Roy

 

Smiling to myself, I leaned against a wall and unlocked my phone, navigating to my photos and looking at the picture of Kesari. She was holding up her wine, giving me a sassy look and I let out a sigh. If only…

My mother appeared in the distance, walking with Piper and they waved at me. Hastily I stashed my phone away, hoping Piper wouldn’t read my face and drop another hint about Kesari to my mom. She was already intensely curious about the whole Op and overly pleased about it. It was a little embarrassing and I knew once she told my father, they’d both be obnoxious about it.

As usual, the faint guilt I felt whenever I saw my parents squirmed into my gut. In trying to appease the Zima side, I’d barely seen them over the years and then it became too easy not to. It was something I always meant to rectify and put off.

Now I was being held to it by fate.

It was completely by coincidence my mother was in California and visiting Piper. At first, I had wondered if Piper called her in, but mom insisted she was here on business. That was a familiar one.

As a kid, my parents had both worked and traveled a lot. While they’d always done an admirable job of doing their best to make up for it, there had been months where I’d been left alone with extended family. Sometimes I’d felt like the stray cousin being bounced around the globe. Shy and sensitive as a kid, it had been hard on me, but I’d never thought to complain.

A few years ago, my mother had confessed to me she wished I had when I mentioned it in passing. Ever since then, I’d felt hellishly guilty. I understood the drive of career and my parents had always given me the best of everything. They’d been kind, loving and supportive.

However, if I ever had kids, I wouldn’t travel unless absolutely necessary. And if I had to, I’d probably leave them with my parents, Piper or even Kai. Never the Zimas, unless it was Svetlana or Andrei. But they were both impossibly busy with SOA.

Piper greeted me, then said she’d catch up with my mother later. Left alone, I smiled down at her and she reached up to smooth my hair back.

“You remind me of your father in grad school. He had a beard and short hair,” Mom said.

I studied her for a moment, then asked bluntly, “What’s wrong?”

She was taken aback, then the lines around her mouth deepened. “Your grandfather is here.”

Shock went through me. More family? What the hell?

“Here in this city?” I asked. “Why?”

“He’s here to see you and found out I was here,” Mom said with a sigh. “He wants to see us both.”

As a kid, I’d never understood the tension between my mother and grandfather. Later I found out he’d all but considered her a traitor for marrying a Weslark. For years, they didn’t speak, until I was born. My grandmother had died a few months earlier and he’d decided to make peace.

But that peace revolved around me, requiring me to play a constant balancing act. I became a natural go-between and peacemaker. I’d truly thought I could fix things if I tried hard enough.

I didn’t realize there was no way to please anyone until it was too late and by that time, I’d cynically quit on life. Threw myself into being a Runner and sank into the quietude of a life without either side of my family. Something that would not happen again.

Further, I’d always been in awe of my grandfather’s big personality and air of command. As a quiet kid, I thought that was how you were supposed to be and I’d forced myself to try to be like him. It hadn’t worked out so well.

Not for me, who cared too much about people. Something I’d always tried to hide. Zimas thought it was weak while Weslarks put it on display.

Something that had become all too obvious as a rookie, when Ivan and I had squared off in Patagonia. That was the breaking point in so many ways.

To my grandfather, he’d done the right thing.

But to Finni, Obi and Dara, they saw me as the reason they were alive. As did the few other members of SOA who knew the whole story. Irritation snapped through me.

“Roy?” my mother asked, touching my shoulder and pulling me back from those dark memories. “You do not have to see him.”

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen my grandfather and I shook my head. “No, mom, I’m not going to make you face him alone. He called me a few weeks ago and I want to talk to him. I want to set him straight.”

“My little protector,” she laughed. “Roysey, you were always so fierce when it came to love.”

I winced. “Mom, please.” I hated my full name, even though I’d never tell my Gram that.

Royse, picked by my Icelandic grandmother was more or less the male version of “Rose.” She loved it and I always had to pretend to. At least Kesari didn’t know about it.

We left the SOA office and got a cab, heading downtown. My grandfather had reserved a private room at an exclusive restaurant downtown run by shifters. Outside, two huge men, lion shifters by the looks of them, nodded at us as we went inside. A harried concierge led us upstairs and into the room, babbling on about something. I ignored him, too nervous to see my grandfather.

“Took you long enough,” boomed a voice across the room.

“Grandfather?” I asked, starting as I stared at him.

The man rising to his feet was small, holding a cane and shaking. He seemed impossibly old, shrunken with whitening and thinning hair. Usually, he was solemn and unreadable, but I thought I saw a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. He didn’t want our pity, but at the same time, he didn’t want to deny he wasn’t the man he once was. Or so I thought.

“Don’t just stand there and gawk at me,” he growled. “Have you never seen an old man before?”

“Hello, father,” my mother said dryly, walking over and curtseying, then kissing him on the cheek. I followed, bowing and kissing his cheek.

It was hard to keep from offering him a hand as he sat down and I glanced at my mother as she sat down. She seemed unsurprised, but her lips were turned down at the corners.

“Roy, you don’t have anything else to say?” Grandfather demanded, glaring over at me. “Maybe hello? Or it’s been a while, nice to see you.”

“What do you want?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Here to call me selfish to my face?”

His thick mustache bristled at me. As a kid, it had been black and gray, but now it was white and fuller than the hair on his head. “Is that how you speak to your grandfather?”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said, catching myself and speaking politely. I shouldn’t indulge in Zima pettiness. “I’m surprised to see you in California and summoning us to lunch is all.”

“Hmph, I wanted to talk to you. And it would be rude to leave your mother out.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Is he dying? I wondered.

When neither of us spoke up, he grumbled, “Don’t make this easy on old fool, eh?”

“Make what easy?” my mother asked. “You generally don’t like small talk, father.”

“That I don’t,” he agreed with a bark of laughter. “I decided to travel here to talk to the Heads and find out about your situation, Roy.” My grandfather nodded at me. “Saw Drax.”

My ire was increasing. I wasn’t going back to being a Runner. I had told him as much.

He seemed to read my mind. “And Andrei, then Mirois,” he sighed. “They both read me the riot act about you. Mirois had the gall to say she was going to make you move on this year anyway – that you're too talented to be a runner and that it was taking a toll on you."

“It was,” my mother said sharply. “This is much better work, father, don’t interfere.”

“Calm down, bullfrog,” my grandfather retorted. “Over there swelling up at me when you don’t even know what I was about to say.”

“I could guess,” Mom muttered and I repressed a grin.

“Roy, I always knew you were one of the ones who’d carry the legacy forward. I could see that when you were all kids. Most of my other grandchildren are too bullheaded and impatient. But I worried about the Weslark in you.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately since our call. It’s all I seem to be able to do – and I think I tried to make you into more of a Zima than a Weslark.”

“I’m both,” I said. “It’s why I have two last names.”

“I know. That’s why I decided to come in person to tell you that I’m sorry,” he said and we both stared at him. “That phone call was inappropriate. You are your own man, Roy.”

Silence.

“Are you dying?” my mother finally blurted out.

“No,” he said, frowning ferociously at us and then scowling. “But I am feeling my years. And I realized I hadn’t seen Roy in years.” Grandfather’s face became strangely softer. “Or you, Minna.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to,” my mother said with a shrug. “Not without Roy.”

“Grandfather, I don’t need your apology,” I said. “The choices I made were my own, even if you helped influence them.”

“Twisted your arm, you mean,” my mother said under her breath and grandfather shot her an amused look.

“I used to blame you, but it’s pointless now. It was me in the end. And yeah, I had a hard time of it, but so what? That has in a way made me oddly immune to the pressures of this new job.” Except one. “I may even go back and get that degree. Or maybe not. But the past is in the past. Let’s leave it there.” Both of them stared at me and I shrugged. “You haven’t seen me in a while. Time doesn’t stay still, you know.” I smiled. “I’ve grown.”

At that moment, the waiter came in and my mother turned to her, asking about something on the menu. In that brief minute, my grandfather reached over and squeezed my hand. His skin was dry and brittle, his dark eyes remorseful.

“Thank you, boy. It’s more than I deserve after that call.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Sir,” I said. “I only ask that you accept what I want. Let me create my own legacy and be proud of that. Have I ever let you down?”

“You know, you’ve got your grandmother’s heart,” he said in a soft voice as he let me go. “She always cared deeply about everyone. And I think sometimes my fight with your mother…” He shook his head and his voice became brusque. “Like you said, the past is in the past.”

A weight was lifting off my shoulders and an old, long-held fear along with it. Nervous exhilaration was filling me. Everything was opening up and changing for the better. Things I thought never would. But I suppose, in the end, the only constant in change.

Or maybe a certain woman has thrown her magic across my days.

 

I wound up spending another night and morning in San Francisco. My grandfather and mother were getting along, the novelty still bewildering me, but in a good way.

However, I also hadn’t meant to take another damn day in the city. Work was piling up. I had to get back, I had to keep telling them so when they once again asked me to say another day.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a girl you were agitating to get back to,” my grandfather grumped at me as we finished up our coffee at brunch. It was a good, dark-roasted brew and they sold it in pretty gold bags. I was considering buying it for Kesari and jumped when my grandfather said that. Now he looked amused. “Oh ho, boy, am I right?”  

My mother was staring at me with avid interest and I shrugged.

“There is,” she breathed and the two of them exchanged conspiratorial grins.

This is so weird, I thought fervently. Even with news of my cousin Svetlana giving birth and the excitement of the first great-grandchild, it was weird how nice they were being to each other.

“Uh,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “We’re just friends.”

“For now,” my grandfather was twinkling at me. Actually, twinkling. “Bring her flowers, boy. Even the most independent woman like flowers – ask your cousin Piper.”

“When do I get to meet her?” my mother was demanding.

“Leave the boy alone, Minna,” my grandfather interjected. “You’ll scare her off.”

“Me?” My mother sounded outraged and said something rude in Russian.

“Oh geez,” I muttered as they began to comfortably bicker about when to meet her. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but smile a little. After that, they urged me to leave and I did, only pausing to buy the coffee.

Once in the rental car, it was hard to keep from flooring it as I left the city and the mountains rose in the distance. I tried to think of things to say, coming up with several openings, but nothing sounded good enough. Why was I stressing about this? It was Kesari.

Kesari! Stop calling me Doc, I mean it!

It was late afternoon when I got back to Little Meadow, dropping off my bags at the house and inhaling the crisp air. Lev and Rurik greeted me at the door, bouncing around and happy to see me. Picking up Lev, I spent a while with them as they told me about the past few days.

Kesari was so quiet! Rurik summed up. And she didn’t eat enough.

She even went light on the coffee, Lev added, sounding smug. She missed you.

“I missed her,” I said, as her scent hit my nose and I sighed.

Home.

I changed and headed out to the Cantina. When I pulled up on the snowmobile, the sheer number of SOA agents overwhelmed me for a second. And even though I wanted to see Kesari right away, it was a good hour before I was able to get away from everything and sneak upstairs.

Inside the office, I found Kesari fast asleep and curled up on the couch. My heart beat faster as everything seemed to become more vivid as I looked at her.

Color, smell, and touch. Even my memory of her seemed pale in comparison to this woman lost in dreams and her dark wavy hair tossed across the cushions.

With a sigh, I let her sleep and plucked off her glasses. My old hoodie, the one she’d absconded with, was tossed on a chair and I came over, tucking her in.

“Hey, Kes,” I murmured, touching her cheek. “I missed you.”

And then, even though I wanted to wake her up, I let myself out quietly.