Chapter 45

Rachel Janak had been a bright and happy child, sunshine in a blue sun-dress, a bright spot that could shine through any darkness with nothing more than the warmth and innocence of her smile.

To almost anyone, from her nurses Janelle and Hector, to Eddie, to Tamara, to the new people she was meeting that afternoon, that bright and happy child, sunshine in a blue swimsuit, was still there, just trapped in a body that had grown into young womanhood, even as her mind had not.

While she, Eddie, and Kim's children Kimmy & Timmy floated in the pool under the shade of the backyard's maple trees, Kim and Tamara organized the slow trickle of new people into Rachel's presence, working hard to avoid overwhelming the young woman. Each new person dropped off their towels and such by the folding lawn chairs and went to sit on the edge of the pool, close enough to be introduced and talk with Rachel, but not so close as to make her feel too crowded. Soon everyone from the Grimes household was seated on the edge of the pool, feet and legs dangling into the cool water, talking with Rachel and amongst themselves when Kelly's parents arrived.

Margo saw them through the patio windows and went over to their daughter.

"Beloved wife of mine," Margo said, "I'm not worried about your mother, but your father ... can be a little loud, I guess."

"Sweetheart," Kelly replied, "don't you worry about a thing. Earl Culberson may be able to put the fear of God and Earl Powell Culberson into anyone and anything, but he's never accidentally frightened a child in his life, and he'll have no trouble recognizing Rachel as a child. Now, if he means to, he can scare a child out of years of growth, very easily ... which come to think of it might not bode well for any grandchildren."

Harry said, "Darling, don't worry ... he's going to do worse than put the fear of, how did you put it ... the fear of God and Earl into them. He's going to spoil them rotten, every chance he gets, and then leave us to live with the consequences. He's evil that way."

"I think you have a very good grip on my father's plan of revenge upon me for the indiscretions of my youth," Kelly replied, "and the indiscretions I have yet to commit."

"I'd like to live through our offspring's childhoods, go easy on the future indiscretions, for all our sakes," said Harry.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Rachel was riding on the shoulders of 'Missa Ea'l' as happily as if he'd been her brother.

Evan, the senior Master of House Evensong, was surprised at Claudette's state as she cruised in much later than anyone had imagined.

"You look insufferably pleased with life in general and yourself in particular," he said as Claudette summoned one of the House's subs and requested a fresh pot of coffee.

"You would be too, if you'd had the kind of night I had," she replied, her voice suspiciously close to a purr.

"All right," he said, "let me get all of us in one place, so you only have to tell it once..."

Twenty minutes later, with the Household assembled in the living room, Claudette began her recounting of the evening's events.

"Well, as you know, I went to Dominique's last night on behalf of our House, to scout the new kids on the block, and since I called, you know that by the end of the evening my cover was blown by that rat Thad Newton," she said, smiling. "The scouting was a bit more ... interesting ... than we'd planned. First impressions..."

There was playing in the pool, and people splashing around, but by far the most popular activity that afternoon was relaxing — not at all surprising given the night the majority of them had had.

It seemed everyone at some point ended up being either Rachel's escort, pulling her around the pool in her inner tube, or her pony, carrying her on their shoulders. She laughed, and her laugh was so beautiful that everyone laughed with her.

Luckily, she was such a happy person that keeping her laughing wasn't hard at all.

The phone inside was ringing as Tamara came out of the bathroom.

"Hello, Janak residence..."

"Tamara, is that you?" Janelle's voice was high pitched and nervous.

"Yes, is there something wrong, Janelle? Rachel's having a lovely time, everything's okay at this end."

"Yeah, somethin's wrong all right. We had a new girl on the desk an' she didn't know, Tamara, she didn't know how things are an' how they work an'-"

"Janelle, honey, calm down, tell me what happened."

"Rachel's daddy came by, and Vanessa, she didn't know the history, and it ain't standard procedure, but he showed her his I.D. an' told her he was Rachel's daddy an' she ... gave him y'all's address."

"So I guess he's on his way here as fast as he can go?"

"That'd be the way I'd bet, if I were a bettin' woman."

Tamara was thinking, and thinking hard.

"Janelle, honey, go real easy on Vanessa, it was a mistake, nothing more. Neither Eddie nor I would want anyone getting fired or anything over a simple, little mistake. I'm going to try to handle things on this end, see if maybe we can keep this from blowing up into something nasty."

"You sure, Tamara ... I mean, Mr. Janak's where Eddie got his 'scary' from ... an' if he an' Eddie lock horns..."

"I'm going to try to keep Eddie out of this ... I have some friends here who can do 'scary' pretty well themselves — but I think we're going to start out with 'nice'."

Three sets of smug grins and raised eyebrows greeted Tatiana Turov as she walked into her kitchen shortly after 1:30 that afternoon.

"Look what the north wind blew through our door," Vashti said as he sipped his lemonade.

"I cannot tell, Vashti, does she look like a well-loved woman?" Svetlana inquired, snickering as she picked up a cookie.

"Luck someone ducked," Julie said proudly.

As the children laughed, Tattie glared at them and gently corrected Julie's Russian.

"Somebody got lucky," she said, before switching to English. "And yes, yes I did..." She remembered that she was dealing with children who had been prostitutes and were therefore very familiar with sex. She added impishly, "More than once, and most delightfully so."

"That is well," Vashti said. "You are too youthful and too handsome to be alone."

Instead of arguing with him, Tattie admired his growing command of English.

"Kissie, I wish you could see her ... really see her," Earl murmured in his wife's ear. "She's a little broken angel and so sweet — I have to say, I'm impressed with how everyone's treating her."

"They're good people, Earl, no matter what your hidebound thinking wants to paint them as," Kissie replied, squeezing his arm. "And besides, I saw her well enough. She has a child's natural curiosity and fearlessness — she asked me about my blindness, so I told her. In exchange she let me feel her face most thoroughly. My God, Earl, she would have been devastatingly beautiful, with brains to match unless I miss my guess. God and his plans, I suppose."

Earl Culberson didn't have nearly the faith that his wife had, and so he remained carefully silent on the subject of a God that would allow such things to happen to little girls. But he also couldn't deny that his wife was a lot smarter than him, as well as being a better person — maybe she was right and he was wrong ... as he so often was.

"Kissie ... there's something else."

"Let me guess, Earl ... Kelly?" she replied.

"Yeah ... yeah ... baby, she's looking and acting like a wife ... already ... it's scaring me how well she fits with these people."

"Earl, they were married when they decided they were — don't tell me you don't remember how that goes," she added sharply. Then her tone softened, "I don't understand it myself, how she can be ... intimate ... with another woman. Not that I find the idea disgusting, I've just never felt even an inkling of the urge ... but she is, all four of them are married to each other and I'm pretty sure it'll take more than you, or me, were I so inclined, or an army to pull them apart."

"Marvelous, my daughter is locked for life into a mistake," Earl grumbled.

The elbow that tried its hardest to break one of his ribs was not unexpected by Earl, but he was surprised by the vehemence of his wife's voice.

"Earl Culberson, you are dangerously close to sleeping alone for quite some time."

Rubbing his side, he pushed his misgivings back in his mind and answered, "I'm sorry, dear. I promise I'll behave."

"You damn well better," she growled, while patting his arm affectionately. "I don't look forward to celibacy anymore than you do."

John Janak pulled up in front of the address he'd been given, ready to rip his son's head off and shit down his neck. He had little doubt that the facility had called Eddie and warned him, he knew he was lucky to get the address as it was. He did hope the little nurse didn't get into too much trouble about it, though.

So he was surprised when he saw that Eddie wasn't waiting for him on the front lawn ... instead there were three women — one of them very small and petite, the second merely short in comparison and vaguely Hispanic in appearance and the third, tall and long in the body, limbs and face.

He got out of his truck and forced a smile on his face. He would deal with these three as politely as he could before moving on to beat the shit out of his son.

Tamara could see the family resemblance as soon as Mr. Janak got out of the truck and fully stood up. Although he'd diminished somewhat due to age and the injury that had ended his working days, underneath that there was still a man who had spent his life doing hard physical labor and whose body still carried much of the strength and power that life had given him.

She motioned to Carol and Margot to stay behind, and bravely marched towards him across the lawn, David to his Goliath.

"Mr. Janak, my name is Tamara, I'm your son's fiancé," she began.

While he and his son had never been close, not since that horrible day when Rachel was hurt, he knew some of Eddie's history through stories from cousins and such. In spite of his resolve to remain civil to the women on the lawn, his fury at his son broke through and aimed itself at the closest target.

"So you're the next crazy cunt-"

He never saw the slap coming - didn't see the little brown-skinned woman cross the ten feet that separated them, leap into the air and lay her hand across his face, backed by all her strength and all her weight.

He merely felt like a boat paddle had broken against his cheek, wielded by an angry giant.

John Janak staggered back, shaking his head to clear it and when his eyes refocused he saw Tamara holding on to the arm of her friend, pulling her away from him. He saw the small fireball's hand twitching, and saw the rounded end of a straight razor peeking from her pocket.

When his assailant saw that he had shaken off her blow, she twisted out of Tamara's grip almost effortlessly, and marched up to him.

"Mr. Janak, you will apologize to my friend, you will keep a civil tongue in your head or so help me God, I will fuck your shit up so bad it'll make the mortician puke."

John Janak wasn't stupid and while he had no doubt he'd win a fight with the woman in the end, before that happened she would hurt him badly ... and besides, he had been out of line.

"Tamara ... it is Tamara, isn't it?" he asked.

The tiny woman nodded.

"Tamara, I'm sorry — I shouldn't have said what I did."

"Forgiven, Mr. Janak, under one condition ... let's talk," she replied, daring to feel hopeful again.

The three women leaned against the side of Mr. Janak's truck; he leaned against the oak tree in the yard.

"Mr. Janak, you've already met Carol," Tamara said, motioning to her, "and this is our friend Margo."

"Pleased to meet you," he said, trying hard to mean it.

"Sir, I'm out here because luckily I'm the one who answered the call from Rays of Sunshine and I have a pretty good idea how things will go if you and Eddie meet right now. I want to avoid that at all costs.

"There are several things I have to tell you, and I don't know if they'll make any difference at all, but I have to try, for Eddie's sake ... and yours," Tamara continued.

"I don't think you can say anything I need to hear."

"Now, now, play nice, Mr. Janak," Carol said, looking at him like she was sizing him up for slaughter.

He sighed. "Fine, have your say."

"Sir, your son has been paying for his part in the accident, the accident, sir, that hurt your daughter so badly, every day of his life since it happened. I've watched him sleep, I've been awakened by the nightmares that plague him, I've heard him call out her name in the night and I know, know, sir, that he'd do anything in the world to change what happened that day. If God Himself came down right here, today, and told Eddie that he could go back and stop that horrible accident, but it would cost him his life, Eddie would go, leave me behind, leave his friends behind, leave everything behind and do it, without even thinking twice. He'd die, happily, to see Rachel safe.

"And I'd let him, because if I didn't, he'd hate me the rest of his life, and rightly so."

"You're talking fairytales — there's no changing what happened," Mr. Janak said bitterly.

"No sir, no there's not — but now he's finally trying to move on with his life, and let go of that guilt, the guilt that only two people in the entire universe felt he should bear, and that would be you and him. He's trying to get on with his life and make his sister's life happier as well."

Mr. Janak started to say something but Tamara rolled right over him.

"When we decided to buy a house," she said, "he was so scared of letting Rachel be hurt that he didn't even consider the possibility of having her visit. He'd failed her so terribly once before, that he didn't dare think of it.

"But I thought of it ... they love each other, Mr. Janak, they love each other so much it makes me cry. And after I suggested it to him, no house would do but one that we could have her visit, with wider doors ... well, you know what's required for someone with her disabilities, sir. And we found this house that had already been modified to accommodate someone in a similar condition.

"Believe me when I tell you sir, this visit means the world to him, and to Rachel as well. We both took lessons from her nurses at Rays of Sunshine on how to take care of Eddie's 'precious angel' — he didn't ask me to, I volunteered because I've come to love her as if she were my own sister. We've done everything we can to make her visit safe and happy."

Tamara shook her head.

"Speaking of happy, Mr. Janak, come with me if you would."

She took him by the hand and led him to the fence on the side of the house.

"Now listen, sir, please."

John Janak listened. He heard the splashing from the pool, the murmur of conversation, laughter ... and in the mix, laughter he hadn't heard for decades.

"Is that ... Rachel?"

"Oh yes sir it is," Tamara replied. "She has the most beautiful laugh — angelic, really, just like her. Mr. Janak, we hear it a lot, and love it and cherish it."

She looked up at him with pity in her eyes.

"When was the last time you heard it, sir?"

He slumped against the fence.

"Not since the morning before she was hurt..."

Tamara knelt down beside him, holding onto his large hand with both of hers.

"That's about what I thought ... listen to it, Mr. Janak, enjoy it. I'll let you sit here and think for a bit."

The three of them watched him as he sat against the fence.

"Think you got through to him," Margo asked.

"No," Tamara replied, "but Rachel might."

Carol looked up at her wife. "Yo, Lady Longlegs, what were you waiting for back there? Didn't you want to get in on the 'Daddy Janak Slapfest'?"

Margo smiled back at Carol. "Yeah, but you had it covered ... you're younger and quicker than I am. I was waiting to see if he was stupid enough to say or do anything to you. I had your back."

"Funny," Tamara said, "I was worrying about covering Margo's back since I know Carol can take care of herself."

"The Circle of Sisterhood," Carol sighed. "Ain't it wonderful?"

"Damn straight," Margo replied.

"Darn tootin'," agreed Tamara.

John Janak, in spite of all his faults, wasn't stupid, and he wasn't blind. That his son's little fiancé had been willing to stand up to him to prevent the fight that certainly would have happened had he and his son seen each other said a lot about her, all of it good. Plus, she reminded him of his poor Lillian. Tamara was much tinier than Lillian, but still ... he had no problem seeing what his son saw in her.

A nice house in a good neighborhood, certainly better than John had ever been able to provide for his family, a woman ready to defend him ... Eddie wasn't doing too badly for himself. And he'd been paying for Rachel's care at Rays of Sunshine for a long time.

John Janak had tried over the years, he'd tried very hard, but every time he got close to forgiving his son for Rachel's accident, he saw her lying in her hospital bed like a puppet with its strings cut. Something that terrible had to be someone's fault, it had to be, and since it couldn't be Rachel's, it had to be Eddie's. That said, how could he forgive Eddie?

As always, deep in the back of his mind, a tiny voice, quickly silenced, asked "Who put up the rope swing in the first place?"

But listening to her laugh ... John could close his eyes and pretend it had never happened, that she was still six - whole, unbroken, and ready to run up to him and give him a hug and a kiss.

Tamara stood straight.

"Want us to go with you?" Margo asked.

"No ... no this I truly do have to do alone. I'll be back, just need to give him something else to think about."

She walked to where John Janak sat against the fence, unnoticed tears streaming down his face. She knelt by his side and put her hands on his knees.

"Mr. Janak, I need to tell you something else. Something that you'll be the fourth person in the world to know, something that if it could be proven would only exacerbate this whole tragedy, but it's something you do need to know.

"I'm sure you remember the attendant who was molesting patients, the one that Rachel's screaming got arrested."

"I've never understood why she screamed for my son and not me," Janak interjected bitterly.

"Because Eddie is her protector — that's the way you and your wife set things up in her mind. If you or she weren't there, right there, then it was Eddie she was to go to."

Tamara paused and took a deep breath. "Mr. Janak, the law let that man go ... your son didn't. That bastard's body will never be found and he'll never hurt anyone else ever again. Eddie can't be prosecuted for the crime. This many years later, that's pretty much a certainty — any evidence is long gone, but at the time, your son risked jail, or being as how this is Texas, the death penalty, to get justice for his sister, and all the other women that man had hurt. Put away your ideas about your son, please, and see him for who he is, what he has done and what he will do if he needs to again. He made one mistake, a mistake anyone could make, a mistake he'd give his life to correct — and forever after he's done his best to atone. I don't know if you're a religious man, but surely even God couldn't ask more penance of Eddie than he's paid."

She leaned over and kissed his teary cheek. "Listen to your daughter some more, sir."

"So, what was that about?" Carol asked when Tamara returned to join Margo and her, leaning on the truck.

Tamara looked at her oldest friend and smiled.

"I'm sorry, there are some secrets that aren't mine to share ... but I had to share it with him, he had to know."

"And we don't ... that's fair," Margo said. "I think there's something I need to tell him as well."

"Give him a bit, all right?" Tamara asked. "I'm trying not to overload him."

"No problem," Margo replied, putting her arms around the women on either side of her. "This can take as long as it needs to."

In the backyard, Harry and Eddie had noticed that the three women were missing.

"Kelly," Harry said, "where'd Carol and Margo get off to?"

"And Tamara, did you see where she went?" Eddie added.

Kelly smiled. "Guys, they're taking care of some business ... they'll be back when they're done."

"Business, huh? I suppose we're not going to be told what it is?" Harry said.

"Oh yes sir, you'll be told in due time. Just trust in them that you don't need to know about it right now ... or I'm gonna have to whup both of you."

Harry and Eddie looked at each other.

"All right, we won't ask any questions," Eddie replied, "just don't hurt us, please?"

Kelly gave him a full body hug. "Okay, big guy," she said, "y'all're safe."

"Imagine our relief," Eddie replied, earning himself a punch in the shoulder.

In the front yard, Margo returned from her talk with Mr. Janak.

"Told him about the attempted rape, did you?" Carol asked.

"Yes, told him the whole story ... it seemed to give him pause," Margo replied, wiping tears from her cheeks. "God damn it ... I still get tight in the chest when I think about that day, even this many years later."

"Some wounds heal, beloved, but the scars are still tight and ugly things," Carol said, kissing her wife on the cheek. "I wonder, should I tell him about 'Jimmy' and 'Paulie's visit with Rick?"

"Give him a bit, and then sure, go ahead ... it's hard to dissuade someone of an opinion they've held for decades, and it's about goddamn time he saw Eddie for who he is, not who his father painted him as," Margo replied.

John Janak listened to Carol tell him her story, and how Eddie had helped her husband - and John didn't want to think about the news that Harry Grimes, whom he remembered from when Eddie was a teenager, had two wives — rain vengeance upon the man who'd abused her.

He began to allow for the possibility that his son had atoned enough for his mistake ... if he even ever needed to atone in the first place. He thought about that, and a lot of other related issues, while he listened to his daughter playing and laughing in the pool.

He was brought out of his reverie by Tamara, kneeling beside him.

"Mr. Janak, I think it's time you went home and thought about all this for awhile ... but before you go, would you like to see her? We can stand in the kitchen, you'll be able to see her, but she won't be able to see you ... I really don't want her upset today."

"Thank you, I'd like that very much ... and yeah, it's time I got going ... as wonderful as hearing her has been, I'm not much good at sitting on the ground for long periods of time anymore."

With that he smiled and Tamara saw where Eddie's smile had come from.

As they stood in the kitchen, watching Rachel ride on Karen's shoulders as the muscular woman played with her by lunging from one side of the pool to the other, the water washing over Rachel as she screamed in joy, Tamara's hand found her father-in-law's.