Rating: PG

Summary: A visitor.

Spoilers: None.
 

"Listen here my sister and my brother
What would you say if you lost another
Why do we even bother...
But oh, sweetness follows."

"Sweetness Follows," by Michael Stipe. Copyright 1992-REM-Athens Ltd. And used without permission.
 

Praeteriti Anni
 

March 7, 2000

"Allison, would you mind moving to another location?"

"You want to go inside?"

"I mean, maybe to another restaurant. In another town."

Oh, God. At least with Langly you could get through a meal in one place. This was weird.

"Joan, what are you so afraid of?"

She raised her finger to her lips. "Not here."

"I'll tell you what. Why don't you follow me home?"

"What?"

"You heard me. Follow me to my house."

She had an expression of total terror on her face.

"Joan, what's going on?"

"All right, I'll follow you. You said you're in Alexandria?"

"Second exit for Alexandria. We live in the old part of town. It's really quiet. No one can hassle you there."

Well, they can, and they had, but I didn't tell her that.
 

I didn't think she'd come. I really didn't. I just figured that once on the highway, she'd be gone.

She surprised me by pulling her Lexus in behind me. A Lexus. Well, her clothes certainly suggested she wasn't starving.

"I'm really nervous about this. Is my brother here?"

"Probably. Or he's out back working. He and two associates have a...publishing concern." That description would have cracked Langly up. I'd have to share that with him later.

"I don't know if I'm ready to face him." She continued to stare around her, checking everything, every nerve on hyperalert.

"Well, you can stay outside if you want, but I'm cold. I'm heading in."

I opened the door, and it took her nearly a full minute before she would step inside. And Mid-Atlantic Natural Gas didn't need any more of my money than they were already getting, I thought sourly.

The house was quiet. It was 11:30, meaning that the girls might be up, or not, but they would be in the dungeon in any case. I didn't see or hear Langly.

"It's a very nice home," she whispered.

"You don't have to whisper. Anybody who's in bed at this hour deserves to get woken up, and as loudly as possible." But I think she was keeping her voice down for other reasons. "Get you something?"

"Something without caffeine...my nerves are a little shot." Whoa, sister, was that an understatement or what?

"I've got herbal tea." Some of the chamomile tea Byers had given me long ago was still lurking. "All the coffee is fully caffeinated. We kind of need the turbocharge around here. We do have beer, which has no caffeine."

"Herbal tea is fine, thank you."

I set about making tea and throwing on another pot of coffee. Joan was seated nervously in my kitchen, but she wasn't checking around as much as she initially had.

"I see you have an excellent security system."

"Yes, we do." God, what did she know about security systems?

"Do you have many...problems?"

You mean problems or problems with unwanted people lurking around? We get both here, and in spades, is what I wanted to say, but I just said, "We like to avoid difficulties."

"And I notice you have a very large dog." Tiny was sleeping in the corner of the kitchen-okay, it was a huge corner, but a corner.

"Yeah, but we don't count Tiny. She loves everybody." Upon hearing her name, Tiny lifted her head, noticed a new person in the room, and trotted over to make her acquaintance. Fortunately, Joan seemed comfortable around animals, and she stroked the dog's large head. "We've got cats, too. Three of 'em."

"I love cats," Joan said wistfully. "Unfortunately, Roy hates them. I haven't had one since Ringo was a baby."

"Langly seems to like 'em. NY Times, our big grey cat, that's his favorite. She's probably out in the office. That's kind of her domain; she sleeps on his workstation." I waved my hand towards the calico that meandered in to check the Cat Chow supplies. "That's Motley. She's our youngest cat. She's five. And we've got Screamer, that's Miranda's cat. She sleeps
downstairs with the girls. I had six when I moved here, but three of them were very old and passed on."

"So you had these cats with your first husband."

"He loved animals, too. I don't think I could love a man who didn't care about them."

She seemed very uncomfortable. "Allison, do you know who my husband is?"

"No, I don't. Should I?"

"Probably you wouldn't. He's chief counsel for the Society for the Restoration of a Bible-Based Government." That freaked me. I'd read about these crazies in the paper from time to time, and the Gunlords kept an eye on them. I'd have to tell Langly that he knew one of its members up close and personal. Of sorts.

And it wasn't news that was going to make him happy. Maybe this was a bad idea, bringing Joan here.

"Is this why you asked me if I'm Jewish?"

"It had...something to do with it."

"I see. I mean, I know they don't like Jews and all, but this is not new, if you have any grasp of history. There is a reason for the diaspora, and it's not because we're the queens of the prom."

"Allison...oh, where do I even start?" She had not yet raised her voice above a whisper, and now she looked utterly agitated.

"You could start at the beginning. Works for most people."

"The beginning of what? Of my life? Of my marriage? Of why I'm here?"

"I'd settle for why you haven't talked to your brother in 13 years."

She raised one of those beautifully shaped hands, so like her brother's, to her mouth-and in true Langly fashion, began to gnaw on her nails with great concentration. Maybe it was like in my family; with the exception of my mother, we are all nonrepentant biters. If it was possible, though, her cuticles looked worse than mine.

I began to think she was going to chew her fingernails the rest of the day when she finally started, very slowly.

"How much has Ringo told you?"

"You mean, that he went on a taxpayer funded vacation on the west coast? He's told me that, Joan. You don't need to skirt it."

"Well...yes. But how much has he told you about growing up? Our parents? Our brother?"

"Okay, here's what I know. Your dad was a molecular biologist-"

"Microbiologist. Fort Detrick. We grew up in Maryland."

"Okay, sorry. You're like 16 years older than your brother. You had another brother who was between you two and he's deceased."

"Scott."

"I think Langly told me his name."

"Tell me, why do you refer to him by his last name?"

"Because that's what he likes us to call him. Except my daughter calls him O Wicked Stepfather."

"That's not very nice."

"He seems to like it."

"How do they get along?"

"Pretty well. It's not really that easy for them sometimes. He's very protective and she balks. Miranda is a very independent girl."

"My Julie is too independent." She shook her head sadly. "She always has been."

"You have a son, too, don't you?"

"Chris. He reminds me so much of what Ringo used to look like when he was younger..."

"I can get him, you know. Your brother."

"I...I'm not sure I'm ready yet." Would she ever be? She sipped her tea and nursed her nails in between sips. "It's just...I probably shouldn't have come here." She rose up from the table to leave. "Thank you for your hospitality, but-"

"SIT DOWN!" I'm not a screamer by nature, but I'd gotten her this far, and she wasn't leaving until she had seen her brother, or I at least had some satisfaction.

She looked at me as though I'd smacked her hard, which I guess in a sense I did. But the woman could follow instructions, which is more than her little brother could do most of the time. She returned to her seat. I could see tears beginning to leak from her pale blue eyes.

She looked like her brother when she cried-on the rare occasions when I'd furtively witnessed him crying. It broke my heart, but I stood firm.

"Joan, why haven't you seen Ringo or communicated with him in all this time?"

"It's...complicated."

"As I told you, I do occasionally get the gist of things. Now give."

It was scary to think that this woman was so beaten down that she followed orders easily, unlike Langly, who never listened to anyone if he could avoid it, but in this instance, it would serve my purposes. And maybe her brother's. And hers, if we got lucky.

"Langly says that you stopped speaking to him after he was convicted. Apparently having a felon in the family sat poorly with your husband."

"Yes...but that's not the whole story."

"So what is the story? Tell me, please."

She colored a deep red. She even blushed like her brother. I guess genetics works.

"You have to go way back. To the beginning."

"Which would be what?" God, she started slow. I lit a cigarette to slow my impatience-she may not like it, but it was my house, and I was feeling a little stressed right now.

"Allison? Could you do me a favor?" Great, she was going to ask me to put it out, and I'd probably oblige, meaning that in a short time, I'd have a headache and be climbing the walls.

"Sure, what?"

"May I...have one of your cigarettes?"

Oh God, this was comical. Just like her brother when he was stressed, diving into my Marlboro Lights. Philip Morris loves this family on a bad day, I thought.

I handed her one, with my lighter. She fumbled with the lighter, missing the end, then hitting it but not getting it lit. She obviously hadn't done this in a while. A long while. Langly had never forgotten the motion. I finally lit it for her, and she inhaled deeply, just about coughing out her lungs in the process.

"You got to practice if you're going to inhale like that," I warned her gently. "Even I don't do that too often, and I keep up the habit."

"I stopped when I married Roy. He insisted." She settled for sucking it in less fiercely, but she was still definitely out of practice. And people don't think smoking is an art form.

"What else did Roy insist on?" I was a little more sarcastic than I would have liked that time. She blanched. "Look, I'm sorry. Please. Go on."

"Roy always detested Ringo. From the time I began dating him, he always thought my relationship with Ringo was...inappropriate."

"Langly doesn't describe it like that. He speaks fondly of you."

That seemed to encourage her, that her baby brother wasn't badmouthing her. "I basically raised Ringo. My mother...at that point in her life...she didn't want a child. There were...circumstances..." I thought of Genie's words, but didn't prod. This was obviously a subject she wasn't comfortable with. "So I raised him. I named him. My parents didn't care what we called him. And at that point in my life, I was a big Beatles fan. And I thought the name Ringo was cute."

Your brother might disagree with that, I said silently, but just nodded to her.

"He really was a sweet little boy. A bit wild-"

"Now why does that not surprise me?" And she finally smiled a little.

"He just couldn't sit still. He was always moving around, always inquisitive, getting into all sorts of mischief." Not much has changed, sister, I wanted to say, but I wanted her to do the talking. "He talked incessantly as a child. And not just about childish things, but everything. Ringo had opinions on everything from the moment he was born."

And history keeps repeating.

"Roy thought he was such a brat."

"Sounds to me like you're talking about a normal, intelligent little boy."

"He was beyond intelligent. Ringo said his first word at six months, and he was forming sentences by the time he was a year old. He was very observant, too. Nothing missed him. He skipped second and fourth grades, by the way."

"Guess that explains graduating from high school at 15."

"I was very proud of him. He was so smart. Like Daddy. Our dad was a brilliant man."

"I got that impression."

"But he was constantly in trouble, Ringo was. He was very disruptive and outspoken. I think he spent most of his first grade year in the principal's office. Imagine how many grades he would have skipped had he not spent so much time in detention." She laughed a little, but very weakly. "And I always got the call. My mother would never respond to the school's calls,
but I always did."

"And Roy resented this?"

"One thing you have to understand about Ringo, he was always very possessive when he was little. He resented Roy-he'd insist on accompanying us places, and he didn't like it when I began to get serious about him. There was a lot of jealousy there."

"Joan, Langly was what, seven when you got married?"

"Yes."

"And you were his primary caretaker."

"I was."

"So what did you expect?"

"Roy felt Ringo was undisciplined, obnoxious, badly behaved." And you could still use those adjectives from time to time. Okay, maybe not the undisciplined part. "And because he was such a bright child, he got away with things, which Roy felt made the devil rise up in him. Roy is a very...religious man. He felt that Ringo needed discipline, and he felt he should institute it."

"So what did he do?"

"He began punishing him for interrupting us when we were talking. He began hitting him."

"You let your fiance hit your brother?" I was incredulous. If Langly had ever raised a hand to Miranda, Joan and I wouldn't be having this conversation.

"Well...he was difficult to control. And as he got older, he got more and more difficult."

"If your husband was slapping him around, I'm not surprised."

"Roy always seemed to know what to do...and I never have an idea as to what should be done. And he'd convinced me he knew how to deal with him. I certainly didn't."

"What the hell did your parents say about this?" Mine would have killed me had I let Eric smack Jason around. If I hadn't done the killing first, that is.

"My parents. My mother...by that time, she'd completely disintegrated. She was living on Valium and alcohol. And my father was deeply into his drinking by then. The family was falling apart."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It was quite awful. I wanted Ringo to come live with us after we were married, but Roy wouldn't hear of it. His efforts to keep Ringo in line had failed, and he felt that he was the epitome of evil. And by then, Ringo hated Roy."

"Big shock on that one."

"I always tried, though. I tried to keep close to Ringo...but Roy was always very demanding. It was hard." She reached into her Vuitton handbag. "I have some pictures I saved. Roy tried to make me get rid of everything when Ringo...went to prison, but I hid them away." She pulled out a manila envelope, and I greedily examined the contents.

"This was when he was two. That's Scott." Tall, blonde, pretty Joan, with a tall, blonde boy standing next to her, each of them holding one hand of a tiny, impish-looking, white-haired, totally adorable little boy with a big smile. The older boy, Scott, was holding a kite.

"We flew kites with Ringo that day. It was a wonderful day." She looked so wistful. "Here's one when he was about 18 months old." Same little adorably cute white-haired boy, sitting on the floor, something totally in pieces all around him. "He had one of those baby radios that you wind up, and he'd taken it apart. I know we shouldn't have encouraged him, but it was so cute. And he was seven here, and he'd won a math bee." A smiling, but slightly sadder looking, still incredibly attractive blonde child. The look on his face just begged for recognition and validation. "And here's a class picture when he was in fourth grade." He was one of the tallest kids in the class-no surprise there. And the impish, innocent smile was gone. A
look that combined resentment and pleading had begun to cross the fine features. The hair was beginning to darken a little, and you could see the mood darkening with it.

So young to lose your innocence, Langly, I thought sadly.

"And here's when he graduated from high school." The hair was down to his shoulders, had acquired its current French vanilla color, and was unkempt looking. The expression was surly, hostile, forbidding. Don't come near me, it said. "This one was when he started at William and Mary-"

"Allleeee!" I heard a long whine from the opposite end of the house.

"That's him." Joan froze in panic.

"Yes, baby?" I called out to him.

"Alleeeee! There's no Advil and I'm so fucking hung over-"

"Excuse me," I said to Joan, and headed down towards the bedroom.
 

I found Langly in the bathroom, scrounging through the cupboards. "You want me to check in the office? There's probably some out there."

"Something, anything! Jesus fuck! I only had eight beers at Benny's last night! Who ever heard of getting a hangover on eight beers?" He was whining miserably, and I vacillated between giving him a comforting hug and smacking him across the ass.

"Langly," I said softly. "We have company."

"Oh, Jesus, Ally, not right now! I feel like shit!" He took a quick glance in the mirror. "I look like shit! Who the hell is here?"

I gave him a quick once-over. Yeah, he looked like hell. Sleep-tousled hair, puffy eyes, ratty thermal shirt, and sweats that had definitely outlived their usefulness.

But he was decent. I handed him his glasses and took his arm.

"Ally, I don't wanna see anybody right now! I feel like hell and I gotta get rid of this headache and I lost 50 bucks to Mulder last night-"

"Langly. Be quiet." I led him into the kitchen. "This is our guest."

He stood, blinking, squinting in the bright light of the kitchen. It took a few moments to register.

Joan looked up, her face frozen in a whole myriad of expression.

"Ringo?" She said softly.

His jaw just about slammed on the ground. "Oh. My. God."

I wished I'd had film at that moment.

END OF PART 71