Revelations (2 page)

Chapter Two

After the initial dizziness and ill feeling, I can say I felt pretty well. I sat beside my father on a dirty bus seat most certainly with wads of gum stuck to the bottom of it. Watching nothing except his face, I read nothing, save for his immediate thoughts. I stayed on the surface of his mind, not wanting to delve any deeper into his memories. His immediate thoughts were enough. His confusion and bewilderment showed, which was as much as I expected given the circumstances I’d just thrown him into. When we got off the bus, we walked side by side on the concrete sidewalk. His hand barely brushed my own.

He stepped aside to let me enter the house first. “This is it,” he said. “Be it ever so humble….” He let the familiar, unfinished phrase drift away into the living room air.

I finished it my head. I never really had a home. From my birth until about six, I lived in a house I barely remember. What I do have memory of about my early life is limited to feelings and vague images of my mother. I know her face, and the things she thought important enough to tell me. I don’t recall objects or places, just what she said. Until this moment, I called the orphanage home, but it certainly never really felt homey. Christian’s house was what my imagination came up with when I thought of the word “home.” I loved it instantly.

It was definitely a bachelor pad. There was a black leather sofa and a single leather recliner of the same soft fabric. A battered coffee table held a couple of magazines with titles I did not recognize. Then I remembered my father was a pilot in the Air Force, so the airplanes on the covers made sense. I ran my finger over the edge of the sofa as I walked by to look at the kitchen.

“Like it?” Christian asked as I came to admire the simple kitchen.

“It’s nice,” I said. “I never really had a home.”

“Well,” he said, “feel free to make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything. You can take this room back here.” He ushered me down the hallway and opened a door at the end.

I stepped through the door and set my bag down just inside the room. The bed frame was iron and the bedding solid black. A single nightstand held a plain, glass-based lamp with a white shade. Black and white photographs of an Italian theme adorned the walls. “It’s nice,” I said quietly. It was more than what I expected. In fact, I have no idea what I was expecting and apparently I couldn’t think of anything else to say except “nice.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said as I followed him back down the hall to the living room. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten.

“Like pizza?” he asked. “I hope so because there is no food in the house.” He paused and then his humorous side appeared for the first time. “Don’t really need to buy groceries when your life is ending, eh?”

I shrugged, a smile on my face.

“You have my eyes,” he said, suddenly serious. “Huh.” Then he shook his head and went to the phone. He picked up the wireless handset and dialed a few numbers of an obviously preprogrammed phone number. “Pepperoni okay?”

I nodded as he began to speak into the phone, placing his order. When he hung up, he said, “Go to the closet there and pick out a movie.”

I eyed him for a moment, plucking the title of his desired film from his mind. I went to the closet, opened the door and pulled out the plastic case of a particular DVD. Without needing any more prompting, I put the disk in the player, found the remote and sat down in a corner of the couch. When Christian returned with a few bills in his hand to pay the pizza guy, whenever he got there – they always promise thirty minutes but they never really make it on time – he caught the title of the film as it flashed on the screen.

“Kinda morbid, don’t you think?” I said.

He settled himself in his chair. “What?” he asked.

“Misery?” I said. I indicated the television screen with the remote I still held in my hand.

“How’d you know?”

I tapped my temple with the remote. “I know enough,” I said.

Startled, since he hadn’t really believed me, Christian swallowed hard.

“Think of a number,” I said. He did, and I repeated it to him. “One hundred thousand, two hundred and sixty five.”

“So you really can read minds,” he said quietly.

A thought suddenly thrust itself into my mind. “Do you trust me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, carefully pronouncing each word.

“Just trust me for a minute,” I told him. “And go get a knife from your kitchen.”

“Why?” he asked, startled once more.

“Because if I go get one, you’ll think I rigged it.”

I was right and he knew it. It was his thought. He rose, went to the kitchen and came back with a small paring knife.

“It’s good and sharp,” he said.

“Because you never use it,” I finished. “Now give me your hand.” To my surprise, he did not falter in this. He willingly placed his hand in mine. I turned it over so his palm faced the ceiling above our heads. “Be still,” I ordered then I drew the blade over the edge of his palm. I proudly noticed he did not even shiver as the blade cut open his hand.

Holding his bleeding hand in mine, I put my fingers loosely around his wrist. I let his blood flow and pool in his cupped palm, and I knew his eyes locked on the gaping wound. My eyes locked on his face. It took only a moment of concentration for me to seal the wound I created in the palm of my father’s hand. His eyes slowly widened, their green surface glittering with shock and surprise. He could feel the pain the wound caused just as he could feel the release of pain when the gash disappeared. Since my mind was locked on his, I could feel his pain like it was my own. While he stood there, stalk still, staring at his newly healed hand, I went into the kitchen, wet a paper towel and came back to clean what little blood remained on his skin. With the red liquid gone, Christian could see the new skin where a two inch cut had been only seconds before.

“See?” I said. “It’s not rigged. It’s not a trick. It’s real.”

Christian was speechless.

Behind us, the voice of James Caan rang out as the movie played. Soon, Kathy Bates would appear and her powerful performance as the evil Annie Wilkes would blow my mind once more. At this moment, I stood staring at my father’s awestruck face. His green eyes were wide.

“I took the cancer from your body,” I said, “because you are my father, because you are the only hope for me; the only thing I have. I’m not asking anything of you, only to know of my existence. And I didn’t want to go the rest of my life without knowing you. If you want me to go, I’ll go and understand. I just wanted to see you, just once.” My lower lip trembled and I bit into it to make it stop.

Christian reached out to me, put one hand on the back of my neck and the other behind my back as he drew me to him. He placed one single kiss on the side of my head and held me close to him for a little while. When he pulled back from me, there was a tender smile on his face. “My daughter or not,” he began, “you’re a miracle. Do you realize what you can do?”

I nodded. “I’ve thought about it, yeah. I’m not big on the word ‘miracle.’”

“Does anybody else know about you?”

This time I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Aside from my creator, nobody knows what I can do.”

“He won’t find you here,” he said, a protective tone in his voice. “If he does, I’ll make sure he won’t hurt you. No matter who you are.”

I bit my lower lip as it again began to tremble. Reading his mind, I said, “I know you still want a DNA test.”

He nodded. “Just to be sure.”

“Just to be sure,” I repeated. I understood his desire. I couldn’t deny him this. It’s not every day some young girl walks into your life, cures your cancer then says she’s your daughter.

“Tomorrow,” Christian said. “I’m betting you’re tired. And you’ll probably go to bed right after pizza.”

He was wrong in that. I was tired, yes, but I didn’t go to bed. After eating pizza and watching most of the movie, I fell asleep on the couch. Granted, I woke in the guest bedroom, though I didn’t go there; Christian carried me there. He set me down on the bed, removed my shoes and tucked me in. My father put me to bed, like he would have had he been a part of my childhood. I couldn’t blame his being missing from my early life. That was my mother’s fault.

Chapter Three

I took great advantage of the shower the next morning after waking in the spare bed. I shrugged off any confusion as to where I found myself and what the hell was going on. In the orphanage, we took timed showers, both to save water in drought-ridden California and because there were so many of us the administration wanted to make sure everyone got a fair share of hot water. Fifteen minutes max on the weekdays and twenty on the weekends. Weekends were special because no one got up for school so we could bathe any time of day. Me, I’m smart and showered at night. Time limitation weren’t given during the evening hours. I take long showers, and I mean long. I probably stood under the hot spray for a good half hour in the lovely, white tiled shower before Christian came knocking.

“Did ya drown in there?” he called out.

Quickly and feeling a bit guilty— leftovers from my days as an orphan, I guess; there was no reason for me to feel guilty about a long shower now— I turned off the water. “No!” I yelled back. “I just lost track of time.”

“No problem. Just wanted to know if you were up for a DNA test today.”

My heart sank just a little. He’d let me stay the night, kissed my temple and carried me to bed when I fell asleep on the sofa. He didn’t completely trust me, no matter how much I wanted him to. I bit my lip, then said, “Sure.”

“Sure you’re sure?” he asked. “We can wait a couple days.”

The sinking feeling in my stomach went away. If he was willing to wait until I was ready then he trusted me more than I thought. “No,” I answered. I felt confident. “Today is good. Just let me get ready.”

“Okay,” Christian said.

I could hear the sound of his feet on the hardwood floor as he walked away from the door. Hurriedly I toweled dry, got dressed and used my fingers to comb the tangles from my hair. When I determined I looked somewhat human— though I have often had doubts about my true nature, I still consider myself such—I went to my room and grabbed my shoes. Carrying my boots in my hand, I went down the hallway to the living room, where I found Christian watching the morning news. The clock on top of the television read ten o’clock. I’d slept a lot longer than normal that night.

Christian seemed to read my thoughts, though in truth he was only following my gaze. “You must have been really tired last night.”

I smiled as I sat to put on my old boots. Perhaps because it was the first time in a long time since I’d slept in a room alone, not surrounded by twenty other kids of varying ages. “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “Thanks for putting me to bed.”

He smiled, a smile I would grow to adore in the short time he and I got to spend together. “It’s the least I could do,” he said. “Really.”

“You don’t have to do anything for me,” I told him as I laced up the second boot.

He didn’t reply to my statement, only waited patiently until I finished with my shoes. I stood up, and he stood as well. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I said, straightening out my shirt. “Let’s go.”

Christian led the way down the hall to his garage door. He opened the door and flipped on a light switch. I was confronted with a ruby red Mustang, his usual method of transportation.

“Wow,” I said, moving slowly towards the car. I thought it might run away if I approached it too fast. “It’s beautiful.”

“She,” Christian said. “She’s beautiful. Sixty-four and a half. The first year they made them. I bought it at a junk yard, fixed it up, chopped off the top and made it a convertible. I’ve had this girl since the eighties. She’s my baby.” He went up to his car and ran his hand loving along the front fender. Then he stuck his key into the driver’s side door and swung it open. A few flips and twists of levers and such, and Christian pushed down the white cloth top. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door. “Get in,” he said.

I did as he requested. I sank into the plush, white leather seat and put my head against the headrest. I ran my eyes over the clean interior, over this beautifully maintained machine. Christian put a lot of time and effort into this car, almost as much as he had in learning everything he could about planes.

A loud rattling behind me made me turn as Christian pushed open the garage door. My father was not one for high tech gadgets, which included the luxury of an electric garage door opener. When he came back to the car, he sat himself down in the driver’s seat and put his key in the ignition. The car roared to life at the slightest touch of Christian’s hand, as if she responded only to him. The sound of the engine hit my ears, and I felt a chill wash over me.

* * * *

With the wind blowing through my loose hair, we drove down roads and over a highway to get to what Christian called, “the Clinic.” It actually was a small hole-in-the-wall medical center. Christian said he wanted confidentiality as best as we could get. It was bad enough he’d need to explain his miraculous recovery, and why his Air Force buddy suddenly would not be in possession of the Mustang promised upon Christian’s death, but having to explain the sudden appearance of an eighteen-year-old daughter was almost too much. Of course, I didn’t blame him for wanting to keep me a secret for a while.