Chapter 27: Beginnings and Endings

January 19, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“Are you upset with me?” Jessica asked when we were sitting in the sauna Wednesday evening after our session with Doctor Green.

“I’m not,” I said.

“Me, either,” Kara added. “You were just telling the truth, Jess.”

Jessica sighed, “I know, but the stuff about Jorge?”

“You needed a friend,” I said. “And I was happy he put himself forward.”

“But I killed him,” she sighed.

“No more than I did,” I said.

“What?” Jessica gasped.

“I encouraged him to keep seeing you, to bring the kids to see you, and to feed me information so I could figure out how to get you to come home.”

Jessica laughed, “Uh, sorry, but that last bit is SO you!”

“I never took my eyes off the prize, Jess. Never once.”

“But I effectively betrayed both of you,” she sighed. “I wanted to be with Jorge. No, let me say it clearly, I wanted him to fuck me into next month and keep fucking me until I forgot the two of you. But he had too much integrity to do that. And in a sense, I’m glad that didn’t happen. I was using him and I don’t think he realized it.”

“He wasn’t ignorant, Jess,” I said. “He knew what was going on. So did I. Jorge wasn’t ‘playing along’ if you will, he felt you didn’t understand your own motives and that deep down you really DID have feelings for us. And for him. And I think he was right. You more or less admitted that to Doctor Green.”

“I know. The two of you, I mean you and Jorge, just confused the hell out of me. Both of you, in so many words, told me you didn’t like me at all, and yet you both loved me. That just made no sense at all. I’m starting to understand what you’ve been telling me all along - the being ‘in love’ isn’t really what we should strive for. It’s deciding to love. And that can overcome hating the person you love.”

“Now you’re starting to understand,” I said. “All you need to do is put it into action.”

“As if it were that easy,” she sighed.

“Decide to love us, Jess. Then act on that decision. It’s pretty simple, really. And before you object, I’m going to tell you from personal experience that you can be extremely successful in your career even if your spouses and kids and friends are a priority. I’ve done it, haven’t I?”

She nodded, “But your situation is different. You have a lot of flexibility.”

“I didn’t say our situations were exactly the same, but with help from Kara, Elyse, Penny, Dave, and Jamie, I’ve figured out how to do it. You can do the same thing. Al certainly did, though I don’t prefer his solution. That works for him, but it won’t work for me. And I know it won’t work for Kara.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed.

“It’s risky, Jess,” Kara said. “But it’s a risk worth taking.”

“I’ve quoted Merton to you,” I said. “But how about Leo Buscaglia? He said something very similar. ‘The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.’ I’d say that about sums it up. You’re a slave to ‘Doctor Jessica’ and it’s time to implement an ‘Adams Family Thirteenth Amendment’ and free the slaves. So let it be written, so let it be done!”

Both Jessica and Kara laughed hard.

“Pharaoh?” Kara giggled. “You’ll need to shave your head like Yul Brynner!”

“I could have said I was making Jess an offer she couldn’t refuse!” I grinned.

“I don’t know,” Jessica said.

“So what?! There are lots of things I don’t know. And lots of things Kara doesn’t know. But we don’t let the things we don’t know keep us from moving forward and exploring! And I’ll point out that being ‘Doctor Jessica’ hasn’t been any safer than launching Challenger when it was too cold in Florida. You’ve crashed twice now. Do you want to crash again? And lose everything?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Well, then the stark choice before you is to accept the risk and get on with it, or refuse to do so and have a third incident, from which none of us will recover. Not you, not Kara and me, not the kids, not our friends.”

“You can’t lay all that on me!” Jessica protested.

“No? You think you operate in a vacuum? You don’t. You made us part of your lives when you asked me on a date. Kara and I are here, ready to help you and make this work. You’re physically here, and I believe, emotionally here. The only impediment is mental - being ‘Doctor Jessica’. Well, you’re more than that, whether or not you want to be. And to STOP being more than that, you’ll have to blow it all up and leave rubble. Is that what you REALLY want?”

“Steve,” Kara cautioned softly, putting her hand on my arm.

I ignored the warning, and continued.

“But you know what? That’s only one part of it. There’s something else you have to do.”

“What?” she asked warily.

“Talk to Al. As your dad. And have a REAL father-daughter conversation. About everything. I mean that.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed.

“God damn it, Jess!” I growled. “I’m tired of that answer! Is that what happens when someone comes into the ER? You throw up your hands and say you don’t know? I call bullshit. I’ve seen it. That’s an excuse and I won’t have it.”

“Steve,” Kara warned again, this time more forcefully.

“I’ve said my piece,” I replied. “It’s up to Jess now.”

There was silence for the next few minutes, save the quiet hiss of steam coming from the heated rocks to which I’d added a bit of water.

“Steve,” Jessica said slowly and deliberately, “would you mind sleeping with Elyse or Michelle so Kara and I can spend some time together alone?”

“That doesn’t seem like a sacrifice on his part,” Kara giggled. “But couldn’t we do the same thing in the ‘Indian’ room?”

“We could,” Jessica said, “but I think you and I need some time together, and this way he’s not waiting for us.”

There was still a gulf there that needed to be crossed, and one that the girls had to find a way to bridge themselves. I could help, but at some point, unless Kara was completely comfortable with Jess, and Jess was willing to give herself to the trio fully, there wasn’t much I could do.

“I think it’s probably a good idea,” I said. “Elyse has made it clear she misses our regular times together.”

“You could do that, Tiger,” Jessica said.

I shook my head slowly, “No. I’m not the one who changed things; she did. She’s trying to map things out with Eduardo and if she and I are ‘regular’ that interferes with the relationship. Originally, we were supposed to be done after Michael was born, but then she changed it. And then changed it again. I have to leave it to her.”

“Go, Tiger. We’ll see you in the morning.”

I nodded and kissed them both, grabbed my robe and left the sauna. To me, Jessica’s request told me that she was going to try, and that she needed to figure out just what Kara would accept. And that was a good thing. If those two could find a modus vivendi to move the trio forward, things would begin to fall into place.

“Want some company tonight?” I asked Elyse who was sitting in the great room.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“No, not at all. We had a good counseling session then a good talk afterwards. Kara and Jess wanted some time together and didn’t want me to wait up.”

“Oh! THAT kind of company! Yes, please!”

She hopped up off the couch and turned off the TV. She took my hand and led me up to her bedroom and into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stripped off her clothing and stepped in with me.

“Why were you surprised that I offered to spend the night with you?” I asked as I rinsed off the sweat from the sauna.

“You haven’t done it without me prompting in ages,” she said, wrapping her arms around me from behind.

“I always let you girls decide those things, Belgium!” I said. “And that’s especially true once you became serious with Eduardo. You know I’m violating my cardinal rule for you.”

Elyse rubbed her hands up and down my chest and stomach.

“It’s not Tuesday!” she laughed. “But I am NOT telling you to go away!”

Her hands slipped lower and found more interesting things to rub.

“Are you regretting your decision?” I asked as she stroked me gently while cupping my balls.

“We talked about this before and I don’t think regret is the right word. I suppose melancholy is the right term for it. I always knew this was coming and I thought I’d be prepared for it.”

I turned off the shower, picked up a sopping wet Elyse, and carried her to her bed. She was ready and I slid easily into her warmth. We kissed and touched as we moved slowly together, savoring the feel of our lovemaking. Our movements were even slower and gentler than usual as we expressed our deep love for each other through the motions of our bodies. Elyse had several gentle orgasms before a final explosive one, set in motion by my own release. When our breathing returned to normal, I moved next to her and pulled the sheet and blanket over us.

“We should probably change the sheets,” Elyse sighed.

“You have a mattress cover and pad, and it’s nice and comfy in the room!”

“But it won’t be comfy in the wet sheets!”

I sighed, and we got up and changed the sheets, throwing the wet ones in the corner to deal with in the morning, then got back into the bed, and under the fresh linen.

“Was there an issue at your counseling session tonight?” Elyse asked as we cuddled close.

“We’re getting to the heart of the matter,” I said. “It’s tough, but Jess is really trying. I was pretty direct with her while we were in the sauna. Kara was a bit worried I was being too rough, but at this point, I’m not in the mood to pull any punches.”

“Nor should you be. If she doesn’t get her shit together or walks out again, that has to be it, Steve; it really does. You can’t subject Kara and the kids to more of her bullshit. You can NOT turn into your dad.”

“I know,” I said. “That was the revelation that really put me on the right path. But I think we’re going to make it. I know you don’t like Jess. Heck, I don’t like her at the moment. But she’s really trying. That’s what this time with Kara is about. The three of us sleep in the same bed, and spend a lot of time together, but we’re not a trio. Yet.”

“No compromises,” Elyse said firmly.

“Everyone has to compromise,” I said. “But I understand your point. How are things with Eduardo?”

“Good. You know I see him every Friday and the Saturdays we don’t have Guys’ and Girls’ Night, and he comes for the family dinner. The boys really like him.”

“Do they know you were together with him before?”

“No. I thought that might be a bit too complicated to explain given their ages.”

“I want to ask something and I don’t want you to get upset, but do you think, like with Bethany, we should end this?”

“No!” she said fiercely, then rested her head on my chest. “But it probably makes sense. It’s making things more difficult for me.”

“Just like it did for Bethany.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Elyse, we can still be intimate, and I want to be. You’ve been with me longer than anyone, even Jennifer. Sure, I’ve known her and Melanie a bit longer, but nobody, and I mean nobody, has stuck by my side as you have. We’ve never even had a real fight!”

“Which proves either we should have married or that getting married was the worst idea I ever had. I’m not sure which.”

“Nor am I,” I said. “But am I very much sure that I love you.”

“I love you too,” she sighed.

January 20, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“I heard through the grapevine you went to visit Lisa Glass,” Stan Jakes said at lunch.

“Spying on me, Stan?” I asked.

He smiled, “No. One of our reporters was there doing a story on an inmate who claims to have been beaten and tortured into confessing by the Chicago Police.”

“Any truth to the matter?”

“This is Chicago. Would it really surprise you?”

“Sadly, no. So what can I do for you?”

He took a sip of his drink and finished swallowing the bite of his sandwich he’d just taken.

“Tell me why you went to see Ms. Glass.”

“We planned this lunch before that came up, so I know that’s not the main topic,” I said. “But the short answer is Alec asked me to go so she could apologize for the things she did to me. Otherwise, not much was said.”

“Thanks. I need to talk to you about something called a ‘web browser’ and a programming language called ‘html’.”

“Got a few hours?” I chuckled.

We ended up talking for nearly two hours before I had to leave to head back to the office, with a promise that Stan could stop in and I’d show him the NIKA website that I’d created, the Mosaic browser, and the computer that hosted the website.

January 21, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“What can we do for you?” I asked Agent O’Toole as he ushered Jamie and me into a conference room.

“I’ll ask you not to speak to anyone about this conversation. You’ll understand once it becomes public.”

“You said that on the phone,” I said. “And I agreed. So?”

“You were in Washington, DC a number of times in the company of Miss Voronin.”

“I’m sure you have detailed records,” I chuckled. “But if you’re looking for specific dates, I’d have to go home and check my calendars from those years.”

“Actually, we really just want to ask you about one name,” Agent Stone said. “Did you ever meet someone from the Soviet Embassy by the name of Sergey Dmitriyevich Chuvakhin?”

I wracked my brain for that name. ‘Sergey’ was a fairly common name, and I couldn’t be sure. But then I remembered a discussion over vodka with a Sergey Dmitriyevich about arms control. I wondered if that might be him.

“There was a guy named Sergey Dmitriyevich with whom I had a discussion about eliminating nuclear weapons. But we’re talking ‘85, I think, because it was before Ivan Voronin was posted back to the Soviet Union.”

“Sergey Dmitriyevich Chuvakhin was an arms-control expert. He was also KGB.”

“Along with about half the embassy, unless I miss my guess,” I replied. “My memory is hazy from that night given the amount of vodka I drank, but I don’t think I had any hint about that.”

“Did he, in any way, ask you to work for the Soviet Union?”

“No; and honestly, I can’t imagine anyone doing that. And if they had wanted that, they would have certainly tried to exploit my friendship with Katya Sergeyevna to do so. And that never happened. And you know she defected!”

“We spoke with Mrs. Anisimova,” Agent O’Toole said. “We’re going to ask you about another name, but as I said, you cannot repeat this name, or the name of the Soviet officer we just mentioned.”

“I got it,” I said.

“Have you heard of, met, or are you aware of a CIA officer named Aldrich Ames?”

I shook my head, “I’ve never heard that name before. I’m curious, why are you asking me about this?”

“We can’t divulge any details, but what we’re looking into started in April or May of 1985, right around the time you were in Washington, DC. I’m sure you can see why we might be interested.”

Another fucking spy! And because I had the ‘wrong’ friends, I was being talked to just like I had been with regard to the Walker case. At least this time, I was sitting in their well-appointed conference room, not in an interrogation room.

“Agent O’Toole, I wish I could help, but we’ve reached the limits of what I know. I drank with a LOT of Soviet officials that night. If you want to ask Tatyana Ivanovna, I’ll give you her phone number in Moscow. You know the saying ‘three sheets to the wind’?”