Vignette #87: Catharsis

Sure enough, Lance Crockett was tapping his foot, waiting impatiently in the chair beside Blake’s desk. Ian plastered on a smile.

“Lance, what may I do for you? I didn’t think there was another press conference scheduled until next week.”

He stood. “We have more important matters to discuss. Your office. Now.”

“Not unless you want to die a horrible agonizing death. I messed up my phone again, and Blake will kill me with his death ray eyes. I’m positive all innocent bystanders within five feet would get vaporized, too.”

“I’m sure you don’t want to do this so…” Lance looked around at the staff, “…publicly.”

“Unless you want to borrow money, I have no problem discussing anything in front of the team.”

“Fine.” Lance crossed his arms and took a hard stance. “I’m getting tired of having to clean up the messes you are constantly making of the HRT image that some of us try very hard to preserve.”

Ian didn’t bother. “What have I done now, Lance? Did I take up more than my share of air in the elevator again?”

“Don’t make light of this. First you run off to bumfuck…”

“Watch your mouth, Crockett.”

“…without telling anyone, managed to create an ecological disaster while you’re there and then I discover you’ve with held important personal information. Now, I’m stuck with how to spin this mess and I don’t appreciate it. This has to stop.”

“You are absolutely right.” Ian crossed his arms and glared. “This has to stop. First and foremost, personal information is personal and none of your business. Secondly I went home for a death in the family, intending to only miss one day of work, and once again none of your business.”

“It is my job to…”

“Lance, your job is to promote HRT, not tragedies that happen in my life, or anything to do with my life period.”

“You seem to forget, that anything personal that becomes public becomes my job. I now have to find a way to counter act the negative publicity your naïve ignorance has pulled this network into.”

“Negative? No one but my staff even knew I had gone to Lost Mountain, and they wouldn’t have known if the neighbor’s gas tank or whatever hadn’t exploded.” It was only a small white lie, but the press didn’t know the whole truth about that incident and Lance Crockett sure as hell didn’t need to know.

“Exactly! And there you were right in the middle of it.”

“Lance, I pulled two people out of a fire! How the hell is that negative publicity?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Crockett and Ian turned to see David Turner, red faced and angry.

“Mr. Turner.” Lance smiled sweetly, “Just calm down, sir. I’m taking care of this.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” The old man took a step toward Cockett. “This young man saved two people’s lives, moments after burying the woman who practically raised him. And you’re telling him his actions reflect badly on HRT? What kind of idiot are you?”

“Mr. Turner!” Lance was shocked and obviously incensed at the epithet. “I can not tolerate name calling.”

“And I will not tolerate you any longer. You’re fired!”

“Mr. Turner.” Ian said. “I don’t think that is necessary. Obviously there is more behind this than Lance was allowed to finish. Am I not correct?”

Ian looked at Lance. He could see the wheels spinning and the man carefully choosing his words. “Actually, the problem is not the facts you’ve pointed out Mr. Turner, but the fact that Ian did not inform us of the outcome.”

Ian looked at Turner, knowing that the confused look on the man’s face had to be the same one on his. “Okay, Lance. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“The press has been very kind to you during this matter, Ian.” Lance said. “But what happens when they find out that you haven’t told the whole truth?”

“Still confused Lance.”

“Don’t play innocent, Justyn. You’re the one who refused to do this in private.”

“Other than proving beyond a shadow of a doubt you are pretty much what Mr. Turner said you were, I’m still totally confused.”

“You really want me to spell it out?” Lance smiled wryly.

“Get to the point, Crockett. I for one still haven’t retracted your termination so make it good. Make it damned good.”

“Fine. You’ve used that opportunity to bring home a bastard child and pass it off as taking in a poor waif orphaned by the tragedy.”

“You son of a bitch!” Ian exploded. It seemed everyone in the world stood up and held their breath. Ian balled up his fists, took a deep breath and counted to ten. “If you ever use that word regarding my son again. If you even think it. I’ll kill you.”

“Ian…” David Turner started.

Ian held up his hand. “Crockett wants the truth. Crockett gets the truth.”

He took a step toward Crockett and bored holes with his eyes. “My son’s mother and I were married on her eighteenth birthday. I was working three minimum wage part time jobs. Out of the blue, I got a scholarship to college. We decided she should live with her father so I could get a degree and hopefully give us a decent chance at a future. I enrolled in school for the fall.”

“This is no longer necessary.” Lance said quietly.

“Shut up. I’m talking now.” Ian hissed. “Taylor discovered she was pregnant. She hid it from me until there was no way I could not know. I decided not to go to college and be with the family that I loved and wanted dearly, determined that no matter what, my wife and child would not live the life that I had been raised in. I didn’t know how, but I would make it happen, but she insisted that I go. So off I went, coming to her every weekend I wasn’t working.”

Ian took a breath, eyes still locked with Crockett’s. “Ronnie was born in September, after three days, three days, of labor. Obviously there were complications. We were poor and didn’t have any insurance. The doctor put that baby boy in my arms and told me that unless I had the money to move Taylor immediately to a better hospital the best he could do was try and stop the bleeding.”

“Oh God.” Wella said quietly from the middle of the room.

“I put my baby boy in my wife’s arms and held them both. I held her while she bleed to death, because I was too fucking poor to get her better help. I sat there and watched the mother of my newborn child, the woman I loved more than my own life, die because I didn’t have a choice. I suddenly found myself alone, devastated and a teenage single father with no future.”

He cocked his head and asked. “What was I supposed to do, Lance? Allow the product of the one thing I truly loved in this world to suffer the same fate I had? I refused to allow my child to grow up the poor poor kid that I was.”

“You gave him away.” Lance broke eye contact and looked at the floor.

“I found I had a choice and made the best one I could for my son. My wife’s sister and her husband and tried for years to have a child and couldn’t. After four miscarriages they told Janie never to try it again. I kissed my wife’s body, and took my new born son and put him in her sister’s arms.”

“Of course.” Lance slipped his hands in his pockets.

“I tried to never look back. I tried. I knew it was the best thing for him, for them, but every step I took my heart tore open. I thought it would get better in time. I only got better at hiding it. That ache never dulls.”

“It was a good decision honey.” Wella came to him and touched his arm. “It worked out for both of you. He had a loving family and you became a success.”

“Don’t you understand?” Ian looked at her. “The more successful I became, the more it hurt. I could have done it. I could have kept my baby. The guilt, the shame…I cut myself off from everybody…everybody else who had ever been a part of my life, because it reminded me of the pain. Even that started to hurt more than I could bear. Do you know how many times I was smiling on the outside while my own heart was cutting itself to shreds on the inside?”

“I’m sorry.” Lance said faintly.

“I went to my Aunt Hilary’s to bury her, knowing full well I’d have to smile and lie with every breath while my own son treated me like a stranger, a son I hadn’t laid eyes on since he was a few minutes old. I had to stand there and act like he didn’t look so much like the woman I held in my arms until she took her last breath while he looked back at me with her eyes and called me mister.”

Ian wiped the tears from his cheeks with both hands. “Then the world really exploded. Suddenly, I have my little boy back. I can hold him in my arms and tell him how much I hate his cat. Turns out, he knew. He knew all along and he calls me ‘Papa’. He calls me ‘Papa’.”

Wella put her head on Ian’s shoulder and pulled him close. “And there’s always a but. The but this time was that two people had to die to reunite my son and I. The two people who raised him, clothed him and loved him when I didn’t think I could. I got my son and he got his natural father, but in order for that to happen his entire world had to go up in flames.”

Ian took a deep breath. “Congratulations, Lance. You got the truth. Hopefully if the subject comes up you now have the facts to deal with it properly and put a positive spin on it. When you figure out how to do that, let me know. I don’t think I ever can.”

He stepped to David Turner, trembling on his cane. “Mr. Turner, obviously there was a misunderstanding. Lance keeps his job.”

The old man nodded as Ian turned to his staff. “I apologize. I hope you all will understand that I am done for the day. I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“Of course.” They all murmured.

Finally, Ian turned to Crockett. “I hope you got want you needed Lance. Please do us both a favor and stay out of my way and my sight for as long as possible. I’m going home to pet my son’s cat now. I like that evil fuzz ball a whole lot better than you.”

Blake put Ian’s backpack on his shoulder and gave him a quick hug. Wella grabbed him and kissed him. Ian kissed her back then headed for the elevator that someone already had waiting for him.

He rode the car in silence to the lobby. Ian walked over to the front desk and signed out without a word. As he headed for the door Simon Kent walked in and smiled.

“Justyn.” He cooed. “Having a bad day, are we?”

Ian stopped. “Kent, if you even as much as take another breath while I’m in this building I will rip your arms off and use your face as a drum set.”

He walked to his car, put the key in the ignition and sobbed uncontrollably. As quickly as the crying started, it stopped. Ian wiped his face, clicked into ‘Papa’ mode and drove home.