JANUARY 1981
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

Mom reads over the letter for the third or fourth time while Frank looks on, concerned.  Her eyes are dry, but she's biting her lower lip, as if to keep it from trembling.  "Trish, what is it?" Frank asks, covering her hand with his.

With a shaking hand, she hands him the letter.  "Harm's been accepted at Annapolis," she says, her voice shaking.

Frank's eyes quickly scan the letter, and then he looks across the table at me, smiling.  "Congratulations Harm," he says.  I ignore him, my gaze focused on Mom.

After what seems like forever, she looks up at me and takes in a shaky breath.  "Yes, congratulations," she says weakly.

Frank seems happy for me, not that I'm all too concerned about that.  I don’t want his congratulations.  I don’t need them.  But I do care about what Mom thinks.  Why can't she be happy about this?  She knew that this is what I wanted, have wanted for nearly my entire life.  "Mom?" I ask hesitantly.

"Harm, not now, please," she says, drawing in another shaky breath. 

"I just want you to be happy for me," I say quietly, not ready to drop the subject.  This is what I've worked towards most of my life.  Just about everything that I've ever wanted – with the exception of Dad coming home – is within my reach and my mother is acting like the world's about to end.

She looks down at her plate, rubbing the bridge of her nose.  "It's not that," she counters wearily.  "Annapolis is a very good school.  You'll receive a fine education.  You're very lucky."

"I've got some work to do for a morning meeting," Frank says suddenly, pushing his plate back and standing.  He leans over and whispers something to Mom, but I can't hear what he says.  With a quick kiss on the forehead to Mom and a nod and a smile to me, he leaves us alone in the dining room.

Mom pushes her food around on her plate for a few moments before I get tired of the silence and try to bring up the subject of the Academy again.  "Mom, this is the greatest thing," I argue.  She sets down her fork and looks at me.  I can see in her eyes that she really doesn't want to hear any of this, but I persist.  "You know that I've always wanted to follow Dad to the Academy and I did it.  I got accepted to the United States Naval Academy.  Do you know how many guys would do anything for a chance like that, how many people apply but don’t get accepted?"

"I know," she says dully, standing up and beginning to clear the table.  "It's a great school."

I pick up my own plate and follow her into the kitchen.  "And I'm going to be a pilot just like Dad and then maybe the Navy will let me find him...." I continue, only to be cut off by Mom.

"It's been eleven years, darling," she says, a slight edge to her voice.  We've had this argument many times, especially in the last few years, as I've gotten older and Frank's become more entrenched in our lives.  It became quite the blow up between us right after my return from the Far East.  I can't understand why I'm the only one who still believes that Dad's coming home someday.  He's her husband, right?  Even Gram has welcomed Frank into our lives.  I can't believe that the people who supposedly loved Dad the most would betray him like that.

"And he's still out there somewhere," I insist, dropping my plate into the sink, not hard enough to break it, but with just enough force that it makes a loud bang.  I storm out of the kitchen, barely taking note of the tears forming in her eyes.

I'm just past the open door of Frank's office when I hear his voice calling me.  I hesitate.  Maybe I can just pretend that I didn't hear him.  But something compels me to answer the summons.  If nothing else, Frank did manage to get Mom to ease up on me eventually after my trip.  It is funny that he was the only one who even remotely acted like he was on my side.  I have to admit – very reluctantly - that he would have the most to lose with Dad still being alive, yet he's the only one who's supported me.

Frank is sitting behind his desk, papers spread out in front of him.  He looks up and nods towards a chair in front of the desk.  "Why don't you take a seat?" he suggests.

With a long-suffering sigh, I throw myself down into the chair.  "I think it's great that you've gotten into Annapolis," he begins, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his praise.  "And deep down, your mother is proud, too.  We could hardly ask for a better college for you and you've done an excellent job getting back on track with your life after your little adventure last year.  The discipline and order that the Navy will provide is probably just what you need in your life right now."

"And the point of all this?" I ask, lifting my eyebrows at him, not really trying to hide the derision in my voice.

"Try to be a little easier on your mother, Harm," he says patiently, ignoring my tone.  He's good at that.  I can't remember ever hearing him raise his voice to me in the six years that he's been a part of our lives.  No matter how hard I push, he just takes it.   More often than not, it drives me crazy.  No one can be that calm.  But to all outward appearances, Frank is.  There are times when I wish that he would just push back, so I could feel justified in letting loose against him as I’ve always wanted to do.  "She is happy for you, but that's not easy for her to show.  She's….it was hard for her, getting past your father's….what happened to your father.  She can't help being a little scared for you, with you following in his footsteps to the Academy and into the Navy."

"But I'm going to be an excellent pilot," I protest, "just like Dad was."  Even as I say the words, the little voice inside my head reminds me that even as good a pilot as Dad was, it still didn't save him from being shot down, just as it didn’t save my grandfather nearly thirty years before that.

7 MAY 2009
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

I sit at the desk in our home office, a nearly blank sheet of paper lying in front of me.  I decided to take Sarah's suggestion of a letter to Mom, but I haven't yet managed to get past the 'Dear Mom,' yet.  What do I say?

            Well, Mom, sorry that I was such an ass for so many years.  Love, Harm.

Well, that about sums it up, but I don't think that's quite what she'd be looking for in a Mother's Day gift, although it might be good for a laugh or two.  Dad would certainly get a kick out of it – and for good reason.  Maybe I’ll keep that in mind for his gift for Father’s Day.  What do you get your rich father who has everything?  A hand-written and heartfelt apology.

I drop the pen on the desk with a sigh.  This is harder than I thought it was going to be.  I'm a lawyer.  I should be able to put a few words coherently down on paper to tell Mom how I feel about her.  Right.  I'm still the same guy who managed to screw up one of the most important conversations that I ever had with my wife and it nearly cost us everything that we are to each other.  Is it any surprise that I can't figure out what to say to my mother?

I pick up the pen again, but all I manage to do this time is to write today's date in the upper right corner of the page.  I'm about to throw the pen down in disgust again when my head jerks up at the sound of a sharp cry from the living room.  It sounds like Elizabeth and I rush out of the office, visions running through my head of my little girl having fallen against something and gotten hurt.  But as soon as I see the scene in the living room, I know that isn't the case, not that what I’m seeing is any better.

Elizabeth is sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, tears rolling down her cheeks while her sister stands in front of the couch, arms defiantly crossed over her chest, glaring down at her brother, who is seated on the couch.  None of them notice my presence.

"She's ruining everything," Matt shouts.  Elizabeth cries louder at the noise, and I bend down and scoop her up.  She buries her face against my shirt as she takes big gulping breaths.  Matt and Sarah both stare at me cautiously, wondering what I'm going to do.  They then both begin talking at once, each trying to out-talk the other as they try to explain.

"Enough," I say firmly, just loud enough that they know I'm serious, but not too loud that the sound of my voice scares Elizabeth.  She's very sensitive to others' emotions, especially when people are being negative.  Both Uncle Matt and Deanne have said that Elizabeth reminds them of her mother when she was very little, before she started seeking other ways besides tears to escape all the negativity around her.  I cringe every time one of them says something like that, and I swear to myself that my daughter will never have cause to seek that kind of escape.  None of my children will.  "One at a time, Sarah first.  Why is your sister crying?"

Sarah takes on a more relaxed posture now that she's not staring down her brother, and explains, "Matt and I were working on part of the present for Mommy and Elizabeth wanted to help.  She got her fingers in the paint and Matt pushed her aside, saying that she was going to ruin everything."  Her voice rises at the end and she turns back to her brother with a glare.

"Well, she was!" Matt protests, but he quiets at a stern look from me.

"You'll get your turn in a minute, Matthew," I tell him firmly.  "What was the paint for, Sarah?"

She turns back to me and continues, "Well, you know that frame that we were going to put all those pictures in for Mommy?  Matt and I were going to paint our names on the mat and Elizabeth wanted to, too."   I nod.  I’d helped them buy the frame last week.  They'd gotten the idea from a collage that Deanne has hanging in her living room with pictures of the three of them.

"I don't see why Elizabeth can't help," I point out.  "Mommy is her mommy, too."

"She's just making a mess of everything," Matt argues.  "She's just a baby."

"No baby," Elizabeth protests, her voice muffled by my shirt.  I pat her on the back soothingly.

"Matt, did you push your sister?" I ask.

"But….” he begins, but I cut him off.

"Harmon Matthew, did you push Elizabeth?" I repeat, my voice sterner.  He glares for a moment, and then turns away.  He knows that when his mother or I use his full name that he’s about half a step from being in huge trouble, the type of trouble that could lead to being grounded.

He’s silent for a long moment.  I already know the answer, but I want to hear him say it.  "Yeah," he finally admits quietly.

"Why?"

"Because she was going to ruin Mommy's gift and she wouldn't go away," he retorts, turning back to me with a mutinous look in his eyes.  If Elizabeth displays quite a bit of her mother’s childhood personality, Matt shows more of mine than I feel comfortable admitting.   Maybe I could give Mom a medal for Mother’s Day for putting up with it for so long.

"Did it ever occur to you to help your sister so that she wouldn't make a mess?" I counter.  "She's not really old enough yet to understand the difference between helping and making a mess.  As her big brother, you should help her learn that and pushing her is not the way to do that."  I glance at the picture mat, laid out on the coffee table.  "It doesn't look like she did any damage to the mat."

"That's because I stopped her before...." Matt begins.

"As far as your pushing your sister goes," I interrupt, "I will discuss what happened with Mommy when she gets home, and we'll let you know tonight what your punishment will be.  For now, I think you kids need a little supervision in working on Mommy's present.  I'm going to get your sister cleaned up, and then I will help *all* three of you work on the collage."

"Um, Daddy?" Sarah says, barely suppressing a giggle.  "You, um, might want to change your shirt, as well."

I look down, remembering that Sarah said Elizabeth had gotten her fingers into the paint.  Grabbing a hold of my shirt as she sobbed against my chest, she's left blue and red splotches on the front of it.  Oh, well, at least it’s not my uniform.  After eight years, I still have not lived down the time Matt smeared strained peas all over my summer whites.

"See, she ruined your shirt," Matt points out triumphantly.

"I'll wash it," I counter patiently.  I’d never really considered patience one of my more outstanding character virtues until I had children.  "If it doesn't wash out, then I can just buy a new shirt.  I hate to break this to you, Matt, but you made your share of messes when you were little.  She’ll grow out of it, just as you eventually did.  Now, as I was saying, I'll get Elizabeth cleaned up, I'll change clothes, and then we'll work on the collage.  Sarah, sit in the chair.  Matt, you stay where you are.  I want you both to stay there, and I do not want to hear another word out of either of you until I get back."

Sometimes, I have to wonder how Mom did it.  This is just ordinary, run of the mill, childhood stuff.  Mom had that to deal with plus everything else that I made her put up with from me.  Maybe it's a good thing that I was an only child until I was an adult.  If she'd had to deal with more than one of me, it might have driven her crazy.  I used to wonder if I was the reason Mom and Frank never had any kids together.  Mom was certainly still young enough to have more when they'd gotten married.  If I'd been them, I wouldn't want to deal with another me either, but now that I'm older and having Sergei around has led me to realize what I had missed, I really wish that they would have had a child or two. 

Elizabeth and I return to the living room about fifteen minutes later.  Matt and Sarah are where I told them to stay, silently glaring at each other from across the room.  With me watching over them, we manage to get all three of their names painted on the mat along with the message 'Happy Mother's Day, 2009' and then we turn our attention to selecting pictures for the collage while the paint dries.  Matt starts out acting sullen, but he gradually warms as we go through the pictures and I share some of my memories of when they were taken.

We've got room for twelve pictures, but we've only narrowed it down to about twenty-five.  Since it's for Mother's Day, I suggest keeping two specific pictures – one of Sarah during each of her pregnancies.  The one when she was expecting the twins was taken on Christmas morning.  The two of us are sitting in front of the Christmas tree, still in our pajamas and robes, her back against my chest, my hands covering hers on her belly.  She's looking up at me with this bright light in her eyes and as I recall, we had just felt one of the babies moving around at the time the picture was taken.  The other was taken around Mother’s Day 2006, five weeks before Elizabeth’s birth.  Sarah’s lying on the living room floor with Matt and Sarah lying on either side of her, their heads resting on her stomach.

Each of the kids selects a picture of their mother with each of them by themselves.  Matt selects one of him sitting in his mother's lap behind her desk at JAG, taken when he was six.  It was one of those 'take your kids to work' days, the kind that used to drive Admiral Chegwidden – or AJ, as he tries to insist that everyone call him since he finally retired a few years ago – crazy because of the number of children among the JAG staff, even if his own younger daughter was one of the children.  Sarah selects one of her mother fixing her hair before Sergei and Lisa's wedding in February 2007, when she was the flower girl.  I suggest Elizabeth's picture to her, which she declares 'priddy'.  I took this picture of the two of them on Gram's farm.  It was just after Elizabeth's first birthday and the two of them were walking through the field behind the house, Sarah holding on to our daughter's hand while helping her to pick some flowers.

As the kids debate about what other pictures to include, I flip through one of the albums, stopping at pictures taken the day of the twins' baptisms.  One particular picture catches my eye and I stare at it, nearly forgetting everything going on around me until I hear Matt ask, "Whatcha looking at, Daddy?"

I turn the album around so the kids can see the picture.  This one was taken by the professional photographer we had hired that day, this one of me holding the twins while seated, Mom standing behind me, looking over my shoulder.  There's a similar one on the next page of Sarah holding the twins with Deanne behind her.  "Are you doing something for your mommy for Mother's Day?" Sarah asks.

"I'm trying to," I reply, remembering the letter still sitting unfinished on the desk.  "It's not that easy."

"What about Mommy?  Is she doing something for her mommy?" she continues.

"Probably," I reply.  We haven't really talked about it.  I guess I've been kind of focused on figuring out what to do for Mom.  That's me and my one-track mind.  That much has not changed after all these years.

"What about pictures?" This comes from Matt.  "Like we're doing, but of Grandma Trish being your mommy."

"Hmmm, maybe," I reply, giving some serious thought to the idea.  If I can't tell her, maybe I can show her, through pictures. 

Idly, I flip to another page and study one of the photos.  Some of my memories after my crash in 2001 were a little vague in the weeks afterwards, but I remember this photo.  The entire time I was in the hospital, it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning and the last I saw when I closed them at night.  It was actually taken just days before my crash, at a JAG picnic.  Sarah’s sitting on a blanket with the twins in her lap and she’s pointing and laughing, trying to get them to look at me behind the camera.  Memories of them got me through those cold hours in the Atlantic, reminding me how much I had to live for, how I couldn’t let another generation of Rabb children grow up fatherless.

It took another year and a dirty nuke before I decided once and for all that my wings weren’t worth it.  Although I keep up my qualifications for land-based operations, and still fly CAP flights whenever they need me to, I finally made the difficult decision to give up qualifying for carrier-based ops.  I’d tried to convince everyone that it didn’t matter, that F-14s were being phased out of the fleet anyway, but I don’t think I convinced anyone that it was really that easy to give it up.  It wasn’t easy, I finally did admit to my wife, but I’d finally figured out that flying wasn’t more important than everything.

I turn a few more pages and there’s a photo of me in my dress whites, receiving my Silver Star for my actions with that dirty nuke.  The one just below it is of Mom, tears in her eyes as she’d waited to greet me after the ceremony.  The sight of her in tears brings forth yet another memory….

MAY 1985
UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

As I walk towards Mom, Frank and Gram, ensign’s bars newly attached to my shoulders, Mom suddenly clasps her hand over her mouth and turns away.  Puzzled, I quickly cover the last few steps to them.  “Mom?”

Frank puts a hand on my arm and tries to pull me aside.  I resist for a moment, but finally I allow him to lead me a few feet away while Gram tries to talk to Mom.  Maybe he can tell me what’s going on.

“Frank?”

“I’m sorry, Harm,” he says.  “You know your mother’s very proud of you, but….”

“But what?” I ask, a bit impatiently.

“Just give her a moment,” he says, smiling sadly.  “I don’t think you realize just how much you look like your father, standing here in that uniform.  We’ve both always known how much you look like him, but I think it’s really hitting home for your mother right now.  Please be patient with her.”

I want to ask how he knows that, but I bit my tongue.  He’s seen the photos, I’m sure.  Frank has always encouraged her to talk about Dad, to share that part of her life with him.  I’ve always thought that it was an effort to win my affections, but now I’m not so sure, not after all these years they’ve been together, almost half my life now.

He’s probably right, as much as I hate to admit it.  My mom is probably feeling like she’s looking at a ghost right now.  I’m the same age that Dad was when he graduated from the Academy and the two of them got married.  Is she seeing me or is she seeing the newly minted Ensign who won her heart over twenty years ago?  For just a moment, I’m glad if she is seeing him, because it means that Dad still holds a large place in her heart.  Another moment passes, and I remind myself that my mother is hurting and I hurt, too.

After a few minutes, she turns back to us, brushing away tears with her fingers as Gram pats her shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Harm,” she says softly, her voice trembling.  “It’s just….”

“I know, Mom,” I reply.  I look down, unsure what else to say to her.

Her fingers trembling, she holds out a hand to me.  I clasp it for a brief moment, reflecting how frail she seems right now.  I gently pull her towards me, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight.  “Please, don’t cry, Mom,” I whisper. 

She pulls back in my arms after a long moment, biting her lower lip.  “I just didn’t expect how much….you do look so much like your father, you know.”

I nod, unable to say anything in reply.  Frank was right, and after all these years, I’m just beginning to admit to myself how often he is.

7 MAY 2009
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

Before we’d finished selecting all the pictures for the collage – we’ve narrowed it down to seventeen now – Sarah came home from her deposition, so we hid everything in the basement for now.  While I fixed dinner, I tried to mentally compose the letter to Mom in my mind, but still nothing came to me.  There’s so much to say, too much to condense down into a few sentences and paragraphs.  I ended up moody and distracted throughout dinner and the rest of the evening, with my patient wife urging the kids to leave me alone for a while.  As we’re getting ready for bed, Sarah finally calls me on it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, motioning me to sit on the edge of the bed as I come out of the bathroom in my boxers.  Not really, I sigh mentally, but I don’t want to say that to her.  She’s put up with so much from me over the years, in some ways as much have my parents have, and she deserves better than that.

“How do I condense everything over the last forty-five years into a few paragraphs?” I ask idly as she settles behind me on the bed, her hands beginning to knead my shoulders.  It feels so good and I realize that this conversation is not going to last very long as I start reacting to her touch.  After nine years, this aspect of our relationship is still just as good as it was on the first day that we finally admitted our feelings.  Sometimes, especially during those problems we had in the months before Elizabeth was conceived, it has been almost too easy to not talk things out, distracting each other with sex, but we learned the hard way that doesn’t resolve anything.

With that in mind, I sigh reluctantly.  “Maybe you should stop doing that,” I say.  I try to adopt a teasing tone.  “I am just a man, after all.”

Sarah does stop, but doesn’t move away, wrapping her arms around me and pressing herself against my back.  “You don’t have to talk about,” she says, seemingly knowing what I’m thinking.  “I promise not to hold it against you.  Anyway, your problem isn’t with me, so the usual doesn’t apply.”  She’s silent for a long moment, and I relish the peace that her simple embrace brings.

“Maybe I’m just over thinking this,” I say with a sigh after another moment.  “And it’s not like Mother’s Day doesn’t come around every year.  But this year, someone just happens to leave out a photo album and I can’t stop thinking about everything that’s happened between me and Mom over the years.”

“I think this has all brought to the front of your mind the realization that there is a lot that hasn’t been hashed out with your mother,” she says.  “Do you remember what you told me when you came back from telling your parents what we found out in Russia the first time?”

She would have to bring that up.  I’d accompanied her home after the debacle at the Sudanese embassy, and she’d gotten me to open up about my trip to California the week before.  Although I’d had enough sense not to say it to my mother, the six-year-old in the back of my mind couldn’t help thinking ‘I told you so’, because I’d been right about my father still being alive after he was shot down. 

“Unfortunately,” I reply.  “But I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.  I had enough common sense not to say that to my mother.”

“Only to make a point,” she says with a light laugh.  “Even though you didn’t express the thought, except to me, you had a very childish response to the situation.”

“Great, you’re calling me a child,” I mutter.

“No, that’s not what I said,” she counters, laughing a little more.  “But maybe you had more growing up to do before you could begin to put everything between you and your mother in perspective.”

“You mean the kind of perspective being a parent brings?” I ask, remembering Matt’s attitude earlier.

“What’s that old joke, about parents hoping their children grow up and have children who are just like they were?” she teases.

“Bite your tongue,” I retort, turning in her arms so that I can see her face.  “I wouldn’t wish me as a child – at least past the age of six - on anyone, especially us.”

“Of course not,” she says, “and Matt’s not you….mostly.  He hasn’t had the same experiences that you had.”  She shivers slightly, and I wonder if she’s thinking about that rainy May night as I was earlier.  “No more than Elizabeth is me.”

“Of course not,” I reply, more sharply than intended.  Sarah would never treat our daughter, or any of our children, the way that she was treated as a child.  That particular cycle has been broken.

Pulling her arms from around my neck, she takes my hands in hers, squeezing gently.  “Anyway, we’re getting a little off track here,” she says.  “The point is, now that you’ve been a parent for a while, you’re acknowledging everything that you put your mother through and you feel that you have to make that up to her somehow.”

I look down at our clasped hands, nodding.  “But,” she continues, and I look back up at her, “I think that your mother doesn’t feel that you have to make anything up to her.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask, puzzled.

“Mostly because she’s your mother and she loves you, regardless,” she says.  “That’s enough to forgive even the worst sins.  There’s nothing that you have to do in order to earn that forgiveness from her.  It’s just there, especially since it turns out that you were right.  Your father was still alive out there.  I imagine that there’s a part of her that found it easy to let it go because you turned out to be right.”

That sounds pretty insightful….almost too much so.  “Has she…?”

“No, not in so many words,” she says, shrugging.  “Honestly, I gathered most of this based on something she once said to me about my own mother after the twins were born.”  She looks away for a moment before continuing, “You know that it took me a long time to forgive my mother and I didn’t always think before I said….things to her.  I wondered one day to your mom why my mom kept trying, even after some of the things I said to her.”

I wasn’t there for this conversation with Mom that she is describing, but I think I know what had precipitated it.  Deanne had made a comment, after dinner one night at our house when the twins were about two weeks old, about how wonderful a mother Sarah was, how attentive she was to the twins.  Sarah had snapped at her, saying that she only had to look at her mother’s example and do the opposite. 

“She said that my mom forgave me for what I said because she loved me and really wanted a chance with me,” she explains, “and that Mom probably thought that I was justified in feeling the way I was.  Of course, I’m not absolutely sure, but the way she said it, I got the impression that she wasn’t just thinking about my mom and me.”

I pull one of my hands from hers and tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.  She sighs a little as my fingers brush against her skin just behind her ear, always a sensitive place for her.  “So tell me how you got so smart?” I tease as my fingers continue downwards before sliding across her collar to slip beneath the strap of her nightgown.

Part 3