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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
The Visit - by MMB
Chapter 7: First Steps
"No, if you move there, he'll be able to get your queen in two moves. But that bishop..." Long and tapering fingers pointed out a different move entirely.
Sydney looked up over the chessboard and found Parker looking at him with dancing grey eyes. "I should never have agreed to let you kibbitz," he grumbled good-naturedly. "I'm now at a distinct disadvantage."
"You mean I actually stand a chance of NOT getting beat?" Paul Ruiz grinned at his friend with delight as he made the move Parker suggested. He leaned closer to her. "I knew you would be a good luck charm..." His rich baritone voice was filled with enthusiasm.
"Don't get too cocky," she cautioned him gently, keeping an appraising eye on Sydney's suddenly very intent concentration on the game. "I've seen Papa get that look on his face while he was playing a certified genius one time and damned near beat the fellow. You may not lose immediately, but I'm afraid he's already got you if you're not VERY careful. You're already in a fairly precarious position."
"Played a certified genius, eh?" Paul's face crinkled into amusement. "And about how long ago did this match occur?"
Parker blinked and looked over at her Papa, noticing that he too had been caught short by the question and was gazing at her. "What is it now, twenty..."
"Twenty-four years ago," Sydney said softly. He remembered that match very well, not the least because it was one time that little Miss Parker had sat in quietly and watched the entire game where he match wits with Jarod. "You were... what? Twelve years old at the time?"
"Eleven," Parker replied with a smile. "And I was rooting for Jarod."
"That figures. You two were as thick as thieves back in those days," Sydney chuckled and moved his queen across the board. "Check."
She turned and whispered into Paul's ear, and then he reached down with a sly smile moved a bishop that both blocked the queen and, "Check," he pronounced in return.
Sydney stared at the chessboard for a moment and then looked up at Parker again. "And you told me your game was rusty!"
"It IS, I swear!" she threw her hands up. "I haven't even looked at a chessboard since that last game Jarod and I played before I went away to school." Then she looked down and chuckled. "But I did beat him once..."
"You didn't!" Sydney was agape. "He never said anything..."
She just shook her head. "I'm sure the subject just never came up. Besides, he made a really dumb mistake, thinking I wouldn't see it - and I mopped the floor with him. He didn't tell you because he was embarrassed."
Paul just shook his head at the two of them. "I'm surprised you didn't run home and brag to your folks," he commented to her in surprise.
"Mom was already..." Parker began, then looked down at her hands. "Mom was already gone by then. And Jarod made me promise not to tell him - something about protecting his reputation..."
Sydney smiled comfortingly at her. His daughter was doing better every day, tonight she was actually speaking of Jarod without any real rancor or loss - but she'd tripped over the reference to her mother. Wounds were healing, but the deepest were still quite tender.
Paul was watching his companion closely. Parker Green was an enigma to him - open and sparkling like a magnificent diamond one moment, closed and defensive like a clam the next. She was highly intelligent and quick-witted - she easily kept up with the banter and ribbing that he and Sydney tossed adroitly back and forth. Yet every once in a while, she gave him the impression of someone who had recently survived something so truly horrible that she could never completely share with anyone who hadn't been there. And then there were those other very brief flashes of an incredibly strong person, hard as nails and stubborn as a mule.
When Sydney had presented his daughter to him that first evening, he'd made mention of her recovering from a long illness. Indeed, the woman who had come to that first community game night with her father had seemed nervous, shy and almost withdrawn, not to mention pale and seriously underweight. Sydney had been very protective and supportive of her that night, going to great lengths to make sure she didn't over-extend physically or fatigue herself in any way. By the evening of the community potluck almost a week later, however, she was looking considerably healthier and had found her sense of humor again, and her father was very obviously celebrating her recovery. They had danced until late, and after her dance with her father, she had fairly vibrated with contentment. Tonight she had been nothing but sparkling until just that moment when she spoke of her mother.
"I didn't know you lost your mother so young," he said carefully. "I'm sorry if I said anything..."
"It's OK," she smiled at him, then focused her attention on the chessboard - and he knew he'd get nothing more out of her about it right then. Very briefly the tall professor found himself wondering just what it would take to win over her trust to the point that she would share some of these less happy memories with him as well as the happy ones.
Sydney followed her gaze and saw his move. He surreptitiously glanced at the clock on the wall - the game and banter had lasted a whole hour and a half already. Time to take pity on Paul and put him out of his misery. He moved the pawn forward one square to block the check and challenge the bishop and buy him the move he needed to finish the game.
Paul frowned at the move and glanced at his advisor, who was equally stumped by the purely defensive move. He was in no position to keep up the pressure on Sydney's king, however, and Paul moved a knight to a square from which to reassert that pressure - only to have Sydney suddenly smile a wide and triumphant grin and move his knight. "Checkmate."
Paul sighed and sat back in his chair in surprise while Parker's eyes widened appreciatively. "Sneaky. Real sneaky, Papa," she shook her head. "I am definitely rusty!"
"Well, I would love to stay and have some refreshments with you two this time, but I promised I'd pick Janine and her friends up from the movies in about..." Paul checked his wristwatch, "a half an hour." He joined Sydney in resetting the board. "Same time and place next week?"
"Of course." Sydney glanced over at the other side of the room. "Say, I thought Janine liked to play air hockey. I thought she'd be with you this week after her missing last week's game night."
"She does, but she's just recently decided she's in love with Leonardo di Caprio and just HAD to see his latest movie on premier night," Paul explained with resigned patience. "I suppose as long as she keeps her crushes to guys on the silver screen, I'll be happy and not worry so much. I don't know how you kept as much hair as you did when Parker was that young. As you can see, MINE is getting greyer by the hour," he ran his hand over his steel-grey locks ruefully. "Any advice to someone still in the trenches at the front lines?"
Sydney's chestnut gaze touched and lingered on Parker. "The best advice I can give you is just to make sure she knows you love her and to keep the lines of communication open between you, so she knows that she can talk to you about anything."
Paul sighed. "I'm trying," he admitted then smiled at Parker. "She's not a bad kid, it's just that sometimes it can be overwhelming, you know?"
"I know." There was a hint of sadness in her voice as she remembered one of the few times that she and Broots had talked about Debbie at work, and he had made much the same statement.
With that, Paul knew he'd again touched yet another tender nerve with mention of his daughter - one he'd touched before with much the same response - and carefully backed away from it. "Well, lovely lady, thanks for your help tonight." He made his voice deliberately light and carefree again.
"I had fun," she admitted, recognizing what he was doing and letting him lighten the mood again.
"And you, old boy, one of these days..." he chuckled and extended his hand.
"Now where have I heard THAT before?" Sydney laughed outright and shook his friend's hand. "Have a good week, Paul."
"You too. Uh..." Paul crooked a finger at Parker. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Sydney got the hint. "I'll wait for you outside," he told his daughter with a pat on the arm and then ambled easily through the tables and chairs. Paul waited until Sydney was nearly out of the door.
"I was wondering if you would consider having dinner with me and Janine Sunday night. I know..." he held up a hand to stop her words before she could barely get her mouth open, "...that you are a little apprehensive about meeting her for some reason. But, truth be known..." He put a hand very gently on her shoulder. "...I want her to get to know you too. Because I would like to see more of you... a LOT more..."
"I'm not going anywhere," Parker told him in a soft voice. "You'll see me again, I promise. But let me think about Sunday, OK?"
"OK," he accepted, grateful that she'd agreed to at least consider the invitation. "Let me know?"
"I'll be in touch before Saturday," she promised.
"Goodnight then, pretty lady." His hand remained warm and present on her shoulder.
"Goodnight, Paul." Her heart began to beat just a little faster, wondering why she didn't seem to want to back away from him.
Their eyes met and locked, and the community room seemed to fade around them for a bit. Then Paul took a deep and slightly shaky breath, swept his hand down her arm to hold her hand gently for a moment, then backed away. "Goodnight," he said again and then released her hand and turned. Parker stood and watched him walk to the opposite exit, then turn and give her a wave before leaving the building.
Finally she took her own deep breath and walked out the exit that her Papa had used just a few moments earlier, finding him lounging against a lamppost near the patio gate. "Ready?" he asked, seeing her bemused expression and not wanting to break it too abruptly. She nodded wordlessly and slipped her hand into his elbow, as always, but then reached around and clung to him a little more tightly than normal. "Is everything OK, ma petite?" he asked gently.
"He invited me to dinner on Sunday - with his daughter," she answered in a carefully neutral tone.
"Ah." Sydney nodded, understanding completely now. Of the many topics that they had discussed at length or worked through since he'd brought her back with him from Delaware, the loss of Broots and his daughter had been one that she'd shied away from. Surprisingly, it had proven to be an almost off-limits topic for her as yet - and something told him that she'd not been entirely up front with him in telling him the whole story of Broots' departure from the Centre. "Are you going to go?" he asked, letting her set the limits of their discussion now.
"I don't know," she admitted and rested her cheek against his shoulder as they walked.
He let her lean, knowing that she didn't get this clingy unless she was feeling insecure or unhappy. He led her to a bench beneath another lamppost and motioned for her to have a seat in warm April air. "Talk to me, Parker," he urged gently, putting an arm about her shoulder comfortingly.
"Papa..."
"Don't “Papa” me," he chided while hugging her. "Every time Paul mentions Janine, you become withdrawn and very quiet. I know you - this is about Debbie. Something happened, didn't it?" She didn't move, didn't respond. "Something happened with the Debbie after I left, didn't it?"
"I don't want to talk about it," she told him softly and leaned. "I don't even want to think about it."
He reached and smoothed her curls from her face. "Not talking about it isn't helping, ma petite," he pointed out. "Paul wants you to get to know his daughter - and he wants her to get to know you. Whatever it was that happened, it's making this new step for you much more difficult than it should be."
"I know. It's just..." She sighed, knowing that he would pull the story out of her eventually now that he knew that there was a tale to tell. At least now she felt secure enough in his affections that she was reasonably sure that the confession she would make wouldn't drive him away, and that sense of security and trust in him gave her the strength to start. "When Broots left, it was like the last straw. Angelo was dead, Jarod vanished, and then you vanished... The only people I had left in the world that I cared about at all were Broots and Debbie. Then..." She shook her head.
"Then..." he encouraged.
A tear started down her cheek. "Debbie and I had made arrangements for me to pick her up on a Saturday afternoon to drive into Dover to go shopping. Broots was working that day. He'd been getting more and more nervous about something he'd found in the mainframe - and he wouldn't tell me what it was, no matter how hard I tried to bully him into it. But as things went, I ended up late picking her up - Lyle had stopped the house by to discuss something and just wouldn't leave until I finally shoved my gun in his face and pushed him out the door. By the time I got to Broots' house..." She closed her eyes and leaned into her Papa, who had closed his eyes in reluctant realization.
"How badly was she hurt?"
She took a moment to pull herself together. "Sw...sweepers had torn the house apart looking for something - and one of them had pistol-whipped her, broken her cheekbone, then they were just going to leave her there. She was screaming, her face covered in blood. I called the ambulance - and Broots."
Sydney shook his head and held her close. "It wasn't your fault, Parker..."
"But I didn't protect her," Parker charged herself firmly. "I wasn't there when I was supposed to be... when the sweepers came..."
"You had no way of knowing this was going to happen, Parker - how could it be your fault? Besides, has it occurred to you that Lyle came to you in a deliberately delaying move - to prevent you from protecting her?" he spoke softly, seeing the linkage all too clearly.
"Yes, it occurred to me, but it didn't matter in the end," she answered bleakly. "I could see that Broots was upset with me and with the whole situation when I met up with him at the hospital. He never came right out and blamed me, but I could see that he was thinking along those lines. He did tell me the very next day that he'd received another job offer he was considering, and they were gone in three days. I never..." She took a deep breath. "He never even gave me a chance to say goodbye to Debbie."
Sydney shook his head. Broots had never really understood the depth of the relationship that had slowly developed between his little girl and his crusty boss. He had never fully appreciated how Debbie had touched that part of Miss Parker that she had kept most hidden and given her a reason, despite her Ice Queen training, to try to become the kind of role model for Debbie that her mother had been for her. For Broots to have just ripped the girl out of Parker's world like that must have nearly demolished Parker emotionally. Granted, the man had been more concerned about his daughter's safety - and rightfully so, it seemed - but the chances were good that Debbie had been as damaged in that abrupt severing of relationships as Parker had. Another piece of the puzzle that was the collective cause of Parker's severe decline fell into place, and Sydney felt a quick pang of guilt that he hadn't been there to help cushion the blow at the time. But he could offer comfort now...
"I understand," he leaned his head into hers. "When you were sent away to school, part of what had made my days at the Centre bright left with you. Jarod was inconsolable for weeks, and I kept expecting you come bouncing around a corner - and you never did. When you never wrote - or rather, when I never heard from you," he corrected quickly, knowing that she HAD written, and the letters had been intercepted, "I started to think I must have done something wrong to make you angry, but I never could figure out what. It's very hard, when you let yourself slip into a parent-child role with another person's child, to let go of that when the parent just moves the child on in their lives without you."
"Yeah," Parker gave a shuddering sigh. She hadn't thought of it that way, but now she could see that he DID understand - all too well.
"But that was then. Now the situation is very different. There are no sweepers to tear Paul's house apart or pistol-whip Janine. So tell me why the idea of meeting or getting to know her makes you so uncomfortable," he pressed gently.
"I don't want to go through that kind of thing again," she pushed herself away from him a little. "I'm not ready to step forward for another man's daughter just to have the relationship with the girl sacrificed if or when the relationship with the father falls through." She pulled her fingers through her curls to clear her face. "Hell, I'm just starting to put together a proper father-daughter relationship with YOU and to figure out who I am - and what I want to be when I finally grow up. Face it, Papa, I'm a mess and not all that far removed from being a complete disaster. Making healthy relationships is not something I'm really good at. My seeing Paul from time to time is one thing - getting introduced to his daughter..."
Sydney nodded. At least she was being honest - with herself and with him. "Do you want me to talk to Paul for you?" he offered.
"No," she shook her head. "I'll probably go and get the introductions over with. Putting it off isn't going to make it any easier. But I'm thinking maybe I can just stay a casual acquaintance for a good long time - just be the woman her father is seeing at the moment." She thought for a bit, then added, "I know I need to learn to meet new people and not automatically flash back to people I left behind, or who left me." She sounded less than happy, but determined. She leaned into him again. "Thanks for offering, but this is my problem to figure out. I can't expect you to come charging to my rescue forever, you know..."
He kissed her cheek. "It's a father's privilege to charge to his daughter's rescue, Parker - and after standing in the wings all these years, I really don't mind. But..." he kissed her again, "...I'm so very proud of you for wanting to handle this one yourself. It shows me you really ARE getting better."
Feeling relieved after finally getting that one painful episode out in the open at long last, she returned the gesture, then rose and held out her hand to him. "C'mon, Papa. Let's go home." He rose and tucked her hand back into his elbow again. "And thanks for listening."
"Anytime, sweetheart," he said, patting the hand on his arm. "Anytime."
~~~~~~~~
Sleep did not come easily that night. Parker relived every moment of that fateful afternoon when Debbie had finally been the one to suffer at the hands of the Centre, feeling the knell of blame and responsibility as a solemn toll in the background of the memory. She had not told her Papa of the screaming confrontation she'd had with Lyle and Raines after leaving the hospital that evening, or how she'd been very clearly told that she did NOT want to know what everything had been about. She hadn't told him that even Sam had taken her aside a little later and gently advised her to drop the subject - that Raines was not only willing but eager for a reason to make her face the same kind of scrutiny.
The memory of Debbie, huddled in a corner of the living room screaming and holding her face while black-suited sweepers had literally torn her home to pieces had long echoed in the back of her mind. The memory of Broots' face - angry and frightened - as he told her that he'd decided to take the job offer from Silicon Valley after all still haunted her memory of her formerly loyal computer technician. Memories began to impact memories in the familiar litany of abandonment that had played in her mind so often over the years. The memory of her Daddy's face as he stepped resolutely from the open door of the jet over the stormy, nighttime Atlantic flashed by next - followed by the vision of Thomas, sprawled and bloody and staring sightlessly - followed by the memory of the gunshot and a brief glimpse of her mother's body crumpled in an elevator.
Then there was Jarod, the memory of his face was fractured into the many times he had glanced up at her as he'd fled her custody added to the look on his face in front of a fire in a blind woman's house on Carthis. Of Angelo, the empathic little man who had been a fast friend in childhood despite his shattered personality, her best memory was his attempting to play the piano for her as his grip on reality slowly ebbed away. Both of these childhood friends were gone now, one to death, the other so deeply into hiding that she doubted she'd ever see or hear from him again.
With a shuddering sigh she rose and pulled on her velour dressing gown and slipped quietly from her bedroom and into the kitchen for a glass of water. She still had Sydney - of all the others, he had managed to survive the years at the Centre and still not only want her company but love her enough to actively seek her out and pull her free of that nightmare. He had become her Papa - the father she'd always wanted and never had until it was almost too late. And he was fast asleep, enjoying a rare night free from her nightmare-based screams and the need to rouse and give comfort. Parker filled her water glass again and carried it into the living room and over to the balcony doors. As much as she needed her Papa's love and comfort right now, at the moment he needed his rest more. She'd seen herself through her share of vigils like this in months previous - she could do it again.
She tweaked aside the drapes and looked out onto the nighttime street scene below. The sky was clear, and a few of the brighter stars could be seen twinkling. The openness and the sight of the line of palm trees across the wide boulevard reminded her silently of the drastic change her life was going through. This was Arizona, not Delaware. This was a new life - and the faces that had haunted her thoughts that evening belonged to the life that was slowly dropping away. Those memories belonged to Miss Parker, not to Parker Green - Parker Green was only now at the very beginning of making memories for herself.
It was Parker Green who was going to be accepting the invitation to dine with Paul and Janine Ruiz on Sunday. She leaned her shoulder and forehead against the wall and gently touched the cool glass with her fingertips. This was just another step away from that old life and into a completely new one - a life where the Centre, and Jarod, played no part at all. Parker Green had never betrayed the trust of a friend, never failed to protect a friend's daughter who looked to her for guidance. But was Parker Green betraying those friends yet again one last time by trying to let Miss Parker's memories pass on into the oblivion of a life discarded?
She sighed as a tear ran down her cheek. For years it had been the others who had left her or stolen from her - now it was she who was leaving THEM, and the process was no less painful.
"What's this?" Papa's voice broke through the nighttime silence from the end of the hallway very gently so as not to startle much.
Parker still jumped slightly as the unexpected voice broke through her reverie. "It's late - and I tried to be quiet... What are you doing up?" she asked, straightening and using the back of her free hand to wipe at the tear on her cheek.
"I'm used to your getting me up at this hour, evidently," he replied with some humor, "and awoke by myself when I didn't hear you call out." He pulled his bathrobe tighter around him and pulled on the belt, then padded across the room in bare feet and turned her into the dim moonlight from outside. "No nightmare tonight, but no sleep either, eh?"
"The ghosts are walking with me tonight," she replied, resuming her lean against the wall near the drapes. She looked over at him, noting the raised eyebrows. "I'm feeling a little schizophrenic tonight - stuck between two lives and fitting into neither properly."
"C'mon - sit down with me. It's cold over here by the balcony." Sydney took her by the elbow and led her to the couch. "Now. What do you mean, the ghosts are walking? You don't mean..."
"No, no voices," she assured him, leaning back against the cushion comfortably. "Just old memories that belong to a life I'm leaving behind." She turned her head so she could see him again. "Papa, am I betraying those memories by trying to walk away from them?"
"No," he replied, "but I'm afraid you're attempting the impossible. Those memories are your background - where you came from. You can't walk away from them anymore than you can abandon your face."
"But they aren't part of who I am... who I want to be eventually."
"Sure they are. They are the sum of your experiences to date - they are why you are who you are in this moment." He leaned back against the cushion and faced her. "You can make peace with them - you can stop letting them terrorize you or making you feel guilty by accepting who you were at the time the memories were made - but you cannot abandon them and walk away. They are a part of you - a very important part."
"Remembering hurts, Papa," she cried softly.
"I know it does, ma petite," he soothed, taking her hand in his. "But the pain will grow less in time as new memories are added to them. They will become the foundation of your new life." He paused to think for a moment. "Do you remember what Mr. Parker said to me after your mother's so-called suicide?"
"You mean when he told you “life goes on”?"
"Mmm-hmmm," he nodded. "Of all the things that man said, that was probably the most true. Life does go on. Debbie and what happened to her is in the past - nothing you can do now will affect what happened. It's up to you if you let the memory of what happened in the past keep you from enjoying something in the future. You do not betray the memory of Debbie by getting to know Janine, Parker."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," he chuckled. "If anything, your time with Debbie will have prepared you a bit for Janine - but only a bit. Paul wasn't kidding when he said that she could be overwhelming at times."
"I'm afraid the time will come and I'll need to protect her - and I'll fail again," she said softly, burying her nose in his shoulder.
"Damn it, you didn't fail the last time, so quit beating yourself over the head with things you couldn't have prevented!" he insisted firmly as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. "The Centre is what hurt Debbie - not you. You cannot make yourself responsible for all the evils the Centre perpetuated, and you know better than to try."
"But I wasn't there..."
"Because Lyle stopped you," he reminded her pointedly. "You know as well as I the strength of a diversionary tactic like that. He might as well have hog-tied you for a short time - he accomplished the same end. You were made a victim that day too, Parker - only your wound wasn't a visible one." He thought for a moment. "And knowing how the Centre works, tell me the truth: if you HAD been there when the sweepers arrived, do you REALLY think you could have protected Debbie?"
"They might not have..."
"...broken her cheek bone? Perhaps," he pressed on vehemently. "Then again, injuring Debbie to send a message to Broots might have been part of the plan all along - in which case you might have gotten hurt yourself too, if not killed, by being in the way."
"At least if I'd gotten hurt, it would have shown Broots that I was there, trying to help..." she whispered softly. "Maybe he would have moved away, but he would have at least..."
Sydney kissed the side of her head through her curls. "I think Broots over-reacted, and maybe dumped some of his anger at the Centre on you as a convenient target - but that when he calmed down, he'd know better. It could be that he feels he can't get back in contact with you to let you know he's taken you off the hook for fear of letting the Centre know where he'd gone - and he probably couldn't find you now if he tried."
She snuggled down against him. "Maybe..." She had to admit that he had a valid point.
"And I'll bet Debbie doesn't hold it against you at all, does she?"
Parker shrugged - she honestly hadn't had a chance to talk to Debbie after getting her to the emergency room, so she didn't know whether Debbie blamed her or not. If she were honest with herself, however, knowing Debbie's forgiving nature, she was fairly sure that Papa was right that the girl wasn't holding a grudge. Debbie was an intelligent girl - she knew where the line was between the Centre and Miss Parker. That realization lifted the weight of guilt from her almost immediately.
She closed her eyes and relaxed against Sydney's shoulder. "I love you, Papa," she said softly after a long moment of soaking up the warmth and caring that he still gave to her completely without reservation. Were it not for his unceasing nurturing and support, she'd not be in any shape to even attempt to piece together a new life - one that evidently included another motherless girl.
"I love you too, Parker," he replied with a tired sigh, not for the first time wondering if Parker would ever find the bottom of the deep well of heartache and tragedy that had nearly killed her. He closed his eyes and just held his daughter close, grateful that he could.
~~~~~~~~
Parker took a deep breath of the warm April afternoon and then started down the stairs on her way to the mailbox. The morning had been an active one that had seen a preliminary trip to set up getting her driver's license at long last, as well as a quick tour of a few used car lots to check out prices. Papa had decided that he needed an after-lunch nap after that long midnight counseling session, and so she had decided to take his keys and fetch the mail to save him the trip. She would have to do something to try to forestall another nightmare again too - Papa was starting to visibly wear down with the strain of caring for her almost twenty-four hours a day, and she was beginning to worry about him. He needed his rest, and he wasn't getting it properly.
She herself was feeling better, however, and not as apprehensive about calling Paul that evening and accepting the invitation as she had been. She sniffed at the warm air, still learning to appreciate the smell of a springtime desert, and headed toward the low cement cube that housed the mailboxes for that area of the condominium complex. She quickly found the proper box, inserted the key and opened the little metal door.
"You're Parker Green, aren't you?" a girl's voice sounded off to her left.
She looked over from gathering her mail to find herself pinned by brilliant green eyes in a wide and pretty face. With her straight dark hair twisted into a knot on the back of her head from which a ponytail-like fringe dangled and swung with every movement she made, the girl was trying to look older than she was. She was dressed casually, with tee-shirt and jeans and a backpack thrown over one shoulder. "Yes," Parker answered carefully. "Can I help you?"
"My dad talks about you all the time," the girl continued in an accusatory tone, and Parker blinked as she realized that THIS was Janine Ruiz - come to seek her out without waiting for a proper introduction.
"Really?" she answered blandly, her insides tightening into a knot as she carefully closed the mailbox and then turned to the girl. "Then you must be Janine Ruiz."
"Yeah, so?" The defensiveness of the girl's attitude was obvious, and Parker could appreciate her position. She had had her father all to herself for years - and now, it seemed, her father was starting to think about making room in his life for someone new.
"What can I do for you?" Parker asked, keeping her voice neither too friendly nor too ambivalent.
"I don't want a new mom," Janine announced suddenly, and Parker could see a brief flash of fear behind the bristling façade.
"That's good," she replied easily, "because I don't think anybody can ever replace a person's mom."
Obviously that wasn't the answer Janine had been expecting, because part of the belligerence dropped away for a moment and was replaced with confusion. "But... if Dad..."
Parker shook her head. "Your dad and I just met, Janine - I've known him less than two weeks. I think it's a little early to be worrying about my trying to replace anybody, don't you?"
"Do you love him?" The green eyes were piercing and brutally direct.
"I like your dad," Parker answered slowly, "but like I said, I've only known him for less than two weeks. That's not enough time to fall in love with someone. I don't know enough about him to know if I would or not."
"Do you have kids too?"
Parker shook her head. "No, I've never been married."
The dark head tipped. "What do you do? Do you work at the university?"
The idea that she was getting the third degree so soon from one so young tweaked at her sense of humor, and Parker found herself having to fight against chuckling. No wonder Paul had said something about being overwhelmed at times. "No, I don't work at the university. I'm kinda between jobs at the moment - I was very ill, and my Papa brought me back to stay with him so I could get better." She cast her own assessing eye over the girl. "It's a little early in the afternoon. Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"I'm on first track, and I'm done for the day," Janine answered quickly, surprised that the role of interrogator had been usurped from her so easily. "What do you do, then?"
"I'm thinking of going back into law," Parker answered honestly. "I'm not sure, but that's what I'm considering. What about you? What do you want to do when you grow up?"
Again Janine found the tables turned. She shrugged. "I don't know - get married and have kids, I suppose..." She looked up at Parker again. "Don't you want to get married someday - have kids?"
"Maybe," Parker admitted, "someday. But until then, I work at just being who I am and doing what I need to do." She cast a firm grey gaze at the girl. "That's about all any of us can do, don't you think?"
Janine shrugged again and studied the woman in front of her. She was very pretty, just as Dad had said she was. And she was being honest with her answers, which counted for a lot. Janine hated it when grown-ups tried to doctor the truth to make it easier for kids to understand. "So you're really not trying to become my new mom?" she asked again, this time more softly and a little less defensively.
"How old were you when you lost your mom?" Parker asked back.
"Nine," Janine replied. "Why?"
"Then you remember her?"
"Yeah. So..."
Parker shook her head. "Then nobody can replace your mom - and I'd be a fool to even try. See, my mom died when I was maybe a year or so younger than you, and I wouldn't let anybody replace her either. So I know exactly how you feel. At best, I can be a friend - maybe someone you feel you can talk to sometimes, when it gets hard to talk to your dad about girl stuff - but I cannot be your mother."
"And if you and Dad get together?" Janine couldn't let go of her fear quite yet.
Parker sighed. "If your dad and I do get together, then we'd get together - and the three of us would have to try to put it together as a family. BUT, even then, I know I could never replace your mom. We could come to mean a lot of things to each other, but that would never be one of them - unless that was what YOU wanted. Even then, things with you and me would be very different from what you had with your mom."
"Do you want to get together with my Dad?"
"I told you, I want to get to know him first - and that's going to take some time," Parker answered truthfully. "See, I'm not a big fan of love at first sight - that's a great way to get burned." She looked down into less antagonistic green and tried a smile. "So... Do I pass muster? Do I have your permission to get to know your Dad a little better?"
Janine's face broke briefly into an answering smile that the girl worked hard to stomp down. "I suppose..." she answered in a tone of childish reluctance. "So, you're coming over on Sunday?"
"Yes, I am," Parker answered quietly. "I was going to call your Dad and tell him, but maybe you could give him the message for me?"
"OK," the girl agreed, sounding much more agreeable. "I'll see you around," she said, turning to head across the complex toward her home.
"See you Sunday," Parker called back, and turned to go back home herself.
"Say..."
Parker turned. "What?"
"What do I call you?" Janine asked.
"My name's Parker. You can call me that."
"OK, Parker. See you on Sunday."
Parker watched the girl walk spryly across the grass toward the community club house, then turned to head back indoors herself. No, Janine was nothing like Debbie at all, with the exception of being very close and protective of her father - which was something that Parker could now thoroughly understand from a daughter's perspective. She smiled to herself, thinking that much of the reason for the apprehension that had been building for Sunday had just been brushed aside by a young girl's defensiveness and curiosity. She'd have to tell Papa what happened when he got up - he could use the chuckle.
With her head held high and a bounce in her step, Parker headed home.
Chapter 7: First Steps
"No, if you move there, he'll be able to get your queen in two moves. But that bishop..." Long and tapering fingers pointed out a different move entirely.
Sydney looked up over the chessboard and found Parker looking at him with dancing grey eyes. "I should never have agreed to let you kibbitz," he grumbled good-naturedly. "I'm now at a distinct disadvantage."
"You mean I actually stand a chance of NOT getting beat?" Paul Ruiz grinned at his friend with delight as he made the move Parker suggested. He leaned closer to her. "I knew you would be a good luck charm..." His rich baritone voice was filled with enthusiasm.
"Don't get too cocky," she cautioned him gently, keeping an appraising eye on Sydney's suddenly very intent concentration on the game. "I've seen Papa get that look on his face while he was playing a certified genius one time and damned near beat the fellow. You may not lose immediately, but I'm afraid he's already got you if you're not VERY careful. You're already in a fairly precarious position."
"Played a certified genius, eh?" Paul's face crinkled into amusement. "And about how long ago did this match occur?"
Parker blinked and looked over at her Papa, noticing that he too had been caught short by the question and was gazing at her. "What is it now, twenty..."
"Twenty-four years ago," Sydney said softly. He remembered that match very well, not the least because it was one time that little Miss Parker had sat in quietly and watched the entire game where he match wits with Jarod. "You were... what? Twelve years old at the time?"
"Eleven," Parker replied with a smile. "And I was rooting for Jarod."
"That figures. You two were as thick as thieves back in those days," Sydney chuckled and moved his queen across the board. "Check."
She turned and whispered into Paul's ear, and then he reached down with a sly smile moved a bishop that both blocked the queen and, "Check," he pronounced in return.
Sydney stared at the chessboard for a moment and then looked up at Parker again. "And you told me your game was rusty!"
"It IS, I swear!" she threw her hands up. "I haven't even looked at a chessboard since that last game Jarod and I played before I went away to school." Then she looked down and chuckled. "But I did beat him once..."
"You didn't!" Sydney was agape. "He never said anything..."
She just shook her head. "I'm sure the subject just never came up. Besides, he made a really dumb mistake, thinking I wouldn't see it - and I mopped the floor with him. He didn't tell you because he was embarrassed."
Paul just shook his head at the two of them. "I'm surprised you didn't run home and brag to your folks," he commented to her in surprise.
"Mom was already..." Parker began, then looked down at her hands. "Mom was already gone by then. And Jarod made me promise not to tell him - something about protecting his reputation..."
Sydney smiled comfortingly at her. His daughter was doing better every day, tonight she was actually speaking of Jarod without any real rancor or loss - but she'd tripped over the reference to her mother. Wounds were healing, but the deepest were still quite tender.
Paul was watching his companion closely. Parker Green was an enigma to him - open and sparkling like a magnificent diamond one moment, closed and defensive like a clam the next. She was highly intelligent and quick-witted - she easily kept up with the banter and ribbing that he and Sydney tossed adroitly back and forth. Yet every once in a while, she gave him the impression of someone who had recently survived something so truly horrible that she could never completely share with anyone who hadn't been there. And then there were those other very brief flashes of an incredibly strong person, hard as nails and stubborn as a mule.
When Sydney had presented his daughter to him that first evening, he'd made mention of her recovering from a long illness. Indeed, the woman who had come to that first community game night with her father had seemed nervous, shy and almost withdrawn, not to mention pale and seriously underweight. Sydney had been very protective and supportive of her that night, going to great lengths to make sure she didn't over-extend physically or fatigue herself in any way. By the evening of the community potluck almost a week later, however, she was looking considerably healthier and had found her sense of humor again, and her father was very obviously celebrating her recovery. They had danced until late, and after her dance with her father, she had fairly vibrated with contentment. Tonight she had been nothing but sparkling until just that moment when she spoke of her mother.
"I didn't know you lost your mother so young," he said carefully. "I'm sorry if I said anything..."
"It's OK," she smiled at him, then focused her attention on the chessboard - and he knew he'd get nothing more out of her about it right then. Very briefly the tall professor found himself wondering just what it would take to win over her trust to the point that she would share some of these less happy memories with him as well as the happy ones.
Sydney followed her gaze and saw his move. He surreptitiously glanced at the clock on the wall - the game and banter had lasted a whole hour and a half already. Time to take pity on Paul and put him out of his misery. He moved the pawn forward one square to block the check and challenge the bishop and buy him the move he needed to finish the game.
Paul frowned at the move and glanced at his advisor, who was equally stumped by the purely defensive move. He was in no position to keep up the pressure on Sydney's king, however, and Paul moved a knight to a square from which to reassert that pressure - only to have Sydney suddenly smile a wide and triumphant grin and move his knight. "Checkmate."
Paul sighed and sat back in his chair in surprise while Parker's eyes widened appreciatively. "Sneaky. Real sneaky, Papa," she shook her head. "I am definitely rusty!"
"Well, I would love to stay and have some refreshments with you two this time, but I promised I'd pick Janine and her friends up from the movies in about..." Paul checked his wristwatch, "a half an hour." He joined Sydney in resetting the board. "Same time and place next week?"
"Of course." Sydney glanced over at the other side of the room. "Say, I thought Janine liked to play air hockey. I thought she'd be with you this week after her missing last week's game night."
"She does, but she's just recently decided she's in love with Leonardo di Caprio and just HAD to see his latest movie on premier night," Paul explained with resigned patience. "I suppose as long as she keeps her crushes to guys on the silver screen, I'll be happy and not worry so much. I don't know how you kept as much hair as you did when Parker was that young. As you can see, MINE is getting greyer by the hour," he ran his hand over his steel-grey locks ruefully. "Any advice to someone still in the trenches at the front lines?"
Sydney's chestnut gaze touched and lingered on Parker. "The best advice I can give you is just to make sure she knows you love her and to keep the lines of communication open between you, so she knows that she can talk to you about anything."
Paul sighed. "I'm trying," he admitted then smiled at Parker. "She's not a bad kid, it's just that sometimes it can be overwhelming, you know?"
"I know." There was a hint of sadness in her voice as she remembered one of the few times that she and Broots had talked about Debbie at work, and he had made much the same statement.
With that, Paul knew he'd again touched yet another tender nerve with mention of his daughter - one he'd touched before with much the same response - and carefully backed away from it. "Well, lovely lady, thanks for your help tonight." He made his voice deliberately light and carefree again.
"I had fun," she admitted, recognizing what he was doing and letting him lighten the mood again.
"And you, old boy, one of these days..." he chuckled and extended his hand.
"Now where have I heard THAT before?" Sydney laughed outright and shook his friend's hand. "Have a good week, Paul."
"You too. Uh..." Paul crooked a finger at Parker. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Sydney got the hint. "I'll wait for you outside," he told his daughter with a pat on the arm and then ambled easily through the tables and chairs. Paul waited until Sydney was nearly out of the door.
"I was wondering if you would consider having dinner with me and Janine Sunday night. I know..." he held up a hand to stop her words before she could barely get her mouth open, "...that you are a little apprehensive about meeting her for some reason. But, truth be known..." He put a hand very gently on her shoulder. "...I want her to get to know you too. Because I would like to see more of you... a LOT more..."
"I'm not going anywhere," Parker told him in a soft voice. "You'll see me again, I promise. But let me think about Sunday, OK?"
"OK," he accepted, grateful that she'd agreed to at least consider the invitation. "Let me know?"
"I'll be in touch before Saturday," she promised.
"Goodnight then, pretty lady." His hand remained warm and present on her shoulder.
"Goodnight, Paul." Her heart began to beat just a little faster, wondering why she didn't seem to want to back away from him.
Their eyes met and locked, and the community room seemed to fade around them for a bit. Then Paul took a deep and slightly shaky breath, swept his hand down her arm to hold her hand gently for a moment, then backed away. "Goodnight," he said again and then released her hand and turned. Parker stood and watched him walk to the opposite exit, then turn and give her a wave before leaving the building.
Finally she took her own deep breath and walked out the exit that her Papa had used just a few moments earlier, finding him lounging against a lamppost near the patio gate. "Ready?" he asked, seeing her bemused expression and not wanting to break it too abruptly. She nodded wordlessly and slipped her hand into his elbow, as always, but then reached around and clung to him a little more tightly than normal. "Is everything OK, ma petite?" he asked gently.
"He invited me to dinner on Sunday - with his daughter," she answered in a carefully neutral tone.
"Ah." Sydney nodded, understanding completely now. Of the many topics that they had discussed at length or worked through since he'd brought her back with him from Delaware, the loss of Broots and his daughter had been one that she'd shied away from. Surprisingly, it had proven to be an almost off-limits topic for her as yet - and something told him that she'd not been entirely up front with him in telling him the whole story of Broots' departure from the Centre. "Are you going to go?" he asked, letting her set the limits of their discussion now.
"I don't know," she admitted and rested her cheek against his shoulder as they walked.
He let her lean, knowing that she didn't get this clingy unless she was feeling insecure or unhappy. He led her to a bench beneath another lamppost and motioned for her to have a seat in warm April air. "Talk to me, Parker," he urged gently, putting an arm about her shoulder comfortingly.
"Papa..."
"Don't “Papa” me," he chided while hugging her. "Every time Paul mentions Janine, you become withdrawn and very quiet. I know you - this is about Debbie. Something happened, didn't it?" She didn't move, didn't respond. "Something happened with the Debbie after I left, didn't it?"
"I don't want to talk about it," she told him softly and leaned. "I don't even want to think about it."
He reached and smoothed her curls from her face. "Not talking about it isn't helping, ma petite," he pointed out. "Paul wants you to get to know his daughter - and he wants her to get to know you. Whatever it was that happened, it's making this new step for you much more difficult than it should be."
"I know. It's just..." She sighed, knowing that he would pull the story out of her eventually now that he knew that there was a tale to tell. At least now she felt secure enough in his affections that she was reasonably sure that the confession she would make wouldn't drive him away, and that sense of security and trust in him gave her the strength to start. "When Broots left, it was like the last straw. Angelo was dead, Jarod vanished, and then you vanished... The only people I had left in the world that I cared about at all were Broots and Debbie. Then..." She shook her head.
"Then..." he encouraged.
A tear started down her cheek. "Debbie and I had made arrangements for me to pick her up on a Saturday afternoon to drive into Dover to go shopping. Broots was working that day. He'd been getting more and more nervous about something he'd found in the mainframe - and he wouldn't tell me what it was, no matter how hard I tried to bully him into it. But as things went, I ended up late picking her up - Lyle had stopped the house by to discuss something and just wouldn't leave until I finally shoved my gun in his face and pushed him out the door. By the time I got to Broots' house..." She closed her eyes and leaned into her Papa, who had closed his eyes in reluctant realization.
"How badly was she hurt?"
She took a moment to pull herself together. "Sw...sweepers had torn the house apart looking for something - and one of them had pistol-whipped her, broken her cheekbone, then they were just going to leave her there. She was screaming, her face covered in blood. I called the ambulance - and Broots."
Sydney shook his head and held her close. "It wasn't your fault, Parker..."
"But I didn't protect her," Parker charged herself firmly. "I wasn't there when I was supposed to be... when the sweepers came..."
"You had no way of knowing this was going to happen, Parker - how could it be your fault? Besides, has it occurred to you that Lyle came to you in a deliberately delaying move - to prevent you from protecting her?" he spoke softly, seeing the linkage all too clearly.
"Yes, it occurred to me, but it didn't matter in the end," she answered bleakly. "I could see that Broots was upset with me and with the whole situation when I met up with him at the hospital. He never came right out and blamed me, but I could see that he was thinking along those lines. He did tell me the very next day that he'd received another job offer he was considering, and they were gone in three days. I never..." She took a deep breath. "He never even gave me a chance to say goodbye to Debbie."
Sydney shook his head. Broots had never really understood the depth of the relationship that had slowly developed between his little girl and his crusty boss. He had never fully appreciated how Debbie had touched that part of Miss Parker that she had kept most hidden and given her a reason, despite her Ice Queen training, to try to become the kind of role model for Debbie that her mother had been for her. For Broots to have just ripped the girl out of Parker's world like that must have nearly demolished Parker emotionally. Granted, the man had been more concerned about his daughter's safety - and rightfully so, it seemed - but the chances were good that Debbie had been as damaged in that abrupt severing of relationships as Parker had. Another piece of the puzzle that was the collective cause of Parker's severe decline fell into place, and Sydney felt a quick pang of guilt that he hadn't been there to help cushion the blow at the time. But he could offer comfort now...
"I understand," he leaned his head into hers. "When you were sent away to school, part of what had made my days at the Centre bright left with you. Jarod was inconsolable for weeks, and I kept expecting you come bouncing around a corner - and you never did. When you never wrote - or rather, when I never heard from you," he corrected quickly, knowing that she HAD written, and the letters had been intercepted, "I started to think I must have done something wrong to make you angry, but I never could figure out what. It's very hard, when you let yourself slip into a parent-child role with another person's child, to let go of that when the parent just moves the child on in their lives without you."
"Yeah," Parker gave a shuddering sigh. She hadn't thought of it that way, but now she could see that he DID understand - all too well.
"But that was then. Now the situation is very different. There are no sweepers to tear Paul's house apart or pistol-whip Janine. So tell me why the idea of meeting or getting to know her makes you so uncomfortable," he pressed gently.
"I don't want to go through that kind of thing again," she pushed herself away from him a little. "I'm not ready to step forward for another man's daughter just to have the relationship with the girl sacrificed if or when the relationship with the father falls through." She pulled her fingers through her curls to clear her face. "Hell, I'm just starting to put together a proper father-daughter relationship with YOU and to figure out who I am - and what I want to be when I finally grow up. Face it, Papa, I'm a mess and not all that far removed from being a complete disaster. Making healthy relationships is not something I'm really good at. My seeing Paul from time to time is one thing - getting introduced to his daughter..."
Sydney nodded. At least she was being honest - with herself and with him. "Do you want me to talk to Paul for you?" he offered.
"No," she shook her head. "I'll probably go and get the introductions over with. Putting it off isn't going to make it any easier. But I'm thinking maybe I can just stay a casual acquaintance for a good long time - just be the woman her father is seeing at the moment." She thought for a bit, then added, "I know I need to learn to meet new people and not automatically flash back to people I left behind, or who left me." She sounded less than happy, but determined. She leaned into him again. "Thanks for offering, but this is my problem to figure out. I can't expect you to come charging to my rescue forever, you know..."
He kissed her cheek. "It's a father's privilege to charge to his daughter's rescue, Parker - and after standing in the wings all these years, I really don't mind. But..." he kissed her again, "...I'm so very proud of you for wanting to handle this one yourself. It shows me you really ARE getting better."
Feeling relieved after finally getting that one painful episode out in the open at long last, she returned the gesture, then rose and held out her hand to him. "C'mon, Papa. Let's go home." He rose and tucked her hand back into his elbow again. "And thanks for listening."
"Anytime, sweetheart," he said, patting the hand on his arm. "Anytime."
~~~~~~~~
Sleep did not come easily that night. Parker relived every moment of that fateful afternoon when Debbie had finally been the one to suffer at the hands of the Centre, feeling the knell of blame and responsibility as a solemn toll in the background of the memory. She had not told her Papa of the screaming confrontation she'd had with Lyle and Raines after leaving the hospital that evening, or how she'd been very clearly told that she did NOT want to know what everything had been about. She hadn't told him that even Sam had taken her aside a little later and gently advised her to drop the subject - that Raines was not only willing but eager for a reason to make her face the same kind of scrutiny.
The memory of Debbie, huddled in a corner of the living room screaming and holding her face while black-suited sweepers had literally torn her home to pieces had long echoed in the back of her mind. The memory of Broots' face - angry and frightened - as he told her that he'd decided to take the job offer from Silicon Valley after all still haunted her memory of her formerly loyal computer technician. Memories began to impact memories in the familiar litany of abandonment that had played in her mind so often over the years. The memory of her Daddy's face as he stepped resolutely from the open door of the jet over the stormy, nighttime Atlantic flashed by next - followed by the vision of Thomas, sprawled and bloody and staring sightlessly - followed by the memory of the gunshot and a brief glimpse of her mother's body crumpled in an elevator.
Then there was Jarod, the memory of his face was fractured into the many times he had glanced up at her as he'd fled her custody added to the look on his face in front of a fire in a blind woman's house on Carthis. Of Angelo, the empathic little man who had been a fast friend in childhood despite his shattered personality, her best memory was his attempting to play the piano for her as his grip on reality slowly ebbed away. Both of these childhood friends were gone now, one to death, the other so deeply into hiding that she doubted she'd ever see or hear from him again.
With a shuddering sigh she rose and pulled on her velour dressing gown and slipped quietly from her bedroom and into the kitchen for a glass of water. She still had Sydney - of all the others, he had managed to survive the years at the Centre and still not only want her company but love her enough to actively seek her out and pull her free of that nightmare. He had become her Papa - the father she'd always wanted and never had until it was almost too late. And he was fast asleep, enjoying a rare night free from her nightmare-based screams and the need to rouse and give comfort. Parker filled her water glass again and carried it into the living room and over to the balcony doors. As much as she needed her Papa's love and comfort right now, at the moment he needed his rest more. She'd seen herself through her share of vigils like this in months previous - she could do it again.
She tweaked aside the drapes and looked out onto the nighttime street scene below. The sky was clear, and a few of the brighter stars could be seen twinkling. The openness and the sight of the line of palm trees across the wide boulevard reminded her silently of the drastic change her life was going through. This was Arizona, not Delaware. This was a new life - and the faces that had haunted her thoughts that evening belonged to the life that was slowly dropping away. Those memories belonged to Miss Parker, not to Parker Green - Parker Green was only now at the very beginning of making memories for herself.
It was Parker Green who was going to be accepting the invitation to dine with Paul and Janine Ruiz on Sunday. She leaned her shoulder and forehead against the wall and gently touched the cool glass with her fingertips. This was just another step away from that old life and into a completely new one - a life where the Centre, and Jarod, played no part at all. Parker Green had never betrayed the trust of a friend, never failed to protect a friend's daughter who looked to her for guidance. But was Parker Green betraying those friends yet again one last time by trying to let Miss Parker's memories pass on into the oblivion of a life discarded?
She sighed as a tear ran down her cheek. For years it had been the others who had left her or stolen from her - now it was she who was leaving THEM, and the process was no less painful.
"What's this?" Papa's voice broke through the nighttime silence from the end of the hallway very gently so as not to startle much.
Parker still jumped slightly as the unexpected voice broke through her reverie. "It's late - and I tried to be quiet... What are you doing up?" she asked, straightening and using the back of her free hand to wipe at the tear on her cheek.
"I'm used to your getting me up at this hour, evidently," he replied with some humor, "and awoke by myself when I didn't hear you call out." He pulled his bathrobe tighter around him and pulled on the belt, then padded across the room in bare feet and turned her into the dim moonlight from outside. "No nightmare tonight, but no sleep either, eh?"
"The ghosts are walking with me tonight," she replied, resuming her lean against the wall near the drapes. She looked over at him, noting the raised eyebrows. "I'm feeling a little schizophrenic tonight - stuck between two lives and fitting into neither properly."
"C'mon - sit down with me. It's cold over here by the balcony." Sydney took her by the elbow and led her to the couch. "Now. What do you mean, the ghosts are walking? You don't mean..."
"No, no voices," she assured him, leaning back against the cushion comfortably. "Just old memories that belong to a life I'm leaving behind." She turned her head so she could see him again. "Papa, am I betraying those memories by trying to walk away from them?"
"No," he replied, "but I'm afraid you're attempting the impossible. Those memories are your background - where you came from. You can't walk away from them anymore than you can abandon your face."
"But they aren't part of who I am... who I want to be eventually."
"Sure they are. They are the sum of your experiences to date - they are why you are who you are in this moment." He leaned back against the cushion and faced her. "You can make peace with them - you can stop letting them terrorize you or making you feel guilty by accepting who you were at the time the memories were made - but you cannot abandon them and walk away. They are a part of you - a very important part."
"Remembering hurts, Papa," she cried softly.
"I know it does, ma petite," he soothed, taking her hand in his. "But the pain will grow less in time as new memories are added to them. They will become the foundation of your new life." He paused to think for a moment. "Do you remember what Mr. Parker said to me after your mother's so-called suicide?"
"You mean when he told you “life goes on”?"
"Mmm-hmmm," he nodded. "Of all the things that man said, that was probably the most true. Life does go on. Debbie and what happened to her is in the past - nothing you can do now will affect what happened. It's up to you if you let the memory of what happened in the past keep you from enjoying something in the future. You do not betray the memory of Debbie by getting to know Janine, Parker."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," he chuckled. "If anything, your time with Debbie will have prepared you a bit for Janine - but only a bit. Paul wasn't kidding when he said that she could be overwhelming at times."
"I'm afraid the time will come and I'll need to protect her - and I'll fail again," she said softly, burying her nose in his shoulder.
"Damn it, you didn't fail the last time, so quit beating yourself over the head with things you couldn't have prevented!" he insisted firmly as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. "The Centre is what hurt Debbie - not you. You cannot make yourself responsible for all the evils the Centre perpetuated, and you know better than to try."
"But I wasn't there..."
"Because Lyle stopped you," he reminded her pointedly. "You know as well as I the strength of a diversionary tactic like that. He might as well have hog-tied you for a short time - he accomplished the same end. You were made a victim that day too, Parker - only your wound wasn't a visible one." He thought for a moment. "And knowing how the Centre works, tell me the truth: if you HAD been there when the sweepers arrived, do you REALLY think you could have protected Debbie?"
"They might not have..."
"...broken her cheek bone? Perhaps," he pressed on vehemently. "Then again, injuring Debbie to send a message to Broots might have been part of the plan all along - in which case you might have gotten hurt yourself too, if not killed, by being in the way."
"At least if I'd gotten hurt, it would have shown Broots that I was there, trying to help..." she whispered softly. "Maybe he would have moved away, but he would have at least..."
Sydney kissed the side of her head through her curls. "I think Broots over-reacted, and maybe dumped some of his anger at the Centre on you as a convenient target - but that when he calmed down, he'd know better. It could be that he feels he can't get back in contact with you to let you know he's taken you off the hook for fear of letting the Centre know where he'd gone - and he probably couldn't find you now if he tried."
She snuggled down against him. "Maybe..." She had to admit that he had a valid point.
"And I'll bet Debbie doesn't hold it against you at all, does she?"
Parker shrugged - she honestly hadn't had a chance to talk to Debbie after getting her to the emergency room, so she didn't know whether Debbie blamed her or not. If she were honest with herself, however, knowing Debbie's forgiving nature, she was fairly sure that Papa was right that the girl wasn't holding a grudge. Debbie was an intelligent girl - she knew where the line was between the Centre and Miss Parker. That realization lifted the weight of guilt from her almost immediately.
She closed her eyes and relaxed against Sydney's shoulder. "I love you, Papa," she said softly after a long moment of soaking up the warmth and caring that he still gave to her completely without reservation. Were it not for his unceasing nurturing and support, she'd not be in any shape to even attempt to piece together a new life - one that evidently included another motherless girl.
"I love you too, Parker," he replied with a tired sigh, not for the first time wondering if Parker would ever find the bottom of the deep well of heartache and tragedy that had nearly killed her. He closed his eyes and just held his daughter close, grateful that he could.
~~~~~~~~
Parker took a deep breath of the warm April afternoon and then started down the stairs on her way to the mailbox. The morning had been an active one that had seen a preliminary trip to set up getting her driver's license at long last, as well as a quick tour of a few used car lots to check out prices. Papa had decided that he needed an after-lunch nap after that long midnight counseling session, and so she had decided to take his keys and fetch the mail to save him the trip. She would have to do something to try to forestall another nightmare again too - Papa was starting to visibly wear down with the strain of caring for her almost twenty-four hours a day, and she was beginning to worry about him. He needed his rest, and he wasn't getting it properly.
She herself was feeling better, however, and not as apprehensive about calling Paul that evening and accepting the invitation as she had been. She sniffed at the warm air, still learning to appreciate the smell of a springtime desert, and headed toward the low cement cube that housed the mailboxes for that area of the condominium complex. She quickly found the proper box, inserted the key and opened the little metal door.
"You're Parker Green, aren't you?" a girl's voice sounded off to her left.
She looked over from gathering her mail to find herself pinned by brilliant green eyes in a wide and pretty face. With her straight dark hair twisted into a knot on the back of her head from which a ponytail-like fringe dangled and swung with every movement she made, the girl was trying to look older than she was. She was dressed casually, with tee-shirt and jeans and a backpack thrown over one shoulder. "Yes," Parker answered carefully. "Can I help you?"
"My dad talks about you all the time," the girl continued in an accusatory tone, and Parker blinked as she realized that THIS was Janine Ruiz - come to seek her out without waiting for a proper introduction.
"Really?" she answered blandly, her insides tightening into a knot as she carefully closed the mailbox and then turned to the girl. "Then you must be Janine Ruiz."
"Yeah, so?" The defensiveness of the girl's attitude was obvious, and Parker could appreciate her position. She had had her father all to herself for years - and now, it seemed, her father was starting to think about making room in his life for someone new.
"What can I do for you?" Parker asked, keeping her voice neither too friendly nor too ambivalent.
"I don't want a new mom," Janine announced suddenly, and Parker could see a brief flash of fear behind the bristling façade.
"That's good," she replied easily, "because I don't think anybody can ever replace a person's mom."
Obviously that wasn't the answer Janine had been expecting, because part of the belligerence dropped away for a moment and was replaced with confusion. "But... if Dad..."
Parker shook her head. "Your dad and I just met, Janine - I've known him less than two weeks. I think it's a little early to be worrying about my trying to replace anybody, don't you?"
"Do you love him?" The green eyes were piercing and brutally direct.
"I like your dad," Parker answered slowly, "but like I said, I've only known him for less than two weeks. That's not enough time to fall in love with someone. I don't know enough about him to know if I would or not."
"Do you have kids too?"
Parker shook her head. "No, I've never been married."
The dark head tipped. "What do you do? Do you work at the university?"
The idea that she was getting the third degree so soon from one so young tweaked at her sense of humor, and Parker found herself having to fight against chuckling. No wonder Paul had said something about being overwhelmed at times. "No, I don't work at the university. I'm kinda between jobs at the moment - I was very ill, and my Papa brought me back to stay with him so I could get better." She cast her own assessing eye over the girl. "It's a little early in the afternoon. Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"I'm on first track, and I'm done for the day," Janine answered quickly, surprised that the role of interrogator had been usurped from her so easily. "What do you do, then?"
"I'm thinking of going back into law," Parker answered honestly. "I'm not sure, but that's what I'm considering. What about you? What do you want to do when you grow up?"
Again Janine found the tables turned. She shrugged. "I don't know - get married and have kids, I suppose..." She looked up at Parker again. "Don't you want to get married someday - have kids?"
"Maybe," Parker admitted, "someday. But until then, I work at just being who I am and doing what I need to do." She cast a firm grey gaze at the girl. "That's about all any of us can do, don't you think?"
Janine shrugged again and studied the woman in front of her. She was very pretty, just as Dad had said she was. And she was being honest with her answers, which counted for a lot. Janine hated it when grown-ups tried to doctor the truth to make it easier for kids to understand. "So you're really not trying to become my new mom?" she asked again, this time more softly and a little less defensively.
"How old were you when you lost your mom?" Parker asked back.
"Nine," Janine replied. "Why?"
"Then you remember her?"
"Yeah. So..."
Parker shook her head. "Then nobody can replace your mom - and I'd be a fool to even try. See, my mom died when I was maybe a year or so younger than you, and I wouldn't let anybody replace her either. So I know exactly how you feel. At best, I can be a friend - maybe someone you feel you can talk to sometimes, when it gets hard to talk to your dad about girl stuff - but I cannot be your mother."
"And if you and Dad get together?" Janine couldn't let go of her fear quite yet.
Parker sighed. "If your dad and I do get together, then we'd get together - and the three of us would have to try to put it together as a family. BUT, even then, I know I could never replace your mom. We could come to mean a lot of things to each other, but that would never be one of them - unless that was what YOU wanted. Even then, things with you and me would be very different from what you had with your mom."
"Do you want to get together with my Dad?"
"I told you, I want to get to know him first - and that's going to take some time," Parker answered truthfully. "See, I'm not a big fan of love at first sight - that's a great way to get burned." She looked down into less antagonistic green and tried a smile. "So... Do I pass muster? Do I have your permission to get to know your Dad a little better?"
Janine's face broke briefly into an answering smile that the girl worked hard to stomp down. "I suppose..." she answered in a tone of childish reluctance. "So, you're coming over on Sunday?"
"Yes, I am," Parker answered quietly. "I was going to call your Dad and tell him, but maybe you could give him the message for me?"
"OK," the girl agreed, sounding much more agreeable. "I'll see you around," she said, turning to head across the complex toward her home.
"See you Sunday," Parker called back, and turned to go back home herself.
"Say..."
Parker turned. "What?"
"What do I call you?" Janine asked.
"My name's Parker. You can call me that."
"OK, Parker. See you on Sunday."
Parker watched the girl walk spryly across the grass toward the community club house, then turned to head back indoors herself. No, Janine was nothing like Debbie at all, with the exception of being very close and protective of her father - which was something that Parker could now thoroughly understand from a daughter's perspective. She smiled to herself, thinking that much of the reason for the apprehension that had been building for Sunday had just been brushed aside by a young girl's defensiveness and curiosity. She'd have to tell Papa what happened when he got up - he could use the chuckle.
With her head held high and a bounce in her step, Parker headed home.
