Chapter 79: Communication and Observation

Jeevan led me into the kitchen of his house where his wife Meena was, as usual, cooking something. I’d never been in their house when Meena was not actually cooking, and the smells, and comforting warmth, helped to ease my mind a little.

Meena looked at me and placed a lid on the pot she’d been stirring. She crossed to room to me and put her arm around me.

“Come,” she said. “Sit. Jeevan, get Caleb something to drink.”

To his credit Jeevan was already ahead of her, and within a few seconds I was seated at their kitchen table with a cup of tea in my hands.

I’d never really drunk tea before this. I’d just never really tried it. It was sweet and milky. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to have it again, but it was pleasant enough, and the warmth of it helped settle me.

“Now,” said Meena seeing I’d settled somewhat. “Tell me.”

I realized at that moment that it was Meena that I’d actually sought out. I loved Jeevan as a brother, but Meena, despite her lack of powers, had always been so astute and incisive. She’d also never been afraid to give me a metaphorical slap upside the head and literally tell me to get my head out of my ass. I knew, since I didn’t feel that I could trust my own emotional judgement at the moment, that I would be able to trust hers.

Jeevan sat beside her and smiled at me. I did feel his power gently supporting me as I spoke.

“I don’t know if you heard,” I said. “But last week, I shot and killed someone.”

Meena looked shocked. They hadn’t heard. I don’t know why, but it had never occurred to me to tell them about it. Since Maggie and Jeevan were only just barely on speaking terms, despite his help to her contacting power users, she wasn’t going to be the one to keep him updated.

“What happened?” asked Meena.

Gradually I explained everything. I told them about seeing the car, checking the plate. I sidetracked into the issues with Arnie and his dad, probably telling them far more than was fair to either party, but at this moment I had no thought for anything but unloading.

I went on to describe what had happened the previous week and how I’d come to shoot and kill Green.

I stopped then, looking at the pair of them. Waiting for their reaction, for their condemnation of me as a killer, a murderer. Instead Meena just reached forward and took my hands in hers.

“You did what was right,” she said in a soft voice. “Show me Kirsty?”

“What?” I asked.

“Give me your memories of the little girl whose life you saved.” She said. “Show me your memories of her.”

I searched through my memories of Kirsty. Of the little limpet who’d clamped onto my leg that first morning we’d met and grinned her mischievous grin as she stared up at me. Of all the times I’d seen, and held, her while she went to sleep both before and after the shooting.

Meena smiled as she assimilated those memories.

“She is a beautiful little girl,” she said. “And already I can see the love you have for her.”

“What?” I asked. “She’s my neighbors child. She has nothing to do with me...”

Meena laughed.

“You still don’t get it do you?” she asked. “You’ve been so busy working out how to protect others from your Empathic attraction, you never even realized that it has exactly the same effect on you.”

I looked at Jeevan, no doubt a puzzled look on my face. He smiled.

“Empathy is about emotion,” he said. “Yes, if people stay around you long enough, they will begin to fall in love with you, but have you not noticed just how easy it is for you to fall in love with them too?

“Empathy is all about building relationships. You can and will fall in love a lot, and when you feel love from someone else it will have a profound effect on you. Children especially will trigger your protective instinct. They will feel it, and recognize it. You will find yourself as a ‘child magnet’ where children who would normally act shy or reticent with strangers will simply accept you and feel secure, comforted, and protected by you.

“In a normal power user, that will trigger your parental instincts, to nurture and protect, and to look after the child. If you spend any significant time with them, it will soon turn into love for that child.”

Things clicked into place. How Edgar and Kirsty, both of whom would not tolerate strangers but for different reasons, were quite contented when they were with me. I could see just how easily this power could be abused. I grimaced.

“Ah,” said Jeevan. “I see you realize the dangers of empaths now, especially around children. A wild empath who has those kind of predilections is a very dangerous person indeed, and must be stopped at all costs. You, however, are not such a man. You are a kind, caring, and loving. You would never harm, nor see harm, come to a child. Which brings us back to the issue at hand.”

“You see,” said Meena, “you weren’t protecting strangers. You were being driven by an instinct that is stronger even than that laughingly called ‘maternal instinct’. Your instinct will always be to nurture and protect children no matter what. And it is not a bad thing.”

“I could have used my TK though,” I said reiterating the argument against lethal force.

“No,” said Jeevan. “You couldn’t. Your concentration had been broken by your Compulsion failing to have an effect on the man. You didn’t have time to re-focus on a different power, and stop him. Not to mention, you were STILL holding compulsion on the other two, since I am sure you had had no time to lock in their compulsions.”

I shook my head.

“So,” he said. “I completely concur with Maggie. If you’d tried TK, even if it HAD been able to work on him and that is by no means certain, I doubt you would have been in time to stop him shooting you. That would have then released the other two from your compulsion and the family that you’d gone in there to save would have been lost. Not to mention, you would have lost your own life. Think of how your girls and siblings would feel if you’d died in there that night.

“I have come across some people where no powers effected them, and I could no more tell you why powers have no effect, than why powers effect them in the first place.”

“I know, very well, how much you value life and how difficult what happened must be for you. I remember Maud and your feelings about her. Sometimes, though, we are left in a position where we are presented with two equally bad choices. You were between Scylla and Charybdis and you had to make a choice. You chose right. You chose to protect the innocent and those you loved. Even then you didn’t intend to kill, but you accepted that it might be the outcome. It was possible that he would have survived the shooting. You put him down and then stopped. You did not go and administer a coup-de-grace.

“What you did was measured, appropriate, and correct,” he said. I could feel his power flaring as he said it, and I knew he was ‘pressing his point’ as he made it. Interestingly I didn’t feel any resistance to his power from Tatarabuela Gonzales. Perhaps she agreed with him. Whatever the reason his power slipped through my shields with ease and settled on my mind. He wasn’t using Compulsion, only Empathy, but even that was enough to profoundly affect my thinking on what had happened.

Even though I knew he was using power, I felt better on hearing his words. He was telling me exactly what Maggie had told me, and what Dianna had told me. I recalled Jane talking to me as she placed her daughter in my arms. I remembered the protectiveness I felt toward the little girl, of how determined I’d been to make sure that no harm came to that innocent child.

Somewhere inside, I felt something uncoil, some tension release.

Meena looked at me.

“There’s more,” she said. “Isn’t there?”

Wearily I nodded. She motioned with her hand toward my tea.

“Have some more tea, and then tell me.” I took a sip from my cup. The taste was growing on me.

I went on to describe the issues I’d had at school. How Daryl had been thrown out of my Ethics class, and then gone on some kind of revenge spree, apparently getting up a petition to have me expelled from school.

“They didn’t know what had gone on,” I said, “only that there had been a shooting, and I was involved. A rumor started that I was having an affair with Jane, and that Chris had brought a friend to help him get revenge on me, and that I’d shot and killed the friend. He fabricated stories that I’d either managed to pass it off as self defence, despite the fact I was sleeping with Chris’ wife, or that I’d managed to hypnotize the police into letting me go. Even now, I can’t believe that anyone would fall for such rubbish, but it seemed that they did. Every single one of my hypnotherapy clients either cancelled or were no shows, and the petition was gaining signatures.”

I sighed and finished my tea.

“I went to school this morning,” I said, “determined to not be forced out by idiots, but got the shock of my life when Chris and Jane came to my class, carrying Kirsty, and told my entire class what had happened. They told everyone how they’d been in WitSec, and why, and how I’d saved all their lives. After they left, I was then asked if I’d tell my side of the story. At that point, I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

“I challenged the professor after the class, to tell him that I’d have liked some warning of what was about to happen, and he told me that Mary had set it up, and he’d assumed that she’d discussed it with me.

“Apparently she did discuss it with all my other girls, and Dana too – who had helped her get in touch with the Professor. I got mad with her and with my girls that they had done this behind my back and without including me. Even now I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do, and I might or might not have agreed to it. They just never gave me the chance, and kept it from me, because they thought I might say no, and that they knew better what was right for me.”

Meena scowled.

“I don’t think,” she said, “that you are unreasonable to be upset that they did that without consulting you. It’s the scale of your anger that is the problem, and you already know that yourself, which is why you came here rather than go home and vent at them, yes?”

I nodded.

Meena looked at the clock.

“Mary should be finished school now?” she asked. I nodded again.

“You need to talk to her,” she said, “but perhaps not alone. Luckily, I seem to have cooked a lot of food again. Perhaps your girls could be tempted to come for dinner?”

“How can you do that at such short notice?” I asked.

“I’m always cooking,” she said. “If we don’t eat it, Jeevan takes it out into the community.”

“Then are we robbing someone of their dinner?” I asked.

“Not at all,” she said. “We just supplement the local soup kitchens. They expect us when they see us, and are grateful for it, but nobody relies on what we provide. It’s just a little extra variety sometimes. Whether we go today, or tomorrow, nobody will suffer for it.”

She looked at her husband. “Call Mary,” she said. “Invite them over for dinner.”

Jeevan picked up his phone and left the kitchen to make the call. Meena simply sat holding my hands across the table.

“My poor boy,” she said softly. “You always seem to be in the middle of things, don’t you?”

I grimaced. “It would seem so,” I said. “Dean, Jules’ and Ness’ dad, calls me a trouble magnet. I can’t really argue the point.”

“You know,” she said, “don’t you, that your actions in that house, in shooting that man, were justified? His death was unfortunate, but it was the BEST outcome anyone could have hoped for given the situation.”

“The best outcome would have been that he surrendered,” I argued.

“He made his choice and must stand before his God and justify his actions,” she told me. Then she grinned at me. “Not that you believe in such I assume?”

“Not really,” I said. “No.”

“They will be here shortly,” said Jeevan, returning to the room. Sarah is bringing her boyfriend too.”

“Goodness,” said Meena “I need to cook some more. Caleb, will you lend a hand?”

I smiled at her diversionary tactics, but pitched in. We prepared even more food.

As we worked, we talked.

“You realize,” she said to me, while I was busy chopping some onions, “that you do bear some responsibility for Mary and your girls not talking to you about this?”

My instinct was to vehemently deny this, but I waited for her to say more.

“Why do you think Mary didn’t ask you about this?” she asked me.

“Because she knew I’d say no,” I responded.

“Exactly!” she said. “Do you think she might have asked you about it if she’d thought that you might have a discussion about it, and perhaps that you’d listen to their reasoning, and maybe, just maybe, be persuaded?

“One thing you will NEVER have to worry about with your girls, is that they will work against what they perceive to be your best interests. I know you had some worries initially regarding being controlled by the FBI and whether the twins were on your side or not, but I believe that you’re way past that, yes?”

I nodded, finishing with the onions and wiping my hands.

“Then the reality of any discussion with your girls would simply be a difference of opinion. You know that none of them would ever want to harm you, nor you them. They would never set out deliberately to hurt you. If they do something that does hurt you, it’s because they don’t understand fully the situation and, if that is the case, then it is probably that you have not communicated well enough that they are aware of how you feel.”

“So it’s all my fault?” I asked, feeling a little victimized.

She laughed at the look on my face.

“Of course not,” she said. “Communication is something that we all have to work at. Even Jeevan and I, after all the time we’ve been married, still have to work at it. The only reason you managed to get Jeevan to share was that you finally got him to listen to me, to what I was telling him. He’d previously refused to talk to me about it and, because of that, he was hurting me, which I know was the last thing he’d ever want to do.

“It is both easier and more difficult for you. Easier because of your power and shared connection, but more difficult because there are so many more of you.”

“How’s that going by the way?” I asked. She flushed a little but smiled.

“Let’s just say that my eyes have been opened,” she said.

I grinned at her. “I’m happy for you,” I said, and I meant it. I called Jeevan brother, but he was closer to me than that, and I loved this tiny, sometimes fierce, Indian woman. I would say like a mother, but I realized with a guilty pang that I actually had more feelings for her than I did for my own mother.

“Fry those onions off in a little oil please,” she said pointing to a frying pan, and I moved to comply.

While we’d been cooking and talking, Jeevan had been simply sitting and watching us work. He had a half smile on his face as his wife counselled me. I could feel his power gently washing over us both. I would have to have words with Tatarabuela Gonzales. She was managing my defences and seemed to be allowing him free rein to affect me. I realized however that I needed it, I needed to come to terms with the events of the past week, or it would destroy me. I trusted Jeevan completely.

The doorbell rang. Jeevan got up to go answer it, but Meena told him to sit. “I need to have a talk with the girls,” she said. “Can I leave the final preparation to you?” she asked. I knew where we were at with the dinner, and so I was happy to finish things off. I nodded.

“Good,” she said exiting the kitchen, and presumably taking the girls into the living room.

Twenty minutes later, dinner was ready and Meena hadn’t returned. I decided to ask Jeevan if he’d go tell them, he smiled at me and complied.

The door opened and Mary entered, looking at me, where I was ladling food into serving dishes. Ness entered after her and immediately came over to help. By the time everyone had filed in and all the food was on the table. Meena looked around with a satisfied glance.

“Excellent,” she said. “Please, everyone, sit and eat.”

We took our seats, Mary sitting to my right, and Jules to my left. Amanda was opposite next to Ness. Melanie, Sarah, and Arnie sat further down the table. Arnie looked a little uncomfortable. Jeevan, of course, sat at the head of the table and Meena took position at the other end.

“Nothing is particularly spicy,” said Meena, knowing Jules wasn’t a fan of hot food. Jules nodded her thanks.

“Is Yasmin not eating with us?” I asked.

“She’s staying with Callum,” said Jeevan. “They are figuring out if they can live together. It’s always an adventure moving in with someone new, and so it’s good to have a trial run to see if you can tolerate all the little bad habits of your new partner before you tie yourself to them for life.”

“Like not allowing them red meat?” asked Arnie, glancing at Sarah. She looked puzzled for a moment before realizing what he was referring to.

“That’s not even true!” she complained “Ness only said that because...”

We all laughed, and then had to explain the joke to Jeevan and Meena who both also found it amusing.

After dinner I got up to help clear away, but Meena stopped me.

“Why don’t you and your girls go into the living room to talk,” she said. “That is, after all, why you all came.”

“I’ll help,” said Arnie. “That conversation is a family thing.”

“You are family,” said Mary, Amanda, Jules, Ness, Melanie, Sarah, and I. All in perfect unison.

“Now that was just super weird,” Arnie said, to cover his embarrassment. “Did you guys never see the ‘Village of the Damned’?”

I laughed. “I did.” I said. “The book was better.”

“It was a book too?” he asked.

“Midwich Cuckoos,” I said. “John Wyndham, but that’s not really important right now. You weren’t involved in what happened to bring us here, but you are family. I think it’s important for you to be a part of the discussion. Maybe it will stop you and Sarah making the mistakes that we have?”

“Okay,” he said dubiously.

We followed Meena into the living room, leaving Jeevan in the kitchen, making a start on cleaning up.

We all sat down and Meena looked from me to Mary.

“Caleb,” she began, speaking to Mary, “came to see us today because he was angry. In fact, he was more than angry, he was enraged.”

Mary’s eyes widened.

“He recognized that his rage was unreasonable,” Meena went on, “disproportionate to what had gone on, and caused by the events that happened last week. He came to us because he didn’t want to bring that rage to you because he loves you. Now he is calmer and the rage has gone. Caleb, will you tell your family what upset you today?”

“I got blindsided,” I said, “by Chris and Jane coming into my Ethics class and telling everyone what happened last week. After they left, I was asked to tell my side of it, and I felt unable to refuse. After the lesson I went into the cafeteria and Jules asked how it went, which meant that she knew it was going to happen, I figured out Dana had been involved in setting it up, and I realized that all of you guys either were involved in setting it up, or knew it was happening, and not one of you thought to run it by me.

“Even now I’m not sure of how it’s affected the situation. We’ll find out over the next couple of weeks I guess, but the point isn’t that it happened, it’s that you did it without involving me in the process, and deliberately kept it secret from me.”

Mary took a breath. “That was my fault,” she said. I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t. Any one of you could have asked me about it. For most it would take but a thought, but you all agreed to keep it from me. What’s more I kind of understand why. Meena told me it would happen and her predictions came true.”

“I did?” Meena asked a little puzzled.

“When I got mad at Gracie and Dylan being allowed to come and stay after she got out of hospital,” I said, “you said that it could come back to bite me, and it seems like it has.”

“No,” said Melanie. “It wasn’t that. We could see how much you were hurting after what happened. Then people stopped attending your hypnotherapy sessions, you had to leave the Ethics class, and some asshole started a petition to get you removed from school. We ... no, I, thought that you had more than enough to be dealing with.

“We thought it would help the situation for you at school.”

“We all knew,” put in Jules, “that if we’d asked you, you would say no. You’d say no because it would mean that Chris and Jane had to tell their story in public, and that would be traumatic for them.”

“Mostly,” said Amanda, “we kept it from you because we are cowards. We could have asked you, persuaded, cajoled, and argued with you to allow us to do it, and I think that we could have done so. But none of us wanted to do that. You’d been through enough and the last thing we wanted to do was to put even more on you.”

“My dad sometimes says,” said Sarah, “that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. We all agreed that this would, in the long run, help the situation at school and we were scared that you would refuse to discuss it. We thought that you would nix the idea out of hand. We knew that you’d probably be upset about it, but hadn’t figured on your anger coming on the back of the events of last week would escalate as it did.”

I was surprised when Arnie pitched in.

“You’re the head of the household,” he said. “You try to protect everyone else in the household from everything that’s going, even me. You saved my life at least twice in the plane crash,” he held his hand up when I started to speak.

“We were headed directly for a tree trunk,” he said. “I remember that. I thought we were lucky to have twisted at the last moment, but now I know it was you and your powers that prevented it. Also Sarah told me that the plane would have fallen out of the tree and not lodged if you’d not used your powers again. A fall from that height would have likely been the end of us both.

“Then you took over responsibility for my dad and his problems. You take on everyone else’s problems, but don’t allow your family to share the load. What happened to you last week was the biggest thing that could possibly happen to anyone and you barely spoke about it to anyone, just carrying on and trying to protect us all from the fallout.”

Finally, Mary spoke.

“None of us have any excuse,” she said. “Not me, Amanda, Jules, Ness, or Melanie.” She looked at me, “or you.” She finished.

“We are connected as intimately as it is possible. We can and do share thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears, hopes, and dreams. And how do we use this most precious of connections? We use it as a sex toy, we share orgasms with it.

“It just goes to show that even power users, with every advantage, can be dumb. But we’re young, and we’re going to make mistakes.” She took my hands in hers. “I’m sorry. I really am. For all the reasons already spoken, and others besides, I thought that we needed to do what we did, the way we did it. I was so wrong, and I promise I’ll never make that mistake again.”

I squeezed her hands in mine.

“I’m sorry too,” I said. “Even when I was doing it, I recognized that I was pushing you all away. Pops even warned me against it, but I did it anyway. I’m sorry I did that, and I’m sorry you had to make such a decision, and that you felt you couldn’t talk to me about it.”

“Are you still mad?” asked Ness in a rather small voice.

“No,” I said. “Talking with Jeevan and Meena has helped a lot. It’s going to take me some time, I think, to get my head around what happened, but it’s coming into perspective. I have decided, though, to quit my hypnotherapy business at school. I think it’s time that Sarah and Melanie took over. You can schedule the sessions between you, I’ll give you my memories of how I treated people. You should have no problems. It’s up to you if you want to do it. It is a good way of training your Compulsion though, and you can learn all kinds of other stuff too.

“For now, I’m going to keep my external clients, although eventually I’d like to hand them over to you guys too.”

“Are you going to start going to classes then?” asked Mary, “When you’re not going to the range?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to step up my flight training,” I said. “I still have a lot to do, and I want to get everything done before I go to Quantico.”

We sat and chatted for a while longer in Jeevan’s living room. I didn’t notice when Meena slipped out, as we reconnected, and it was only when Jeevan came in a little while later to ask if we’d like drinks that I noticed she’d gone.

I looked at my watch – it was almost ten o’clock.

“We really should be going,” I said. “I think we’ve imposed on your hospitality for longer than we should.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “We’re always happy to see you.”

I stood up and embraced him. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m not sure how I would have coped without you and Meena.”

“It is of no concern,” he said. “We are family, and we care for one another.”

“All the same,” I said, “thank you.” I turned to Meena, who had entered the room, having obviously overheard what I was saying. “ ... And thank you,” I said as she enveloped me in a hug.

“Any time,” she said. “Remember – talk to each other?”

I nodded as we separated, and the girls each hugged Jeevan and Meena in turn. Arnie looked a little awkward when it came to his turn. Jeevan shook his hand.

“It was nice to meet you again,” he said. Arnie smiled and nodded.

Outside Arnie was talking to Sarah.

“I’m going to head back,” he said. “By the time I get back to yours, it will be time to leave in any case. I have an early lesson in the morning. The weather at weekend set us back.”

She smiled and kissed him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Getting tied up in family drama can’t have been much fun for you.”

“It was fine,” he said. “I’m happy to have been included. Family is not just about the nice stuff. If we can’t be there for each other when things go wrong, then what’s the point?”

She kissed him again. “I love you,” she said. and he smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Because you’re stuck with me.

The girls each said goodnight to Arnie, either hugging him or giving him a peck on the cheek. When it came my turn to say goodnight, he grasped my hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

“I will be,” I said. “I have an amazing family behind me.”

He nodded. “I know I’m the youngest of everyone,” he said, “but if there is anything I can do to help, I’m here.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That means a great deal.”

He nodded at me and then got into his car, heading home.

Jane was pacing in her backyard when we returned home, Kirsty in her arms. I could see Kirsty was tired, but simply wouldn’t settle. Both of their eyes lit up on seeing me.

“Would you mind,” Jane said, holding her daughter out to me. Reflexively I took hold of the child, walking slowly up and down the yard, murmuring to her as she settled her head on my shoulder. It probably took about five minutes, but it seemed much quicker, and the toddler was breathing evenly, fast asleep in my arms.

“We need to start getting her used to going to sleep for you and Chris,” I said softly as I handed her daughter back.

“If you have any ideas,” Jane said. “I’m all ears. We’ve tried everything but drugs. When she’s determined not to sleep nothing short of medication will put her down, and I’m not medicating a toddler, no matter what the doctors say.”

“Let me think about it for a little while,” I said. “It’s obviously not organic, or I wouldn’t be able to get her to sleep. It’s something else, and we need to work on it. You might not know this, but I’m a licensed hypnotherapist and I have some ideas on how to fix this.”

“You want to hypnotize her?” she asked, looking shocked.

“Not quite,” I said. “You can hypnotize children, but she is probably a little young to be truly hypnotized. However, I think her problem is that she’s picking up on your feelings. You have both been wound up like springs for the last year, and I’m sure that’s affecting her.

“I think we can overcome it, but it’s going to require getting both you and Chris more relaxed so she can relax.”

Jane bit her lip. “That kind of makes sense,” she said. “I’ll speak to Chris about it. I don’t know how he’ll feel about it.

“No pressure,” I said. “Let me know.”

She took her daughter into their house and closed the door behind her.

I sat in the yard for a little longer, enjoying the quiet, before taking myself off to bed.

Once more I slept well, dreamlessly. I wondered if the girls had had anything to do with that, which then reminded me, I needed a word with Tatarabuela Gonzales.

“Nice to see you again,” she said, as we sat in our illusion room. I’d gotten up at my usual time and had told Melanie and Sarah to practice their martial arts for a while. I needed to do something else.