Chapter Nineteen

It was still early, even for the city that never sleeps, when they arrived at Mr. Abram's office. He wanted to get this done early. He had plans for later in the day and if he spun out (it had been all he could do to fight back an anxiety attack the night before), he wanted to have time to recover.

Mr. Abram looked Arthur over. "So, this is the husband. When do I get to meet the thirty kids?" Arthur looked flustered and Martin huffed. "You know I'm teasing you." He held out his hand. "Philip Abram."

"Arthur Dram."

Mr. Abram gestured them to the desk. "It's nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you and by a lot I mean two whole sentences, but that is more than anyone else has ever gotten, ever."

Arthur shrugged a bit and looked a little shy as they took their seats.

Martin could feel his nerves beginning to rise and took long slow breaths through his nose so as not to alert the other two.

Mr. Abram looked at him. "I would like to state officially as your lawyer and unofficially as someone who has known you for a very long time that you don't have to do this. I can send a letter. You keep me on retainer to deal with things like this."

"Not things like this," Martin replied softly. There was nothing like this. You can't send lawyers to fight childhood ghosts.

Arthur took his hand. "I'm right here and I'll hang up if you start to spin out." Martin took a deep breath and nodded. Mr. Abram shook his head and dialed the number at the bottom of the letter.

The phone rang. Martin didn't believe in prayer or luck, but every so often he still found himself wishing and he wished for voice mail.

"Hello?" came a woman's sleepy voice from the speakers.

"Is this Grace Howard?"

"Yes?"

"This is Philip Abram. I am the legal counsel for Mr. Grove. He is here with his partner, and he is willing to speak to you."

"Oh… Um…. Okay. Hello Martin."

"Hello." Martin scoured his mind for the name Grace Howard, but so many of the girls had names like Grace, Hope, Faith, and Angel. And so many of his memories were lost to a haze of willful forgetfulness.

"Um… Not sure you remember me by name, but I was about a year older than you. Red hair. My mother and I were the only two red heads on the farm."

A slight memory began to form. A girl with red braids, her hands caked in mud. "Yes. I remember you. They would make you chop wood and dig the garden with the grown men."

"Trying to burn the energy out of me. You were one of the quiet ones. You could get the eggs from the chickens without getting the shit scratched out of you."

A memory of warm, fresh laid eggs, delicate in his hands. "You just had to scratch them under the chin and make little clucking noises."

"It was still only you."

There was silence on the line for long moments and Martin thought perhaps they had been disconnected. "May I ask why you are contacting me?"

Grace sighed. "Sorry. The church part of the farm went on for another five or so years after the cops raided. Only stopped after a second raid. You and a few others were long gone by then but, sorry, you said there were other people there. Years of therapy and I still have problems talking to Empties. Sacred Silence and all that bullshit."

Martin turned to Arthur who looked confused but was still holding his hand. "Arthur is my partner. We met at work. He likes old movies, cooking, and played Dungeons and Dragons in high school to rebel against a religiously conservative household. Philip was my aunt's lawyer and has known me since not long after the raids. He has officially been my lawyer since I was sixteen. He was in love with my aunt but never did anything about it. Enjoys blockbuster action movies, and still plays Dungeons and Dragons but tells the other partners he's going golfing. I don't know if he can play golf."

Mr. Abram rolled his eyes before dropping his face in one hand. A chuckle came down the line. "Yeah, the farm did a number on all of us. Okay. I can send the nitty-gritty details to your lawyer if you like but short version: a big conglomerate wants to put a water pumping station and bottling plant outside of town. The EPA and water rights people are saying no. The Business Association and some astroturf groups are saying yes. Ninety percent of the aquifer is under the farm and where the spring for the 'spring water' actually breaks the surface is about fifty yards behind the barn."

A map of the farm, distances twisted by childhood scale popped into his head. "The mud puddle in the apple orchard that the ducks always pooped in?"

"Crystal clear healthy spring water, according to the advertising markups. The court ordered that the landowners need to vote about what happens."

"Who are the landowners?"

There was another long pause. "The biological children of the Reverend."

Martin felt himself begin to shake slightly and Arthur squeezed his hand tight. "And who are they?"

"Put your hand flat on a table with your fingers loosely together."

"Okay." He placed the hand not being held by Arthur on the fine wood desk.

"Does your ring finger bend a little inwards and middle finger bend a little out, making for a gap, even though you've never broken them."

"Yes." Martin knew what was coming next. He had never asked his mother while she lived. Never looked fully at his own background check when he joined the Agency. He had never even seen his own birth certificate, the mess of acquiring one having been in Mr. Abram's hands all those years ago.

"It doesn't hold up in court. Need a DNA test, but so far we all—"

"I understand." For some reason the shaking had stopped and was being replaced by a cold numbness.

"Look, you can tell me to fuck off and plenty of others have. I've… I've learned to separate the Church and Reverend from the land. That apple orchard with the mud puddle is growing three types of rare breed apples. One of which is nearly extinct. The part of the farm that's still forest and fields has short ear owls, loggerhead shrike, queen snakes, all endangered or threatened, and all gone in a decade once they start pumping the water."

"I understand," Martin repeated. He could hear the flatness in his own voice in contrast to the hint of pleading in Grace's.

"If you like, I can communicate directly through your lawyer from now on." He felt Arthur take his other hand from the table and interlace the crooked fingers with his own. He felt so cold but knew that he wasn't.

"I… My therapist would encourage me to communicate directly whenever possible."

"Mine, too. I hate cold calling. Special level of hell."

"Yes. I will consider the situation and contact you when I have made a more detailed decision."

"Thank you." The line went dead.

Arthur did not hesitate to wrap his arms around him and pull him close. He closed his eyes and felt Mr. Abram drape a blanket around his shoulders even though the room was heated to a pleasant seventy-two. "You don't say goodbye because we will all meet again after the ascension," Martin muttered, half to himself.

"Old habits die hard."

"Yes."

"Proud of you," Arthur whispered in his ear. "Love you."

"Love you too," Martin whispered back and felt the numbness slowly begin to lift, even as tears fell.

Arthur was sure that after a phone call with his deep past, Martin wouldn't be up for doing anything but going back to their hotel and spending the day curled up in bed.

Instead, Martin's lawyer had let him take a nap on a very comfortable looking couch, giving the impression it wasn't the first time, while he and Arthur had talked about Dungeons and Dragons. Apparently, it was up to five editions. He couldn't talk about Martin's past any more than Arthur could talk about Martin's present, but they still managed to talk around some things. If Tala was meeting Mom, that was meeting Dad, or at least older brother.

When Martin finally woke up, looking a little the worse for wear, but not awful, he said he had something he’d like to do after lunch.

"You mentioned this," Martin said with an almost grand sweep of his arm. "And my leg is feeling okay today. I'd like you to teach me to skate."

Arthur looked across the glittering Rockefeller Center ice rink.

"I would love to." When Arthur had checked for tickets a few weeks earlier, he'd found the tickets completely sold out and had mentally set it aside for some unknown time in the future. Martin must have gotten them months in advance. It had actually been awhile since he'd laced on a pair of skates. University, if he recalled, but he was fairly certain some things lived in muscle memory. He looked at Martin still fiddling with his laces. "Here, let me. You really need to have your ankles supported."

Now Arthur was having college date flashbacks. A girl from his freshman economics class. She had argued passionately about Keynesian economics while everyone else just needed three credits for their degrees. He had taken her skating, which was fun, but he had felt nothing when she kissed him at the door of her dorm room.

Now Arthur felt. His heart felt large and warm as he helped Marten to his feet and held his hand as he took slow wobbling steps towards the ice. "Okay, you can grab the edge first while you find your center of balance." Arthur stepped onto the ice first, then Martin followed. For a second, he felt his legs wobble, then his core tightened and everything else relaxed.

He spun around and held out his hands. "It's okay. I won't let you fall."

Martin held out one gloved hand, then the other. "Don't lock your knees. Keep your core tight." Martin pushed off with one foot and wobbled, almost pulling Arthur over. "It's okay. Just do that again with the other foot. Push and glide. Let physics do the work for you."

Martin gave another little push and didn't wobble quite as much.

"See. Doing better already."

Martin smiled and squeezed his hands as he took tiny, hesitant glides while other skaters zipped by. A group of children with linked arms fell as one, laughing as they did.

"Want to try letting go of one hand? I'll skate beside you, and it'll give you a little more room."

Martin let go of one hand and instantly wobbled. Arthur caught it again. "Eyes up. Not at your feet. You don't have to look at your feet to walk and there's nothing to trip on, on the ice. Keep your eyes up and you'll keep your balance."

Martin nodded and slowly let one hand go again, managing to keep perfectly still. "Perfect." Martin's cheeks were red in the cold, but Arthur thought that under that red he could see a hint of blush.

Martin's movements were still slow and hesitant as they started their way around the rink side-by-side, but Arthur heaped on the praise. He couldn't help it and saw no reason why he should stop.

Less than a year ago he held Martin's hand in a hospital while Martin lay broken and emaciated. For months after, he jumped at shadows, and wept in the dark when he thought Arthur was asleep.

Now here he was, in the middle of New York City, trying something completely new, just because Arthur had mentioned it and it was something he had never experienced. With each slide across the ice, Arthur's heart felt like it would burst with pride.

Then, when they were finally gliding smoothly together, almost keeping pace with the slower skaters, Martin, slowly, and without a word, let go.

Arthur kept his hand out and didn't even attempt to remove what must have been the dumbest grin from his face. Ten feet down the ice, when Martin wobbled, his hand was there for a moment of balance and grounding before they took off again side by side.

And Arthur knew in his heart that they would come back and do this again. Each time a little stronger, a little better, and always side by side.