Ingrams & Assoc 4: Beneath the Surface Ch. 03

The next day, we hit Napa Valley. Megan was like a schoolgirl on speed, she was so excited.

"It's like the home of wine, Thomas! I've never been here and I've always wanted to come. April and I have talked about it - we were planning a week here, hiring a driver and spending all our time wine tasting. And man tasting, if there were any that caught our interest." It was a hundred words a minute, and I just sat there, nodding, watching the scenery out of the window and trying not to be offended by the last comment.

She glanced at me with a rueful smile as she drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and said, "Well, I don't need the last one now, do I?"

She really was very good at propping up my ego, even if the impact was lost a little, now that I knew for sure that it was a professional skill.

We found a small bed and breakfast and I spent the rest of the day tuning my violin and practicing. With an instrument like a violin, you need to keep up practice, or your fingers lose their dexterity, which is essential. Plus, I had new needs for that nimbleness now, so it served two purposes.

Megan spent the time planning out our wine tasting trip, mumbling to herself like a excited girlie, making lots of facetime calls to April to discuss the best places to go.

We spent two days wine tasting. I'd like to say it was great, and in some ways, it was. Her enthusiasm was infectious. It was just the wine tasting itself that didn't do much for me. All that trying this, spitting in buckets, eating little biscuits to 'clear the palate' and so on. It's all just so incredibly pretentious. I don't sense hints of apple or earthy tones or whatever. It's just wine to me. Some more bitter than others. Other than that, it was entirely lost on me. Megan sat there nodding, and dropping choice comments frequently, fitting in with the entire wine drinking set. Me? I just knew what I liked and what I didn't. The words "fruity afterglow" don't mean diddly squat to me.

But Megan had a blast. The last day I just stayed in the small B&B and let her go by herself. She pouted, made a face, but she went anyway. She arrived home later a little drunk, having taken a taxi out and back. I, as all men will understand, took full advantage of that situation. I think I deserved it.

Then the day after that, we made another move, and this time, a long one. We drove all the way to Portland. And then things got even more interesting.

"Thomas," said Megan, about 4 hours into our drive up the coastal road. "So, we are going to meet someone on the way to Portland. And then someone else when we get there."

"Who are we going to meet?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"Well, the first stop I'll get to in a minute. The second stop is...well, he's like a friend of the family."

"Your family?" I asked, straightening up and taking an interest.

Megan laughed, "No, not as such. More a friend of my work family."

"I see," I said, not really seeing at all.

"I doubt it. You'll like him though. I've only met him a couple of times, when he's come out to visit our office in Washington. He's kind of a legend around our offices."

"I'm sure it will be interesting." I said, not knowing what else to say.

Megan glanced over at me and said, "You should have been a politician, Thomas, with answers like that."

"Who's the first one?" I enquired.

"Well, that's where we - well, you, - need to tread carefully. Because, you see, we are going to see Kyle Partridge."

She looked at me intently as she dropped that bombshell, dividing her attention between the road and me.

"I'm sorry, we are going to see who?" I said, when I could speak again. I just needed to confirm I had heard what I thought I had.

"We are going to see the man who killed your parents, Thomas. Who damn near killed you. And you are going to forgive him. Because both he and you need it."

"What," I snorted, "I go there, forgive him and suddenly everything is now ok in my world and his? He's just going to straighten up, live a Christian life, eat a fish diet and become an upstanding pillar of the community?"

I was laying the sarcasm on thick, to mask the surge of anger her announcement had brought up.

"Yeah, I get it, Thomas. I get the anger. It's very natural."

I set my teeth for a second, then hissed out, "Megan, right now, I do NOT need your approval for me being pissed off, ok?"

"Yes...right, sorry Thomas. I was... trying to say that expressing your anger was the right thing to do. I want you to understand that it's the ok thing to do. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to act like I'm above your emotions," said Megan, trying to make nice. She sounded genuinely contrite.

"There's no real handbook for this, Thomas. I'm just trying to do what I think is the right thing for you, to help heal the ancient wound you have. Please, excuse me if I turn into therapist mode. I really just want to help. And, it is just therapist mode. I am your friend. I care about you. And I am a therapist. But if I thought of you as a patient, I never would have slept with you. So, please, understand that this is unique for me to. But I absolutely have no agenda in this but to help you."

I nodded, the anger draining quickly. Then, I had a sudden insight. She'd deliberately delivered the news the way she had, so that I'd be mad at her, she could apologize, and all of a sudden my anger would fade, and I'd be able to actually consider the act of meeting this man with out being instantly angry about it. She'd redirected my anger quite effectively and neatly and here I was, able to actually think about meeting the man who'd destroyed my family.

She glanced at me and obviously knew what I'd been thinking.

"Yes, I'm a devious bitch. Get used to it, Thomas. There's a lot more where that came from," she said, sticking her tongue out at me.

"Ok, we are heading to Junction City, just outside Eugene. Can you look up the best route on Google maps for me, honey?"

It was the first time she had called me "honey". It made me shiver.

We arrived about three hours later, having gotten slowed down in an unexpected down pour near Yoncalla, on route 5. It took a while to find the run down old trailer park.

The trailer park itself looked like every other trailer park you've ever seen on TV. Some trailers nicer than the others, a smattering of double-wides - trailers double the width of the normal ones - some really run down trailers, with rusting cars outside and a few looked abandoned and ready to be towed to the scrap dealer.

We found Kyle Partridge's trailer. It was a single side, with a small herb garden outside. The tomatoes were doing well, but some of the actual herbs had died and it had not been weeded.

I stayed in the car, with the top up, while Megan got up and went and knocked on the door. It was 4pm in the afternoon, so we were taking a chance that Kyle was even there rather than still at work.

While she did that, I tried to sort through my feelings. We'd talked about it in the car on the way here. When I thought about my parents, I felt more of an echo of loss and anger, rather than actual emotions. I tried to remember how they felt, rather than actually feeling them. I reacted angrily, but it was more a memory of anger than actual anger. I realized that my emotions were what I thought they should be, more than what they actually were. Why? Had it been too long? Was I too young? I just didn't know.

More than anything, I felt sad. Sad at the loss of my parents. At the loss of family, of the life that should-have-been. And then I realized something critical. I hadn't had even one nightmare on this trip.. Even before Megan had started wearing me out at night, I'd slept soundly. Ever since Megan had first talked to me in the cantina in San Diego, I'd been sleeping through the night without dreams. That was HUGE. I honestly sat there, stunned at the realization. And for once, Megan didn't see it on my face. It was my revelation, not hers.

But back to Kyle. I was angry at this man. He was the instrument of my loss; no question about that. But I was also angry at the situation that had created it all. At the randomness of it. The tragic waste.

Megan had asked an interesting question as we drove, one I'd never considered before. Would it be more tragic if they'd been killed deliberately, if they'd been killed by total accident beyond their control, or if they'd been killed by their own negligence?

When she asked it, I realized that it honestly didn't matter to me. What mattered was they weren't there for me any more. Why was immaterial in terms of what mattered to me, which put everything about it in a certain perspective. Being constantly angry at the instrument of the accident, - the man behind the wheel -, wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't bring me peace. It would just perpetuate the cycle of my life. Of blaming others for what my life had become. Of self-pity.

I knew I had to go in there and forgive him. But while that was an intellectual understanding, emotionally, it was another thing altogether. When we got to his trailer we'd basically agreed that I'd try, and see how it went. Megan was satisfied at that. She said there were no guarantees about anything anyway. All we could do is try, and even just that would be 'therapeutic'. I'd made some crack about a bottle of beer being even more 'therapeutic' and couldn't we go and get one instead, and she'd just looked at me, with that intent and serious stare. I'd looked away. It had been a stupid statement anyway. I did also notice that she kept saying that "we" were doing this. Not "you", but "we". Did that mean anything? I hoped so, but didn't really think so. It was that intellectual/emotional disconnect again.

And now here we were and she was knocking on the door, and the door was opening, and there was the man who I'd only met once before, sort of, on dark night when he destroyed my world.

Megan had a brief conversation with the man at the door, and then beckoned to me, and I mechanically got out of the car.

As I approached the door, the man showed no recognition. He was old - there were wrinkles on wrinkles, and he had the large red nose of a habitual drinker. He was shaved, basically, but there was stubble in various places. His hair was mostly gone, and he stood with a slight stoop, wearing old fashioned high pants, wrinkled shirt and rainbow suspenders over the top, the kind made famous by Robin Williams on the old Mork and Mindy show, even if they were pretty grimy now.

He looked at me as I walked towards the trailer, and I wondered what Megan had said to him.

He looked at me as I got to the door and then said, raspingly, like he had a cold, "So, who is this again? What does this have to do with me?"

"Mr. Partridge, as I said, we need to have a few moments of your time. I think you'll be glad we did once we've talked, sir. Can we please come in?"

"You can come in, but I ain't got no coffee or soda. Got no time or money for that stuff. Got a beer, if you want, but that's it. Or water."

He shuffled back and went inside. It was as dark and dingy as you'd expect, although I couldn't help notice that the windows were clean, and the utensils and cups on the wash board by the sink were cleaned and orderly.

We went in and Megan and I sank down on a built in couch that had seen better days. There was a coffee table in front of the table with two dog-eared golf magazines, and one about Mustangs. What is it about these Mustangs?

He busied himself at the sink, pouring water from a bottle into three glasses and then shuffled forward and put them on the coffee table, before sinking slowly into an overstuffed lazy boy, facing the TV.

"Okay, what's so damn important that you have to disturb my day off?" he demanded, with no preamble.

"Mr. Partridge, just to be sure, you were a driver with Mega Rapid Trucking, back in late 80s?"

He instantly stiffened, and said accusingly, "What if I was? What do you people want? You reporters?"

"No, we aren't. I just needed to make sure you are who we think."

"Yeah, well, I was. Till the accident. Then, no one wanted to know me. Wasn't pretty. Hasn't been pretty ever since."

"I know. You see, that's the reason we are here."

There was silence while he waited to hear more.

"This," she said, gesturing at me, "is Thomas Avaline."

She was silent, seeing if Kyle Partridge understood what she'd just said.

He shifted uncomfortable for a second, and then said, hesitantly, "The folks that was in that car, they were called Avaline..."

He turned his red-eyed attention to me and said, "You related to them? You looking for..." And then he realized who I was.

"Oh my god...I..."

He didn't know what to say for a moment as he stared at me, mouth open, and then he started muttering, "I aint got nutthin'. I got nutthin' for you to take. I..."

His voice and his whole face were trembling. Megan was on her feet instantly and went across to him, crouching down and laying her hand on his arm, looking directly at him from close range.

"Mr. Partridge, we aren't here for revenge or anger or to take anything from you. On the contrary, Thomas has something he needs to say to you."

I took a deep breath, and stood up, and as Megan moved aside, so Kyle Partridge could look up at me, said simply, "Mr. Partridge, I didn't even know you existed until a few days ago. We've been traveling here, slowly, while I tried to work out my feelings. It was a long time ago, Mr. Partridge. I know some of the circumstances now, and...well, I've spent a lifetime hating you for what happened. But now... well, I don't know how else to say it. I forgive you. I know a lot of it was circumstances beyond your control, time pressures, lack of sleep, not drinking. You didn't mean it. It screwed up your life, too. I'm pretty sure you feel awful about it, so please, don't beat yourself up about it any more on my behalf. It's done, in the past, and it's best that it stays that way."

The man just stared up at me, mouth open, and then, after a second, he collapsed in on himself, sobbing. Megan was there, arms encircling him, hugging him tight.

I heard some words coming out of the sobs, barely understandable. "Sorry," "My fault", "wish I..."

Eventually, he started to get himself under control and with Megan's help, he stood, on wavering legs.

She was still supporting him when he just looked at me, eyes wide and glistening from the tears, when he said, "I cannot believe you are here. I can't believe what I did to you," he said as he looked at my scars.

"I'm so so sorry for what happened. I've relived that night so many times. If I could take it all back...well..."

"Kyle - can I call you Kyle? - You've suffered enough. I know this wasn't really negligence on your part. My understanding is that the trucking company put undue pressure on your to make delivery dates, is that right" I said, as gently as I could.

"Well, yeah, that's how it was back then. No controllers in the cab, keeping track. You made the deliveries on the time the docket said, or you didn't get paid. I said... I said this was bad, but... we had to do what the dockets said."

Kyle was close to blubbering again.

I nodded. "I know Kyle. And we are going to go after that company for that, if we can. It's time now. Look, I can't guarantee you anything else, but the one thing I can guarantee you is that you don't have to suffer alone any more."

And just like that, I was free. Free of the anger. Free of the frustration. I looked at Megan and knew she could see it in my eyes. She smiled at me, and at that moment, I knew I was lost forever. Again. This woman had somehow captured my soul, and I wasn't about to get it back. Intellectual/emotional disconnect be damned. She'd gotten to me and I would have to deal with whatever came. I couldn't fight it.

Kyle didn't exist at that moment. No one did, except Megan. She was the only person in the universe, and I couldn't look away. At that moment, I would have done anything she asked of me, including jumping off a cliff. If she wanted it, I'd have done it.

Megan was smart enough to understand the euphoria of the moment, but also smart enough to know a fundamental personality shift when I she saw one.

"I...I don't know what to say. Thank you. I'm so sorry. I'm just so damn sorry..." Kyle kept repeating, tears streaming down his face.

In the end, I had to move in and actually grab the unstable Kyle Partridge for a hug, whispering in his ear, "It's ok. It wasn't your fault," over and over again.

Kyle just clung to me, sobbing hysterically.

Eventually we disengaged, Kyle wiping his eyes on his already sodden shirtsleeve.

Kyle even smiled, the first it seemed, for a long time.

"I'm sorry. I'm not normally a crier. Haven't really done that since my kids..." his voice trailed off, staring in the distance.

"Yes, you kids," said Megan, very matter of fact, taking control of the emotional situation. "We need to see about them."

"What?" asked Kyle, puzzled.

"Well, your daughter, Emily, is married. Are you aware you are a grandfather?"

I was constantly surprised at the information that Megan seemed to have at her fingertips. Working for a covert agency with fingers in lots of pies seemed to be very useful.

"And your son, Jason, has just divorced, rather messily I'm afraid. I think he could definitely do with your counsel right now. I have contact information for both, and in a little while, you are going to give them a call."

Kyle just stared at her. "Who are you people?" he demanded.

Megan just smiled back, even wider than before, a twinkle in her eye, and said, "Concerned bystanders Kyle. You guys needed help to connect. We help. Simple as that."

Kyle looked back at me and said, shyly, "Are you connected with this? With her?"

"Me? No," I laughed. "I'm as broken as you are. She helps put me together too. It's all too good to be true, if you ask me."

Megan's face clouded a little at that, and she said in a somewhat brittle tone, "Well, we can talk about that later. Kyle, you know what? I think we could all use one of those beers you mentioned."

While Kyle went to get the beer, Megan leaned in and murmured, "Ok, so, in a moment I'm going to order an Uber to take you to the hotel that was pre-booked for us. I have more work to do here, and it's honestly better done one on one. Kyle," she said, nodding over to where he was fumbling around in his ancient refrigerator, "needs more counseling, in terms of contacting his estranged children. And while you being here is great for him state of mind, it's easier to do this without you here. You are a distraction. A great one, but still... I only have today to wrap this up. Drink the beer, by the time you are done, the car will be here. I'll catch up with you later on. We need to have a chat about how you feel about all this, although, I can tell you've already relaxed in ways you can't even feel."

I just nodded. I'd have done anything she told me. It was probably a good idea anyway, I had a lot to sort out internally, and being on my own with the violin, would be a good idea. I had to remember to grab the case out of the car on the way out.

And that's what we did. We sat, drinking terrible beer - Pabst Blue Ribbon was not exactly Sam Adams - and talking about having kids and the trials of that, and Megan suggesting how Kyle should take up walking the greens at the golf course where he worked, daily, as exercise. She was something else. She could weave suggestions into a conversation like a pro, and then bat her eyelashes at you, making you think it was your idea.