Renee Lindemann's Blog
August 19, 2015
I Am Not Peter
I Am Not Peter
Chapter 1
The images that come to mind when I think of the word “mother” or the word “father”, do not match the faces of the people before me. Two distinctly different images come to mind when I think of those words. I have to swallow a lump of bile in my throat every time I say those two monikers. Most times I call these people “sir” or “ma’am”. It’s easier to say and I do not feel so nauseated. I am not sure how long we have been with “sir” and “ma’am”, but it’s long enough that I can’t fit the yellow t-shirt anymore. That yellow t-shirt was from another life. I can spend hours trying to remember what happened. However I just can’t figure out why I have this blank space in my mind.
Oh, and when I say we, I am also referring to my sister, Margaret, but we call her Maggie. The problem with calling my sister Margaret or Maggie is that I want to say Abigail or Abbie. But I am not allowed to say either name.
“That isn’t her name,” ma’am would scold me. If it is not her name then why do I desperately want to call her Abigail or Abbie? It has taken a long time for me to stop with the questions. Well to be honest, it has taken me a long time to stop asking the questions out loud. I still ask the questions in my head. I am allowed to do that right? I still own that space.
Sir is tall, familiar, and proper with blond wavy hair. He wears a suit and tie everyday, like most fathers. He goes to the “office” everyday and returns home most evenings at the same time. Sir or father enters the house everyday and is greeted by Ma’am or mother. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and it makes me blush every time. Affection bothers me and my father calls me tough. He warns that a young lady will come along and one day I will think differently about a kiss to the cheek. I don’t believe him, not for the reasons you might suspect. I don’t believe him because he shouldn’t be giving me fatherly advice. He isn’t my father.
Let’s get back to Margaret, who we will secretly call Abbie. My little sister is the picture of childhood beauty. The soft blond curly tendrils of hair are tended to by ma’am with love every day. Well I think it is love. Again, she isn’t my mother, so I can’t say for sure that it is a mother’s love. My sister Abbie, is younger than me by what I am told is three years. This means I was three years old when Abbie was born. Mother says it was the second happiest day of her life. I don’t think this is true, mainly because Margaret and I were born only three years ago. Margaret is six now and I am nine years old.
Margaret seems less incline to think differently of “mother” and “father”. Her small cherub face lights up with glee when Sir is home from work. She delights in the attention given to her by ma’am. She doesn’t swallow a lump of bile every time she calls them what I am told are the appropriate names, or at least I don’t think she does. No Margaret loves her parents and seems content with her life. I feel quite differently. This isn’t our life. Our life was quite different. I was different. I was Harold or Harry at one point. That name means so much to me because I am not Harold or Harry anymore.
Peter Daniels is only nine years old. He was born three years ago in spite of that age. There were years if I do the math correctly, that I did not know mother and father. Well let me say that I remember meeting mother one day but I didn’t meet father until I was born. I only have bits and pieces of memory from before. It includes those images I first told you about. Remember I see different faces when I think of mother and father. I see dirty oil stained hands when I think of father. A different face comes to mind when I think of mother. The best way I can describe her is June Cleaver, only not so clean all the time. The face I see smiling sweetly at me and encouraging me to eat my oatmeal is just as beautiful as June Cleaver, from that television show, Leave It To Beaver. Yes her face was just as beautiful but her clothes were not always neat. She wore an apron like June Cleaver and dresses but they were often stained or in horrible disrepair. No the faces I see of my mother and father are not the neat, clean, and calm faces I see each day now.
The life I had before was not this good, that is the problem. We didn’t have nice furniture and neat clothing. That’s not entirely true Margaret and I each had one very nice outfit that we wore during special occasions. Sometimes my real father with the dirty stained hands would wash up and get dressed in a suit, his one and only suit. The mother I remembered, June Cleaver like, would wear a pretty blue dress. We would take a ride in a car to have dinner in town. It happened quite infrequently but those days were magical. Mother would hold my hand and father would carry Abigail, because she was Abigail then, in his arms. We looked like a normal family. However once the dinner and walk around town was over, we would go home and remove the costumes.
“Peter, sweetheart, would you like a cookie,” Not my mother asks, interrupting my revelry.
“Yes ma’am,” I respond. Who doesn’t love a nice cookie? I didn’t get cookies often in my other life. Ma’am tends to give me things like cookies or a piece of candy when I drift away in my thoughts. I know what she is trying to do and it will not work. I will not forget them. She prattles on about the latest fades and motherly things. I tune her out and imagine June Cleaver with the dirty apron kissing the top of my head. The feeling of being in the old house and the small dank kitchen with my real mother kissing the top of my head warms my cheeks. I loved her and my real father with the dirty nails. I say things like “swell” and “neat” at the appropriate times while Ma’am talks. My sister Maggie doesn’t follow the conversation and focuses more on her cookie.
When Sir is home we have dinner as a family. When dinner is completed we watch television in the living area. The television is much larger than the one in my former home. I remember it being quite small. This television is large enough for me to see from the couch. Ma’am says not to sit too close or I will go blind. We watch my favorite show, Leave It to Beaver. I can see June Cleaver and remember her face. Sir compares me to Beaver every time we watch that program. It angers something in me when he does that. I am not Beaver. I am not Peter. I am Harold. I want them to call me Harry, just once. I want to see June Cleaver with the dirty apron. I want to go home even if the television is small and my father always talks about aliens. I want to look at his dirty nails from factory work. I want a kiss on top of my head. I want to sleep in the small bed with the thin mattress.
I am in my own room with a beautiful wooden bed and comfortable mattress. I can see my name on the door and my favorite blue jacket hung on the peg. There is also a smattering of toys that I will pick up before I head off to sleep. My baseball glove and favorite ball cap rests on top of my chest of drawers. Inside I retrieve my favorite pajamas and feel bad about my lot in life. I feel bad that I am sleeping in a nice room with nice things. I want my ratty old sleeping shirt and two model cars. I want June Cleaver with the dirty apron to tuck me into bed, not her. I don’t want to enjoy her kisses or her love. I want to be called Harry. I want to hear a bedtime story of when my father met an alien as a child. I want to see his dirty fingers and drawn face become animated when he tells me the tale. I want to go home. This isn’t my home.
Chapter 2
Sir is dying and I am no longer nine. I am thirty not nine. He is my father now but I still think of him as sir. I only remember dirty nails and aliens from before. I hardly think about June Cleaver with the dirty apron as much. I have my own family. I am a father now and a husband like the father before me. He clutches my hand and coughs into a handkerchief. It comes away bloody. He has blood in his lungs. I know that much from speaking with the doctor. We are in a private room and his blond hair has faded to a light shade of grey. He no longer looks like the blond version of Ward Cleaver. No he looks entirely different with wrinkled skin and tired blue eyes. Something else is plaguing my father besides his failing lungs. He looks afraid but not of death. It is something else, something worse.
“Peter, you know that I love you son,” he says then coughs again.
“Yes father I know that you love me,” I reply. I don’t want him to die. I can’t reconcile these feelings with dirty fingernails. Did he die? If so was someone holding his dirty hand? None of that matters right now. What matters is that my father wants to tell me something. I need to know before he dies.
“You are a good man. I am so proud of you,” he begins again. “You and Maggie are the best things to ever happen to me.”
“Why think you father. You taught me how to be a good man,” I say. It is true but it still feels mechanical.
“Your mother, God rest her soul, was a decent woman. She was different than the woman you came to know. She was the sweetest woman I could have married. But then things changed,” he says then launching into a coughing fit.
“Tell me later father. You need to get some rest,” I say a worried expression dotting my face. I do not want him to suffer but my words are not true. I want to know what he has to tell me. I have been waiting for so long to hear his explanation.
“I have to tell you now,” he says recovering a bit.
“Okay if you must,” I reply. I give his wrinkled old hand a squeeze. The gesture seems to give him a burst of energy. He smiles at me and I think tears glisten in his eyes but I can’t be sure they never fall. Besides my father has never cried, wait that’s not true. He cried when my son, Harold was born. He cried when my daughter Abigail was born. I have it on good authority he cried when my sister Margaret gave birth to twins, Marvin and Lucille. I cried when I first met Marvin and Lucille, those names seemed so familiar to me. They made me think of aliens and dirty aprons. I digress and refocus on the man working hard not to cry right now.
“I have a story to tell you but I need you to understand that things were different when this story took place,” he proceeds.
“Okay father. I am listening,” I say and give his hand another reassuring squeeze. They seem to give him courage and life. He doesn’t get far in his story when I release his hand. I let go of the gnarled, arthritic, liver spot covered hand and try to maintain a neutral expression. He talks of aliens, a factory worker, and a sweet lady with a beautiful face, much like June Cleaver. I am not like my father, or sir, I let the tears fall immediately.
Chapter 3
As told to me by Sir…
I married Linda McMurphy in a traditional wedding for the time. She was simply stunning and I thought I was the luckiest man alive. We had a great life or so I thought. I worked as an accountant at a local agency. Linda, although college educated was a stay at home wife. She kept our house immaculate. Never was there a hair out of place on that woman. We both had expectations of a family. It was what you were supposed to do. Work, have a beautiful wife, have children, and eventually become a doting grandparent to grandkids. That’s not what happened. No children ever came. We tried and we just couldn’t conceive. It was an awful time. Watching the light fade from Linda’s beautiful blue eyes. She wanted to be a mother more than anything. It was embarrassing as our family and friends expected we would start a family right away. We received all manner of unsolicited advice. It was different then.
Linda changed and my sweet immaculate wife became bitter and disinterested in life. There was a certain image to be upheld in those days. You were expected to dress a certain way and have dinner for your husband after a hard days work. The family dynamic was much different than today. Leave It To Beaver was supposed to represent the model family. We were not the model family without children. Linda became desperate and secretive. We started to drift and it affected my work. I couldn’t focus and keep up the façade of a happily married man.
“William, you have to do something,” Linda pleaded. “I am going to leave.”
Upstanding married women never spoke those kinds of words at that time. You didn’t just leave your husband or get a divorce. No matter what you stuck it out and kept up the proper image. Women were not finding or seeking equality until a few years later. When I say that I mean married women stayed married and in the home. There were some women fighting for women’s rights but those women didn’t live in my neighborhood. Women wore dresses and baked pies. We just didn’t have the turmoil you see now. I loved Linda very much and wanted her to be happy. I did what I did out of love son.
One day I was away on business at a convention. It was both a freeing and scary time for me. I was away from Linda but I was afraid I would return to an empty house. I sat at a local diner eating lunch. A man walked in and sat at the lunch counter. He had dirty nails and smelled of oil. He ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I didn’t think much of the man until he began to speak. It was pleasantries at first but then he begin to talk of his two children, a son and a daughter. The natural progression of the conversation included questioning me about my family. I was sad to report no children but tried to appear optimistic about my future as a father. We talked of his children and he spoke of a man in absolute love. The picture he eventually produced almost stopped my heart. The two most beautiful children I had ever seen were in a neat little photo.
“The five and dime were having a special. We have just two pictures,” he explained. “My wife, Lucille and I each carry a picture. It reminds you why you do the things you do each day.”
I was at a loss for words. He was a hard working, poor, factory worker because it meant his kids could eat each day. He barely made ends meet but the faces of his children reminded him daily that it was all worth it. I wanted that feeling. I wanted to go to work at my boring job and feel that it was nourishing the bodies of my children. I wanted those two angelic faces to look up at me with love and admiration. I would have traded my good job to work in a factory if I could come home to those two children. They deserved nothing but love.
Marvin talked about his wife and children but eventually he switched the conversation to aliens. I thought that another man had walked in and took his place while I was lost in my thoughts. This wasn’t the same man who adored his children. The man now sitting at the counter was deranged. The story he told with just as much conviction as when he spoke of his children was spinning a yarn. It was the most absurd story I had ever heard. It belonged on a movie screen and not in a diner with honest hardworking folks. I said the appropriate things or at least I thought I did. I tried to bring the conversation back to his children but he kept weaving his crazy alien tale.
“To this day I always wonder if I dreamed the encounter. Some nights I get messages or dreams that they will come back for me. That small alien child had been my friend for those few days. I will never forget his face or that time,” Marvin said wistfully.
“Wow that’s some story. I hope you have not shared it with your children. It could potentially frighten them,” I replied. It was my last attempt to bring the conversation back to his beautiful children.
“Oh my son loves to hear the story about the time his old man befriended a real live alien. He hopes that when they return he will get to meet him,” Marvin said smiling proudly. I was livid that he would fill such a sweet boy’s head with this nonsense. My mind was formulating a plan and I didn’t even realize it until I was in my hotel room later that day. I had phoned Linda and asked that she take the train in the morning. When I described the children, the life returned in her voice. She became animated and talked about liberating the children from a crazy man.
“It would be our civic duty. No court in this country would condemn honest hardworking citizens looking to better the lives of children,” she replied.
“How would we explain it? What about our family?” I asked immediately regretting my foolish plan.
“We could move away from here,” she explained. “We could start over away from the prying eyes of this life. We could have a new and better life William.”
With this newfound motivation, Linda was renewed beyond anything I had seen in a long time. She was pristine again and smiling. That smile could light up a thousand darkened rooms. It was easy to find out information about the man who spoke of aliens. I brought it up in casual conversation to locals at the convention. The small town was hardly quiet. They loved to gossip and talk especially after a few cocktails. I easily learned all there was to know about Marvin and Lucille Rutherford. Neither had faired well in life but managed to eek out a meager living with their two small children. Marvin was perceived as crazy but harmless. His wife Lucille had once been a beauty but a life of grind and hard living had taken its toll on her beauty.
Linda was more than a wife she was a mastermind. It took no time for her to strike down my plan and generate a much more sinister plan. It involved Marvin’s Achilles heel, aliens. She would pose as a secretary from the Department of Defense. It would be a secret document that she drafted, containing classified information regarding alien activity. Linda would purposely bump into Marvin during his coffee run at the diner. Considering most of the town ignored Marvin no one paid much attention when he struck up a conversation with the pretty woman at the counter.
Linda earned his trust when she asked all the right questions in regards to his story of aliens and friendship. Marvin felt redeemed when she believed his tale of woe and loss. Linda produced the classified document and explained to Marvin that she was on a secret mission to find him. Marvin’s sense of vindication was the opening we needed. It was perfectly timed with the telegraph that my transfer to another office and agency was complete. I was expected at my new job in a new town within the month.
“This paper proves we are meant to do this,” Linda explained. “We have a higher power working in our favor. We have to liberate these two children from that lunatic. We have to love them and take them in as our own. I am willing to give up everything and everyone.”
That last word “everyone” was directed at me. It wasn’t a veiled threat. She would leave me if we did not complete our mission. I had a hard time reconciling our idiotic plan until she said those words. I thought I would convince her this was silly and we could start over in a new city. We were never going back. Linda had purposefully bumped into Lucille out with her children one day. That signaled the end of a normal existence. Things were easier to do back then. Paranoia was very easy to inspire in those days. People feared anything that would interrupt their current lifestyle, no matter what. Change was a huge problem for most. We were going to change the lives of Marvin and Lucille in a matter of days.
Chapter 4
We convinced your father that the aliens were coming back but with deadly intentions. They were using him as a pawn in the human game. His friendship with the alien as a kid would be used to manipulate and harm innocent lives, especially the lives of his children. When I appeared at his door, he didn’t even recognize me from the diner. I convinced him I was working with Linda. We used different names. I don’t remember what they were.
“We would like to get your children to a safe location before their arrival,” I explained. Marvin paced the small living room with the small television while Lucille stood in the doorway of the small dank kitchen. She was harder to convince and seemed to see right through us immediately. Marvin’s paranoia changed her mind eventually or at the very least she decided to humor him. Linda and I arrived in a Plymouth Fury, a car I borrowed to claim the children. Linda would remain with Marvin while I boarded a train with the children. The little boy was barely six and the little girl not more than three. Their beautiful trusting faces held on to their father’s words.
“Go with the nice man he will keep you safe. I love you very much but the aliens are not our friends as I first suspected. Remember what I told you Harry about the alien? It was all a trick but I will not let anything happen to you or Abbie,” Marvin said solemnly. He had bent down to the little boy’s level. Lucille was quick to embrace her children, giving the little boy a kiss on the top of the head. I scribbled a fake address on a piece of paper where the children would be located. I placed the paper in Lucille’s hand and curled my hand around the soft flesh.
“I will protect your children with my life,” I said honestly. “I will treat them as my children.”
“Oh thank you so much,” she cried. “Please keep them safe.”
We took you and your sister far away from that place.
Chapter 5
“We took you and your sister far away from that place,” he said once more. Those words rang hollow in my mind. My name was Harry, my sister was Abbie, and we were not this man’s children. I slumped into the chair and tried to reconcile my thoughts.
“Sir?” I questioned as the tears fell.
“Yes Harold,” he responded then coughed. It took longer this time for the coughing to cease. The handkerchief came away crimson once more but in a much greater quantity. The old blue eyes looked weary and distant. He kept those eyes focused on me as he searched my face for a reaction to his words.
“My name is Peter.”
“I know son,” he said softly. “I kept my promise.”
With infinite slowness his eyes closed. A gasp escaped his mouth with blood droplets dotting his thin lips. I watched his chest rise and fall several times. I watched it rise then fall and never rise again. I watched his eyes twitch underneath the nearly transparent lids. His body relaxed and he was gone.
Chapter 1
The images that come to mind when I think of the word “mother” or the word “father”, do not match the faces of the people before me. Two distinctly different images come to mind when I think of those words. I have to swallow a lump of bile in my throat every time I say those two monikers. Most times I call these people “sir” or “ma’am”. It’s easier to say and I do not feel so nauseated. I am not sure how long we have been with “sir” and “ma’am”, but it’s long enough that I can’t fit the yellow t-shirt anymore. That yellow t-shirt was from another life. I can spend hours trying to remember what happened. However I just can’t figure out why I have this blank space in my mind.
Oh, and when I say we, I am also referring to my sister, Margaret, but we call her Maggie. The problem with calling my sister Margaret or Maggie is that I want to say Abigail or Abbie. But I am not allowed to say either name.
“That isn’t her name,” ma’am would scold me. If it is not her name then why do I desperately want to call her Abigail or Abbie? It has taken a long time for me to stop with the questions. Well to be honest, it has taken me a long time to stop asking the questions out loud. I still ask the questions in my head. I am allowed to do that right? I still own that space.
Sir is tall, familiar, and proper with blond wavy hair. He wears a suit and tie everyday, like most fathers. He goes to the “office” everyday and returns home most evenings at the same time. Sir or father enters the house everyday and is greeted by Ma’am or mother. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and it makes me blush every time. Affection bothers me and my father calls me tough. He warns that a young lady will come along and one day I will think differently about a kiss to the cheek. I don’t believe him, not for the reasons you might suspect. I don’t believe him because he shouldn’t be giving me fatherly advice. He isn’t my father.
Let’s get back to Margaret, who we will secretly call Abbie. My little sister is the picture of childhood beauty. The soft blond curly tendrils of hair are tended to by ma’am with love every day. Well I think it is love. Again, she isn’t my mother, so I can’t say for sure that it is a mother’s love. My sister Abbie, is younger than me by what I am told is three years. This means I was three years old when Abbie was born. Mother says it was the second happiest day of her life. I don’t think this is true, mainly because Margaret and I were born only three years ago. Margaret is six now and I am nine years old.
Margaret seems less incline to think differently of “mother” and “father”. Her small cherub face lights up with glee when Sir is home from work. She delights in the attention given to her by ma’am. She doesn’t swallow a lump of bile every time she calls them what I am told are the appropriate names, or at least I don’t think she does. No Margaret loves her parents and seems content with her life. I feel quite differently. This isn’t our life. Our life was quite different. I was different. I was Harold or Harry at one point. That name means so much to me because I am not Harold or Harry anymore.
Peter Daniels is only nine years old. He was born three years ago in spite of that age. There were years if I do the math correctly, that I did not know mother and father. Well let me say that I remember meeting mother one day but I didn’t meet father until I was born. I only have bits and pieces of memory from before. It includes those images I first told you about. Remember I see different faces when I think of mother and father. I see dirty oil stained hands when I think of father. A different face comes to mind when I think of mother. The best way I can describe her is June Cleaver, only not so clean all the time. The face I see smiling sweetly at me and encouraging me to eat my oatmeal is just as beautiful as June Cleaver, from that television show, Leave It To Beaver. Yes her face was just as beautiful but her clothes were not always neat. She wore an apron like June Cleaver and dresses but they were often stained or in horrible disrepair. No the faces I see of my mother and father are not the neat, clean, and calm faces I see each day now.
The life I had before was not this good, that is the problem. We didn’t have nice furniture and neat clothing. That’s not entirely true Margaret and I each had one very nice outfit that we wore during special occasions. Sometimes my real father with the dirty stained hands would wash up and get dressed in a suit, his one and only suit. The mother I remembered, June Cleaver like, would wear a pretty blue dress. We would take a ride in a car to have dinner in town. It happened quite infrequently but those days were magical. Mother would hold my hand and father would carry Abigail, because she was Abigail then, in his arms. We looked like a normal family. However once the dinner and walk around town was over, we would go home and remove the costumes.
“Peter, sweetheart, would you like a cookie,” Not my mother asks, interrupting my revelry.
“Yes ma’am,” I respond. Who doesn’t love a nice cookie? I didn’t get cookies often in my other life. Ma’am tends to give me things like cookies or a piece of candy when I drift away in my thoughts. I know what she is trying to do and it will not work. I will not forget them. She prattles on about the latest fades and motherly things. I tune her out and imagine June Cleaver with the dirty apron kissing the top of my head. The feeling of being in the old house and the small dank kitchen with my real mother kissing the top of my head warms my cheeks. I loved her and my real father with the dirty nails. I say things like “swell” and “neat” at the appropriate times while Ma’am talks. My sister Maggie doesn’t follow the conversation and focuses more on her cookie.
When Sir is home we have dinner as a family. When dinner is completed we watch television in the living area. The television is much larger than the one in my former home. I remember it being quite small. This television is large enough for me to see from the couch. Ma’am says not to sit too close or I will go blind. We watch my favorite show, Leave It to Beaver. I can see June Cleaver and remember her face. Sir compares me to Beaver every time we watch that program. It angers something in me when he does that. I am not Beaver. I am not Peter. I am Harold. I want them to call me Harry, just once. I want to see June Cleaver with the dirty apron. I want to go home even if the television is small and my father always talks about aliens. I want to look at his dirty nails from factory work. I want a kiss on top of my head. I want to sleep in the small bed with the thin mattress.
I am in my own room with a beautiful wooden bed and comfortable mattress. I can see my name on the door and my favorite blue jacket hung on the peg. There is also a smattering of toys that I will pick up before I head off to sleep. My baseball glove and favorite ball cap rests on top of my chest of drawers. Inside I retrieve my favorite pajamas and feel bad about my lot in life. I feel bad that I am sleeping in a nice room with nice things. I want my ratty old sleeping shirt and two model cars. I want June Cleaver with the dirty apron to tuck me into bed, not her. I don’t want to enjoy her kisses or her love. I want to be called Harry. I want to hear a bedtime story of when my father met an alien as a child. I want to see his dirty fingers and drawn face become animated when he tells me the tale. I want to go home. This isn’t my home.
Chapter 2
Sir is dying and I am no longer nine. I am thirty not nine. He is my father now but I still think of him as sir. I only remember dirty nails and aliens from before. I hardly think about June Cleaver with the dirty apron as much. I have my own family. I am a father now and a husband like the father before me. He clutches my hand and coughs into a handkerchief. It comes away bloody. He has blood in his lungs. I know that much from speaking with the doctor. We are in a private room and his blond hair has faded to a light shade of grey. He no longer looks like the blond version of Ward Cleaver. No he looks entirely different with wrinkled skin and tired blue eyes. Something else is plaguing my father besides his failing lungs. He looks afraid but not of death. It is something else, something worse.
“Peter, you know that I love you son,” he says then coughs again.
“Yes father I know that you love me,” I reply. I don’t want him to die. I can’t reconcile these feelings with dirty fingernails. Did he die? If so was someone holding his dirty hand? None of that matters right now. What matters is that my father wants to tell me something. I need to know before he dies.
“You are a good man. I am so proud of you,” he begins again. “You and Maggie are the best things to ever happen to me.”
“Why think you father. You taught me how to be a good man,” I say. It is true but it still feels mechanical.
“Your mother, God rest her soul, was a decent woman. She was different than the woman you came to know. She was the sweetest woman I could have married. But then things changed,” he says then launching into a coughing fit.
“Tell me later father. You need to get some rest,” I say a worried expression dotting my face. I do not want him to suffer but my words are not true. I want to know what he has to tell me. I have been waiting for so long to hear his explanation.
“I have to tell you now,” he says recovering a bit.
“Okay if you must,” I reply. I give his wrinkled old hand a squeeze. The gesture seems to give him a burst of energy. He smiles at me and I think tears glisten in his eyes but I can’t be sure they never fall. Besides my father has never cried, wait that’s not true. He cried when my son, Harold was born. He cried when my daughter Abigail was born. I have it on good authority he cried when my sister Margaret gave birth to twins, Marvin and Lucille. I cried when I first met Marvin and Lucille, those names seemed so familiar to me. They made me think of aliens and dirty aprons. I digress and refocus on the man working hard not to cry right now.
“I have a story to tell you but I need you to understand that things were different when this story took place,” he proceeds.
“Okay father. I am listening,” I say and give his hand another reassuring squeeze. They seem to give him courage and life. He doesn’t get far in his story when I release his hand. I let go of the gnarled, arthritic, liver spot covered hand and try to maintain a neutral expression. He talks of aliens, a factory worker, and a sweet lady with a beautiful face, much like June Cleaver. I am not like my father, or sir, I let the tears fall immediately.
Chapter 3
As told to me by Sir…
I married Linda McMurphy in a traditional wedding for the time. She was simply stunning and I thought I was the luckiest man alive. We had a great life or so I thought. I worked as an accountant at a local agency. Linda, although college educated was a stay at home wife. She kept our house immaculate. Never was there a hair out of place on that woman. We both had expectations of a family. It was what you were supposed to do. Work, have a beautiful wife, have children, and eventually become a doting grandparent to grandkids. That’s not what happened. No children ever came. We tried and we just couldn’t conceive. It was an awful time. Watching the light fade from Linda’s beautiful blue eyes. She wanted to be a mother more than anything. It was embarrassing as our family and friends expected we would start a family right away. We received all manner of unsolicited advice. It was different then.
Linda changed and my sweet immaculate wife became bitter and disinterested in life. There was a certain image to be upheld in those days. You were expected to dress a certain way and have dinner for your husband after a hard days work. The family dynamic was much different than today. Leave It To Beaver was supposed to represent the model family. We were not the model family without children. Linda became desperate and secretive. We started to drift and it affected my work. I couldn’t focus and keep up the façade of a happily married man.
“William, you have to do something,” Linda pleaded. “I am going to leave.”
Upstanding married women never spoke those kinds of words at that time. You didn’t just leave your husband or get a divorce. No matter what you stuck it out and kept up the proper image. Women were not finding or seeking equality until a few years later. When I say that I mean married women stayed married and in the home. There were some women fighting for women’s rights but those women didn’t live in my neighborhood. Women wore dresses and baked pies. We just didn’t have the turmoil you see now. I loved Linda very much and wanted her to be happy. I did what I did out of love son.
One day I was away on business at a convention. It was both a freeing and scary time for me. I was away from Linda but I was afraid I would return to an empty house. I sat at a local diner eating lunch. A man walked in and sat at the lunch counter. He had dirty nails and smelled of oil. He ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I didn’t think much of the man until he began to speak. It was pleasantries at first but then he begin to talk of his two children, a son and a daughter. The natural progression of the conversation included questioning me about my family. I was sad to report no children but tried to appear optimistic about my future as a father. We talked of his children and he spoke of a man in absolute love. The picture he eventually produced almost stopped my heart. The two most beautiful children I had ever seen were in a neat little photo.
“The five and dime were having a special. We have just two pictures,” he explained. “My wife, Lucille and I each carry a picture. It reminds you why you do the things you do each day.”
I was at a loss for words. He was a hard working, poor, factory worker because it meant his kids could eat each day. He barely made ends meet but the faces of his children reminded him daily that it was all worth it. I wanted that feeling. I wanted to go to work at my boring job and feel that it was nourishing the bodies of my children. I wanted those two angelic faces to look up at me with love and admiration. I would have traded my good job to work in a factory if I could come home to those two children. They deserved nothing but love.
Marvin talked about his wife and children but eventually he switched the conversation to aliens. I thought that another man had walked in and took his place while I was lost in my thoughts. This wasn’t the same man who adored his children. The man now sitting at the counter was deranged. The story he told with just as much conviction as when he spoke of his children was spinning a yarn. It was the most absurd story I had ever heard. It belonged on a movie screen and not in a diner with honest hardworking folks. I said the appropriate things or at least I thought I did. I tried to bring the conversation back to his children but he kept weaving his crazy alien tale.
“To this day I always wonder if I dreamed the encounter. Some nights I get messages or dreams that they will come back for me. That small alien child had been my friend for those few days. I will never forget his face or that time,” Marvin said wistfully.
“Wow that’s some story. I hope you have not shared it with your children. It could potentially frighten them,” I replied. It was my last attempt to bring the conversation back to his beautiful children.
“Oh my son loves to hear the story about the time his old man befriended a real live alien. He hopes that when they return he will get to meet him,” Marvin said smiling proudly. I was livid that he would fill such a sweet boy’s head with this nonsense. My mind was formulating a plan and I didn’t even realize it until I was in my hotel room later that day. I had phoned Linda and asked that she take the train in the morning. When I described the children, the life returned in her voice. She became animated and talked about liberating the children from a crazy man.
“It would be our civic duty. No court in this country would condemn honest hardworking citizens looking to better the lives of children,” she replied.
“How would we explain it? What about our family?” I asked immediately regretting my foolish plan.
“We could move away from here,” she explained. “We could start over away from the prying eyes of this life. We could have a new and better life William.”
With this newfound motivation, Linda was renewed beyond anything I had seen in a long time. She was pristine again and smiling. That smile could light up a thousand darkened rooms. It was easy to find out information about the man who spoke of aliens. I brought it up in casual conversation to locals at the convention. The small town was hardly quiet. They loved to gossip and talk especially after a few cocktails. I easily learned all there was to know about Marvin and Lucille Rutherford. Neither had faired well in life but managed to eek out a meager living with their two small children. Marvin was perceived as crazy but harmless. His wife Lucille had once been a beauty but a life of grind and hard living had taken its toll on her beauty.
Linda was more than a wife she was a mastermind. It took no time for her to strike down my plan and generate a much more sinister plan. It involved Marvin’s Achilles heel, aliens. She would pose as a secretary from the Department of Defense. It would be a secret document that she drafted, containing classified information regarding alien activity. Linda would purposely bump into Marvin during his coffee run at the diner. Considering most of the town ignored Marvin no one paid much attention when he struck up a conversation with the pretty woman at the counter.
Linda earned his trust when she asked all the right questions in regards to his story of aliens and friendship. Marvin felt redeemed when she believed his tale of woe and loss. Linda produced the classified document and explained to Marvin that she was on a secret mission to find him. Marvin’s sense of vindication was the opening we needed. It was perfectly timed with the telegraph that my transfer to another office and agency was complete. I was expected at my new job in a new town within the month.
“This paper proves we are meant to do this,” Linda explained. “We have a higher power working in our favor. We have to liberate these two children from that lunatic. We have to love them and take them in as our own. I am willing to give up everything and everyone.”
That last word “everyone” was directed at me. It wasn’t a veiled threat. She would leave me if we did not complete our mission. I had a hard time reconciling our idiotic plan until she said those words. I thought I would convince her this was silly and we could start over in a new city. We were never going back. Linda had purposefully bumped into Lucille out with her children one day. That signaled the end of a normal existence. Things were easier to do back then. Paranoia was very easy to inspire in those days. People feared anything that would interrupt their current lifestyle, no matter what. Change was a huge problem for most. We were going to change the lives of Marvin and Lucille in a matter of days.
Chapter 4
We convinced your father that the aliens were coming back but with deadly intentions. They were using him as a pawn in the human game. His friendship with the alien as a kid would be used to manipulate and harm innocent lives, especially the lives of his children. When I appeared at his door, he didn’t even recognize me from the diner. I convinced him I was working with Linda. We used different names. I don’t remember what they were.
“We would like to get your children to a safe location before their arrival,” I explained. Marvin paced the small living room with the small television while Lucille stood in the doorway of the small dank kitchen. She was harder to convince and seemed to see right through us immediately. Marvin’s paranoia changed her mind eventually or at the very least she decided to humor him. Linda and I arrived in a Plymouth Fury, a car I borrowed to claim the children. Linda would remain with Marvin while I boarded a train with the children. The little boy was barely six and the little girl not more than three. Their beautiful trusting faces held on to their father’s words.
“Go with the nice man he will keep you safe. I love you very much but the aliens are not our friends as I first suspected. Remember what I told you Harry about the alien? It was all a trick but I will not let anything happen to you or Abbie,” Marvin said solemnly. He had bent down to the little boy’s level. Lucille was quick to embrace her children, giving the little boy a kiss on the top of the head. I scribbled a fake address on a piece of paper where the children would be located. I placed the paper in Lucille’s hand and curled my hand around the soft flesh.
“I will protect your children with my life,” I said honestly. “I will treat them as my children.”
“Oh thank you so much,” she cried. “Please keep them safe.”
We took you and your sister far away from that place.
Chapter 5
“We took you and your sister far away from that place,” he said once more. Those words rang hollow in my mind. My name was Harry, my sister was Abbie, and we were not this man’s children. I slumped into the chair and tried to reconcile my thoughts.
“Sir?” I questioned as the tears fell.
“Yes Harold,” he responded then coughed. It took longer this time for the coughing to cease. The handkerchief came away crimson once more but in a much greater quantity. The old blue eyes looked weary and distant. He kept those eyes focused on me as he searched my face for a reaction to his words.
“My name is Peter.”
“I know son,” he said softly. “I kept my promise.”
With infinite slowness his eyes closed. A gasp escaped his mouth with blood droplets dotting his thin lips. I watched his chest rise and fall several times. I watched it rise then fall and never rise again. I watched his eyes twitch underneath the nearly transparent lids. His body relaxed and he was gone.
January 21, 2014
Gemini Book 1
Emilia, wanton sex goddess, meets her match when "Roger" offers $20,000 to occupy her Tuesdays and Thursdays. After six weeks of playing the role of businessman and high priced call girl, "Roger" wants more. In the hopes of capturing the beautiful Emilia, he proposes what most businessmen propose, a contract. Will the offer of money, luxury, and unbridled passion lure Emilia from her lucrative business?
Audriana Washington, a former schoolteacher, owns a tutoring company for over privileged kids. As her business expands so do her horizons. It's her second job that ensures she can have the kind of life she has always dreamed about.
Maxwell Corrigan, is a successful businessman used to getting what he wants, except when it comes to relationships. His third divorce is final and he is looking for a professional that can tap into his sexual desires while leaving his heart to the boardroom.
Audriana Washington, a former schoolteacher, owns a tutoring company for over privileged kids. As her business expands so do her horizons. It's her second job that ensures she can have the kind of life she has always dreamed about.
Maxwell Corrigan, is a successful businessman used to getting what he wants, except when it comes to relationships. His third divorce is final and he is looking for a professional that can tap into his sexual desires while leaving his heart to the boardroom.
