Stolen Love

Welcome to the final chapter. Stick around at the end for the epilogue.

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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips

57 Birthday Party

The rest of the morning and early afternoon passed quietly enough. Our peace wasn't shattered until after three when the shuttle plane from Oppidum showed up with our middle children, most of whom were making their way back from school in the capital. They all flew commercial flights into Oppidum, collected their sister, and took one of our jets from town out to the house.

I didn't ask my children for anything for my birthday except their presence. The eldest three, including our twenty-four-year-old daughter, Josephine named for my brother Joe, our twenty-three-year-old son, Marian named for my sister Mary, and our twenty-one-year-old son, Custos named for Bem, were resigned to this.

They would make their own way home from their respective jobs or occupations later that day. They also made a habit of taking a few days off each year to celebrate my birthday in November and Shawn's birthday in February. For the rest of the year, they could do as they liked and visit when, and if, they pleased.

The very youngest were with us anyway as they would not attend school at Oppidum for another year. The next youngest, our fifteen-year-old daughter Drew, named for Joe's son Andy, was attending boarding school at Oppidum and didn't mind coming home for a couple days, especially as I'd allowed her to spend most weekends in town with her friends. Drew was a pragmatic child. She understood that the price...price was the wrong word, the quid-pro-quo for her abundant freedom, was her willing attendance at a few family functions a year, no matter what day of the week those functions fell on.

The rest of the kids, the four girls, were more reluctant. They were all attending secondary school in the capital and resented, each to a different extent, being `dragged home,' to use their words, for their father's birthday.

The eldest of the group, Lanci who was twenty, objected on the grounds of her barely manageable workload in her last year of school with a double major. Hers was the only objection I gave any weight to. For her alone, I'd made special arrangements for a private plane to be standing by to return her to school either late that night or first thing in the morning, so she'd only miss the barest minimum of time. Lanci appreciated the thought and thanked me like the good girl that she was.

Arius, the eighteen-year-old girl, named for Shawn's Uncle Ars, was the most intractable of the three remaining girls. In order to secure her attendance at my party, I had to threaten to yank her out of the private school she was attending in the capital and make her finish her schooling at the local academy at Oppidum. I had to further threaten to drag her home every weekend before she gave up her objections and agreed to come.

Arius was being trained as an attorney and thought she was one already. She used every argument at her disposal to weasel out of coming home. What her objections boiled down to, was her unwillingness to be separated from her girlfriend. As my birthday was on a Monday, during the school year, she couldn't ask her love of the month, Puella, to come with her.

I understood young love and how hard it was to be separated from that love, but my birthday came only once a year. The other reason I didn't give much credence to her argument of separation anxiety was my daughter's track record. Since Arius had started attending school in Epistylium two years before, she'd had no less than an even dozen girlfriends and boyfriends, each of whom she swore was `the one.'

I assumed she'd have at least that many more before she graduated. I also viewed our annual birthday battle of wills as a life lesson for the young litigator. She had yet to learn what true obstinance was. I felt it was my duty to teach her.

The other two girls, seventeen-year-old Paulette, named for Lenis' husband and my dear friend Paul, and sixteen-year-old Superius, named for Shawn's brother Primis, were more or less fatalistic about the situation. Each objected to making the trip and losing the time from their friends and their studies, but they objected much like one might grumble about the falling rain. They knew the trip was inevitable, and they also knew they'd have fun once they arrived, but they bitched anyway as a matter of form.

I didn't let any of it bother me. The plane landed on our private runway at three in the afternoon while Shawn and I were there waiting for it. We'd driven the Vic out from the house with the twins. Ancillarum had driven out in a bus we'd purchased specifically for the transportation of large groups between the house and the hangar. He waited with us a few deferential steps away.

The plane taxied to where we waited, its door opened, and five of our daughters came down the steps as a chattering group. As soon as I saw them, all the battles of wills we'd gone through over the telephone evaporated and I grinned like an idiot at the sight of my children come home for my birthday. Paulette was the first to break ranks away from the group. She leapt into my arms with a shout of, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!"

The other four girls followed her example and hugged me as a solid mob of high voices and femininity. I reveled in the attention. As they finished with me, each of them went to greet their Daddy Shawn, then went to dote on Han and Lee. The girls latched onto the twins and carried them off onto the bus with Ancillarum to ride to the house. Shawn and I were left standing in the breeze of the plains and the small dust trail kicked up by the bus.

"What are you thinking?" Shawn asked as we watched the bus turn the corner and disappear around the back of the house.

"I'm struggling to understand how we got so lucky."

"We didn't just get lucky. We worked hard for those kids, especially you. They are who they are because of what we taught them, and just a little because they have the unfair advantage of being the product of the best genes."

"Yeah, yours." I teased but was more than half serious.

"Hey," Shawn scolded and waited for me to look his way, "you promised not to do that anymore."

"You're right." I lunged at Shawn and picked him up in my arms to spin him around. I set him back on his feet and kissed him hard. "I am the best. Just ask anyone."

Shawn laughed the ringing, reckless laugh that I loved and followed me toward the Vic for the drive back to the house. The noise of rushing wind from overhead stopped our progress. Another jet was coming in for a landing. "Who do you think?" I asked.

"It's either Paul and mom, or Bem and Mary. Andy and Comitis said they probably wouldn't be able to make it."

"Did they ever say why?" I asked to pursue the topic of my nephew and his husband instead of the plane that was about to land.

Shawn raised his shoulders in a short shrug. "Something about the new collection. I think there's a problem that they're trying to resolve. They wanted to come, but they're stuck in the capital at least until tomorrow."

"That sucks." I said bitterly. I'd very much wanted to see my nephew. He and I had been allies for a good many years, ever since I met him on Earth when he was fifteen and first told him about Solum. I loved him like a son and didn't like not getting to see him when special events came around.

Shawn tried to make me feel better. "Andy said he'd make it up to you. They'll be here as soon as they can. You know they love you. Neither of them would miss your birthday without a very good reason."

"I know," I relented, "I promise I won't sulk...much."

Shawn put his arm around me and rubbed his hand over my shoulder blades and down my back as we stood near the car and waited for the mystery jet to taxi to the end of the runway. I leaned into his touch and took comfort in the closeness. The jet came to a halt next to the one that had brought my children. The door opened, and the fold out steps folded out.

Paul Summas, once Paul Miller, once Father Paul Miller, jogged down the steps and paused at the bottom to offer his hand to his wife, Shawn's mother, Lenis Summas. He helped her to the ground and turned a smiling face and a joyously waving hand our way. "CHURCH, SHAWN," he thundered as he and Lenis closed the distance between us, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOUNG MAN!"

At ninety-five-years-old that May, Paul looked twenty years younger than he'd been when I met him, thirty-seven years previously. When he came to Solum, he was seventy and feeling every year. In the twenty-five years since then, he'd aged backwards to the point that he looked and acted like he was barely forty. His reverse aging had affected everything about the man except for his hair, which never got its color back and remained iron grey.

Paul liked to say that his wife, who he claimed was frozen in time at twenty-nine, kept him young. The reality of the situation was that Lenis was one-hundred-and-sixty-eight years old, though she only admitted to one hundred-and-twenty-nine. The life spans on Solum meant that both of them had at least another hundred years to enjoy each other, barring catastrophe, so age really was nothing more than a number.

Paul gripped me in a rib-crushing bear hug and slapped my back hard enough for it to sting. "Eighty-three...EIGHTY-THREE," he boomed at me and Shawn, "such a wonderful and wonderous place you brought me to, young man. On behalf of myself, and my beautiful young bride," Paul paused to kiss Lenis' hand to her demure delight, "I say thank you and wish you a happy birthday and all the happiness the day could bring."

We spent a few minutes in greetings and in catching up on Paul and Lenis' latest adventure. When Paul decided to remain on Solum and to ask to be released from his priestly vows, he felt that he wanted to continue to serve God in some way. The idea that he and Lenis arrived upon was to tour the world in search of the ancient faith that was reflected in Fidum's Bible.

With the backing of Lenis' massive fortune, a top-secret government clearance conferred on both Paul and Lenis by Ars, and all the time in the world, the couple made it their life's work to find all the evidence of Christianity's arrival and one-time widespread acceptance on Solum. The purpose was not to revive the ancient faith. There was already a movement gaining ground that was attempting to do just that. The movement was separate from Paul and Lenis' research, but it benefitted from their work.

Paul wanted to uncover the link between Solum and Earth that had allowed a prophet, or traveler, or early Christian to come to Solum and proselytize much of the population. The couple's research had already uncovered the idea that Christianity arrived on Solum around the same time the books of The Bible were originally being recorded on Earth. It seemed that the traveler from the Earth encountered a population that was somewhat better educated than their Earth counterparts. They were better able to understand the principles set forth without the need for the lessons to be dumbed down or woven into metaphor.

The works that were compiled to become Fidum's Bible were written to a more enlightened audience but the story they told was the same story told by the traditional King James Bible on Earth. The story was that of God the Father, his Son, Jesus, and his death and resurrection that all modern Christians celebrate as their salvation.

Paul was in frequent contact with the head of the reformed Church and regularly shared the results of his and Lenis' research after the information had been vetted by Ars' people. That vetting process was the price Ars had exacted for the clearance he'd granted to Lenis and Paul. Ars had the right to review anything the pair turned up before they published their findings. So far, the process had been merely a formality as Ars had not stopped any of the information from being shared with the world.

As for myself, I had high hopes that the reformed Church would be a positive influence on the culture of Solum. Solum was already an advanced society with broad-minded morals. The reformed Church didn't seem like it had any plans of narrowing the minds of its adherents. It actually seemed to have the opposite plan. It wanted to expand the possibilities offered by life and provide meaning and hope. I was pleased with the direction things were moving in.

Paul was equally pleased, both in the new Church, and in his role of supporting its precepts. He felt like he was making a difference. With Lenis his happy accomplice, he traveled the whole of Solum to visit all the centers of culture and learning, to dig into ancient texts, to unearth forgotten traditions. Ars had even allowed Paul and Lenis to read the book written by King Pravus' historian, Libellus. `The Victor Writes the History' was the book given to Neb by Fidum. The same book that Ars refused to allow to be published because it would damage the prestige of the current world order.

Ars had allowed the couple to read the book for context and for any religious references it may have made. He still refused to allow the book to be quoted or released, but the information it held had proved helpful to what Paul and Lenis referred to as their `continuing pilgrimage of faith.'

I was happy the couple were getting along so well, even after the more than twenty years that they'd been together. I was also happy that their researches were bearing fruit. I congratulated them both as we got into the Vic to return to the house. Paul held the rear door open for Lenis, then literally ran around the car to get himself in. I felt a grin stretch my face as I watched him. I loved to see my friend so happy and buoyant.

I started the car and was tooling slowly toward the back of the house when I noticed the bus on a return trip toward the hanger. I stopped and waited for it to pull up. Ancillarum called from the driver's seat. "The Ecclesia family is landing, all nine of them, and your older children are right behind them. I'm going to wait and bring them all back in one load."

I did some math in my head to figure out who the nine Ecclesias were. If there were nine, that meant Mary, Bem, Bem's father Cassius, Hannah and Leah, plus Altus who wasn't an official Ecclesia, but may as well have been, Tobit, and the two younger boys, Rafael and Azarias. I gave Ancillarium a thumbs up and a thank you and set off for the rear of the house again.

A pointless but habitual glance in the rearview showed Paul as he swiveled his head around to take in the sight of the plains, like it was the first time he'd seen them. "Every time I am here, every single time, I remember the very first time. I remember it like it was yesterday. Do you remember, young man?" He asked me as he met my eyes in the mirror.

"Of course."

"When I think of that time, of who I was then, I can barely believe I am the same man. I thought I was embarking on the last big adventure of my life. I suppose in some ways, that's still true, except I never imagined the adventure would last as long as it has. Young man...do you think...would you mind, could we drive out to the monument, and could we do it like we did that day?"

I glanced in the mirror again to see mischief on my friend's face and a definite twinkle in his eyes. "Will your bride object?" I asked, worried about how Lenis would react to a sudden and sustained burst of acceleration.

Paul looked along the seat at Lenis. He slid to her and gathered his bride to him. He held her tightly against his thick body and egged me on. At the last moment before we were to turn behind the house, I spun the steering wheel to change course, pointed us along in front of the house, and mashed the gas pedal to the floor.

The rear tires churned, then bit into the hardpacked surface of the plains and the five-liter V-8 engine revved hard as it launched the car forward with a lunge of torque. Lenis shrieked with merry fun and clung to her husband. Shawn muttered his distaste for my actions. "I hate it when you do that." He said just loud enough for me to hear it over the roar of the engine and the increasing wind noise that blasted through the open windows.

Lenis laughed with nervous tension while Paul called for more and more speed as the car accelerated until the speed-o-meter needle reached the top of the gauge and disappeared into the dashboard. We blazed passed the front of the house and threw twin rooster tails of dust into the air behind us.

When we cleared the recently lengthened residential wing of the estate, I banked the car to the left, into a sweeping turn that would bring us out to the monument. Paul held tight to Lenis and laughed as he begged for more. I laughed at the idea that not only had Paul aged in reverse until he looked like a much younger man, but as the physical years peeled away, it seemed the years of his maturity had left him at an even greater rate.

As we drew near the statue, I let my foot off the gas so the car would coast down its speed. By the time we were where Paul wanted to be, it only took light braking to bring the old sedan to a halt. Paul got out laughing and handed Lenis out after him. Shawn and I got out to join them.

We approached the black monolith as a group. Paul read the words of the monument aloud then stared up at the statue for a long moment. When he finished, he moved to the side where another black stone had been more recently added. "How long has it been?" He asked and nodded to the smaller stone.

"Five years." I responded before Shawn could. "He never met our youngest."

"Cellarius was a fine man." Paul commented. "The first time I met him...well, you were there, young man. A wonderful man."

"He was." Shawn agreed at my side. A wave of sadness washed over my husband as he remembered the elderly butler who, in Shawn's youth, had helped him deal with his father's constant abuse.

I pulled Shawn against me to offer what comfort I could. Shawn still missed him. Cellarius had been a constant in his life from the time he was born until he was almost sixty years old. The way the man died still didn't sit well with Shawn.

We'd tried to retire Cellarius many times, but he always vehemently refused. Eventually we gave up and submitted to his continued role as the master of the domestic affairs of the household. That lasted until one day, when he simply wasn't there. Unlike most deaths on Solum, there was no warning. One day he was there, his immaculate burgundy suit as immaculate as always, then he wasn't.

We found him in bed. He looked like he was sleeping, except he wasn't. Shawn was as inconsolable as if he'd lost a parent. In many ways, he had. Since Cellarius had no family, we claimed the body and buried him on the plains next to the existing monument. We buried him next to the monument to the other men we knew who went to their reward in the shadow of the Demon's Citadel. Shawn liked having him nearby and thought Cellarius would have approved of the arrangements.

Paul knelt next to the headstone, crossed himself, and offered a silent prayer for the peace of the dead man's soul. He said his `amen' aloud and rose. Shawn echoed the reverent word and tone and turned away from the pain. "Come on," he forced a smile on his face, "the others are probably wondering where we ran off to."

We went back to the car, and I piloted us to the house, this time at a sedate pace.

As soon as we got to the head of the stairs from the old ground floor rumpus room into the family area on the second-floor, we were greeted by a chorus of happy voices. All our children, my sister and Bem and their family, and Paul and Lenis gathered around and congratulated me at once.

I was hugged and kissed and back-slapped so many times I had no idea who was doing what. Shouts of happy birthday' suffixed by every description I'd ever answered to, including daddy' and pops' and uncle' and Church' and big guy' and `my boy' and one or two others that don't bear repeating. I was so overwhelmed by the outpouring of emotion, I admit to crying a few tears of joy at having so much of my family around me at once.

As it was what I referred to as a regular birthday' and not a landmark,' the group was family only. Landmarks were saved for major decades, or quarter-century occasions. For landmark birthdays, we invited everyone for at least a long weekend of celebrating. For regular events, we limited the invitations to those related to us by blood or marriage only, and the celebrations were always held on the actual day of the event.

I was still in the middle of being mobbed by well-wishers when Ancillarum rescued me. He shouted over the group with a call for everyone to see the birthday present that `the brothers,' as we referred to Joe and Primis, had sent. Ancillarum got the wall screen playing again and let it cycle through.

The whole group watched in relative silence while the madness played through once, then it erupted in almost universal derision as it restarted. I raised my hands above the group and shouted for quiet. "NOW, NOW! None of that! That's my birthday present you're making fun of." I scolded. "Any fun that's going to be made of this...whatever this is, will be made by me."

My comment got the laugh that I hoped it would. After that, the group broke up and divided into subgroups of people who were looking to catch up with each other. Shawn went to mingle, and I was left standing by the wall that continued to play my birthday gift. Paul drifted over to me. "If you would've told me," he trailed off and shook his head at the dancing images on the wall, "the whole `other world' thing is far more believable than what I'm watching."

"That's your fault you know." I nodded at the wall.

"My fault?" Paul gasped, incredulous that I would try to lay the blame on him.

"Yup, he started down that path after you talked to him when you first got here. I don't know what you said to him, but later that day, everything started to change. What did you say to him, anyway?"

Paul didn't answer right away, so I looked to see if he'd heard the question over the background noise of the room. The expression Paul wore after I asked my question, the pressed lips, furrowed brow, serious scowl, worried me. He looked so serious, I almost apologized for bringing the matter up at all.

Paul cast his eyes around the room, but what he saw seemed to dissatisfy him. He drew me to the stairs and down to my old kitchen. Out of habit, I got a green tea for him and a coffee for myself and leaned on the counter to listen to what my friend had to say. Instead of sitting, like seventy-year-old Paul would have, the much younger-feeling ninety-five-year-old Paul leaned on the counter at my side to talk.

"Your brother's main objection to your lifestyle," Paul explained, "was that it ran counter to the teachings of his faith. To help Joe understand that human love cannot be limited in terms of gender or harnessed by faith, I told him two things. The first was one of the dark secrets of the priesthood. Some priests are closeted homosexuals. Those that are often join the priesthood as an escape from their dread over their sexuality. My friend, Father Scott, who I knew in the seminary, the one who used to play with the song lyrics...you remember, young man."

I thought hard and remembered some mad lyrics that Paul had sung to me one night when I was sad. "The `Lookin' Out My Backdoor' guy?" I asked as I strained my mind to recall the words Paul had used for the tune. "Jews, Jews, Jews? That guy?"

"That's the one." Paul agreed, pleased that I had remembered. "He was gay. I didn't know. He and I were friends for years, and I didn't know. The poor man was ashamed of it. He carried that secret buried deep inside him and he threw himself into the faith. He dedicated himself to the faith and to the Church which told him that what he was, what he could not help being, was wrong, was sinful. That poor, tortured man. I wish I would have known. I wish he would have been honest with me, but he was afraid." Paul set his tea down on the counter and rubbed his big hands together in front of himself.

"He died," Paul said, his eyes lowered to his hands, "cancer...pancreatic cancer. A terrible, wasting illness. I took a leave of absence to visit him when they told him they could do nothing more for him. Poor man, that poor miserable man. There was almost nothing left of him when I arrived. He lay there, desperately sick in bed, dying in pain because there was nothing that could be done.

"I begged him to let me do something. I felt so completely useless. It's a terribly impotent feeling when someone you cherish is hurting like that. Scott...he asked me if I would hear his confession, not his confession of sin, but a personal confession. I said yes, and I promised to keep his confidence. He told me to keep it, only from those who wouldn't understand."

Paul stopped and raised his eyes to mine. His face was troubled. "That's the second thing I told your brother. I justified it, to myself you see, telling Scott's story to Joe because I thought it was something your brother needed to hear. I don't think my dear friend would take it amiss if I tell you his story. I think he would be proud that it was able to help someone, and if anyone would understand, you certainly would."

I started to say that Paul didn't have to tell me anything he didn't want to, but he shook his head before I got the words out. "Scott told me he was a homosexual. He admitted that to me and told me it was that `condition' that had driven him to the priesthood in the first place. He told me he was attracted to me and that shamed him. He told me he always questioned his motivations when I was around, that he wondered if it was the attraction that caused him to befriend me, or if his motives were purely the desire of my company and companionship. Poor man, poor conflicted man.

"In hindsight, I suppose I should have known something. Scott used to recite The Song of Solomon to me. I thought he was playing around. Are you familiar with the Old Testament, young man?"

I shook my head that I wasn't.

"The Church says The Song is a metaphor for Jesus' love for his bride, The Church. That's not true. It's beautiful poetry that celebrates sex and the joys of being in love. I thought Scott recited it because it was randy. I thought it was him being playful, telling a dirty joke from The Bible. In hindsight, I think he was making love to me in the only way that he could."

Paul raised his eyes to mine. I think he wanted to see if I was following what he'd been saying. I didn't know The Song of Solomon. I had a vague recollection that Paul mentioned the work years before, but that didn't mean I remembered the text, so I was confused. I suppose it showed on my face because Paul tried to explain.

"Chapter four, verse eleven says, `Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.' If that doesn't describe love, desire, the physical need of another person...it's how I feel about my wife." Paul's eyes lost their focus as his attention retreated from the present into his thoughts.

I agreed with what Paul said. "That's beautiful. It's how I feel about Shawn. That's how I've always felt about him."

Paul reacted like I'd made his point for him. "You see, then. Of course, you do. Scott used to recite those lines to me. He'd start off teasing, but as the verses went on and on, he'd move close to me...sometimes he'd take my hand as he spoke, reciting the lines in a solemn voice like he was giving a sacrament.

"I assume the man had feelings for me and I was too obtuse to see it. When he confessed his sexuality that day, and his attraction to me, I realized and berated myself for never understanding the depth of the man's feelings. I wished I could have pushed the clock back with the knowledge. I wished I could have done something for him. I couldn't have returned his love, but I could have been there for him. I could have...something, but I didn't."

Paul shook his head and knotted his hands together in a twisted bunch. "I asked him again, in light of what he told me, if there was anything that I could do for him. He told me he'd never known the touch of a man. He wondered if I'd be willing...he was so embarrassed he could barely get the words out, he wondered if I would hold him. He said it wouldn't be sexual. He thought he needed to reassure me, to protect my chaste manhood from his gayness. That poor, tortured man.

"I ran to the nurses' station and asked them to leave us alone. I lied to them, told them that I was going to pray with my friend, and we needed absolute privacy. I exacted their solemn vow to leave us in peace, and I returned to Scott. I got in bed with him and held him to me. That poor man, my dear friend Scott...he thanked me. He apologized to me for asking for something so personal, but he...he was so grateful to me."

Paul sighed a deep, defeated sigh before he told the rest of his story. "I would like to say I was there for him until he died, but the end of the story is not so poetic. I held him that one and only time, until he drifted to sleep and visiting hours ended. Later that night, when I was tossing in the narrow bed of some cheap hotel near his hospital room, my friend slipped into a coma. He died two days later without ever regaining consciousness."

I sipped the last dregs of my coffee and waited for Paul to draw the conclusion that I seemed to be missing. I couldn't connect the dots that he'd laid out for me. When Paul didn't go on, I prompted him. "What does that mean for Joe?" I asked.

Paul shook himself to rouse his mind out of the past and into the present with me. "It means...I asked Joe...I demanded he decide if he would have been better content with his son or his brother living the life my friend Scott lived. If he would have them suffer in lonely silence and never experience the love that he so desperately needed. I demanded Joe decide if that was preferable or if the path of acceptance was the better one, the right one.

"I admit I grew very angry with Joe as I told Scott's story, angry enough that I shouted at him. My emotions were running high, such was the feeling I had for my friend and the shame I felt for what he suffered alone. In some ways, the episode with Joe was cathartic for me.

"I feel that a part of me was shouting at Scott for not telling me his secret. You see, it hurt me that he didn't trust me. Poor man, I know it had nothing to do with me, or any lack of trust. He was afraid, afraid of losing my friendship. I wish I had him here now. I wish I could put my arms around him and tell him how wrong he was to be afraid of me. But I can't.

"As for Joe, I demanded that he look me in the face and tell me that he would rip you from your husband and rip Andy from his boyfriend in the name of the faith. I demanded he tell me that he would destroy your happiness for his morals. I demanded that he tell me he would rather you face this life alone than with love. I demanded he tell me the same for his son, the flesh of his flesh. I further demanded he tell me that he believed Jesus Christ himself, the teacher of `love thy neighbor,' would do the same."

I remembered a bumper sticker from Earth that seemed pertinent. "What would Jesus do?" I asked rhetorically.

"Indeed," Paul nodded indignantly like he was still arguing with Joe, "what would Jesus do? It's a flippant phrase, but when taken seriously, one with large implications. That was the message I put to Joe. Your brother is a stubborn man, but he has a penetrating intelligence. He learned the right lesson from Scott's story. He learned it and he applied it. He applied it, surprisingly, to himself as well as to his brother and son. I am so happy that he did. My dear friend Scott would be proud."

"You've lived one hell of a life, Paul." I marveled at the stories the man had told me of the amazing, but very sad life he'd led. It made me even happier that I'd decided to invite him to Solum, and he accepted. If anyone deserved some happiness, it was him.

"You know, my dear friend, for so very long I struggled with life. So much of what I experienced was either tragic, or sad, or thankless. I used to wonder why. I used to think that this life was something to be endured, preemptive penance to make us worthy of the next life. I was wrong.

"To my complete surprise it took our mutual friend Cassius to show me that I was wrong. God wants his children to be happy. God brought me to you and you to me. Because of you, young man, I found my happiness, my Lenis. She is everything I ever wanted and so...so very much more. She makes me think, and she makes me burn. I loved my Bernita. She was a dear, sweet woman, and she will always have a special place in my heart, but Lenis...she completes me. Does that sound silly, young man?"

"No, Paul. It sounds perfect."

"It is." He agreed.

Paul and I spoke in private for a few more minutes until we were interrupted by Ancillarum as he hurried through the kitchen to the garage. As he passed, he called, "Ars is here."

"Ah, well," Paul set his glass in the wash cabinet, "we should rejoin the others. If Uncle Ars is here, that means the guest list is complete and the party can begin in earnest."

I thanked Paul again and went upstairs with him.

One more event marked my eighty-third birthday and made it one of the most special I ever had. We were getting ready to sit down to dinner in the big dining room when my phone rang. It was Andy with a video call. I shouted the room to silence and answered the call. I'd meant to use the opportunity to rag on my nephew about everyone in the room managing to get there for my birthday, when he as his husband couldn't quite figure it out. What I saw when the screen lit-up, stopped the planned jibe in my throat.

The image had a caption superimposed at the bottom. It said `The Dinumero Family.' Dinumero was Comet's last name. Andy had taken it when they married. He'd become Andy P Dinumero. The image that was captioned was of Andy and Comet and one other person I hadn't met.

Andy was seated, and Comet was seated partially on top of Andy. In Comet's arms, asleep on his chest, was a wrinkled pink newborn, swaddled in a receiving blanket. Andy held the phone and smiled at me. "This is why we couldn't come. The surrogate was due today. Uncle Church, meet your great-nephew, Church Philips Dinumero."

Shawn moved next to me to look at the screen. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked the group on the phone. I was pleased and thrilled and shocked and surprised and amazed all at once.

"Surprise," Comet whispered, "happy birthday Great Uncle Church."

I felt a swelling of pride from Shawn and turned to level a mild accusation at him. "You knew."

"Surprise." He whispered.

"When can I meet him?" I asked.

Andy took up that question. "He won't be able to travel for a while."

"I'll come to you!" I whispered excitedly. "We'll leave tonight. I'll charter a plane."

"Love," Shawn interrupted with a gentle rebuke to my enthusiasm, "Andy and Comitis need some time to get to know their son and you have a houseful of guests."

"Next week?" I asked.

"Sure." Andy agreed.

"Congratulations...both of you. He's beautiful. Thank you so much. This is the best...the best birthday gift ever. My heart...my heart is full enough to burst. I love you. I love you both...all three of you!"

We said a few more words and signed off. I pocketed the phone and looked around the room. I rubbed my face and, to my surprise, found it wet with tears of joy. I stood up and all eyes turned to me. I raised my glass and used my spare arm to draw Shawn into me.

"A toast...a toast to me on my birthday, and to my husband who I love and who is the one that made all this possible, and to my family and my friends and my beautiful children, and to all the people we love and all the people who are here and all the people that couldn't be here, and to the people who are no longer here, and to my great nephew who was born into this wonderful world this day, and to love and to life. To life!" I shouted at last and raised my glass and drank.

To cap off the toast, I raised up my husband and kissed him as I called out again, "to life!" I set him down to cheers and jeers and applause of all present. Shawn was embarrassed and thrilled, and it was such a party. It was one of the grandest birthdays I ever had.

Many more followed after that one. There would be more births, and deaths, and celebrations, and mournings, and all the events and all the regular days that make up a life. It was truly wonderful and wonderous and it was mine.

THE END...or is it?

Epilogue

Well, dear reader, that's it. That's the end of the final tale of the Crown Vic story arc. If you've arrived here, I thank you, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart. I cannot convey my enormous gratitude to everyone who stayed and read and persevered with this story. To those of you who wrote and commented and supported me throughout, thank you some more.

While `Stolen Love' is the last tale of the Crown Vic story arc, it will NOT be the last story with these characters. I've had second thoughts and more stories are in the works. I'm currently writing the tale of Cass and the birth of Bem. I plan to explore the story of Ars and that of Paul Miller. Some of you lovely readers have called for Andy's story as well. We'll see how many I get to.

I love these people. As much as you have come to count on them for entertainment and an escape from the world, that's every bit as much and more that I have come to count on them. They have been my friends, my confidants, my diversion, and my escape more times than I can count. I've brought them my joy and my sadness. I've even fantasized about them.

That said, `Stolen Love' is likely the final story with Church and Shawn as main characters. All good things must come to an end. I have been writing these characters and this great big epic story for more than six years now. I have taken them as far as I can. It is time for me to share my love with other characters and other stories. It is time for me to put my hard-earned skills to use in other directions.

Even as I moved on, though, I admit that Church and Shawn, Bem and Mary, Joe and Primis, Andy and Comet, Uncle Ars, Paul Miller and Lenis, all the people we met and enjoyed throughout the telling of this tale, they will always be my favorites. There is good reason for that.

You see, dear reader, much of this story is my story. When I started writing this tale, I was very much like Church was when you first met him. I was even more like the character of Sam who we met in an early chapter of `From Whence I Came.' That man shares my name and my appearance from that time of my life. When I started writing this story, I did it because I was so fed up with my own life, I hoped to find a place to escape to, where I could find happiness, even if it was only inside of a work of fiction.

I intended only to tell one story. The adventure that was `Crown Vic to a Parallel World: The Beginning,' was supposed to be Church's entire story. He was supposed to meet someone, find love, and be all better in one adventure. It wasn't until I wrote that story that I realized it's not that easy. Shawn's love no more fixed Church than the love of another can fix any of us. It helped, but it was not a cure.

I kept writing. I thought if Church could go to his home, if he could deal with the monsters of his past, then he would be free. `From Whence I Came' is the product of that line of logic. Church went home and he stood face to face with his brother and his sister. He even stood before the stone monument that represented the parents he hated but who he blamed himself for killing. He even went to church, another source of anxiety for our hero.

Did it fix' him? No. Again, it helped, but in the end, Church was still filled with anxiety and self-loathing. The chapter entitled A Point of Frozen Blue Light in the Dark' is probably the closest thing to an actual confession of my own feelings as is possible while I remain true to these characters. The difference between me and Church, is that when I visit my inner self, I don't have Shawn to come with me.

I reached the end of that story and found I was better off than I had been, but still not fixed. I wrote on. I thought that all I needed was one more tale. Just one more story and I could fix Church and maybe myself at the same time. So, I wrote.

The first draft of `Stolen Love' and many drafts after that, didn't strike the right tone. They didn't reach the conclusion I needed. I couldn't find my way.

While I wrote and edited and worked, I had a breakthrough in my own life.

You see, I wrote `The Beginning' as a miserable, barely functioning, overweight, heavy smoker, alcoholic. I was closeted, isolated, and sad. As I posted the first story and wrote the second, I quit smoking and lost weight. I also barely cracked the closet door open on my sexuality.

As I finished From Whence I Came' and posted it, while at the same time I drafted the early versions of Stolen Love,' I dried out. It was the single hardest thing I ever did. I thought, once I quit smoking and lost weight and dried out, I'd be fixed. Sadly, it's never that easy.

I wrote `Stolen Love,' and I rewrote it and I worked and edited and tried to understand why Church was still sad and why I was still broken. During this time, a physical problem that I battle with, herniated discs in my neck that no one seems to be able to do anything about, came to a head, and I grew desperate for help with it. One miserable, pain filled morning, while I wept miserably in the shower, I cried out for help from a place where I never thought I'd find it. I cried out to God.

To my complete and continuing surprise, he heard me and answered. I don't mean that I heard the voice of God. I'm not a prophet. I'm just a man who believes that his prayers were answered. My physical trouble still exists, I still deal with it every single day. God has not healed my pain like Jesus cured the lepers, but he's given me a new perspective to view it. He's made my pain easier to bear.

With that new understanding, I rewrote `Stolen Love' again. I brought Church to the Lord through the catalyst of Shawn's kidnapping and their reunion and reconciliation. To help, I added Paul and Bem's father, dear Papa Cass, to the crowd on Solum. Now that we have reached the end of that story, I have found to my consternation that Church still isn't fixed, and neither am I.

BUT, I'm better than I was. It seems healthy and happy' isn't a place one can arrive. It's a goal to be worked toward, but a place that can never be reached. It's not home plate or an endzone that one can do a touchdown dance inside. I'm doing the best that I can. I'm fighting the good fight. I'm keeping the faith,' as my father would say.

I've downloaded and used the `Meet-up' app on my phone. I'm getting out more and meeting people. I'm going to beautiful places like Longwood Gardens to get some exercise and breathe the air and feel the sun on my face. I've gone to a few Pride events. I even bought a little rainbow button to wear on my shirt like Church bought for Andy once upon a time.

I've downloaded and joined several online dating services. For those of you who have done that, I'm sure you understand the frustration they bring with them. I'm persevering though. I want to find my Shawn. I want to find a man to share my life with. Ultimately, I'd like to have some kids, but I don't know if that will be possible.

With a lot of work, a little luck, and the grace of God, I'll keep getting better. While I do, I will still be writing. So far, I've written a detective novel and am working on a sequel. I'm also either working on or planning to write the other stories I mentioned earlier.

I've asked this before and I will ask it again, what about you, dear reader? If you could pick one character from the whole of the Crown Vic universe, one character to have his or her story told, who would it be? I make you no promises, but I will consider your answers.

What about a tale that's outside of the Crown Vic universe? Do you have a character or fantasy that you'd like to see written out? I won't do commissions, but I'm open to ideas. If you give me one, do so with the knowledge that if I use it, I will make it entirely my own.

The point of this monologue, which seems to have gone on too long, is that I wrote this story to exorcise my own demons. To some extent, it worked. It didn't work in the way that I'd hoped at the outset, but it worked in a way that I needed it to work.

Along the way, I met a bunch of wonderful people, you lovely readers who have been supportive and understanding. Some of you have even become my friends. That's something I never expected when I started this journey.

I am thankful to all of you. You have given me someone to sing to, a reason to keep going when the going seemed impossible, a web of crossed arms behind the terrifying trust fall of posting something as personal as this story into the cold ether of the internet. Thank you for being there to catch me.

With respect, and as much love as I can convey through this digital medium, I again say THANK YOU, dear reader. I hope this trip has been as enjoyable for you as it has been for me. If you have any thoughts you'd like to add, by all means, add them. I'd love to hear from you.

Truly yours,

Sam (Church Philips) Stefanik

NOTE: Keep an eye on my author page. Not all of the stories that I plan to post in the future will fit the Science Fiction category. If you check in on my author page from time to time, you won't miss new stories when they post.