Dec. 6 - Monday morning
Old habits die hard. I always did tend to play journal catch up on Monday mornings. I really miss my pen. Can't get used to this one's feel in my hand. It's a stranger. It feels wrong - awkward - slippery & skinny. Alex said that it hasn't absorbed enough of my karma yet. But that's not it. The other one didn't just have my karma, it had Derek's too. Alex has forgotten, but Derek gave me that pen when he gave me my 1st journal. I was an angry mess. One day he gave me this blank book - it was a peace offering, even tho' I didn't realize it at the time. I thought, "What is this shinola? Another way to screw around with my head? Some way to spy on me? Was he going to read what I wrote?"
It had a leather binding with the USS Constitution - "Old Ironsides" - embossed on the front. He said he just happened to have it & thought an X-Navy SEAL might like it - something he had gotten as a freebie for a contribution to some charity in Boston. He said a journal could be my friend, my sounding board, when I needed to talk something out, but there was no one to trust, or when I needed to sort something out in my own mind. After a while, I discovered was right. He also gave me this big, fat, steel pen - like burnished gun metal. It wasn't pretty, but it was perfect.
A couple of years ago I asked him how he managed to pick that one. He said that a journal pen needed to be special, because the longer you use it the more special it becomes - your most private thoughts, the traumas and joys of your life, the things that you want to remember or, at that moment in time, are the most important to you flow thru that pen onto the paper. He said that when you have the right one in your hand you want to use it. He joked - LOL - Derek joked <g> - that it was the most intimate relationship there was - after sex, of course. I remember that cat that ate the canary look when I insisted that he tell me why he picked that pen. He laughed and said he was psychic, then he fessed up. That sneaky bastard had watched, maybe for weeks, to see which pens I picked out of the pen holder in the library - I always went for fat metal ones. Hell, I didn't even realize that. I sometimes wonder how much about him was psychic and how much was Sherlock Holmes.
It's been a busy weekend for visitors, some of them really wacko. The Harbor Patrol and the rent-a-cops have been battling the press and now "goth" groupies who keep trying to sneak onto the island. It's sort of an amusing spectator sport - almost better than female mud wrestling. You got these beefy, but none too bright guys in shiny new uniforms chasing these very bright, but weird kids with jet black or purple hair, tattoos and nose rings. Yesterday, a cop caught a Dracula wannabe up near the tomb. They both took a tumble down hillside and ended up in a patch of pear blossom cactus. Not a pretty sight. They had to be airlifted over to the ER in San Rafael to have their stickers removed.
Then there are the Legacy counselors who keep coming around. God! They sound like friggin' undertakers with their syrupy voices. They should go get a job selling grave plots or maybe as "heavenly consultants" on one of those "Pray for me 900 numbers" - a direct line to God for only $25/min. I don't get it. They're being all helpful, with sad, concerned smiles, but none of us have been debriefed except for that 1st interview. All we gave them was a quick rundown of the events of the day or 2 before - no real details. They've never asked more. It's like they don't care. Like they already have their version of the story & that's all that matters.
Alex & Rachel brought Kat over Sat. morning. It was Kat's 1st visit. She wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be - not even when she went up to the house, or what's left of it. It was strange. She wanted to go alone.
They had a laptop for me. Alex said Fr. Thomas had been by to see them. He brought a few personal items they had found in the rubble. She seems to like him. I warned her that he was a hard ass & that priests ain't always nice guys - not even ones we thought we knew.
Alex said too that an old friend has offered her a job at the Sorbonne and has suggested that she go over and work with him while she gets her doctorate. I think maybe she should do it. Everything's happened so close after Grandma Rose & Kristin. She needs to get away from here - maybe permanently. It's been really hard on her & it's going to be a long time before she gets over it. There was something between her and Derek that I never caught. I know they weren't lovers, but I think Alex was in love with him and none of us saw it. I think she feels like if she left, she'd be running out on him.
I told her that I'd thought about re-upping. I doubt I could cut the muster now. They'd be calling me "Pappy" for sure, but it was something to say that might help her. I can't leave. Derek told me that ring didn't represent his burden. He even encouraged me to back away from the Legacy, but I'm a soldier, like my father before me, as Luke Skywalker once said, like Derek & Sloan & Jane Witherspoon & all those others who have carried the war to the Darkside. Battles are won and lost, but neither defeat nor victory is ever without casualties. We lose our comrades, our best friends, our brothers-in-arms and in blood, & ultimately ourselves, & all we have to hope for is to die quickly & honorably on the field of valor. That ring doesn't represent a burden to me - it is an honor & a privilege. Derek called it his legacy, but his legacy is also this city and this House. I'll stay & raise it all again for him. I couldn't save him or be by his side at the end, but I can do this - no matter what the Legacy says or does - & one day I'll make them all eat their words.
Mr. Hewett himself came by on Fri. afternoon. He told me not to worry about the noises the press was making about the foundation's stability. He said they were all guessing at the insurance arrangements and they were all wrong - just trying to milk the story, like with the cult thing.
Hewett explained about the trust fund for rebuilding. I already knew about that, but I had no idea how much money there was. If his ancestors were anything like Derek, it makes sense. I guess when his grandfather finished rebuilding the house after the 1906 quake, & got back on his financial feet again, he put $50,000 (at that time a hefty amount) in an emergency trust fund & it's sat there for 94 yrs. collecting interest. Either he had the "Sight" or he figured that one day it would happen again. Anyway, Hewett said that $50,000 has grown to an amount that will not only rebuild the house, but could damn near build a cathedral the size of Notre Dame as well. Even said Derek had plans for a chapel already drawn up.
Derek showed me the house plans once - said they were an idea in case the foundation grew too much & needed more room. He said he'd convert the old house to total foundation use and move himself and the Legacy into the new one. But Hewett described the plans as a single unit - new house at the far end of the gardens & chapel, dedicated to St. Michael, where our house sat. I pumped him a little - I think he assumed that I already knew most of this, so I let him assume all he wanted.
The plans he has were drawn up at the same time the Winston Rayne Hall of Antiquities opened in SF & Derek started moving the most valuable parts of the collection there - nothing Legacy related or anything with occult powers - just priceless works of art & treasures from antiquity. That was long before I came, even before Alex, Julia, and Philip. It was back in Dad's time.
I seem to have company - to be con't.
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