Between the Lines (12/17)
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It had taken several months, but they had finally succeeded. It never felt right for Kevin, but it did get easier to share a bed with Rebecca after the first few awkward and clumsy times. And if she initiated attempts more often than Kevin would have liked or felt were biologically effective, neither of them acknowledged it. When she told him she was pregnant, Kevin was overjoyed and relieved and, like all expectant fathers although perhaps to a more extreme degree, worried and overprotective. It had begun a new stage of their relationship, and their friendship and partnership grew closer as they planned for the baby. Kevin was actually happy. He presumed Rebecca was too, and for the first time, he didn’t question their decision to settle into their - arrangement.
But now, he was questioning it, or at least the consequences of their choices. He stared out the window, swallowing slowly before taking a deep breath. He lifted a hand, wiping at his tired, burning eyes. Then he twisted, checking the clock. It had been almost an hour and a half since a nurse entered the waiting room, and told him there were some complications and that he would need to sign permission for Rebecca to undergo surgery.
There was commotion, and Kevin turned towards the door to the waiting room. Kitty and Julia hurried inside, followed more slowly by a limping Tommy. He had never quite gotten used to the prosthetic.
“Boy or girl?” Kitty asked.
Kevin stepped closer, smiling sadly. “Neither yet. They had to bring her into surgery. Something…something’s gone wrong.”
His siblings’ moods changed immediately. Kitty reached out, squeezing his hand in support.
But several hours later, the outcome became inevitable. Rebecca had hung on just long enough to hold the tiny, desperately struggling baby in her arms. She kept trying to apologize to Kevin, but he assured her it was unnecessary and begged her not to speak. Finally, it was all over. Kevin was in a daze, turned around by doctors and nurses telling him the news. Kitty and Tommy offered advice for what was best; Julia sat next to him, holding his hand through it all; and even Robert showed up to stand quietly in the corner. In the end, Kevin signed the release forms in front of him, making everything official. Yesterday, he was a husband and soon-to-be father. Today, he was a widower, with wife and child lost to him forever.
***
Chad sighed, frustrated as they walked out of the administration building and onto the main intersection of the town. “How is it possible?” he asked. “All the city records from before 1970 lost in a fire. A fire. It’s like we’re cursed.”
“We’re not cursed. We just have to ask the right person.”
“And who’s that?” Chad grumbled.
Jason flashed him a grin, then turned away, “Excusez-moi! Père!”
Jason stepped off the curb, crossing the street to intercept a priest. Chad watched, surprised and amused, as Jason nodded in greeting, shaking his hand. By the time Chad followed him across the street, the two men were already conversing like old friends.
“ - and so we were wondering if, perhaps, the church has some record of any soldiers staying here.”
The priest shook his head. “I think you must be mistaken. This town was evacuated early in the war. Almost everything here was affected by the bombing. Even if there were records, they would have been lost when the church was,” he paused, searching for the word, “destroyed.”
“The church was bombed too?” Jason asked curiously.
“Mais oui.”
“And it stood over there, where the church is now?”
The priest shook his head. “It was further out of town,” he said, pointing towards a slightly-overgrown wood. “There are pieces of the foundation still present. But there was not enough to salvage, and we built a new one after the war.”
Jason continued to stare in the direction the priest had pointed. Finally, he shook himself, turning towards the older man. “Thank you, Father.”
As the priest continued on his walk, Chad stepped closer to Jason. “What is it?” he asked softly.
“This is it,” Jason whispered. “This is what he was looking for. I’m almost sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
Jason turned to him, grinning. “Because it would have been a half-standing cathedral in the French countryside, with no priest to hear any secret confessions.”
Chad tilted his head questioningly. Jason laughed loudly, then faced the ruins again. “Just trust me,” he murmured.
***
Kevin took a sip of the drink in front of him and stared at the sheet. He had been trying to write this particular poem for years, and it just wouldn’t come. It didn’t want to be written. Perhaps because, in a way, he knew this would be his final goodbye and he just didn’t know if he could do it. Perhaps because it was simply too important, and there would never be words powerful enough to capture how he really felt. Or perhaps because he was just a bad poet. He took another sip.
He thought about going up to the attic, finding the letters and reading them for inspiration. It had been far too long since he opened that trunk and traced his fingertips over the fading ink. Rebecca had still been alive, if he remembered correctly. It was before she was pregnant, even. Kevin half-turned, looking in the direction of the attic as he considered it.
“Mr. Walker?”
Kevin turned around, startled. It was Booth, the man he had hired to oversee both Rebecca’s land and his share of the Walker land. He was a decent manager, which was why Kevin hired him. Not because he had deep blue eyes and light brown hair.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you. I knocked, but there was no answer. I have the quarterly reports,” he explained, holding up a folder.
“Ah. Thank you. Sorry, I’ve been in my own little world,” Kevin reached out, taking the folder from him, somewhat accidentally allowing their hands to brush.
Booth smiled at him. “Is there…anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Walker?”
It was a standard question, and if Kevin were entirely honest, the underlying innuendo was standard too. But he had never taken Booth up on the implied offer. This time, he hesitated, and Booth grinned. He stepped closer and closer. Kevin didn’t stop him, finally reaching his hands up to the other man’s biceps. Kevin licked his lips, and Booth leaned in.
“No kissing,” Kevin said quickly, surprising even himself.
“No problem,” Booth replied in a whisper.
The hair and the eyes and even the build may have been similar, but the accent was all wrong. “No talking, either,” Kevin added. “Just…don’t say anything.”
Booth nodded, smirking slightly. Kevin stared at him for a moment, then turned around. He reached down to his waist, fumbling with the buttons. Booth stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s body and pushing his hands aside as he took over. Kevin exhaled shakily; it had been far too long since he felt another body against his in this way. It wasn’t quite right. But it was good enough.
More than good enough, Kevin discovered, as they continued. He was bent over the couch in the office, pushing back against Booth as the other man moved inside him. He was very, very close, and he reached behind him, grabbing Booth’s thigh and forcing him deeper. Kevin groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, fighting to make the image in his mind clearer and sharper - even as he fought to ignore the painful memories. Booth thrust one more time, hard, fingers digging into Kevin’s hips. Kevin came, his mind going blank. He collapsed over the couch, with Booth collapsing over him.
And that’s when Tommy walked into the room.
***
They were sitting on Jason’s bed again, closer than necessary though neither would admit that. Jason also wouldn’t admit that he was disappointed Chad was wearing a shirt that night. They skimmed quickly, finding the entry around the time of Kevin’s death. The shaky handwriting clearly showed how upset Sarah was.
It hardly seems possible. I just saw him. He was fine, happy for the first time in far too long. He had found what he was looking for, and as promised, he finally explained everything to me his last night here. That’s my only consolation, I think. That Kevin was so honest with me, and I can be thankful they, in the end, were together again.
There were several blank lines and then Sarah added, He had written a poem the night before he left here. I wanted to keep it, as a memento of one of the last things he held and touched. I decided to send it to Kitty, though, to keep with the others. A publisher had approached Kevin about a book, and of course is even more interested now. I think this last one should be included in the collection.
And just over a week later, Sarah wrote, I received the packet from Kitty today, the one Julia had warned me about. There were indeed envelopes that I had addressed to Kevin, but the letters themselves weren't from me. I can understand why Julia wanted to send them to me; over the years, she has made it clear she shared my suspicions and was just as keen as I was to protect Kevin. I've decided to tell her everything Kevin told me; I will need to do so, really, because I am too far away to deal with all of it. As for the letters themselves, I haven't really decided yet what I will do with them. But I think I have to burn them.
“What? No!” Jason exclaimed aloud as Chad finished reading the sentence. “Tell me she didn’t.”
“I - I don’t - ” Chad stuttered as he flipped through the next few pages. “No! Listen - I couldn’t bring myself to burn Kevin’s letters. I still haven’t figured out what to do with them, but for now I hid them in Kevin’s desk. Kevin’s desk?”
Jason didn’t answer. Instead, he had turned around and was now staring at the roll-top desk. “Do you think?”
Jason looked at Chad, who hesitated for a moment. Then he dropped the diary, and they both nearly fell over as they hurriedly climbed off the bed. They ran across the room, both slamming into the desk at the same time. Chad started opening drawers while Jason lifted the top. Jason skimmed quickly through the contents of the slots and cubbies, but nothing seemed particularly promising.
“Here!” Chad exclaimed. “I think - I think there’s a false bottom.”
Jason dropped to his knees, reaching into the drawer Chad was inspecting. Together, they removed a panel. Jason carefully pulled out a large packet, opening it and pouring out the contents onto the desk. There were dozens of yellowed envelopes, all addressed with Kevin’s military address in Sarah’s handwriting.
“Oh my God,” Chad whispered.
“Careful, careful,” Jason said, reaching slowly out and opening one of the delicate envelopes. He removed a piece of paper, cautiously unfolding it. “It’s definitely not Sarah’s writing,” he said. He flipped the page over, finding the closing. “It’s from…Scotty? That’s all it says. Scotty.”
Jason stared at it in confusion, trying to figure it out.
“Jason,” Chad pointed out the obvious. “Scotty starts with an S.”
They stared at each other, and then turned back to the letters. Carefully opening more, they discovered they were indeed all signed Scotty. And in one of the envelopes, they found a faded photograph of a young man in a uniform. Chad turned it over.
“Scotty Wandell, 1944,” he read.
“That’s Kevin’s handwriting,” Jason confirmed.
Chad turned the picture around and they both looked at it again.
“He was hot,” Chad observed.
There was a knock on the door, and both men stared at it in surprise.
“What do I do?” Jason hissed.
Chad shook his head. “Answer it, I guess.”
Jason nervously walked over and pulled the door open.
“Is everything alright?” Paige asked. “I thought I heard - what are you two doing?”
Jason turned, following her line of sight to look at Chad, who was standing guiltily next to the pile of letters. Jason opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to come up with a reasonable excuse.
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It had taken several months, but they had finally succeeded. It never felt right for Kevin, but it did get easier to share a bed with Rebecca after the first few awkward and clumsy times. And if she initiated attempts more often than Kevin would have liked or felt were biologically effective, neither of them acknowledged it. When she told him she was pregnant, Kevin was overjoyed and relieved and, like all expectant fathers although perhaps to a more extreme degree, worried and overprotective. It had begun a new stage of their relationship, and their friendship and partnership grew closer as they planned for the baby. Kevin was actually happy. He presumed Rebecca was too, and for the first time, he didn’t question their decision to settle into their - arrangement.
But now, he was questioning it, or at least the consequences of their choices. He stared out the window, swallowing slowly before taking a deep breath. He lifted a hand, wiping at his tired, burning eyes. Then he twisted, checking the clock. It had been almost an hour and a half since a nurse entered the waiting room, and told him there were some complications and that he would need to sign permission for Rebecca to undergo surgery.
There was commotion, and Kevin turned towards the door to the waiting room. Kitty and Julia hurried inside, followed more slowly by a limping Tommy. He had never quite gotten used to the prosthetic.
“Boy or girl?” Kitty asked.
Kevin stepped closer, smiling sadly. “Neither yet. They had to bring her into surgery. Something…something’s gone wrong.”
His siblings’ moods changed immediately. Kitty reached out, squeezing his hand in support.
But several hours later, the outcome became inevitable. Rebecca had hung on just long enough to hold the tiny, desperately struggling baby in her arms. She kept trying to apologize to Kevin, but he assured her it was unnecessary and begged her not to speak. Finally, it was all over. Kevin was in a daze, turned around by doctors and nurses telling him the news. Kitty and Tommy offered advice for what was best; Julia sat next to him, holding his hand through it all; and even Robert showed up to stand quietly in the corner. In the end, Kevin signed the release forms in front of him, making everything official. Yesterday, he was a husband and soon-to-be father. Today, he was a widower, with wife and child lost to him forever.
***
Chad sighed, frustrated as they walked out of the administration building and onto the main intersection of the town. “How is it possible?” he asked. “All the city records from before 1970 lost in a fire. A fire. It’s like we’re cursed.”
“We’re not cursed. We just have to ask the right person.”
“And who’s that?” Chad grumbled.
Jason flashed him a grin, then turned away, “Excusez-moi! Père!”
Jason stepped off the curb, crossing the street to intercept a priest. Chad watched, surprised and amused, as Jason nodded in greeting, shaking his hand. By the time Chad followed him across the street, the two men were already conversing like old friends.
“ - and so we were wondering if, perhaps, the church has some record of any soldiers staying here.”
The priest shook his head. “I think you must be mistaken. This town was evacuated early in the war. Almost everything here was affected by the bombing. Even if there were records, they would have been lost when the church was,” he paused, searching for the word, “destroyed.”
“The church was bombed too?” Jason asked curiously.
“Mais oui.”
“And it stood over there, where the church is now?”
The priest shook his head. “It was further out of town,” he said, pointing towards a slightly-overgrown wood. “There are pieces of the foundation still present. But there was not enough to salvage, and we built a new one after the war.”
Jason continued to stare in the direction the priest had pointed. Finally, he shook himself, turning towards the older man. “Thank you, Father.”
As the priest continued on his walk, Chad stepped closer to Jason. “What is it?” he asked softly.
“This is it,” Jason whispered. “This is what he was looking for. I’m almost sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
Jason turned to him, grinning. “Because it would have been a half-standing cathedral in the French countryside, with no priest to hear any secret confessions.”
Chad tilted his head questioningly. Jason laughed loudly, then faced the ruins again. “Just trust me,” he murmured.
***
Kevin took a sip of the drink in front of him and stared at the sheet. He had been trying to write this particular poem for years, and it just wouldn’t come. It didn’t want to be written. Perhaps because, in a way, he knew this would be his final goodbye and he just didn’t know if he could do it. Perhaps because it was simply too important, and there would never be words powerful enough to capture how he really felt. Or perhaps because he was just a bad poet. He took another sip.
He thought about going up to the attic, finding the letters and reading them for inspiration. It had been far too long since he opened that trunk and traced his fingertips over the fading ink. Rebecca had still been alive, if he remembered correctly. It was before she was pregnant, even. Kevin half-turned, looking in the direction of the attic as he considered it.
“Mr. Walker?”
Kevin turned around, startled. It was Booth, the man he had hired to oversee both Rebecca’s land and his share of the Walker land. He was a decent manager, which was why Kevin hired him. Not because he had deep blue eyes and light brown hair.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you. I knocked, but there was no answer. I have the quarterly reports,” he explained, holding up a folder.
“Ah. Thank you. Sorry, I’ve been in my own little world,” Kevin reached out, taking the folder from him, somewhat accidentally allowing their hands to brush.
Booth smiled at him. “Is there…anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Walker?”
It was a standard question, and if Kevin were entirely honest, the underlying innuendo was standard too. But he had never taken Booth up on the implied offer. This time, he hesitated, and Booth grinned. He stepped closer and closer. Kevin didn’t stop him, finally reaching his hands up to the other man’s biceps. Kevin licked his lips, and Booth leaned in.
“No kissing,” Kevin said quickly, surprising even himself.
“No problem,” Booth replied in a whisper.
The hair and the eyes and even the build may have been similar, but the accent was all wrong. “No talking, either,” Kevin added. “Just…don’t say anything.”
Booth nodded, smirking slightly. Kevin stared at him for a moment, then turned around. He reached down to his waist, fumbling with the buttons. Booth stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s body and pushing his hands aside as he took over. Kevin exhaled shakily; it had been far too long since he felt another body against his in this way. It wasn’t quite right. But it was good enough.
More than good enough, Kevin discovered, as they continued. He was bent over the couch in the office, pushing back against Booth as the other man moved inside him. He was very, very close, and he reached behind him, grabbing Booth’s thigh and forcing him deeper. Kevin groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, fighting to make the image in his mind clearer and sharper - even as he fought to ignore the painful memories. Booth thrust one more time, hard, fingers digging into Kevin’s hips. Kevin came, his mind going blank. He collapsed over the couch, with Booth collapsing over him.
And that’s when Tommy walked into the room.
***
They were sitting on Jason’s bed again, closer than necessary though neither would admit that. Jason also wouldn’t admit that he was disappointed Chad was wearing a shirt that night. They skimmed quickly, finding the entry around the time of Kevin’s death. The shaky handwriting clearly showed how upset Sarah was.
It hardly seems possible. I just saw him. He was fine, happy for the first time in far too long. He had found what he was looking for, and as promised, he finally explained everything to me his last night here. That’s my only consolation, I think. That Kevin was so honest with me, and I can be thankful they, in the end, were together again.
There were several blank lines and then Sarah added, He had written a poem the night before he left here. I wanted to keep it, as a memento of one of the last things he held and touched. I decided to send it to Kitty, though, to keep with the others. A publisher had approached Kevin about a book, and of course is even more interested now. I think this last one should be included in the collection.
And just over a week later, Sarah wrote, I received the packet from Kitty today, the one Julia had warned me about. There were indeed envelopes that I had addressed to Kevin, but the letters themselves weren't from me. I can understand why Julia wanted to send them to me; over the years, she has made it clear she shared my suspicions and was just as keen as I was to protect Kevin. I've decided to tell her everything Kevin told me; I will need to do so, really, because I am too far away to deal with all of it. As for the letters themselves, I haven't really decided yet what I will do with them. But I think I have to burn them.
“What? No!” Jason exclaimed aloud as Chad finished reading the sentence. “Tell me she didn’t.”
“I - I don’t - ” Chad stuttered as he flipped through the next few pages. “No! Listen - I couldn’t bring myself to burn Kevin’s letters. I still haven’t figured out what to do with them, but for now I hid them in Kevin’s desk. Kevin’s desk?”
Jason didn’t answer. Instead, he had turned around and was now staring at the roll-top desk. “Do you think?”
Jason looked at Chad, who hesitated for a moment. Then he dropped the diary, and they both nearly fell over as they hurriedly climbed off the bed. They ran across the room, both slamming into the desk at the same time. Chad started opening drawers while Jason lifted the top. Jason skimmed quickly through the contents of the slots and cubbies, but nothing seemed particularly promising.
“Here!” Chad exclaimed. “I think - I think there’s a false bottom.”
Jason dropped to his knees, reaching into the drawer Chad was inspecting. Together, they removed a panel. Jason carefully pulled out a large packet, opening it and pouring out the contents onto the desk. There were dozens of yellowed envelopes, all addressed with Kevin’s military address in Sarah’s handwriting.
“Oh my God,” Chad whispered.
“Careful, careful,” Jason said, reaching slowly out and opening one of the delicate envelopes. He removed a piece of paper, cautiously unfolding it. “It’s definitely not Sarah’s writing,” he said. He flipped the page over, finding the closing. “It’s from…Scotty? That’s all it says. Scotty.”
Jason stared at it in confusion, trying to figure it out.
“Jason,” Chad pointed out the obvious. “Scotty starts with an S.”
They stared at each other, and then turned back to the letters. Carefully opening more, they discovered they were indeed all signed Scotty. And in one of the envelopes, they found a faded photograph of a young man in a uniform. Chad turned it over.
“Scotty Wandell, 1944,” he read.
“That’s Kevin’s handwriting,” Jason confirmed.
Chad turned the picture around and they both looked at it again.
“He was hot,” Chad observed.
There was a knock on the door, and both men stared at it in surprise.
“What do I do?” Jason hissed.
Chad shook his head. “Answer it, I guess.”
Jason nervously walked over and pulled the door open.
“Is everything alright?” Paige asked. “I thought I heard - what are you two doing?”
Jason turned, following her line of sight to look at Chad, who was standing guiltily next to the pile of letters. Jason opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to come up with a reasonable excuse.
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