Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:38 pm
This thread begins on p. 89; if you have started here on p. 90, please go back one page to the beginning. Thanks. --Carol
Epilog 3: May 2023
Usually, watching the water on the lake calmed him. Somehow it put things in perspective, and all the decisions and feelings and pressures just broke apart like the little ripples that dissipated on the rocks and sand. Rocks and sand. It seemed an apt metaphor for his life. Okay, maybe that wasn’t really fair. He’d had a great life with parents who loved him, extended family who understood him as well as anyone could, and natural gifts that amazed even him. But being Alex Valenti had been rocky in ways no one knew, and he could never get a real grip on anything solid. It was like trying to hold onto the sand. He knew why he felt that way; he just didn’t know what to do about it.
Maybe it was the anxious care from his parents, grandparents, and the other mountain residents not to make him feel different that had set him slightly apart his whole life. No one had ever come right out and said that his mother was evil. They didn’t have to. Her name was never mentioned in his presence after the day his parents told him about her. They skirted around it like one would around toxic waste, and an element of fear joined normal annoyance when he misbehaved or lost his temper. It had made him suspicious of his own motives, fearful of demons that might emerge from him when he least expected it.
That self-doubt only aggravated the volatile relationship he had with Phoenix. What had started out as an unshakable bond when they were children had cooled to the point where he was a target for her every nasty mood. She wasted no time walking on eggshells around him. In fact, she wasted no time on him at all anymore, except to express her extreme displeasure at his existence. Hell, maybe she was right. Maybe he was no good for her. Maybe he was no good for anyone.
His insidious restlessness kept him floating while the people who loved him kept him grounded—a constant state of contradiction that left him edgy and unsettled, longing for the peace he saw in others. The worst part was, he didn’t know what direction to take next.
A flash of green caught his eye, and he gritted his teeth as he looked up. She was everything a Sagittarius was supposed to be, which he only knew because Phoenix loved to flaunt her belief in the stars, the Zodiac. Careless and irresponsible, restless and tactless, that was her. She poised to dive from the rocks above him, knowing full well the water was barely deep enough. Her green swimsuit shimmered in the early afternoon sun as she stretched her lithe arms skyward. He would have shouted a warning if she’d hesitated for even a second. But she didn’t. She never did.
With a muttered curse, his arm flew up to slow her descent and, according to the laws of physics, reduce the depth of her plunge beneath the water. Fool! She popped up from under the water loaded for bear. She’d felt his influence during the dive, and she was out to rip him a new one.
He waited, unconcerned, and watched her clean, efficient strokes as she made her way to shore. She was lovely. Her mother’s curtain of dark, silky hair and honest, intelligent eyes flecked with her father’s amber. She carried herself with his grace and confidence, too. But her laugh was quick and her mind quicker, and although she was good-humored and easy going with most people—the positive side to a Sagittarius—she reserved a special brand of snappishness for him. After watching her become gradually more surly toward him while he was in high school, he had hoped that perhaps their relationship would ease once he’d left for college. After all, visits home were frequent but short. To his constant bewilderment, however, absence had definitely not made her heart grow fonder.
“Who the hell do you think you are!” she shouted at him, droplets of water flying helter-skelter from the clumped ends of her long hair. “How dare you interfere with my dive!” The amber flecks turned an intense gold when she was angry.
“If I hadn’t interfered, the bottom of the lake might have,” he said with studied patience, mostly because he knew it would piss her off.
“I’ve dived off those rocks since I was 7,” she seethed, “and I haven’t needed your help yet!”
“Well you’ve gotten it, you stubborn alien,” he retorted, rising so he could use his considerable height advantage to emphasize his point. “I’ve saved your sorry neck a few hundred times, at least. Did it ever occur to you that when you were 7, your body didn’t dive as deep as it does now? Did it ever once enter your pea brain that Uncle Max had a reason to forbid diving from up there? You could break your neck!”
“Well, it’s my neck, isn’t it? And I know how to pull up fast; I never get near the bottom. So if you think you could find something else to do besides following me around and spoiling my fun, I’d really appreciate it.”
She had brought her 5’5” frame up to at least 5’6” through sheer force of will, he thought, amused, and he had to suppress a smile at how ferocious she managed to look. He fought the urge to reach out and smooth that deep crease between her eyes; she would go ballistic if he touched her.
“I was here first.”
The sheer childishness of his reply left her momentarily speechless. She sputtered for a moment, then flipped her hair over her shoulder, visibly pleased when several cold drops hit his face. “Masterful comeback for a college grad,” she drawled. “Sometimes,” she leaned forward, as if sharing a confidence, “I am convinced you are downright facinerous.”
“Facinerous,” he repeated. “I don’t think that’s even a word, Phee.”
“Oh yes it is!” she gloated, turning to leave now that she could smell victory. “It means ‘extremely wicked.’ That’s you, Alex. Facinerous.”
She took a few haughty strides, then turned slightly when he called to her.
“Phee?”
“What?” Her irritation was palpable.
“You did well on the SATs, didn’t you?”
She couldn’t hide the twitch of her mouth, but lifted her chin anyway.
“Of course.”
She disappeared into the trees in seconds, and Alex settled back on his perch, grinning at the exchange. Maybe she was coming around.
He sat a while longer, waiting for the lake to work its magic on his soul, but the magic eluded him. The lake may have been calm, but he wasn’t. He needed to walk, to burn off some of this nervous energy. He ducked into the trees and followed one of the paths that had been worn by kids running back and forth to the lake over the years. Somewhere above him, he could hear the giggles that halted abruptly as he approached—no doubt Erika, Kelsey, and Shelby were having a weekend pow-wow in the tree house that had been, interestingly enough, the girls’ sacred hideaway since Uncle Max had built it for Phoenix all those years ago. He would have thought that now, as teens, they’d have outgrown it, but apparently not. He pretended not to know they were there and turned down a different path.
As soon as he’d come home, college behind him, the mental sediment kicked up again. The questions, the contradictory feelings, the frustration. Even a degree in psychology hadn’t chipped away at all the issues he kept tucked inside. Should he stay here, where people cared about him, understood his odd roots and even odder abilities? Or did he break free of this safe and maddening haven and go into the world to find a new life—one without all the baggage and expectations?
Who was he kidding? The baggage was there either way. So were the abilities and so were the expectations. The only difference was how closely the others were watching. Phoenix could have made the decision easy—if he had come home to find her welcoming, or at least more understanding of the tension between them. Was she afraid of him? Of what he might someday become? Or was she afraid that if she let him in, it would seal her fate in this isolated corner of the world? Independent—that was Phee. Chalk up another one for Sagittarius.
Damn it! He just wanted to feel he belonged somewhere . . . anywhere. He’d always loved this place, these people, so why was the bond that the others shared so effortlessly so hard to come by for him? When he was a boy, he’d focused on the obvious—his wavy blond hair in a dark-haired family; his highly developed alien powers compared to his brother and sister. As a pre-adolescent, he’d noticed the way the adults always watched him a little more closely, a little more warily. He was reasonably sure they didn’t even know they did it; they had loved him and done their best for him always, but he’d felt it in them—another of his gifts. It had been tempting to read their minds, but one or two daring attempts as a boy had left him cured; he had been more than a little rattled by Uncle Max’s erotic fantasies about his wife and visibly unnerved by Uncle Michael’s chaotic mind. And since his father could sense his attempts and was able to block him, he had been on the receiving end of several stern lectures followed by nights alone in his room—where, of course, he wondered all the more.
The source of the strangely elevated attention had remained a mystery until right before his twelfth birthday. He’d been rooting around looking for hidden presents, hoping for some clue that he was getting a guitar, when he found a box of books on Buddhism. Intrigued, since his family had attended a small non-denominational Christian church since he could remember, he pulled them out and recognized his father’s handwriting in the margins. Later that evening, his innocent question had changed his life.
Flashback
“Hey, Dad, have you always been a Christian?”
“Pretty much,” Kyle answered. “Took some detours along the way. Why?”
“Because,” Alex said with a grin, pulling a worn book out from behind his back, “I found this.”
Kyle squinted across the room. “Oh, man. Where’d you find that?”
“Hall closet.” He opened the book to the front flap. “So what does, ‘Hey, Buddha Boy, what would Buddha think about the Busty Biker Babes?’ mean?”
His father paled, frozen mid-click at the computer, and his mother looked up from her book, mouth gaping. Frightened, Alex plunged into his father’s mind without thinking. The images flying past all involved a short blond with curly hair and beautiful eyes, but the images were tainted with something Alex had never felt from his father before—loathing.
The horror on his own face must have jolted his father out of his reverie because he leapt from the desk and grabbed the book from Alex. Then, instead of getting yelled at as he’d expected, his father pulled him into a desperate hug and held on. When he finally let go, he looked drawn and resigned.
“Who was she?” Alex asked, afraid because he was sure he already knew.
His parents drew him to the sofa, flanking him, and he knew it would be bad.
“She was your birth mother, Alex. Her name was Tess.”
Hearing it out loud was much worse than suspecting it, Alex decided quickly. He tried to stand, but his mother pulled him back gently. “We should have told you this before,” she admitted softly, “but there never seemed to be a good time . . . or a good reason.”
“You’re not my mother.” It was more of an accusation than a question.
“She is your mother,” his father said firmly. “She didn’t carry you inside her, but she has been your mother your whole life.”
“Are you even my father?” He could feel the walls going up, but they were his walls, not his father’s. Even as he asked the question, he could see his father relax a little.
“Yes, I’m your dad, Alex. Sorry to add to the bad news.”
The feeble attempt at humor died between them.
“You were married before mom?”
At this, Kyle sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he opened them again, looking to Serena for guidance.
“Tell him.” It was said with love, with sympathy. There was no anger, and Alex looked from one to the other, his frustration building.
“Tell me what?”
He watched his father’s face, wondering at the secrets he saw there. He was a telepath, the most gifted of all of them. How could he not have known something wasn’t right! But he had known, he reminded himself. A part of him had known.
“Back in Roswell, before I ever met your mother, before I even knew the truth about your Uncle Max and the others, a new girl came to town. Her name was Tess, and she was after your Uncle Max bigtime. I tried to make friends with her at first, mostly to piss off your Aunt Liz because she’d dumped me for Max. Anyway, once I found out about all the alien stuff, I learned that Tess was after your Uncle Max because she’d been raised to believe that she was his queen back on Antar, and she wanted to resume her rightful place. He wasn’t having it, of course; he was as devoted to Aunt Liz then as he is now, although it was touch and go there for a while.”
He stood then, the memories twisting his face in once-forgotten pain.
“You’ve heard the stories; it was a dangerous time and the protector had gone to do Max’s bidding elsewhere. She was his charge, he’d raised her, so when he left, your Grandpa Jim took her in. While she lived with us, she led me to believe that she’d given up on Max, seeing how things were with him and Liz, and she started on me.”
He whipped back toward them, frustration evident in his body language from head to toe. “Alex, I swear to you, I thought I loved her. I also thought, because she told me so, that she couldn’t have children with a human, so . . .”
Alex squirmed. They’d had a basic birds and bees talk, but the idea of this father . . . he didn’t really want to hear this. His discomfort must have shown because his dad stopped, took a deep breath, and changed course.
“She had a baby, Alex. You. But she mindwarped everyone into thinking you were Max’s and then . . . left. When she brought you back to Roswell the next year, we still thought you were Max’s, and he put you up for adoption. Not . . .” he hurried to add when Alex gasped in surprise, “not because he didn’t want you, but because Tess said you were completely human and he loved you enough to give you a normal life. He was trying to protect you.”
Alex’s head was swimming. He was even too dazed to resist when his not-really-mother pulled him against her.
“My brother and his wife adopted you, sweetie,” she explained, her voice as gentle as a butterfly kiss. “And they were so happy, you can’t imagine. But they were killed in a car accident only a couple months after you came to them, and it was nothing short of a miracle that I was caring for you when I met your dad. We fell in love with you . . . and each other, and you’ve been our son ever since.”
Alex’s heart was thrashing against his ribs, pounding for release from its prison; it would surely have burst if he hadn’t concentrated everything he had on steadying its rhythm. Eventually, he realized his head was resting against his mother’s chest and she was stroking his hair. He didn’t want to be stroked. He wanted to hit something. Hurt and furious, he launched himself from the couch and whirled around to face them.
“Then how do you know I’m yours and not Uncle Max’s?” he accused, fists tight at his side.
“It’s hard to explain, Alex. Uncle Max realized you weren’t his when the warp broke right around the time he married Aunt Liz. For a while, we thought maybe Tess had kidnapped you from someone else, and Uncle Philip was even doing a search of missing baby cases. It wasn’t until we moved to Vegas and I met your mom . . . I was driving the two of you to the pediatrician when you zapped a pacifier into your mouth. I knew immediately who you were and that there was no way we could go to the doctor. We went to Max’s instead. We realized you had to be Tess’s own child, and then it hit me that you were mine, too.”
His voice fell to a whisper, and his eyes ached for Alex to understand. “She’d lied to me, Alex. To everyone. But I knew, then, that you were my son.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” Alex hissed at his father. “You hate her! I felt it! And you probably hate me, too!”
He raised his hand and blew the glass out of the row of family pictures on the mantle; then, with an anguished cry, he bolted from the room.
End flashback
Alex shook himself, the memories still fresh and painful, and plunged deeper into the woods.
********
Phoenix blew through the door like a storm, taking the steps two at a time. Swinging into her room, she pulled up short when she saw her mother changing her sheets.
“Oh!”
“Hi, hon. I thought you’d be gone longer,” Liz said, smoothing a corner. “Can you help me on the other side?”
“Where’s Dakota?” She tucked in the sheet and pulled up the bedspread.
“Your sister went to help set up for the fun-day at school next week. I think she misses being with her dad at school every day.”
“Oh, man, she’s lovin’ that. Any excuse to use her powers. What’s the theme this year?”
“Star Trek.”
“What?” Phoenix collapsed into a chair. “That is so lame. Couldn’t he come up with anything better than that?”
Eyeballing her daughter, she saw right through the façade of teen ennui. “Well, I’d agree except the students voted for it themselves. Apparently the wide variety of species and therefore costumes appealed to them.”
“Or,” Phoenix hypothesized with a note of disgust, “he suggested it and all his little groupies swayed the vote.”
“Groupies?”
“Groupies. Don’t you know, Mom, that half the girls are related to him and the other half just sit and drool over him? And the guys . . . forget it. They all want to be him, related or not. It’s pathetic.”
Liz tried unsuccessfully to swallow a laugh.
“You don’t believe me? Ask Joy. I caught her writing his name in little hearts in her notebook once. I almost lost my lunch.”
“I can imagine,” Liz sympathized with a grin. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing his school doesn’t cover high school, huh?”
“Ewww, mom, that’s gross. Although, I remember wishing I could stay here for high school. Why didn’t Dad ever expand our school right to twelfth grade? The high school’s so far away.”
“Too many state regulations for all the different subject matters at that level. Besides, Dad’s got a new project in mind now that he’ll only have five students next year. You’re all getting so old.”
“What new project?”
“A book! He’s been working on a manuscript sort of fictionalizing our own experiences. Brody knows a couple of publishers he can send sample chapters to once he’s satisfied with them.”
Phoenix frowned, straightening in her chair. “Is that safe?”
“Sci-fi is a very popular genre, Phee. The wilder the story, the better. It won’t even cause a ripple of suspicion, I’m sure. So what brought you home so quickly?”
Phoenix huffed impatiently. “Alex. He was down at the lake and making a nuisance of himself, so I came home.”
“And how, exactly, did he make a nuisance of himself, if I may ask?” Liz watched her daughter carefully; her suspicions were confirmed a little more each time Alex came home.
“I was . . .” Phoenix snapped her mouth shut. “He just seems to have made it his personal mission to spoil my fun.”
“I see. Well, go call Seth and Zeke from out back. We’re due over at the Guerins’ for a cookout and it’s almost time to go. Oh, and can you go pick up Nana and bring her back? I haven’t been able to get her behind the wheel of a car since Gramps died.”
Liz fought the overwhelming sadness that visited her each day when she remembered again that her father was gone. His eyesight had gotten poor and he’d been unable to renew his driver’s license, but that didn’t keep him from sneaking out to run errands anyway. Then, six months ago, he’d lingered a little too long at the coffee shop in town, and in the dark, he’d driven off the road and plunged into a ravine. Several dark hours later, they finally found him—too late, even for Max. They learned later, he’d had a stroke, though it was unclear if that was the cause or the result of the accident. Liz knew, one way or the other, it’s how he would have wanted to go—no debilitating illness, no chronic pain, no loss of mental faculties. But that didn’t ease the hole in her heart, and it certainly didn’t make her miss him any less.
“Okay, mom!”
Liz watched her daughter fly out the door—her throttle was always on full power—and turned to stash her journal between the mattress and the box spring where she’d found it. It never once occurred to her to take a peek inside—nothing could have violated Liz’s personal code more—but her eyebrows flew up when a small yearbook-type picture of Alex fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, noticed the worn edges, and carefully slipped it back into the pages.
Continued in next post
Epilog 3: May 2023
Usually, watching the water on the lake calmed him. Somehow it put things in perspective, and all the decisions and feelings and pressures just broke apart like the little ripples that dissipated on the rocks and sand. Rocks and sand. It seemed an apt metaphor for his life. Okay, maybe that wasn’t really fair. He’d had a great life with parents who loved him, extended family who understood him as well as anyone could, and natural gifts that amazed even him. But being Alex Valenti had been rocky in ways no one knew, and he could never get a real grip on anything solid. It was like trying to hold onto the sand. He knew why he felt that way; he just didn’t know what to do about it.
Maybe it was the anxious care from his parents, grandparents, and the other mountain residents not to make him feel different that had set him slightly apart his whole life. No one had ever come right out and said that his mother was evil. They didn’t have to. Her name was never mentioned in his presence after the day his parents told him about her. They skirted around it like one would around toxic waste, and an element of fear joined normal annoyance when he misbehaved or lost his temper. It had made him suspicious of his own motives, fearful of demons that might emerge from him when he least expected it.
That self-doubt only aggravated the volatile relationship he had with Phoenix. What had started out as an unshakable bond when they were children had cooled to the point where he was a target for her every nasty mood. She wasted no time walking on eggshells around him. In fact, she wasted no time on him at all anymore, except to express her extreme displeasure at his existence. Hell, maybe she was right. Maybe he was no good for her. Maybe he was no good for anyone.
His insidious restlessness kept him floating while the people who loved him kept him grounded—a constant state of contradiction that left him edgy and unsettled, longing for the peace he saw in others. The worst part was, he didn’t know what direction to take next.
A flash of green caught his eye, and he gritted his teeth as he looked up. She was everything a Sagittarius was supposed to be, which he only knew because Phoenix loved to flaunt her belief in the stars, the Zodiac. Careless and irresponsible, restless and tactless, that was her. She poised to dive from the rocks above him, knowing full well the water was barely deep enough. Her green swimsuit shimmered in the early afternoon sun as she stretched her lithe arms skyward. He would have shouted a warning if she’d hesitated for even a second. But she didn’t. She never did.
With a muttered curse, his arm flew up to slow her descent and, according to the laws of physics, reduce the depth of her plunge beneath the water. Fool! She popped up from under the water loaded for bear. She’d felt his influence during the dive, and she was out to rip him a new one.
He waited, unconcerned, and watched her clean, efficient strokes as she made her way to shore. She was lovely. Her mother’s curtain of dark, silky hair and honest, intelligent eyes flecked with her father’s amber. She carried herself with his grace and confidence, too. But her laugh was quick and her mind quicker, and although she was good-humored and easy going with most people—the positive side to a Sagittarius—she reserved a special brand of snappishness for him. After watching her become gradually more surly toward him while he was in high school, he had hoped that perhaps their relationship would ease once he’d left for college. After all, visits home were frequent but short. To his constant bewilderment, however, absence had definitely not made her heart grow fonder.
“Who the hell do you think you are!” she shouted at him, droplets of water flying helter-skelter from the clumped ends of her long hair. “How dare you interfere with my dive!” The amber flecks turned an intense gold when she was angry.
“If I hadn’t interfered, the bottom of the lake might have,” he said with studied patience, mostly because he knew it would piss her off.
“I’ve dived off those rocks since I was 7,” she seethed, “and I haven’t needed your help yet!”
“Well you’ve gotten it, you stubborn alien,” he retorted, rising so he could use his considerable height advantage to emphasize his point. “I’ve saved your sorry neck a few hundred times, at least. Did it ever occur to you that when you were 7, your body didn’t dive as deep as it does now? Did it ever once enter your pea brain that Uncle Max had a reason to forbid diving from up there? You could break your neck!”
“Well, it’s my neck, isn’t it? And I know how to pull up fast; I never get near the bottom. So if you think you could find something else to do besides following me around and spoiling my fun, I’d really appreciate it.”
She had brought her 5’5” frame up to at least 5’6” through sheer force of will, he thought, amused, and he had to suppress a smile at how ferocious she managed to look. He fought the urge to reach out and smooth that deep crease between her eyes; she would go ballistic if he touched her.
“I was here first.”
The sheer childishness of his reply left her momentarily speechless. She sputtered for a moment, then flipped her hair over her shoulder, visibly pleased when several cold drops hit his face. “Masterful comeback for a college grad,” she drawled. “Sometimes,” she leaned forward, as if sharing a confidence, “I am convinced you are downright facinerous.”
“Facinerous,” he repeated. “I don’t think that’s even a word, Phee.”
“Oh yes it is!” she gloated, turning to leave now that she could smell victory. “It means ‘extremely wicked.’ That’s you, Alex. Facinerous.”
She took a few haughty strides, then turned slightly when he called to her.
“Phee?”
“What?” Her irritation was palpable.
“You did well on the SATs, didn’t you?”
She couldn’t hide the twitch of her mouth, but lifted her chin anyway.
“Of course.”
She disappeared into the trees in seconds, and Alex settled back on his perch, grinning at the exchange. Maybe she was coming around.
He sat a while longer, waiting for the lake to work its magic on his soul, but the magic eluded him. The lake may have been calm, but he wasn’t. He needed to walk, to burn off some of this nervous energy. He ducked into the trees and followed one of the paths that had been worn by kids running back and forth to the lake over the years. Somewhere above him, he could hear the giggles that halted abruptly as he approached—no doubt Erika, Kelsey, and Shelby were having a weekend pow-wow in the tree house that had been, interestingly enough, the girls’ sacred hideaway since Uncle Max had built it for Phoenix all those years ago. He would have thought that now, as teens, they’d have outgrown it, but apparently not. He pretended not to know they were there and turned down a different path.
As soon as he’d come home, college behind him, the mental sediment kicked up again. The questions, the contradictory feelings, the frustration. Even a degree in psychology hadn’t chipped away at all the issues he kept tucked inside. Should he stay here, where people cared about him, understood his odd roots and even odder abilities? Or did he break free of this safe and maddening haven and go into the world to find a new life—one without all the baggage and expectations?
Who was he kidding? The baggage was there either way. So were the abilities and so were the expectations. The only difference was how closely the others were watching. Phoenix could have made the decision easy—if he had come home to find her welcoming, or at least more understanding of the tension between them. Was she afraid of him? Of what he might someday become? Or was she afraid that if she let him in, it would seal her fate in this isolated corner of the world? Independent—that was Phee. Chalk up another one for Sagittarius.
Damn it! He just wanted to feel he belonged somewhere . . . anywhere. He’d always loved this place, these people, so why was the bond that the others shared so effortlessly so hard to come by for him? When he was a boy, he’d focused on the obvious—his wavy blond hair in a dark-haired family; his highly developed alien powers compared to his brother and sister. As a pre-adolescent, he’d noticed the way the adults always watched him a little more closely, a little more warily. He was reasonably sure they didn’t even know they did it; they had loved him and done their best for him always, but he’d felt it in them—another of his gifts. It had been tempting to read their minds, but one or two daring attempts as a boy had left him cured; he had been more than a little rattled by Uncle Max’s erotic fantasies about his wife and visibly unnerved by Uncle Michael’s chaotic mind. And since his father could sense his attempts and was able to block him, he had been on the receiving end of several stern lectures followed by nights alone in his room—where, of course, he wondered all the more.
The source of the strangely elevated attention had remained a mystery until right before his twelfth birthday. He’d been rooting around looking for hidden presents, hoping for some clue that he was getting a guitar, when he found a box of books on Buddhism. Intrigued, since his family had attended a small non-denominational Christian church since he could remember, he pulled them out and recognized his father’s handwriting in the margins. Later that evening, his innocent question had changed his life.
Flashback
“Hey, Dad, have you always been a Christian?”
“Pretty much,” Kyle answered. “Took some detours along the way. Why?”
“Because,” Alex said with a grin, pulling a worn book out from behind his back, “I found this.”
Kyle squinted across the room. “Oh, man. Where’d you find that?”
“Hall closet.” He opened the book to the front flap. “So what does, ‘Hey, Buddha Boy, what would Buddha think about the Busty Biker Babes?’ mean?”
His father paled, frozen mid-click at the computer, and his mother looked up from her book, mouth gaping. Frightened, Alex plunged into his father’s mind without thinking. The images flying past all involved a short blond with curly hair and beautiful eyes, but the images were tainted with something Alex had never felt from his father before—loathing.
The horror on his own face must have jolted his father out of his reverie because he leapt from the desk and grabbed the book from Alex. Then, instead of getting yelled at as he’d expected, his father pulled him into a desperate hug and held on. When he finally let go, he looked drawn and resigned.
“Who was she?” Alex asked, afraid because he was sure he already knew.
His parents drew him to the sofa, flanking him, and he knew it would be bad.
“She was your birth mother, Alex. Her name was Tess.”
Hearing it out loud was much worse than suspecting it, Alex decided quickly. He tried to stand, but his mother pulled him back gently. “We should have told you this before,” she admitted softly, “but there never seemed to be a good time . . . or a good reason.”
“You’re not my mother.” It was more of an accusation than a question.
“She is your mother,” his father said firmly. “She didn’t carry you inside her, but she has been your mother your whole life.”
“Are you even my father?” He could feel the walls going up, but they were his walls, not his father’s. Even as he asked the question, he could see his father relax a little.
“Yes, I’m your dad, Alex. Sorry to add to the bad news.”
The feeble attempt at humor died between them.
“You were married before mom?”
At this, Kyle sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he opened them again, looking to Serena for guidance.
“Tell him.” It was said with love, with sympathy. There was no anger, and Alex looked from one to the other, his frustration building.
“Tell me what?”
He watched his father’s face, wondering at the secrets he saw there. He was a telepath, the most gifted of all of them. How could he not have known something wasn’t right! But he had known, he reminded himself. A part of him had known.
“Back in Roswell, before I ever met your mother, before I even knew the truth about your Uncle Max and the others, a new girl came to town. Her name was Tess, and she was after your Uncle Max bigtime. I tried to make friends with her at first, mostly to piss off your Aunt Liz because she’d dumped me for Max. Anyway, once I found out about all the alien stuff, I learned that Tess was after your Uncle Max because she’d been raised to believe that she was his queen back on Antar, and she wanted to resume her rightful place. He wasn’t having it, of course; he was as devoted to Aunt Liz then as he is now, although it was touch and go there for a while.”
He stood then, the memories twisting his face in once-forgotten pain.
“You’ve heard the stories; it was a dangerous time and the protector had gone to do Max’s bidding elsewhere. She was his charge, he’d raised her, so when he left, your Grandpa Jim took her in. While she lived with us, she led me to believe that she’d given up on Max, seeing how things were with him and Liz, and she started on me.”
He whipped back toward them, frustration evident in his body language from head to toe. “Alex, I swear to you, I thought I loved her. I also thought, because she told me so, that she couldn’t have children with a human, so . . .”
Alex squirmed. They’d had a basic birds and bees talk, but the idea of this father . . . he didn’t really want to hear this. His discomfort must have shown because his dad stopped, took a deep breath, and changed course.
“She had a baby, Alex. You. But she mindwarped everyone into thinking you were Max’s and then . . . left. When she brought you back to Roswell the next year, we still thought you were Max’s, and he put you up for adoption. Not . . .” he hurried to add when Alex gasped in surprise, “not because he didn’t want you, but because Tess said you were completely human and he loved you enough to give you a normal life. He was trying to protect you.”
Alex’s head was swimming. He was even too dazed to resist when his not-really-mother pulled him against her.
“My brother and his wife adopted you, sweetie,” she explained, her voice as gentle as a butterfly kiss. “And they were so happy, you can’t imagine. But they were killed in a car accident only a couple months after you came to them, and it was nothing short of a miracle that I was caring for you when I met your dad. We fell in love with you . . . and each other, and you’ve been our son ever since.”
Alex’s heart was thrashing against his ribs, pounding for release from its prison; it would surely have burst if he hadn’t concentrated everything he had on steadying its rhythm. Eventually, he realized his head was resting against his mother’s chest and she was stroking his hair. He didn’t want to be stroked. He wanted to hit something. Hurt and furious, he launched himself from the couch and whirled around to face them.
“Then how do you know I’m yours and not Uncle Max’s?” he accused, fists tight at his side.
“It’s hard to explain, Alex. Uncle Max realized you weren’t his when the warp broke right around the time he married Aunt Liz. For a while, we thought maybe Tess had kidnapped you from someone else, and Uncle Philip was even doing a search of missing baby cases. It wasn’t until we moved to Vegas and I met your mom . . . I was driving the two of you to the pediatrician when you zapped a pacifier into your mouth. I knew immediately who you were and that there was no way we could go to the doctor. We went to Max’s instead. We realized you had to be Tess’s own child, and then it hit me that you were mine, too.”
His voice fell to a whisper, and his eyes ached for Alex to understand. “She’d lied to me, Alex. To everyone. But I knew, then, that you were my son.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” Alex hissed at his father. “You hate her! I felt it! And you probably hate me, too!”
He raised his hand and blew the glass out of the row of family pictures on the mantle; then, with an anguished cry, he bolted from the room.
End flashback
Alex shook himself, the memories still fresh and painful, and plunged deeper into the woods.
********
Phoenix blew through the door like a storm, taking the steps two at a time. Swinging into her room, she pulled up short when she saw her mother changing her sheets.
“Oh!”
“Hi, hon. I thought you’d be gone longer,” Liz said, smoothing a corner. “Can you help me on the other side?”
“Where’s Dakota?” She tucked in the sheet and pulled up the bedspread.
“Your sister went to help set up for the fun-day at school next week. I think she misses being with her dad at school every day.”
“Oh, man, she’s lovin’ that. Any excuse to use her powers. What’s the theme this year?”
“Star Trek.”
“What?” Phoenix collapsed into a chair. “That is so lame. Couldn’t he come up with anything better than that?”
Eyeballing her daughter, she saw right through the façade of teen ennui. “Well, I’d agree except the students voted for it themselves. Apparently the wide variety of species and therefore costumes appealed to them.”
“Or,” Phoenix hypothesized with a note of disgust, “he suggested it and all his little groupies swayed the vote.”
“Groupies?”
“Groupies. Don’t you know, Mom, that half the girls are related to him and the other half just sit and drool over him? And the guys . . . forget it. They all want to be him, related or not. It’s pathetic.”
Liz tried unsuccessfully to swallow a laugh.
“You don’t believe me? Ask Joy. I caught her writing his name in little hearts in her notebook once. I almost lost my lunch.”
“I can imagine,” Liz sympathized with a grin. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing his school doesn’t cover high school, huh?”
“Ewww, mom, that’s gross. Although, I remember wishing I could stay here for high school. Why didn’t Dad ever expand our school right to twelfth grade? The high school’s so far away.”
“Too many state regulations for all the different subject matters at that level. Besides, Dad’s got a new project in mind now that he’ll only have five students next year. You’re all getting so old.”
“What new project?”
“A book! He’s been working on a manuscript sort of fictionalizing our own experiences. Brody knows a couple of publishers he can send sample chapters to once he’s satisfied with them.”
Phoenix frowned, straightening in her chair. “Is that safe?”
“Sci-fi is a very popular genre, Phee. The wilder the story, the better. It won’t even cause a ripple of suspicion, I’m sure. So what brought you home so quickly?”
Phoenix huffed impatiently. “Alex. He was down at the lake and making a nuisance of himself, so I came home.”
“And how, exactly, did he make a nuisance of himself, if I may ask?” Liz watched her daughter carefully; her suspicions were confirmed a little more each time Alex came home.
“I was . . .” Phoenix snapped her mouth shut. “He just seems to have made it his personal mission to spoil my fun.”
“I see. Well, go call Seth and Zeke from out back. We’re due over at the Guerins’ for a cookout and it’s almost time to go. Oh, and can you go pick up Nana and bring her back? I haven’t been able to get her behind the wheel of a car since Gramps died.”
Liz fought the overwhelming sadness that visited her each day when she remembered again that her father was gone. His eyesight had gotten poor and he’d been unable to renew his driver’s license, but that didn’t keep him from sneaking out to run errands anyway. Then, six months ago, he’d lingered a little too long at the coffee shop in town, and in the dark, he’d driven off the road and plunged into a ravine. Several dark hours later, they finally found him—too late, even for Max. They learned later, he’d had a stroke, though it was unclear if that was the cause or the result of the accident. Liz knew, one way or the other, it’s how he would have wanted to go—no debilitating illness, no chronic pain, no loss of mental faculties. But that didn’t ease the hole in her heart, and it certainly didn’t make her miss him any less.
“Okay, mom!”
Liz watched her daughter fly out the door—her throttle was always on full power—and turned to stash her journal between the mattress and the box spring where she’d found it. It never once occurred to her to take a peek inside—nothing could have violated Liz’s personal code more—but her eyebrows flew up when a small yearbook-type picture of Alex fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, noticed the worn edges, and carefully slipped it back into the pages.
Continued in next post