42. Ends and Beginnings
42
Ends and Beginnings
Lilith
It’s late afternoon by the time we arrive back stateside.
The plane taxis for a few minutes and finally comes to a stop where the cars Matt has arranged are waiting. We wait together as Mickey’s casket is removed from the plane, then the boys gather around, carrying him slowly to the waiting hearse.
I do my best to ignore the pain in my chest. Mickey has been by my side for almost my entire life, and his absence will be the greatest loss I’ve ever had to endure. He was not just my uncle; he was my confidante, my confessor, and sometimes even my executioner.
A sharp laugh falls from my mouth, and Agatha gives me a weird look. “What’s so funny?”
I shrug, a small smile playing at my lips as I say, “There’s a lot of fucking secrets in that casket.”
Agatha looks over to where they’re just sliding Mickey’s casket into the back of the hearse, smiling sadly. “I’m sure more than any of us can even imagine.”
My laugh is a bit watery, but the bad joke takes a bit of the weight off my shoulders, and I stand a bit taller, watching the hearse drive away. Matt stops beside me, his hand touching my arm lightly. “You wanna do this now or wait?”
“Let’s get it over with,” I answer easily, not wanting to drag it out any longer than absolutely necessary.
Matt nods, motioning toward the waiting vehicle, and we all pile in. The drive to the bank isn’t nearly as long as I want it to be, and soon, we’re pulling up to a curb, and Antonio is assisting me to the sidewalk.
We stride into the bank quite conspicuously, and I smile at the picture we must make—tired and bedraggled, likely blood-spattered—walking into a bank after hours as if we own the place.
We’re met just inside the doors by a tall man in an expensive suit who extends his hand toward me. “Ms. Ferro, my condolences on your loss.”
I place my hand in his, gripping firmly as he places his other hand against the back of mine. I say nothing in response, and after a moment, he continues, “Mr. DiMera has been a long-time patron here, and he will be missed dearly.”
Frowning, I reply, slowly moving my hand up and down between his. “Yes, thank you. Mr.…DiMera will be missed by many.”
If he hears the confusion in my voice, he ignores it. “I’m Patrick Fitzgerald, but please, call me Patty. I’ve been handling Mr. DiMera’s assets for going on thirty years now.”
Giving up any semblance of pretending to know what the hell he’s on about, I drop his hand, moving my hands to my hips as I reply, “Mr. Fitzgerald,” the man gives me a stern look, so I correct myself, “Patty, forgive me if I sound slow, but are we talking about the same Mickey?”
The man blinks at me for a moment, then throws his head back and laughs boisterously before meeting my eyes once again. “Mr. DiMera wasn’t exaggerating about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He told me you’d be a pain in the ass, and I may as well prepare myself for an argument at every turn.”
Squinting at him, my mouth twists, but then a giggle from Antoinette has me shrugging. “That’s fair.”
Patty smiles, turning away and motioning for me to come along.
I move to follow him, everyone falling in behind me, but then he stops, his eyes scanning over the line of people behind me before looking at me questioningly. So, I say, “They’re with me.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. The instructions are clear,” Patty explains. “Ms. Ferro is to open it alone first, and then, once she has viewed the contents of the safe deposit box, she can have others join her.”
Matt scowls. “Surely we can make an exception, given the circumstances.”
“No,” Patty retorts firmly, his brows raised. “We cannot.”
“It’s alright,” I interject with a wave of my hand. “It will only take a few moments, and then I’ll have you all come in.”
They all give me the same unconvinced look, but having no other choice, they stand back, allowing me to follow Patty on my own.
He leads me into the back, through several locked doors, until finally, we reach a smaller room with rows of doors lining the walls. He leads me to the table in the middle of the room, motioning for me to wait as he walks to the far end. Using the key from the ring around his wrist, he opens one of the larger doors, pulls out a long box, and then turns and comes back to me, setting it on the table.
I eye the box suspiciously. “Do you know what’s in here?”
“Yes.”
“Is it important?” I ask, turning my gaze to his.
Patty levels me with a solemn look. “Depends on your perspective.”
I frown and tilt my head. “Come on. I’m sure you know more than you’re letting on. Just tell me what to do.”
“Just open it, Ms. Ferro. You can decide the what after you see what’s inside.”
Sighing, I nod and then ask, “Are you going to stay while I go through it.”
“Oh, yes,” he replies. “My instructions were clear.”
I frown but don’t bother questioning him further; instead, I pull the box closer to me and open the lid. Now, I have no idea what I was expecting to find in this large metal box, but annoyance rolls over me when all I find is another plastic bag with what I’m sure is some card stock inside.
I give Patty a look, and he shrugs, smiling slightly, so I retrieve the bag from the box and open it. Pulling the paper from the bag, once again, a key falls out onto the table, though this time, it appears to be more for a residence than a safe deposit box. Groaning, I ignore it, unfolding the stiff paper to reveal an address on the Upper East Side.
I look from the paper to Patty, my eyes wide. “What is this?”
He smiles, then looks over at the box until I finally take another look and find a large envelope on the bottom, my name written in Mickey’s familiar scrawl. My heart stutters in my chest, my sinuses suddenly stinging, so I clear my throat, reaching for the envelope before I can talk myself out of it.
Inside the envelope, I find a few pieces of paper, the top one being a birth certificate, though none of the names are familiar. “Whose birth certificate is this?”
Patty leans in, glancing at the page before replying, “Hard to say, really.”
“Now is not the time to play coy.”
Patty laughs, then shrugs. “I believe there’s more there for you to read.”
I move the top page to the back, revealing a short note, also in Mickey’s handwriting.
Lils, Well, I guess this means I finally managed to get myself dead dead.
I snort, already wiping a tear from the corner of my eye. A tissue appears in front of me, and I take it with a grateful sniffle before returning to the note.
I’m going to lead out on a merry chase now. Consider it a final adventure for the road and humor an old man one last time. I promise every answer you’ve ever asked for will be revealed once the end is reached. -M P.S. Don’t give Patty a hard time or he’ll put you in time out.
Scowling, I glance at Patty and ask, “What does he mean by time out?”
Patty smiles, then laughs. “There’s a clause in my instructions giving me the freedom to put this adventure on pause if you get out of hand.”
I gasp, my hand pressing against my chest dramatically. “Why, I never.”
“Don’t try to hustle a hustler, Ms. Ferro,” he replies dryly. “I’m onto you.”
I return his smile, replacing the pages in the envelope and retrieving the key and card stock with the address. “Shall we?”
He nods, motioning for me to precede him, and we walk out of the room, headed back toward where everyone is waiting. I immediately hand the address to Matt, who takes one look and takes out his phone. He taps on the screen a few times, then waits a few moments before saying, “This residence is owned by one Deidre DiMera.”
“Do we know a Deidre DiMera?” Darius asks.
I shake my head as I reply, “No, but DiMera is one of the names Mickey used here, so they must be connected—“
“He have a wife or something?” Antoinette interrupts. “A sister?”
“Not that he ever shared with me,” I respond, rubbing my forehead.
Patty heads toward the door. “May as well go find out.”
Matt frowns after him but starts walking toward the exit. “You’re coming with us?”
“Yes,” he answers. “As I’ve already explained, my instructions are clear.”
Matt looks at me, and I shrug, not wanting to be put in any kind of time out and delay the end of this stupid adventure. Once again, we all pile into the waiting vehicle, this time headed uptown in moderate traffic.
By the time we make it to the correct address, I’m considering becoming a problem because, honestly, I’m not sure I even want to know what Mickey has been sitting on. Especially since it must be something he never felt he could bring to me while he was alive.
We exit the vehicle onto the sidewalk, where we all stand, staring up at what appears to be a fancy front entrance of a very large, likely very expensive home. Turning to Matt, I whisper, “Is this the correct place?”
Matt nods, but Patty answers, “This is it.”
He leads us up the stairs to the double doors. I hand him my key, and he unlocks the door easily, opening it and allowing us all to enter before him. Then, we all stand inside the doors, mouths dropped open at the sheer opulence of the room before us. A marble staircase sweeps up to the second level, and a ginormous crystal chandelier taunts me from the high ceiling. The entire space sparkles with old-time elegance and spacious grandeur, and I find I’m not the only one shocked into silence.
After a few turns in the middle of the room, Antoinette asks, “This must be worth a fortune.”
“For sure it is,” Patty responds. “In today’s market, probably high 30‘s, low 40’s.”
“Holy shit,” Antoinette mutters, moving further into the room and spinning around even more slowly. “This is crazy.”
“This way,” Patty instructs, already moving across the room. He stops in front of an elevator, pressing the down button. “You’ll have plenty of time to explore later. Our business is downstairs.”
“Are you saying our business is in the basement?” Darius asks slowly, his suspicion evident in his tone.
Patty nods as we all get into the elevator, and then, just as the doors close, Antonio mutters, “I have never had any basement business go well.”
“Me neither,” Matt says.
“There will be no funny business here,” Patty attempts to assure us, but I for one am not buying it.
We end up going down two floors, a feat that I find disconcerting. We exit, following Patty as he leads us to a far corner of the otherwise empty room, stopping in front of a door. Patty taps the black screen to the right of the door, and it wakes immediately, a rough outline of a face appearing. Patty turns to me and says, “Stand close to the screen so it can scan your retinas.”
“How would that thing know what my retinas look like?” I scoff, put off by how fucked up this feels.
“I don’t ask questions, Ms. Ferro. I get instructions, and I deliver.”
Antoinette nudges me toward the door, so I slowly lean into it, flinching as the door beeps and the light on the screen turns green.
Patty pushes the door open. “You all can stay out here until after she’s had a wee look around.”
No one argues, and slowly, I walk into the large room, shocked by how full of stuff it is. Old pictures cover the walls, and antique furniture is placed all around the perimeter and in the center, setting up a track of walking space.
“What you’re looking for is straight ahead, on top of the desk.”
I don’t bother stalling, opting to walk to the desk at full speed, thinking that’s the closest thing to ripping off a Band-Aid as I can get. Sure enough, resting on the top of the desk is another envelope with my name on it.
Once again, his familiar handwriting sends pain straight through my chest, and I find myself holding the envelope in both hands, staring down at the jagged word.
A hand on my shoulder draws my focus, and I turn to see Antonio has joined me. A glance at the door confirms everyone else is still waiting patiently, and I smile gratefully at Patty, who’s standing with the others, a knowing expression on his face.
I suck in a deep breath as I open the envelope, sliding several pieces of paper out and carefully unfolding them.
Lils, Me again. Still dead dead. I know you likely don’t think that’s funny yet, but I can assure you it will be after a bit of time has lessened the sting.
I roll my eyes, relatively certain I will never find anything concerning his passing even remotely funny. And that’s saying something because normally, the ‘this could never be funny’ is a challenge I happily accept. Antonio’s hand on my shoulder flexes, and I lean into him as I continue.
I have to say what a relief it was to me knowing that someday I’d be at liberty to share all of my secrets with you. I always second and third-guessed my decision to keep these things from you, but I hope you’ll remember that any secret I ever kept was only to keep you safe. Some truths are not worth the risk that comes with them, and if nothing else, I always kept my promise to your mother to make sure you survived at all costs. Even if, quite often, the cost was too steep to fathom. My only comfort for the times in our lives when I wasn’t able to protect you from the horrors in the world is that those horrors gave you Antoinette and Agatha. And I’m assuming, someday, Antonio.
I make a face, turning the pages over to find the date when it was written. Finding none, I go back to where I left off.
While how you got them was truly a horrific experience, you never once blamed them for your pain, instead choosing to embrace them as gifts earned for your great sacrifice. I won’t waste time waxing poetic or droning on about how fantastic it was knowing you because you already know I have very few regrets about how my life turned out. Sure, I sometimes wished we could’ve lived normal lives sans the darkness and demons, but I also recognize that in the grand scheme of things, that’s where we were meant to be.
Frowning, I reread the paragraph again, not at all accustomed to Mickey sounding even remotely poetic, especially when he has literally stated he wasn’t going to do so.
My only true regret is not being able to share your true identity and relation to me. They stole you as retribution for a crime that did not belong to your immediate family, but at the end of the day, no one cared about the truth. No one cared if they had the right person or not, and no one was going to admit to their screw-up once it was done. Therein began the long and arduous process of attempting to undo what was now years of pain and anguish at the hands of a man who truly felt he was owed a great debt, a man who didn’t care who paid the price of it as long as he felt triumphant in his position among the treacherous. I initially took the role of Mickey Sullivan as a means to save me from myself. My deep instinct to scoop you up and tuck you safely away was soul-crushing, and the only way I learned to ignore it was to remind myself every day that to do so would be a sure death sentence for both of us. I would have easily accepted such a fate for myself had your safety been secured, but the most likely scenario is that they would have killed me and then shipped you off to a fate worse than death. A fate even worse than the reality you lived through.
My hands grip the page tightly, my heart pounding in my chest at the growing implications of his words. I look at Antonio, who’s watching me intently. “Are you reading this?”
Nodding, he replies, “I’m skimming it, yes.”
“Do you think…” I let the question hang out in the universe, almost unwilling to allow the words to fall from my lips for fear the truth behind them will break me.
His lips press together, and his shoulders lift. “Keep reading, love.”
Scowling, I turn my attention back to the page, ignoring my urge to toss it on the floor and stomp on it.
I know what you’re going to say, and I won’t deny the validity of your thought process, but please believe I never took my decision not to speak the truth lightly. I could have told you once we’d eliminated the Ferro family, and it’s likely it would have been business as usual with the same old everyday dangers. But so much time had gone by, and you’d gone through so much that it didn’t seem important anymore. We were who we were and changing the titles of who we were seemed unnecessary, given the relationship we’d always had and would always have. And also, there was the fact that I’m a bit of a coward, and my fear that you would be so angry and hurt you’d banish me made me keep it to myself. I know that’s quite dramatic of me, but even old men like me have fears of abandonment that truly never go away.
As if there would ever be any secret so treacherous that I would have pushed him from my life, but I understand the fear, the deep paranoia that keeps us from sharing harsh truths with those who may be hurt by them. My heart in my throat, I read on:
I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that my name was not always Mickey Sullivan. Just as you know, Mickey Sullivan was never your uncle. As you will see from the birth record, your given name is Deidre DiMera, the daughter of Phaedra and Michael DiMera. I am Michael DiMera.
It’s such a Mickey thing to do: make a massive announcement without actually saying the words. A quiet sob breaks free as I read that line over and over, unable to look away. Antonio’s arm tightens around me, his hand squeezing my arm where he’s trying to comfort me. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Antonio murmurs. “Just as we have all had at one time or another.”
“Asshole,” I mutter, a watery laugh escaping as I swipe at the tears on my cheeks. I give myself a little shake, then focus once more on the words in front of me.
This building was our home, so many decades ago, kept safe by means of the few trustworthy men left in this business. Now, this home and its contents are yours. Anything of real value, sentimental or monetary, is in this room. Jewelry, general keepsakes, and diaries—it is all here, and I’ve done my best to provide small details on most pieces, so you’ll know some of their history. Otherwise, the house is as it has always been, and I expect you to do what you will with it, whether that be live in it, sell it, or burn it to the ground. As for the darkness and the demons, it’s your decision how you handle them from here. You have an out if that’s what you choose, or you can carry on fighting them until you’re unable to fight any longer. I’m sorry I failed to protect you from the many hurts in your life. I’m sorry I never found a way to remove you from the hell you inherited at no fault of your own. Mostly, I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to be the father you deserved. I will always be grateful for you and your unflinching strength. With love, Papa
Shoving the letter at Antonio, I sink slowly to the floor, turning so my back is pressed against the desk drawers. Drawing my knees up, I rest my forehead against them, giving myself a moment to mourn everything I didn’t know I needed to mourn.
My childhood.
My parents.
Myself.
Antonio kneels beside me, the letter in front of him, but I shoo him away, knowing he’ll understand from my nonverbal communication to pass it along.
Soon, Antonio is sitting beside me, his warmth pressed into my side a quiet comfort. I continue to sit in this spot, surrounded by a history I never knew existed, listening to Antoinette’s excellent commentary as she reads the words I just read.
Then she’s seated beside me, mirroring my exact position, so when I turn my head to look at her, she’s already looking at me. She doesn’t say anything for a few long moments, but then she smiles and states, “We put the f-u in fucked up, don’t we?”
I look at her for a second, unsure if I heard her correctly, but then I laugh. “And the f-u-n in dysfunctional.”
Patty squats down in front of me. “I have paperwork and other such boring nonsense for you to tend to over the next few weeks. Just give me a call when you’re ready.”
I nod, sniffling a bit as I respond, “I will. Thank you, Patty.”
He gives me a small, sad smile, pats me on the back of the hand, and then exits quietly. We watch after him for a bit, and then Antoinette says, “I bet he’s related to Mickey in some way.”
Darius and Matt join us, sitting on the floor across from me, legs crisscrossed beneath them. I frown again, looking between them a few times before looking over at Antoinette, who’s giving them the same perplexed look. Turning back to Darius and Matt, I catch Darius’s eye, and he asks, “What?”
Shrugging, I reply, “I’ve just never seen you sit like that before.”
“Pretty sure you’ve seen me sit on the floor, Lils.” He raises his brows.
I shake my head. “Yes, but never like that.”
“She’s right,” Antoinette interrupts. “You’ve never been a cross-legged guy.”
Darius laughs and shakes his head. “I can assure you I am a criss-cross applesauce kind of guy.”
Antoinette gasps, and I laugh at her outraged expression as she exclaims, “Who are you, and what have you done with Darius?”
Darius gives her an unimpressed look, but she just grins, reaching her foot out and nudging him playfully.
Silence surrounds us, each of us lost in our thoughts. I take a moment to look around the room at all my treasure, waiting to be revealed. Antonio hits me with his shoulder, and when I turn to look at him, he asks, “Do you know what you want to do now?”
“With what?”
He glances around the room, then looks back at me. “With all this. With your possible freedom from the demons.”
I snort, getting to my feet abruptly, and then reach my hand down to help Antoinette up. By the time everyone is standing, I’m halfway to the door, and Antoinette calls out, “Was that supposed to be an answer?”
Pausing in the doorway, I turn, smiling at her over my shoulder as I reply, “Fuck those demons.”
Then I turn and walk out.