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Author’s Note: This a companion piece to "Bloom" in a series I call "Adagio."

Adagio [noun]:

Music. A slow passage, movement, or work, especially one using adagio as the direction. A section of a pas de deux in which the ballerina and her partner perform steps requiring lyricism and great skill in lifting, balancing, and turning.
Luna

By Bec-Bec

December 22, 2001

"What?" Miss Parker flipped open her cell phone smoothly.

"How are things at the Centre?" Jarod asked in a soft voice.

"Twisted, as usual." Miss Parker sat up further in bed. The lamp at her side was already on. "Raines has taken his new found power to an extreme. If the Triumvirate doesn’t remove him, I expect someone from the Tower will attempt an assassination."

"And how are you?" Jarod asked with gentle concern.

Miss Parker paused. "Tired," she admitted.

" ‘No rest for the weary,’ " Jarod sighed. "I believe I heard that somewhere."

There was a light chuckle from Miss Parker. "It’s ‘no rest for the wicked,’ Jarod."

Jarod laughed softly as well. "Ironic that we’re the ones who can’t sleep at night."

Miss Parker’s smile fell away at Jarod’s unintended reminder of who she was working for. "I get woken up by so many different things. Nightmares, fear." Miss Parker looked at the empty crystal vase on her night table. "Unanswered questions."

"We will find the answers," Jarod said with conviction.

"You can’t say that with anymore certainty than I can say that Mr. Parker was really my father," Miss Parker replied seriously.

"He’ll always be your father, Miss Parker. No paternity test in the world can erase the childhood that you spent with him."

"That childhood is becoming more and more illusory with each new piece of information that we uncover." She looked out her bedroom window from her position on the bed. It was cloudy outside and light seemed to be reflecting softly off of the vapor. "Sometimes I wonder if I ever really believed it was the truth. Some part of me always knew it was a lie."

"Your mother loved you. The childhood that she gave you was never a lie."

"But you can’t say the same of my father," Miss Parker said evenly. "What he gave me—what the Centre gave us—secrets and lies."

"Your father may not have given you the truth but, in the end, the only thing that matters is that you believe in what you felt—what you feel now," Jarod replied sternly.

"I don’t know what to believe anymore, Jarod. Every truth we find seems to be shrouded in more lies. And, every time we get closer to the answers, my life only becomes more complicated and grotesque. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t looked for the answers at all."

"No. No, you don’t. The answers to the past, the truth about who you are, who your mother was, you want them more than anything. And, until you find them, you’ll always feel…incomplete—missing that piece of your identity."

Miss Parker was silent. The clouds outside of her window had darkened and she wondered if it would rain.

"Any word on your mother?" she asked quietly.

"Not yet. I had a lead, but it didn’t follow through."

"It will be even harder to find her now."

"I know. But I won’t give up." Cool determination laced Jarod’s words.

Miss Parker turned to the window again. Her voice remained soft, pensive. "The Centre expects that you’ll devote more time to searching for her." She paused and was met with silence. "It won’t be easy."

"It never was."

Jarod disconnected the call and Miss Parker let the phone dangle in her hand a moment, the dial tone droning on somewhere in the back of her mind.

The sky had erupted into a steady downpour. The world outside of Miss Parker’s window was shrouded in darkness as the moon was devoured by the heavy, grey, storm clouds.

She glanced at her side table again. The empty vase met her eyes, looking forlorn. She turned away from it and concentrated on the window again. Something drew her to the cool glass and she flipped her phone shut distractedly, dropping it on her rumpled sheets and walking to the window.

The ground and trees behind her house looked bare and bleak, glassy through the clear panes. Long moments passed without movement, when the clouds suddenly parted and a circle of moonlight filtered through. The rain continued on steadily, dancing in the soft glow.









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