Hope from the Ocean: 67

"Easy, now," Aiden said, as he and Aman both helped Todd into the cottage.  He sat, with a bump, on the chair at the table, and looked around.  It was just the same.  Feelings of nausea, nostalgia and confusion overwhelmed him, and he put his head down on the table.

Lily said, "Son, can I get ya anything?"

"To be honest, I feel like I need to lie down.  Maybe, while you're all getting reacquainted?" 

"Certainly, Dear Boy."  She extended her hand to the small, modest sofa to the left of the table.  It was facing the fireplace, just as one had been in 1995.  He looked at it, and hesitated.  

"Do ya want some help, Todd?"  Aman offered.  Now in his late seventies, Todd was slightly embarassed, when Aiden stood up without prompting and offered his help.

Todd made it to the sofa, and fell onto it, laying on his back.  He looked to the ceiling, for a moment, and got his bearings.  The same small water stains were in the same places.  He felt sick, but didn't want to interfere in the reunion of the family.  He quietly accepted Lily's offer of a blanket, and turned on his side, both to combat the nausea and listen to the conversation between the three O'Farrells.

Aman said, "Ya're out of sorts, Boy.  Have ya eaten?"

Aiden interjected.  "Actually, he hasn't eaten much at all today.  He probably needs a little sustenance."

With the way his stomach felt, Todd wasn't sure he could accept anything in the line of food.  He remained quiet, and waited, as Lily got up and went to the stove in the corner.  Things were slightly modernized, but in general, it was as if he had stepped into a different time. 

Aman said, "Aiden, have ya been all right?  What have ya been up to, Son?"  Todd recognized the fatherly tones in the man's voice, and was reminded of the comfort they had brought to him all those years back.  

"Fighting against the oppressors, mostly," Aiden said.  

"Ah, The Men of 21.  Must be."

"Todd was instrumental in bringing them down, Dad.  It's a long story, that I'll let him tell ya when he's ready.  They're all captured.  This week.  And most of it was because of him."

Aman looked back at Todd, who was still lying on the sofa, trying to feel normal.  Catching the old man's eyes, he simply waved.  Aman said, "Is that true, Todd?"

"Not a word," he said, and weakly smiled.

Aiden said, "He doesn't like accolades.  Like he can't take them, or pushes them away like the wrong side of a magnet."

"Ay, that I recall,"  Aman agreed.

Lily returned to the room, and she was carrying a large tray.  On it were cups of tea, steaming and aromatic, and some biscuits, as well as a small bowl.  She went to Todd first.  "I brought ya this.  Rabbit stew.  Ya loved it, back then, and it helped ya gain your strength."

Todd remembered, and reaching out, he was suddenly famished.  He ate most of the stew before she had a chance to finish placing his cup and biscuits down.

Going to the table, she placed the rest of the items for Aman and Aiden, and returned to Todd, where she sat on the coffee table across from him as he ate.  She said, "Ya've been through Hell, I can see it. Eh?"

He continued eating, and drank some tea.  "I feel better now.  Thanks for this."

She reached up and touched his face, her hands lingering on the scar.  "Ya made it back to her.  I knew ya would."

"It wasn't all flowers and romance, though.  We were apart most of the time."

"Are ya together now?"

"Yeah, we're together now.  We'll never be apart again."

"Then that is the answer, Todd.  What's now is what is, and ya will be all right."  She thought before continuing.  "Ya were so wounded, in so many ways."

They both knew what she was referring to.  He said, "I'm getting there, Lily.  I'm trying."

"I know," she smiled, warmly, and turned back to the table where Aman and Aiden were catching up.

***

"The name's Owen.  Pleased," he said, taking Timothy's hand.  Timothy Broderick was not a small man, by any means, but his hand felt dwarfed in the paw of Owen Leary.

"The same.  I'm hoping you can help."

"I've helped often in me almost ninety years.  What can I do for ya today?"

"It's about Aiden O'Farrell,"  Colin began, and the expression on Owen's face was one of recognition and recollection, both.

"Ah, yes, that one."

"Can ya tell me something about . . . when he was a child?  When he was found, and given to the O'Farrell family?"

"Let me clarify something.  He wasn't found.  It was . . . a strange occurrence, in Dublin, somewhere around Burdock's.  It was a grisly scene, and I see it as clear as day."  Owen said.

"I . . . see it that way, too."  Timothy said.

"Were ya there?"

"For part of the time, yes.  I was the one dragged away by the police."  Timothy's voice deadened.

"Ya're the one?  The man who was screaming when it happened?"

"Yes.  That was me."

The older man waited.  "I came onto the scene just as ya were being dragged off.  It was a mess, blood everywhere.  The woman was dead.  They say she was shot through the heart."

Timothy thought back to his dream; the first shot, through her torso.  Yes, that could have been her heart.

"The boy, appeared dead.  When the medical techs arrived, they pronounced them both dead, you were dragged off, I remember, I came around the corner then, and then something strange happened."

"Go on," Timothy said.

"The paramedics, they grabbed the boy, and loaded him onto the stretcher, into the back of the ambulance.  They left the woman.  The ambulance left, another came, took the woman.  At first, I didn't think much of it.  But it turned out to be a very important fact.  The boy, we found out, had survived.  He was kidnapped by The Men of 21.  Taken, and we believed he was killed."

"How was it known he survived?"  Timothy asked.

"It was me.  I remembered seeing his hand out from under the sheet they had put over him.  It poked out, sort of in little grasps, as if reaching for something.  I shook it off, as imagined, at first, but when I heard the rumors later, I knew I was right.  To make a longer story short, Man, they wanted to raise him as a trained assassin.  Played some kind of games with his mind, which erased a great deal of his memory.  That was when a few of the RA21 and I went and got the boy out.  He was brought to our camps, in secret, for protection.  But we realized we could not keep him in that kind of life.  Then, I remembered a friend, a fisherman named Aman O'Farrell, who I was in the army with.  He and his wife had no children.  They lived off obscurely somewhere in the countryside.  It thought it might be the best.  They had no children, I told them Aiden was an orphan.  They were pleased to take him, and knew that he had to be protected."

Timothy remained stoic, and urged the man on.  Owen said, "The child and the mother were buried, and time moved forward.  The boy, Aiden, was raised by Aman and his wife.  He was protected by them, in secret, for his childhood.  When he became a man, he left them and went off to seek vengeance against The Men of 21 and to keep them safe.  He has not been the same, physically, since we retrieved him from The Men of 21 camp.  He was not told of his past much, just that he was found, wounded.  The rumors stayed among us for all those years."

Timothy sighed audibly, and rubbed his hand through his hair.  Owen said, "And now, I make my guess as to why it matters to ya.  The woman shot that day was ya'r wife."

Timothy gulped, "She was."

"And the child, he was ya'r son?"

"He was."

"Well, he is.  The child is alive, he's Aiden O'Farrell.  As sure as I'm sitting here, he is.  I know it to be true.  In fact, when ya first came in the door, ya looked and moved so much like him, I'm surprised ya didn't notice until now."

"Perhaps I did," Timothy said, sitting back in awe.  he could still remember feelings of denial about Aiden's familiarity to him.  He was speechless.

"From what I understand, he has some kind of brain injury, related to the shooting, and possibly to the brainwash attempts made.  No one is certain.  But whatever it is, he's alive and he's that boy gunned down across from Burdock's that day.  Ya must understand, ya were nothing more that a blurr of a black coat and hat that day, there was no way we could track ya down.  And once there was hope for that, it made more sense to us to protect the boy."

Timothy was not going to question that.  Instead, he set his sights on the current day.  Aiden was his son.  Aiden was Eric.  His son was alive.  He'd made it through shootings, kidnapping, and for the moment, Timothy was grateful that his being protected and hidden all of those years had worked.

***

"So, why did ya come back, Boy?"  Aman said, patting his adoptive son's head.

"It's easy.  They've been defeated, at least most of them, and it seemed like the right time.  Todd here convinced me to face my past, and my demons.  I still have the headaches, and in fact, they are worse than when I was here."

"That's not good," Lily said.  "Can something be done?"

"Maybe.  Todd's going to help me with that, and I appreciate his kindness.  I'd need a lot of medical attention.  But, he suggested coming here to try and jog my memory of my past.  I can't move on, Mam," he said, looking into Lily's eyes, "I can't have a family, or a life of my own, without the truth."

"All we know is that you were an orphan.  You were found shot in the head, as a young child.  Your mother was murdered the same day.  We don't know much else than that."

Todd, listening from the sofa, became aware of something that clicked, instantaneously in his mind at that moment, with the ponderings he'd been mulling over for weeks.  His mother, murdered, the same day, a shooting.  That something familiar about him. . .he . . .can't . . .be . . .

"I appreciate whatever you have to offer me," Aiden said, "as I always did.  Is there anything else at all?"

"Just the name of the man who sent ya to us."  Aman added.

"Who was he?"

"His name was Owen.  Owen Leary."

"Owen Leary?  He's an elder in the RA21 group.  He sent me to ya?"

"He did.  It was in secret, for your protection.  All he said was that you were orphaned, and that we needed to keep ya safe.  We couldn't have our own children, ya know that, so we took ya and raised ya as our own.  We never lied to ya.  Ya always knew that ya weren't born of us."

"I know, Dad.  I'd never question that.  I just . . . I never knew my mother was murdered, with me there?  Did I see?"

Aman looked to Lily, who reached out and covered Aiden's hand.  "Ya did.  Ya saw, Son.  Ya just don't remember."

Aiden sat back, his jaw slightly dropped.  He closed his eyes, and then doubled over in pain.  This caused the chair to give way to the right, and topple onto the ground.  Todd was up in moments, lifting not only Aiden, but the chair, to an upright position.  Lily knelt in front of him as the wave of pain passed.  Aiden finally spoke, "When I try and think of  . . . her . . ." he winced.

Todd recognized what was happening immediately.  "Stop.  Stop for a minute.  Clear your mind."

"How?" Aiden said, clearly in torment.

"Repeat something.  A mantra.  Something.  Like, I have a Mam, her name is Lily, something like this."

Aiden said, slowly, "I have a Mam, her name is Lily, and a Pappy, named Aman.  I am Aiden, a member of the RA21.  I have a friend, his name is Todd."

Todd swallowed, and said, "Is that better?"  He could see Aiden coming down from the pressure in his head.

"Yes.  It's better.  I don't understand, eh?  What's that about?"

Lily chimed in, "It's all right.  Perhaps ya're not meant to understand. Perhaps ya're just meant to be our Aiden."

"Mam," Aiden said, focusing on her face.  "Ya're right.  For now."

Todd sat at the fourth chair at the table, and folded his arms.  Aman, who was watching every move he made, said, "Todd.  Are ya going to tell us how ya knew exactly what to do just then?"

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