there was also happiness. On this street. It was so...open. And...love -- I saw it. Love can exist anywhere. I know that. I...I’m not sure I knew that then. No, I know I didn’t know that then. Maybe that’s why it startled me, made such an impression. And...”
“How did you see it?” Judy touched Irina’s hand where it rested on top of the mailbox.
“I heard it first. That squeak, squeak, squeak...” Irina stopped, then began speaking rapidly. “This older couple, on a glider. Just going back and forth. Together. They would move forward and each of them would put down a foot - their right foot - at the right moment and send themselves backward again. Backward and forward, squeak, squeak.” Irina’s last words were nearly a whisper.
Judy nodded. “And what did that look like to you? This couple on a squeaking glider?”
“It looked like... They seemed so...” Irina looked up at the porch of the house that would soon be theirs. “Present. There. Permanent. As if they’d always been there and always would be. They looked happy. The way they looked at each other. I thought...they’d been there, looking at each other like that forever. It was the way they looked at each other.”
“How?” Jack asked.
“With love. With a history and a future. And I looked at them, at their mailbox, and walked away. Hearing, above the sound of children playing and screaming and the hiss of a barbecue and...”
“The slam of a wooden screen door?” Jack glanced over at Sydney who was mouthing something at him... Oh. Past, present, future. He nodded at her. He got it. “I know that sound.”
“Yes. Above all that, I heard that squeak as I walked away. I heard it...endlessly in my head, even after I got in the car and drove away. And whenever I thought of that street I could never find again, in the middle of nowhere that was everything, I heard that squeak and saw that couple...”
“Honey...” Jack whispered and wrapped his arms around her.
“And that’s what I meant before - when feelings come out of nowhere? But they come from somewhere, don’t they?” Irina asked Judy.
“Yes. Often from our most deeply hidden fears and longings. Our-“
“Needs.” Irina nodded. “I didn’t know it. Then. Or for so long. But I needed what they had. And so...” Irina touched the mailbox. “So it wasn’t the name of anyone in my family...”
“Wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the name of the family you wished you had?” Jack suggested.
“I...suppose it was. Oh, I know it was, is irrational. They might have begun arguing two seconds after I drove away. They might have thrown plates at each other in the kitchen arguing over whose turn it was to take out the garbage. He might have...hurt her. They might...” Irina sighed. “Or they might make the right choices and go to bed arm in arm and kiss each other good night. Every night. For...ever.”
“Forever.” Jack pulled his wife close to him.
“I wanted to give that to our child. That...sense of history, that sense of permanence, that place, that belonging, that...love.”
“The name on the mailbox was Sydney,” Jack said softly.
“Oh,” Sydney whispered almost soundlessly.
“Yes. That was their name. On the mailbox. That couple.” Irina nodded. “Sydney.”
Jack rubbed his cheek against Irina’s hair. He pulled back and smiled softly, while brushing her hair back. “I see. So you gave Sydney the name that was...your deepest wish. For the future. For a home. For love.”
“I...suppose I did. Yes.”
“Then that name is the most beautiful name you could have chosen,” Judy whispered. For once, she felt tightness in her throat when working with a patient. She looked intently at Sydney, willing her to take the next step, the right step in this journey back home.
“Thank you. Mom,” Sydney whispered. She hesitantly opened her arms and Irina stepped into them.
Jack looked over the heads of the two women he loved most and whispered to Judy, ‘Thank you.’
She shook her head and raised her camera. This picture of a mother and daughter would be valuable to Irina. It was a real moment, one for which she had fought hard and well and honestly. There were more battles to be played and won, but this day, this moment was a critical win for them all.
Irina raised her head as she heard the camera click. “Oh. Judy...Thank you.”
“Did you take a picture?” Sydney asked self-consciously.
“Yes. I did. Your family doesn’t have enough pictures, do they?” Judy asked. Without waiting for an answer, she pointed at the house. They all crossed the street and looked at it once again. Judy looked at the three Bristows and knew that they were all seeing the possibilities. She nodded.
“You’ll give us a copy.” Irina nodded as they began walking down the street toward their cars.
“Don’t worry. I will give you all of the photographs of you all that I have.” Judy looked over at Jack with a slight frown on her face. “Eventually,” she whispered as they all took one last look at the house.
Irina took Jack’s hand and held on tightly. “Do you remember walking in the evening around our old house?”
“Yes, I do.” Jack smiled down at Irina , then asked, “You had no trouble finding this address?” Jack asked.
“No. I have GPS in my car,” Judy told him when Irina stayed silent, staring back at the house.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Irina whispered. She turned slowly to Jack. “I would have found it regardless. Because this is...a true place.”
“Ah. Melville. Moby Dick.” Jack smiled. “Another journey.”
“Yes.” Irina leaned into her husband’s side as he stopped in front of his car. She put her hand on his arm. “A real place. A home. I found it without a map the first time. I could find it again. My home. Our home.”
Looking at each other, Jack and Irina whispered as they wrapped their arms around each other, “‘It is not down in any map; true places never are.’”
TBC at Chapter 2010 Part 2