by AntigoneUnbound » Mon Mar 03, 2003 10:26 pm
Gods Served and Abandoned
Disclaimers:
I own six cats, two ball gloves, and some really nice rose bushes. I don’t own these fine women. I wish I did.
Spoilers:
Up to season 5. I’ve played slightly with the timing of a certain Big Bad’s appearance, with some implications for Dawn’s entrance.
Rating:
R for now; if it changes, I’ll give heads-up.
Distribution:
Sure, with acknowledgement.
Feedback:
Even more sure! Bring it on!
*****
Part 16
*****
Though Hollywood and television would have us believe otherwise, there aren’t really that many distinct, life-altering moments for most people. Changes, losses, realizations…They usually take shape gradually. Paintings don’t leap onto the canvas as finished products, and our truths usually don’t present themselves as such in discrete, self-contained moments in time.
Usually.
For Tara, this was an exception. Before that moment, she was Tara Maclay, daughter of Nathan and Julia Maclay. And then, in an instant, she became someone else.
And yet, when she would look back later, she would swear that there had been some tiny part of her that said: I knew it. She would have no idea where or when she had first thought it, but the fact that she had room for some emotion besides shock meant something, she suspected.
As Nathan Maclay’s four syllables sounded in her mind, all of the air seemed to leave the room and Tara struggled to draw a breath. She felt Willow’s hand come to rest on her back, and she suddenly believed utterly that without that hand, she would fall backwards and keep falling—to the floor, and then below it, never able to stop herself or the spiral.
Silence ruled unchallenged for several moments while Tara haltingly began to build a new life story. Finally, she spoke, and her voice seemed not her own.
"What…what are you s-saying? Daddy, what are you t-telling me?" She heard the term of paternal address slip out before she could catch herself, and she wondered if she would ever say it again.
Nathan Maclay looked up at her, his face still ashen; his eyes hollow. "I said, you never were…my little girl." His voice was barely a whisper. Even as he gazed at her, Tara suspected that he was seeing her mother.
"I don’t understand, Daddy." Apparently she was still speaking with yesterday’s tongue. "I don’t know what y-you’re talking about."
Nathan Maclay sighed heavily, and turned to look out the window. Without looking back at her, he replied, "I’m not your father. I raised you, but I’m not your father."
This isn’t happening. This can not be happening. I can’t lose both my parents.
More to himself than to Tara, it seemed, he muttered, "Doesn’t make any sense to keep the secret anymore. Everything’s already broken…" He finally turned and met Tara’s eyes again. "Your mother? The one you thought was so perfect? She cheated on me, Tara. Had an affair while I was out working my fingers to the bone trying to keep our heads above water. He’s your father."
Tara felt as if she were watching a glass filled with water slam against a sidewalk. The rivulets ran everywhere, each one a repercussion or implication or question from this revelation.
"Then who?" she finally managed to whisper.
But her father just smiled an ancient, bitter smile and turned back to the window, shaking his head as he watched the old movie playing in his mind.
Don’t you turn your back on me, damn you!
"I said, who is my father?" she demanded, more forcefully this time.
After a moment, her father began to speak, though he still didn’t look at her. "You couldn’t believe it was me, could you? In that letter, the way I sounded? I was so in love with her…" His voice trailed off, and Tara knew that he was seeing her mother again.
"Julia Benedict…She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen…From the moment I saw her, I knew that I would marry her. I’ve never given another woman a passing thought from the moment I laid eyes on her." For an instant, his eyes seemed to shine; or perhaps it was just the sun, catching his face just so.
"I courted her every way I knew how, which probably wasn’t much. I wasn’t as handsome as a lot of the boys who tried to catch her eye, and I wasn’t any genius or smooth talker. I didn’t have that much going for me, except for being hard-working, and sincere…and persistent. Oh, I was certainly persistent." He gave a short, dry laugh.
For her part, Tara couldn’t speak and wasn’t sure how she managed to breathe. She wondered absently if the group in the kitchen could hear any of this, and this made her remember Beth. She offered up a quick prayer that her cousin wouldn’t return home soon.
"She agreed to go to the movies with me, and after that I just kept showing up at her house, with flowers for her, flowers for her mother…I had said I was going to marry that girl, and finally I did. That day was the happiest day of my life." And this time Tara knew that his eyes were glistening. "I would swear on everything holy that there has never been a more beautiful woman than your mother that day."
Tara’s mind darted back to pictures she had seen of their wedding day. Her mother, it was true, had been so beautiful that Tara had found it difficult to believe that she herself came from such a woman.
She wanted desperately to know who her father was, and yet she suspected that this legacy and that of her father’s demon aspect were closely intertwined. "And the demon?" she managed to ask. "You didn’t tell her about it?"
Still he refused to look at her. "No. I wasn’t going to do anything to risk losing her. I thought about it—every day, I thought about it. But…but I never did."
"So you wouldn’t risk her leaving you, but you would risk her life, if the demon ever over-came you," Tara said flatly.
Now he swung around sharply, his face white with anger. "You judge me? Without knowing what happened? And if I recall correctly, you hadn’t told her," he nodded harshly toward Willow, "about your little secret either."
Tara sank back into the sofa. He’s right. I did exactly what he did, for the same reason. I called it love. She felt Willow’s hand stroking her arm, and then heard her speak softly, as if Nathan weren’t even in the room.
"Baby, don’t do this to yourself. You were scared, but you did the right thing. You kept it a secret for a few hours; he kept it for decades."
Tara tried to let the warmth of Willow’s presence sink into her, but the entire scene was so surreal as to preclude such things as comfort. Finally, she lifted her eyes to his again. "You didn’t just keep the truth from her, you actually told her the demon was in her. How could you? How could you hurt someone you loved so much?"
His anger had seemingly disappeared, replaced now by a dull, haunted gaze. "Because I knew I was losing her. Part of me had never really believed she was mine in the first place, and it wasn’t long after we got married that I could feel her slipping away from me." He ran a weather-beaten hand through his thick, dark hair.
I wonder if my father’s hair is blond, like Mom’s?
His voice was weary, and soaked with anguish. "Do you know what it’s like to have the person you love more than anything in the world just get farther and farther away from you? It wasn’t sudden; she wasn’t mean or cruel. She just seemed a little less…there, with me. When I woke up in the morning, it was like she had crept just a little bit farther away while I slept; and in the evening, when we went to bed, there was just a little bit less of her there beside me. I tried everything I could think of to keep her with me…I thought that having children would help."
Tara remembered a conversation with her mother years ago. "What about the miscarriage? What happened?"
Nathan nodded. "So she told you about that? I might have guessed. She was a lot closer to you after you came along than she was to me…" His voice trailed off bitterly. After a moment, he sighed deeply, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat.
"I was so excited when Julia told me she was expecting. The idea of raising a child, with her…I thought I was going to bust a seam, just thinking about it. And she did seem closer to me; she talked to me more, we made plans for the baby…She was absolutely certain it was a boy. Said she just knew, and I didn’t doubt it." A glimmer of a smile passed over his face, and then faded.
"Didn’t you think you should tell her the truth then? If you were going to be a father, weren’t you worried about the demon aspect coming out?" Tara was incredulous at his deceit, even as she had some understanding of what prompted it.
Nathan was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice held no trace of defensiveness, no effort to persuade her of his innocence. "I knew we would have to keep a close eye on the boy, to see if there were any sign of demon coming out. At the same time, I was afraid that if I told her the truth then, she would definitely leave me, to keep the baby safe. I knew I couldn’t convince her that I wouldn’t hurt the child, or her. I just knew it. So I told her the demon was in
her. I figured that way she wouldn’t leave me because she would want me to keep them both safe."
"But how? How did you do it?" Tara had so many questions, and she couldn’t imagine ever having them all answered.
Nathan gave a brittle laugh. "You know, I’m not even sure. It wasn’t like I set up some fancy spell or anything. I didn’t even know any magic…That was your mother’s specialty, as I found out shortly before we married. All I can remember is thinking that I had to do this, that there was no choice, and that I’d better get it right the first time…except I didn’t even know exactly what ‘it’ was. I just started talking, and the more I talked, the more I believed it myself. I felt this—
heat, or burning, in my heart, and it kept getting worse. But when I finished talking, and I saw your mother crying…I knew it had worked, and the pain stopped. From that moment on, she believed that she carried demon in her, and that it would be passed on to her daughters. I wanted her to believe that it was just through the female line, so she wouldn't even think of a male possessing any demon. I figured the boy would be with me more and more as he got older, and I could watch him as I needed to." He passed a hand over his eyes, exhaustion seeming to roll off of him in waves.
"What happened? To the baby?" Tara was afraid to hear the answer.
"You think I did something, don’t you? You think I hurt him?" Nathan’s voice quavered for the only time that Tara could remember. "I loved that little boy more than I have words to tell you. He was my greatest hope. Yes, I was worried about watching out for the demon; but I knew he’d be at least half your mother, hopefully more. And that would make him almost perfect, I figured."
Tara felt tears stinging her own eyes at his words. Goddess, he had so much love in him, and so much fear. I’m surprised he didn’t just break apart with it all.
"It was late August…We’d been in a near drought for the better part of the summer; we needed rain bad, and one night we got it. A storm blew up; probably the worst this area had seen in a long time. The wind was awful, and the rain started coming down in sheets. Once you stepped outside, you were soaked to the bone in a few seconds. I had just finished the milking and come back to the house. Your mother had made beef stew; I could smell it as soon as I walked in the house." Again, the sad smile slid across his face, only to disappear as he spoke.
"I was just about to take off my boots when I heard a banging coming from the direction of the barn. When I stepped out onto the porch to see what it was, I saw the big barn door on the south end slamming back against the barn. Somehow it had blown open, and I knew I had to go down and shut it back up. The storm would frighten the horses and the calves, and I couldn’t risk them hurting themselves trying to get out of their stalls. So I pulled my jacket back on and told your mother where I was going. I hoped it would only take a few minutes, but the door was so heavy, and the wind made it damn near impossible to shut it. I almost had it a couple of times, but then the wind would rip it right out of my hands and I’d have to start all over again. The next thing I knew, your mother was standing beside me, tugging on the door. I—I told her to go back to the house; I told her I could get it. But she said—" Nathan stopped, and swallowed heavily. "She said she didn’t want our son thinking she was some kind of princess that wouldn’t get her hands dirty to help his father. She wouldn’t leave, no matter what I said. She just kept tugging, right there beside me. Finally I gave up trying to convince her and between the two of us we managed to get the barn door shut and bolted. She was breathing heavy, but I could see her grinning at me in the rain and for the first time in a long time, I could feel her love for me. We got back to the house and changed out of our wet clothes and ate the best supper I’ve ever had. We went to bed laughing about how Vaughn Nathan Maclay had just done his first piece of farm work, and how we’d have to include that in his first allowance." Nathan fell silent, and looked back out the window.
"The next day your mother started spotting. She tried to say it was nothing, but I got her into the truck and went to the doctor that afternoon. We lost him the day after that." His voice was flat now.
Tara didn’t bother to fight the tears that were washing over her cheeks in streams. They both lost so much—the baby, each other…
Nathan resumed his narrative, still in the same dead voice. "After that, things changed. Your mother started getting more distant with me; nothing I did could keep her close. I don’t know if she blamed me—I tried to get her to go back to the house, I did; but maybe I should have just left the door and hoped for the best. Maybe I should have physically made her go back to the house, but that never even crossed my mind. I don’t know…Maybe she thought I blamed her, although I tried to be as kind and gentle as I knew how. I told her we’d have other children; told her I loved her whether we did or not. And she tried to be normal with me, but I knew her heart was slipping away again. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone so much and know that she’s leaving you even while she’s standing right in front of you."
He stared off into the distance. Tara struggled to find her voice. "I’m so sorry," she finally whispered. Her father looked at her in mild surprise; he didn’t seem to know how to respond to her kindness.
After a moment, Tara asked softly, "What about Donnie?" At the name, Nathan’s baleful countenance returned.
"I said your mother grew more distant; she didn’t actually leave me, not physically. She still believed she had demon in her, and I—I think she really didn’t want to hurt me." This last part was said so quietly that Tara had to strain to hear him.
"Your mother found out she was pregnant with Donnie in February of 1978," Nathan continued, confirming the timeline that she, Willow, and Giles had deduced yesterday. "I decided to write her the letter in case anything happened to me, or if I died before her. I loved her so much…If I died before she did, I wanted her to know the truth. I just—I didn’t want her to know when I was still alive, because then…"
"She might leave you," Tara finished.
"No; I’m sure she would have left me. Finding out that I had lied to her—there’s no way she would have stayed with me." He looked at her, his gaze at once helpless and defiant. "So I didn’t tell her. Donnie was born that October. I had hoped it would bring us closer again, but this time was different…Throughout the pregnancy, even at the birth—she never seemed nearly as excited. She was sick a lot, and she had never had morning sickness the first time. She was tired, too, and we didn’t really discuss names until a month before he was born. When Donnie came, she got all depressed for the first couple of months; I didn’t think she was ever coming out of it. She just kept slipping further and further away from me; Donnie didn’t change that at all."
Tara felt a wave of nausea wash over her, thinking about her brother. Half-brother, she corrected herself. "Does Donnie have demon in him?" she asked, knowing that either answer would hurt.
Nathan’s laugh was harsh. "I suspect you’d be in a better position to know that than I am," he said simply.
Tara stared at him. "You know what he did? You know how he hurt me?" Any vestige of sympathy she felt for her father was quickly being eclipsed by rage at this new insinuation.
"I didn’t know for sure," Nathan replied, and his tone suggested that he wasn’t just hedging. "I certainly came down hard on him, a great deal. I was worried sick that he might have demon in him. He always seemed so angry and bitter, even when he was young. I had hoped that by instilling…discipline in him, I might keep it from emerging."
"Spare the rod, spoil the demon," Willow murmured softly.
Nathan glared at her. "What do you know about any of this? About my family? How dare you judge me. You’re lucky I haven’t thrown you out of this house."
"You won’t do that," Tara interjected flatly. "I won’t let you." Nathan and Willow both stared at her incredulously. "No more threats; no more violence. She stays." So saying, she entwined Willow’s fingers in her own. In her own mind, Tara was beyond being shocked at anything that might transpire this afternoon. She had come out to her father, who—as it turned out—wasn’t. Defending Willow, always a natural reaction for her, came so easily as to be unnoticeable to her own observation.
Nathan gave her his coldest stare, but Tara was unmoved. Finally, he relented, slightly. "I truly believed it would keep the demon in check," he muttered. "Donnie was always so ready to blow up; he had so much violence in him. I thought it was the demon."
"Or it could have been the result of being beaten and suspected from an early age." Tara’s voice held curiously little judgement; she was simply stating a possibility.
"Do you think I wanted to do that? Be so hard on my own son? I wanted to play with him, teach him things, just like the father I had planned to be with Vaughn. But Donnie’s temper showed up early…"
"His temper—not his complete soul, and not necessarily a demon aspect. You couldn’t know that, any more than you could know that Vaughn would have been different." Tara found herself feeling oddly protective of Donnie, at least as she watched his history unfold. Nathan sat without speaking.
"And then you suspected him of beating on me, and you didn’t step in," Tara continued, her voice shaking.
"I said I wasn’t sure. I never saw anything."
"You didn’t want to see anything," Tara cut him off. "I didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened between you and Mom, but you were willing to stand aside and let him do whatever he might be doing."
"Didn’t have anything to do with it?" Nathan echoed. "You were it! You represented it all!"
"Through no fault of her own!" Willow broke in. "She was an innocent!"
"There’s no such thing," Nathan declared flatly.
As Tara looked helplessly at Willow, who gazed at her with a fierce protectiveness that finally penetrated some of the surrealism of the moment, she heard the kitchen door slam. Nathan’s head snapped up, his mouth tightening.
"If that’s Donald—" he began in an ominous voice.
"What are you doing here?" It was Beth’s voice, indignant and shrill. She had obviously discovered unwanted city folks in her kitchen.
Not quite feeling her legs, Tara rose and walked unsteadily into the kitchen, Willow immediately behind her. Nathan remained seated. "They’re here with me, Beth." Tara’s voice sounded strange to her own ears.
Now it was Beth’s turn to look surprised, and more than a little nonplussed. "What do you mean?" Her eyes narrowed. "Are you coming back?" The resentment in her voice was obvious, and profound.
From the corner of the kitchen, Dawn spoke up. "Actually, we’re all coming to live here. We hear you make a mean apple strudel." Buffy’s elbow to her ribs seemed to lack its usual vigor, as confusion washed over Beth’s face.
Do they know? What did they hear? She had to find out before anything went any further. "Um, guys—could you hear anything that we were talking about?" The group was silent, and then Giles spoke, his voice soft and apologetic. "Yes, Tara. We could hear. We probably should have left the house completely, for your privacy, but we also didn’t want to risk being too far from you if you needed us." His eyes held a very old kindness, it seemed to Tara.
She shook her head without really thinking. "No, it’s OK. I would have told you anyway." She looked back over her shoulder. Nathan apparently had still not left his chair.
"What are all of these people doing here, Tara? What’s this all about?" Beth’s indignant tone brought her back to the scene in front of her.
"Don’t you know?" Willow asked, anger rippling through her own voice. "You seem to have installed yourself pretty conveniently into the household. I’m surprised you don’t have all the inside scoop."
Beth turned to Willow, fixing her with a malevolent glare. "Who do you think you are, coming in here and talking to me like that? You think I don’t know what kind of person you are?" She sniffed as if detecting sour milk.
Willow tilted her head in mock consideration. "Jewish? Red-headed? Stunningly intelligent yet modest? Oh, wait—big ol’ honking lesbian?"
Beth took an automatic step backwards, as if the orientation might be contagious. "I—I was talking about you being a witch." Willow gave Tara a weak, apologetic grin.
OK, I guess I’m out to Cousin Beth now, too. But Tara couldn’t really summon the energy to be upset with Willow. That little revelation was hardly going to be the lead story of this whole newscast.
Beth had pulled herself up with righteous disdain. "Although things certainly make more sense now," she continued, looking at Tara with new and greater condemnation.
"Beth, you know that Donnie was trying to get me to come back home. You called me to say you understood that I wanted to stay at school. There’s no need for us to be enemies," Tara said placatingly. Then she noticed Beth’s anxious glance into the living room.
"Tara, let’s not talk about what’s gone on between us, alright? I just want to know what’s happening right now."
"Donnie showed me a lock box, and it had some information in it that I needed to…confirm," Tara replied. "My friends came with me—Willow came with me—to support me. They knew it wouldn’t be the easiest time in the world." And I’d give a big cheer for understatement except that that would be an oxymoron, I think.
Beth looked around at all of them, confusion settling across her features. Finally, she seemed to reach some decision. Pushing past them, she made her way into the living room, where Nathan still sat, seemingly oblivious to the upheaval twenty feet away.
"Uncle Nathan, are you alright? Are these people upsetting you?" Her voice was solicitous, and Tara, following closely behind her, realized that it wasn’t an act.
"Yes, Beth. Thank you. I—I think it would be best if you gave us a little time to talk privately." Nathan Maclay’s voice sounded distant and rote.
Tara actually felt feeling sorry for Beth when she saw the hurt flash across her cousin’s face.
"Are you sure? With—with all these strangers in the house?" she faltered.
"Yes, of course. Why don’t you just go on up to Tara’s room for now? I’ll call you in a little bit." His tone suggested that he had already forgotten her presence.
Tara had also seen Beth’s reaction when her father—when Nathan—had referred to "Tara’s room." You want this to be your home so bad, don’t you Beth? The grass is always greener… She turned to see Willow standing beside her. The others had remained in the kitchen. Hope they’re making themselves at home. This could be a while.
She returned to the couch, Willow by her side. It was time, she knew.
"I need to know who my father is," she said simply.
Nathan turned to look at her, his gaze unreadable. "You really don’t know, do you?"
Tara decided that such a question deserved no answer. She just waited.
He stared at her for a long moment, before finally speaking. "Your mother—she seemed to have so much…life in her, so much energy. She was always wanting to go out, see people, go into the city. I didn’t have the time for such things; there was always so much work to be done. And besides, it wasn’t really my idea of a good time. I liked the evenings when it was just the two of us, in our home. But Julia—she wanted to go out to eat, go dancing, go to the movies. It was just one of the things that seemed to come between us." His distant expression brought a small tightening to Tara’s throat; she wasn’t sure why.
"I noticed that she would spend more and more time away from the house—going to the store two and three times a week; going into town for any reason she could think of. And she always took Donnie. I didn’t want to say anything about it; I thought maybe it would make her happy, getting out more. But she kept pulling away from me...She never said anything to me directly; it was just her manner, and the look in her eyes." Again he turned to stare out the window; Tara wondered what he saw there.
"Then I started noticing how she was acting different. It wasn't just what she was doing...She was starting to dress a little differently, even around the house. She seemed nervous, too, and I don't think she’d been anxious a day in her life. It was like she’d started drinking or something, the way she changed. It was even harder to reach her than before. I asked her if I could do something; I even suggested we go away on a trip, even though it was fall and there was so much to do on the farm. I was getting desperate. I didn’t think she’d leave me, not with Donnie, and…and thinking she had demon in her. But it was getting to be like living with a stranger—this beautiful stranger that I was in love with but who barely even noticed me. But she said no, that she didn’t want to go on a trip. And that should have told me, I guess. She finally had something here that she didn’t want to leave." Nathan’s smile was twisted and bitter.
"I can’t remember the first time the thought actually crossed my mind that she was seeing someone. But once the idea came, it never left. I wanted to follow her, when she went into town, but we only had the one vehicle. Besides, Cold Springs is so small that I couldn’t imagine her meeting someone without everybody in the town knowing it inside of five minutes. Still, though, I thought something was up. I decided to call Joe Buckner, up the road, and asked if I could borrow his second car for a few days. I had loaned him a tractor and wagon more than once, and he was glad to help out. I told him the truck was acting up. When he dropped it off the next day, I told Julia that he’d asked me to look at it. I was always good with machinery. She didn’t bat an eye; seems like she was barely noticing me those days anyway. The next morning, she mentioned she was going into town. I waited about five minutes and then headed out after her. She had Donnie with her." He paused, tilting his head slightly to one side as he remembered.
"I was afraid that I might not be able to find her once I reached town. Cold Springs is little, but there was no guarantee I’d see her. Turns out I didn’t even need to go into town."
Tara could hear her heart pounding loudly in her chest, its tempo increasing, it seemed, with every passing sentence. She wondered absently if there were some upper threshold that she was in danger of crossing. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t imagine what her life would look like in a matter of moments.
"I had driven about five miles when I saw the truck parked a ways back on a little side road that led back to the old Huntley place. If I hadn’t glanced over to that side of the road, I’d never have seen it. Nobody had lived there for about ten years; it was all grown over with weeds and the same old ‘For Sale’ sign. I guess I knew then that I was right. Why else would she be there? All I needed to know now was who the son of a bitch was." He fell silent, and kept his silence for so long that Tara thought she might scream. Finally he nodded, as if confirming some inner truth, and spoke once more.
"I turned around and drove back; I parked the car on the other side of the road and killed the engine. I headed up the lane, all the time hoping I was wrong and knowing I was right. The lane was about fifty yards long…I didn’t think I’d ever reach the house. I can still remember every bush and plant and tree I saw on that walk. I finally got to the porch, trying to be quiet. I didn’t really need to be, though. They were making enough noise that they sure weren’t going to hear
me. I could hear her voice, clear as a bell. And then I heard his voice." Nathan looked over at Tara, as if registering her presence anew.
"You’re wondering if I recognized it, aren’t you?" he asked quietly.
Unable to speak, Tara only nodded.
Nathan stared at her.
"Of course I did. I should have—I’d known him since the day he was born."
Oh, no…Oh, sweet goddess, no—not this…
Nathan met her desperate gaze with his own dead eyes. "Turns out my brother had more to offer my wife than I did."
*****
To Be Continued
Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 3/3/03 8:48:55 pm
(seems like you have the right "ingredients" 
)! And I look forward to Sunday's posting (got to resolve that "evil" cliffhanger, girl 
at: 2/28/03 6:59:04 pm
Anyway I hope you had a lovely Birthday with your girl, dinner, and the liquor... 
Looking forward to the update! 
. I think she’s underestimating Nathan though. She seems to only see what is more convenient for her. 
make a funny like that. Plus it’s so true. Willow may be tiny but she can pack a punch. 
. 
Beth and I 
. I am waiting now for Donnie and Beth to return, I don't think this jigsaw puzzle's over by a long way yet, even though some of the pieces 'seem' to be in place 