Jarod

I almost fell out of bed with shock when I was woken up by Parker’s thrashing and groaning next to me. The nightmares she had been experiencing every night when we had first moved here had stopped a long time ago and since then I hadn’t seen her like that.

“Parker,” I whispered as not to startle her and gently grabbed her shoulder to calm her. Her eyes flew open and she obviously needed a moment to orientate herself, then sat up shakily, reaching for the glass of water she always kept on her bedside table. Draining its contents, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the headboard, taking deep breaths.

“Is that why you are so tired? Have you been having nightmares again while I was in California?”

She gave me a fleeting look without answering my question.

“Were they about the Centre again?” I inquired further.

“No.” I waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t, but put the glass back, pulled her duvet up and turned her back at me. I frowned and inched closer to her, my arm comfortably slung around her middle.

“Are you still worrying about the baby?” I asked, kissing her earlobe to which she reacted with a nervous tilting of her head.

“I will be worrying about our children for the rest of my natural life and if the horror movies I’ve seen are anything to go by, even beyond it.”

Her response was evasive to say the least, so I wove my fingers through hers and squeezed her hand slightly. “We have come quite a way from keeping important things from each other, don’t you think?” I asked soothingly. “What was your dream about?”

She finally turned around to face me, but I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t want to be in my arms or whether she really wanted to look at me.

“I’ve been having dreams about Donald,” she finally confessed. “He’s standing next to my bed every night, telling me that he is not dead and that I must find him.”

I succumbed to shocked silence for a moment, while a chill went down my spine.

“The same dream? Every night?” I asked and she nodded.

“Exactly the same scenario every time for three nights.”

People are known to dream variations on themes that lurk around their subconscious, but having exactly the same dream several nights in a row was odd indeed. No wonder she looked exhausted if she always woke up like that and spent her sleeping time thrashing.

“That’s a weird dream.”

“Jarod, I am not even sure it is really a dream.”

I couldn’t help but frown at her statement. I must have looked patronizing, because her face hardened instantly. “You don’t believe me.”

“I am not even sure what it is you want me to believe. What would it be if it was not a dream?” I tried to reason with her. Maybe she was just confused from waking up with such a start in the middle of the night? Okay, whom was I trying to fool?

“Neither am I, but I don’t think Donald is dead.”

I tried my hardest not to sigh and succeeded- but only just. She had seen even through the half-darkness of our bedroom that I was not convinced and shook her head in despair.

“Jarod, I know you don’t believe in what I have told you about what's happening to me.”

I interrupted her before she could say more. “I do believe that something has changed, but are you sure it’s not just the stress getting to you? With the long hours at work and all those hormones...”

She cut me off sharply. “Don’t reduce me to a bunch of hormones, Jarod. I know about hormones. They make me cry at inappropriate times or want to jump you in public. This is different.”

I still couldn’t be convinced since the whole concept was just too airy for me. What exactly was she trying to tell me? As a Pretender I had been all kinds of things and I had learned that behind most of things that seemed inexplicable, there were very real hoaxes. I had learned not to believe in the supernatural and I didn’t see a reason to start now. My wife was a complicated woman and she was still haunted by the Centre and the circumstances of her last pregnancy. Maybe another baby and the sad events surrounding Donald had taken their toll on her and she tricked herself into believing in some sixth sense that wouldn’t make her feel so helpless faced with the danger that Sammy was in, too. But how could I say this delicately?

“Parker, maybe you should just take some more time off at work and find a way to really relax for a while. You need your rest right now and you...”

She closed her eyes in frustration, then opened them again and allowed me to look into them. There was no confusion or stress showing there. She looked utterly calm and for the first time my conviction wavered.

“Jarod, you know me. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t know. I am a prosecuting attorney for god’s sake! I need evidence before I even come close to accepting the truth. I know how it feels from when Lyle brought me back to the Centre, from when I was down in that sublevel, from when I was unconscious at the hospital!”

We had never talked about what had happened at the Centre that day, since we had both been too happy to leave it all behind and thus hadn’t tried to work it out.

“What happened there?” I asked.

“Raines told me about Project Cassandra and he also told me that my mother had had the same ability when she was pregnant with me. Jarod, he said she saw you and told them where to find you.”

I shook my head, not at all happy with what she was saying.

“Since when do you believe the things Raines is telling you?”

“Why would they have sent me to get pregnant to you otherwise, Jarod? Why would they have paid Thomas to do it? Do you think they’d act on such a flawed plan if they didn’t have scientific proof of their theory?”

I was beginning to become desperate here. Was she even listening to herself?

“Parker!” I said with more force than I had intended. “Raines was going nuts with the prospect of the Centre falling. He would have believed anything. Your father probably just liked the idea of another Pretender. And look at Sammy: They would have had a field day with her. She has your smarts and instinct and my Pretender gene. Do you have any idea how quickly she understood what I was telling her about the aircraft? The stewardess nearly dropped the orange-juice when she overheard.”

Parker shook her head. “Isn’t there something else about her that you have noticed?”

I was confused for a moment, unsure of what she was playing at.

“She knew I was pregnant before we told her and she also knew that it is a boy.”

“So?” I asked, barely able to control the anger in my voice.

“When I was little, I could do the same. I was with Raines when they killed my mother.” The memory still gave her face the frightened look I had seen back then. “He was urging me on to concentrate on her and I knew that something was wrong and that she was about to die. I saw her, Jarod.”

“Are you trying to tell me now that Sammy is a medium, too?” I realized too late that I had just made fun of her and she didn’t take that well. Her eyes darkened and she shook her head.

“Jarod, I know with some certainty that Donald is not dead. He is alive and the burned remains we have found are not his. I will prove it and I will find this poor little boy.”

With that she climbed out of bed and walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked for lack of a better question, since I was still far too confused by what she had been telling me.

“I’ll go sleep in the guestroom,” she said, then left without another word.

Miss Parker

“Coffee?”

I looked up at Val and the cellophane cup that accompanied her and accepted it with a weak smile.

“I just screwed up in there, didn’t I?”

She sat down next to me on the bench of the empty courthouse corridor and shrugged.

“Well, not really. At least you didn’t faint. Sorry,” she added when she realized that the joke wasn’t going down well. “The new attorney was obviously smarter than the old one and Baxter had the jury wooed with his testimony. That’s just the problem with our system...”

She took a sip of her own coffee and screwed up her face. “... jury-members like to confuse reasonable doubt with their attraction to the defendant and then the guilty walk free.”

She patted my thigh. “Don’t beat yourself up. You could have presented a picture of him holding a bloody knife next to a dead body and they would have been babbling on about reasonable doubt.”

I gave her a gracious smile and took a sip of my coffee. “God, this is gross!” I exclaimed.

“And I actually had to pay for this poison. What about me treating you to lunch?”

I accepted her invitation and followed her towards the exit where Baxter was just dismissing his attorney with one of his beaming smiles and a pat on the shoulder. The lawyer, Clifford Denton, smiled at me when I approached. He was a stern but friendly man who had graduated top of his class at Harvard and was about the complete opposite of Steve Christian.

“Hello Miss Parker, Val,” he touched Val’s shoulder and grinned. He had been a year ahead of Val at law school and I strongly suspected her to have a soft spot for him although of course she would never admit it.

“Hi Cliff,” Val said. “Nice work in there. Just don’t expect to get your clients off every time from now on.”

“Ah, Val. I wouldn’t stand a chance against you since you could just outtalk me in volume.”

While they continued to tease each other, Baxter turned to me and addressed me in his kind voice.

“How are you feeling, Miss Parker?”

“Good, thank you.”

“Yes, it looked that way in the courtroom. Now we technically aren’t adversaries anymore, are we?”

I lifted the corner of my mouth subtly. “Technically.”

I would have never confessed it to anyone, but I was almost glad he had been acquitted- A fact that should have made me reconsider my choice of career, but as embarrassing as it was, I had somehow become another victim of his charm.

“Then would you allow me to take you out to dinner sometime?”

I shot a sidewards glance at Val, but she was too busy insulting her old friend to even notice what was happening around her, so I shook my head slightly.

“I don’t think that is such a good idea, Charles.”

“Maybe you’re right, Miss Parker. Although I regret it. Please call me if you decide to change your mind.”

He handed me a business card and gave me a look that made me regret my refusal. A dinner date would have been a nice diversion from the uneasy tiptoeing around each other that was going on at home. Since I had moved out of the bedroom, Jarod and I were trying hard to act normal around our daughter while we avoided at all costs to be alone with each other.

I had to admit to myself that I was crushed that he refused to believe me. I knew I could have had Sydney explain it all to him. Maybe he would listen to his old mentor who had seen both me and my mother with his own eyes. Even though it seemed a relieving prospect, something was holding me back: What good would it do me to see that he trusted Sydney’s judgment over mine?

Worst of all, he had invited his family for his birthday next month. He had only found out his actual date of birth from his parents and while we usually ignored mine (because I hated to be reminded of being another year older) and only celebrated Sammy’s, he was eager to have everyone he loved around. I wondered whether that included Zoe.

“Would you forgive me if I was meddlesome enough to tell you that you looked very beautiful today?” He asked and I couldn’t help but smile. He seemed to sense people’s insecurities just like I did, but help them overcome them instead of rubbing it in their faces.

“Thank you,” I said for a lack of a better response, then excused myself due to the urgent ringing of my phone.

“What?” I asked when I didn’t recognize the number.

“This is Margaret.”

Jarod's mother? I excused myself from Baxter and Val by means of a raised hand and quickly walked down the corridor for some privacy, the phone pressed to my ear. My heart was beating quickly and I wondered what I owed this call to, feeling myself getting nervous already.

“Michelle, Jarod doesn’t know I am calling.”

My first name hit me like a brick, but I didn’t dare to protest.

“So why are you calling?” I hadn’t meant to sound rude, but I probably did because Margaret’s tone changed and became a bit more clipped.

“He told me about your violent morning sickness.”

I lifted an eyebrow in annoyance and was glad at the same time, that we were not talking face to face. So what Jarod had told his family about me was the tale of my undignified retching into a toilet- great.

“Yes,” I said carefully.

“I thought you might want to try aroma therapy. It is a good way to relieve the symptoms.”

Aroma therapy? I would have told anyone else to go to hell and take their esoteric bullshit with them, but tried my best to appear interested with Jarod’s mother. At least she was somewhat reaching out to me. Her voice sounded forced, though.

“I haven’t heard of that, yet.” I said. “Thank you for the suggestion. I would be glad if it helped.”

I couldn’t believe that I was walking down a court corridor talking to my mother in law about pathetic remedies for morning sickness. Who had written the script for this movie? Because it sucked.

“Yes. I just thought I’d let you know.”

“Thank you,” I said again, feeling stupid.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you next month, then. October 17, you know. We have been getting together for Jay’s birthday ever since he was taken from us.”

Touchy topic. Steer away.

“Yes, umm... I think it will be a nice evening.” Trying to be nice had never been my strong point but this was downright ridiculous.

“I hope so. Well, see you, Michelle and good luck with the aroma therapy.”

“Thank you again. Goodbye, Margaret.”

I hung up and remained standing there for a moment, shaking my head. “Aroma therapy,” I told myself in the nasty voice I would have so loved to use on Jarod’s mother. “Strike me down now, lord.”

Jarod

“Hey ya, Jarod. How’s the wifey?” My friend and colleague, James Thunder stood in the doorway, presenting me with two bottles of cold beer. I wasn’t one for alcohol and if I drank it was usually wine, but I had understood that very often the concept of male- bonding involved beer, so I accepted one of the bottles.

“Has been a busy day, hasn’t it?” he asked.

I nodded. “Flu, broken foot and a marble in a nose.”

“Kids are crazy,” James stated. He was the local dentist whose practice resided in the same building as mine, just across the hall. He was the type of guy who played practical jokes and was almost as childish as I was. Being a bachelor, he shared his house with a rising number of play station games and owned an entire collection of cartoons on DVD. We had spent more than just a few evenings at his place and I considered him a good friend.

“Yeah, maybe they are.”

“What are you up to tonight? Feel like another season of Family Guy?” he asked, grinning and gulping down a fair amount of beer.

I wondered for a moment, then shrugged. The situation at home was awkward and Parker was in full ice-queen mode whenever we were alone, so it wouldn’t hurt to stay away from her for a bit.

“Let me just send Parker a message.” I quickly typed “home late”, then hit “send”.

“Okay, I am ready.”

Miss Parker

“Home late,” I murmured, shaking my head in frustration when I finally got round to reading the text message Jarod had sent two hours before. He could have written “banging Zoe” or “avoiding you” for all it was worth. I hurled the phone onto the bed and left the bedroom to check on Sammy. She was sitting up in her own bed, waiting for me.

“Where’s Daddy?” she asked, right on cue to once again force me to keep my temper at bay in order to avoid having my daughter think I was a raging maniac.

“He’ll be home late because he has to work,” I did what mothers have been doing since the beginning of mankind: I sugarcoated an ugly truth, hoping that she would remain blissfully unaware of the fact that their parents’ relationship was on the rocks right now.

“He was going to read my book to me. Grandpa has given it to me.” She held out a large volume that would keep me occupied with reading and preoccupied with its donor and his wife for weeks. Talk about stress-reduction.

“Then move over, Sweetie,” I told her and climbed into bed with her settling comfortably among the army of teddy bears and toy cats that watched over her sleep every night.

“Mommy, you’re sitting on Bernie,” Sammy warned sternly and I got up again to retrieve the teddy bear. “I’m sorry,” I told him, then settled him between us. After five years of being a mother, I was not feeling stupid talking to toys anymore.

Sammy handed me the book and smiled up at me. “We are where Daddy has stuck the bookmark.” Thank you, genius of a husband.

I looked at the cover and found that I would be reading “The Beauty and the Beast” to her. And once again, how fitting.

When I had finished the chapter I leaned over and kissed the top of her hair, enjoying the scent of my child’s hair. When she had first been born, I had tiptoed into her room every night and kissed her forehead to enjoy her sweet scent. I hadn’t been able to believe that she was actually real without it.

“I love you, little one,” I told her in a rush of love and pulled her close to me which made her laugh.

“Can you tell me about the night I was born, Mommy?”

Her expectant look cut through me like glass and I had a hard time preventing it from showing on my face. Still, I knew she could tell anyway.

“What’s wrong, mommy?” she asked and I gave her a reassuring smile.

“It’s alright, baby. There’s not much to tell actually.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Where would I start? I wondered how much I could tell her because she was still too young to understand the other things that had been going on at that time. Like the complications and what I had done to her father.

“Well, your father drove me to hospital and you were born at 7 o’clock in the morning. The doctor handed you to me and I could see you for the first time. To me you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.”

“Did it hurt?” she asked and I had such a violent flashback that I almost allowed the fear to show on my face.

“I... I can’t breathe, Jarod... Oh...my...”

I touched my throat as if it would take the memory away that gave me the feeling of being suffocated even now. “These things hurt, baby. But that’s not for you to think about. It was all forgotten when you looked at me for the first time.”

I pulled her close again and stroked her hair gently while she snuggled up to me and placed her hand on my stomach.

“He can feel that, you know,” she explained. “I think he likes it.”

Jarod had been reading every book on pregnancy and babies that he could get his hands on, but I had been too busy trying to repress my sense and recover from my stunt at the Centre, so I didn’t really know whether she was right. If so, maybe Jarod had told her. Or maybe she could just tell. Just like I had been able to tell that the courteous, friendly little boy at the Centre had a great dark abyss inside him whose origins back then I hadn’t understood.

“Do you?” I paused, wondering whether this was the moment to ask her. “You did just know you would have a brother, didn’t you?” I asked and she gave me a wide sure smile.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I knew. I knew since Christine’s summer party. I don’t know how.”

I couldn’t begin to tell Sammy how relieved I was to hear that. I wasn’t the only one with hunches that proved dead accurate, but my daughter was just the same. We did share this sense and besides making me feel even closer to her, it also calmed me and relieved me of the fear that maybe Jarod was right and I was just another victim of burn-out-syndrome.

“Mrs Jenkins said pregnant women are not allowed to drink wine,” she said and I giggled involuntarily.

“That’s why you were suddenly clumsy and made me drop my glass!”

She smiled shyly. “You were so angry with me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me about the baby, Sammy?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I thought you would ask me why I knew.”

I sat up to look into her eyes. “Baby, you can tell me anything. And besides, I know how it feels. I knew things a as a little girl, too. And so did your grandma.”

“Really?” Sammy’s eyes widened. “So I am not just weird?”

I laughed. “You’re my daughter- I am sure that makes you a bit weird, but no. You have a gift, but you have to use it wisely. Promise me that?”

“What do you mean, wisely?” She furrowed her brow.

“Don’t use it against anybody. Don’t tell things you know about people you’re angry with.” The sole fact that she looked scandalized at the prospect of revealing secrets about someone, or maybe even about being truly angry with a human being, showed me how much of Jarod was in her.

“Mommy! I would never do that!”

“Very well.” I kissed her temple. “You don’t have to think that you’re weird, okay? Just don’t tell anybody about your gift because people tend to make of things they don’t understand.”

She nodded solemnly when there was a cough from the door. There was Jarod, wearing a leather jacket for the first time in months, looking grim. The dark expression vanished from his face when Sammy looked up at him, too.

“Daddy!” she beamed, reaching her arms out for him. He approached her and gave her a firm hug, only acknowledging my presence with a pointed look over her shoulder.

“It’s time to sleep, honey. Your mother and I have something to discuss.”

“Good night.” We took turns kissing her goodnight after which Jarod switched the light off and - against his usual routine of leaving the door slightly ajar- closed it firmly behind us. When he turned around, he looked positively angry. I could smell beer on his breath when he approached me to talk to me properly for the first time since our dispute in the bedroom.

“What were you telling her about?” The question sounded rhetoric.

I understood why he was angry and sighed inwardly. He had obviously overheard what I had been telling Sammy about our mutual sense.

“It’s not enough that you lose sight of reality with yourself, you have to put fancies into her head, too!” He looked at me intently and grabbed my wrist not painfully, but still with some force, trying to bring me to my senses, ironically.

“You need help, Parker. You need to take time off from work and see a psychologist about your issues. I'm worried about you!”

My frustration grew with every word he said and as it became clearer that, no matter what I’d say, he wouldn’t believe a word of it.

“Don’t tell me about issues, Jarod!” I admonished him. “Don’t come home all drunk and insult me like that. I would never try to influence Sammy just to make a point!”

I had seen Jarod that tremendously angry with other people often, but he was usually more gentle with me.

“I am not drunk, Parker. I’ve had a few beers which is nothing compared to what you and your girlfriends put away when you’re out!”

“Okay, then it’s even worse that I cannot make myself believe that your allegations are simply down to the fact that you can’t hold your liquor!”

“I am trying to help you!” he almost shouted as we made our way as far away from Sammy’s room as possible. He shut the kitchen door behind us with a bang and faced me fully.

“You’ve never opened up about your issues, Parker and now it’s getting to you!”

“So what are the issues you keep talking cryptically about?” Maybe I was trying to torture myself but at least I regretted what I had said as soon as the words had left my mouth.

“Where would I begin!” He threw his hands up into the air. “You still treat people like shit, you’re unable to cry in front of your own husband, your family was horribly screwed-up and the only friends you have are just as grim and cynic as yourself!”

The look of shock on his own face at what he had just told me didn’t help me much and I was horrified when I felt tears stinging in my eyes. The problem was, that with Jarod I could be sure that he didn’t just say things to hurt me, but only to bring me to my senses. So this was his real opinion of me. And it stung horribly. I could have justified myself, yelled at him and told him how many hours I had spent on the phone with Sydney, trying to come to terms with my being so damn twisted. I could have reminded him of how hard I was trying to get the snappy, neurotic side under control or how overwhelming the urge to run was, when I was about to show weakness.

But I didn’t. I simply walked towards the door to flee, absolutely unable to endure his presence any longer while I had finally been presented with proof of what I had blurted out to Sydney just two nights ago. Even Jarod couldn’t stand my being a train wreck forever and although I was improving, it would never be fast enough.

Jarod contributed further to my misery by stepping into my way, so I couldn’t get to the door. I was tall and strong, but I knew I would never stand a chance against him, so I simply clawed at his arm, desperate for him to allow me to leave.

“Step aside!”

“I won’t let you run away again, Parker. You’ve been running from me and from yourself for five years now.”

I had to use all my strength to keep my voice steady. “Let. Me. Go.”

“Or what?”

I turned on my heel and walked towards the other end of the living-room, turning my back at him, while I was busy blocking out his harsh words that were on a continuous loop inside my head. As frantic inside as I was stony outside, I hadn’t heard him approach and jumped when he put his hands on my shoulders, standing behind me.

“I love you, Parker,” he said in a very sad voice that seemed to be foreshadowing a major “but”, but he remained silent after saying it.

“How could you, Jarod?” I asked huskily. “I don’t fit into your happy new little word. I am who I am and I am trying to improve, but I am obviously unable to live up to your new standards.”

With that I went for the door and grabbed my car- keys from the counter in passing.

TBC