Part 15
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Caine looked at him mildly. "Hello, my son."
"Oh, yeah, hi, Pop. Sorry -- Dad." Full of restless energy, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "You ready to go? I don't want us to be late." He stopped as his father raised an eyebrow at him. {The eyebrow. He's always been able to stop me dead in my tracks with that eyebrow. Some day when I have kids, I'll have to ask him how he does that.} He laughed. "I know, I know. Calm down."
"Do I meet with your approval?" Caine asked his son gravely, standing and waiting to pass inspection. He was wearing a black and white silk shirt and a pair of black slacks.
Peter flushed with embarrassment and grinned. "You look great, Pop. Don't mind me. I get like this from time to time."
"So I have noticed." Caine chuckled at him. "Shall we go? If you are in a great hurry, we could...jump."
They headed for the fire escape and Peter nervously peered over the edge. "Uh, thanks anyway, Pop. We've got more time than I thought."
Peter carried on a nearly one-sided nonstop conversation all the way to Kacie's apartment. Caine let him ramble and thought how appropriate Annie Blaisdell's word 'burble' was. {Peter has ever spoken so when excited about something.} He smiled to himself. {Laura was also like this.} He sighed at the memory and turned his thoughts to safer territory.
"Something wrong, Pop?" Peter stopped in midsentence and glanced over at his father in concern.
"No, my son, I was just thinking of how much you remind me of your mother."
"What do you mean?" asked Peter softly. {Please talk to me.} he thought hopefully. {You once said your thoughts of my mother could become my memories.}
Caine shrugged a shoulder. "She would grow excited over such simple things, and sharing that excitement with her brought me much pleasure."
"You still miss her, don't you?" Peter realized with wonder.
"I will miss your mother every day of my life." Caine's voice deepened into huskier tones and he turned his head to stare out the side window.
Clearing his throat as he swallowed the lump that had grown there, Peter announced, "We're here."
Kacie opened the door after the first knock and smiled warmly at Peter and then his father. "Come in, come in," she invited and stepped aside to let them enter. She hugged Peter first and then, to Caine's surprise and Peter's delight, embraced Kwai Chang briefly, too. "I'm so glad you both could make it. Every time the phone rang today I was afraid it would be Peter calling to say something had come up."
She led them into the living room and they sat down, Caine in the easy chair and Kacie and Peter on the couch. Kacie sat with one leg tucked under her and a hand resting lightly on Peter's shoulder. The plunging neckline of her blue and black variegated sweater-tunic clearly revealed a gold chain around her neck, a gold heart and some other charm hanging suspended from the golden rope.
Kacie asked with a gamin grin, "How is the Ancient? He is an incorrigible flirt, isn't he?"
Both Peter and Caine chuckled at that, and a lively discussion of some of Lo Si's more memorable antics followed. Kacie excused herself to see to dinner, and Peter trailed along after her to see if he could help.
Caine rose gracefully to his feet and moved over to look at the various pictures hanging on the wall. There was a wedding picture, and a family portrait with the couple and two small children, and two high school graduation pictures. He paused longest at the last photo, that of Kacie with her father and brother. His face took on a sad expression. {This life can be so full of loss. A father, a brother, a wife, a mother.} He sighed. {Losing Laura was difficult enough, but I thought my life was over when Ping Hi told me that Peter was dead.}
"Hey, Pop. Pop?"
Peter's hand was on his shoulder and Caine shook off his dark mood. {My son is alive and we are together.}
The trio gathered at the table in the small dining room and sat to eat.
As Kacie served the food, Caine suddenly noticed his plate. "Rice? You have managed to convince my son to eat rice?"
Kacie looked at him questioningly and then stared at Peter in astonishment. "You never told me you didn't like rice."
Peter squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. "I like it the way you fix it." He rubbed a hand under his nose and looked at his father defensively. "She puts extra stuff in it."
Caine laughed out loud, a contagious laugh that the other two were unable to resist.
Kacie gave Peter an exasperated smile, and the meal was continued cheerfully.
The dishes were stacked in the sink, and the three sat companionably at the table. Peter opted for coffee while Kacie and his father had tea.
Peter reached over, and with his forefinger gently lifted the charms dangling from the necklace Kacie wore. "What are these?" he asked curiously.
Kacie's face reddened, and Caine gently chided, "Perhaps, Peter, such a question is too personal."
She lifted the charms away from Peter and stared at them as they shone in the light. "No. No. It's OK. My dad gave me this necklace on my thirteenth birthday," she said softly. "Mom was already dead, and I was having kind of a tough time with a lot of the things that girls go through when growing up. So I had 'the talk' with my dad. He was so sweet." Her voice thickened. "He gave me this heart, and on the back it says TLW." She swallowed hard. "It means 'true love waits'. He told me that when he and mom would talk about...things, that they hoped my brother and I would wait until our wedding night to be intimate." She blushed furiously and took a deep breath. "Anyway, the heart charm is mine, and Dad told me never to take it off until I was ready to give my heart away. This key was my brother's."
She looked up at Peter with tears shimmering in her eyes. "It's engraved, too, and Dad told Kevin not to take it off until he was ready to give the key to his heart to someone." She blinked, and a slow tear rolled down her cheek. Not bothering to wipe it away, she smiled a watery smile at him and then at Caine. "Pretty old-fashioned way of thinking these days, but I've never forgotten my promise to my dad."
Caine's warm gaze was paternal. "Your father was surely a man of honor. Both of your parents would be proud if they could see you now."
Peter reached for her hand and squeezed it gently.
The phone rang, and Kacie got up to answer it, a frown instantly appearing on her face. "But I have guests...I'm supposed to have the whole day off; doesn't that include?...Yes, I understand...I know...All right, I'll be there in --" She checked her wristwatch. "-- twenty minutes." She slammed down the receiver less than graciously. Turning to Peter and Caine she said, "I'm sorry. That was the--"
"-- hospital. I know," grumbled Peter. "Don't they have any other nurses there?"
She looked at him unhappily. "McClanahan's been called in to do an emergency surgery. He's got the other nurses so intimidated that I'm usually the lucky one that gets picked to work with him. The rest of the nursing staff threw a party for me when I came back after being sick."
"They usually throw a party for Peter when he leaves the hospital," Caine interjected.
Peter and Kacie stared at him in astonishment.
"Pop, you just made a joke. You never make jokes." Peter was shocked but pleased.
Caine raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulder in a typical gesture. "I thought that you both needed to...lighten up?"
Kacie giggled and hugged him. "Thank you for coming tonight. I'm sorry I have to duck out so soon."
"The pleasure was mine," he responded with a smile.
"Peter, what can I say?" Her eyes darkened miserably. "I hate to do this."
He grabbed her in a quick embrace and kissed the top of her head. "I know. Being a nurse is what you do, and you can't help the hours. I just miss seeing you. You need a ride?" he asked hopefully.
"I'd better take my own car," she declined ruefully. "I don't know how long this is going to take." She grabbed a coat from the closet. "I hate to run out on you, but I gotta go. Lock up behind me? Thanks."
Peter was quiet in the car as he and his father drove home.
"What are you thinking about so intently, my son?"
Peter was silent a few more moments before slowly replying, "I was just thinking that we missed out on so many of those growing up talks. Talks like the one Kacie told us about. When I was younger, I had so many questions in my head. We had that time taken away from us. Even later, when I was living with the Blaisdells...Paul was, well, Paul was great, but talking with him was never like talking with you. I missed you so much, Dad. I never got over missing you. Not for one minute of that fifteen years."
Caine's voice sounded sad. "I, too, would think of those times. Whenever I would see a boy about your age with his father, and they would be talking together, I would think of you, wondering what our lives would have been like if the temple had not been destroyed." He reached out a hand to gently caress Peter's cheek. "If I had not found you when I did, I do not know where I would be now."
Peter briefly leaned his cheek into his father's hand while keeping one eye on the road. {We've been reunited for over three years, and I still can't have enough physical contact with him}. They continued home in silence, each lost in his thoughts.