The Corners of My Mind (13 of 13)
MRiley99@AOL.COM
Mon, 15 Oct 2001 10:53:08 EDT
The drive back to town was a quiet one, each man preoccupied
with his own thoughts.
When Duncan pulled into his regular spot behind the dojo, Richie
spoke for the first time since leaving Korsikov's office.
"Guess I can grab my stuff and head back to my apartment now."
"Let's wait a few days on that, Rich, just to be sure. Besides, who's
going to eat all those bags of cookies you've got stashed away in
the closet?"
"Busted," the younger man laughed, climbing out of the T-bird. "I
guess it *would* be better to wait a little while. . .just to be sure,"
he added, echoing Duncan's words as the Scot slid out of the
driver's seat and fell into step beside him, the normality of their
words and actions a comfort to them both.
"Right." Duncan gave him a small smile, which was returned
easily.
Old wounds were starting to heal.
Nothing more was said until they reached the loft, where Richie
immediately hit the fridge, grabbing a coke and a handful of
grapes.
"Want anything, Mac?" he asked, butt hanging out of the open
door.
Duncan glanced back, and smiled at the familiar picture he
presented. "No, I'm fine. Don't spoil your appetite, Richie," he
scolded mildly as the redhead shut the refrigerator door and
snatched an apple off the counter. "I thought we could order
Chinese for dinner."
"Sounds good," Richie mumbled around a mouthful. "I could eat a
couple orders of Moo Goo Gai Pan all by myself right now. Man,
I'm starved."
"When aren't you?"
Richie snorted and dropped down onto the couch. "You sound just
like. . ." He trailed off.
"Like Tessa," Duncan supplied. The silence seemed to stretch out
interminably, then a look of determination settled over the
Highlander's face, and he turned away, moving to the large chest in
the corner. He knelt, lifting the lid and delving inside. A moment
later he rose again with a dark rectangular wooden box in his
hands. He traveled the distance to the couch without a word and
placed the box on the coffee table with great ceremony, cognizant
of Richie's curious eyes upon him.
"What's that?" he asked, scrutinizing the item from his seat.
"This," Duncan said, pulling the box to the edge then taking a seat
beside the other Immortal, "is something I should have shown you
a long time ago."
Richie shifted to the edge of the couch at that, and watched as
Duncan raised the lid. His eyes widened at the assortment of
photographs inside; varying in size, they all had one thing in
common - the subject.
Richie reached inside tentatively, extracting the topmost picture
and holding it up before him. Tessa smiled back at him from her
workshop, one cheek smudged with dirt, little wisps of hair curling
around her ears, sweat beading her forehead. He didn't think he'd
ever seen anything more beautiful.
"I remember this piece," he murmured, indicating the sculpture in
the picture. "I donated it to the Jules Foundation when I liquidated
the shop."
"I didn't know," Duncan admitted, realizing yet again the burden
he had laid on the young man. "Tessa would have liked that."
The conviction in his voice brought a smile to Richie's face. "They
promised to give it a place of honor. I. . .I never went by to
check," he added softly.
"We'll go tomorrow," Duncan told him, waiting for Richie's nod of
agreement before drawing the next photo from the container. "I
meant to make an album of these. It never seemed like the right
time."
"It would be like admitting she wasn't coming back," Richie said
profoundly. "As long as you didn't do it. . ."
"You're right." He ran a finger across the image. "Maybe we can
do it together."
"Sure, Mac." He picked another photo, giving it a quick once over.
His laughter filled the room. "I took this one. See there? That's
my thumb. I never could get the hang of that old camera of yours,
it was a real relic."
"You were just too impatient," Duncan corrected, sharing in his
laughter. "You wanted to be able to point and click."
"Hey, what can I say, I'm a nineties kind of guy. And Tessa
couldn't master it either, Mr. 'Older is Always Better'. She got
some really great shots of her feet trying to adjust the focus one
day."
"Tessa could turn a lifeless lump of clay into a thing of beauty but
she couldn't program a VCR, and the computer scared her to
death. She was..." He searched for the right word. "...unique."
"Yeah, she was." The two stared off into space for several
moments, lost in thought, then glanced at each other and smiled,
both reaching for the pile of pictures at the same time.
Two Immortals - young and old, student and teacher - talked well
into the night of all things Tessa. Of their short year as a 'family',
her laughter, the scoldings she gave Richie in French - forgetting
in her anger that he didn't understand a word--her tenacity, her
quiet strength. Dinner was wolfed down between reminisces. At
some point a fifty-year-old bottle of Scotch made an appearance
and the pair drank a toast to memories...among other things.
They went through a plethora of pictures - laughing and crying by
turns - and slowly drank themselves into oblivion.
Richie didn't feel the bottle of Scotch slip from his fingers in the
wee hours of the morning, nor acknowledge its contact with the
floor. He did no more than mutter softly under his breath when
Duncan shifted him around to lie prone on the couch and drew a
blanket over him with great care.
For the first time in nearly a month he fell into a deep, peaceful
sleep free of nightmarish images.
As Duncan stepped away from the couch, his left pant leg grazed
the edge of the coffee table, sending one of the photos fluttering to
the floor. He retrieved it, turned it over, and smiled. Carrying it
along with him, he brushed non-existent particles of dust from its
glossy surface and leaned it up against a cherished volume of
"Ivanhoe" on the bookshelf.
He took one more long look at the photo before turning away to
his own bed.
Silence descended on the sleeping Immortals, disturbed only
sporadically by the peal of a car horn, or the rumble of a distant
thunderstorm passing them by. There was a change of weather in
the air.
A lone photo stood vigil over the loft and its occupants; a picture
of three campers in sodden clothing standing beside a crystal clear
river, arms about each other's waists...smiling for all eternity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
End
The Corners of My Mind
Melanie Joan Riley
Mriley99@aol.com