Um, I think that I should mention that "A Gathering Of Clouds" is the first part of a serial describing Adam's history before he became a TP. (Now, can everyone see exactly how scatterbrained I am at this time?)
Michele
PS Send comments, 'kay?
June, 1989
From this day forward Adam Newman knew that he would always hate the early days of summer. He would hate the scent of frescia, the colors black and gray, pale cream summer dresses and pink lipstick. He would hate somber music and the clinging scent of mixed flowers. Most importantly, he would hate the charade his life had become. The perfect family on the outside, they were being killed by a malignancy on the inside. Only the doctors could neither diagnose nor heal this particular disease; it was a silent lurker that would kill and destroy them one by one until there was nothing left.
"Adam, I'm sorry." Brett had been his best friend since early childhood; Adam knew the boy as well as he knew himself. And he knew the darkness in the other boy's eyes spoke not of sympathy, but of pity; the odd sort of pity that was tinged with curiosity.
He refused to feed fuel to the flames of rumor. Let them draw their own conclusions from their whispers. Let them wonder what crazy demons could drive a beautiful, promising vocalist to the depths of despair that would claim her life at the tender age of eighteen. Adam didn't have to wonder. He knew. He lived behind the shadows of those demons every day.
Only he had never seen the effects on Tara until it was too late.
Adam accepted Brett's offered hand and the warm handshake, but his words were rote. "Thank you, Brett. Thank you for coming."
"If you need anything, Adam, my mother says you should call us."
They always said that; but no one ever really meant it. "I will."
He escaped from Brett and the pity in his friend's eyes. He choked out some weak excuse about needing to check on his mother, and shouldered his way through the black and somber suit jackets and long, shapeless black dresses. Adam barely acknowledged the offers of sympathy. He barely knew some of these people.
Their whispers followed him.
"She looked lovely. So pretty."
She looked dead. A painted mockery of what had once been a vibrant and living being. Her honey blonde curls had been placed perfectly around her porcelain face with cheeks a little too red and lips a little too pink. The cream colored dress that clothed her and the lavender lining of the casket exaggerated the look of death, or perhaps emphasized it. No, she did not look lovely. No more lovely than she had the day she died.
"He was very close to her."
"It can't be easy for them. You know how Sadie can be."
"I heard that he found her."
The words conjured up the unbidden memory of Tara, his older sister, a constant in his life for all sixteen years of it. Not the doting, smiling child of youth or the giggling teenager who modeled and repeatedly beat him at cards. He didn't know if he would ever remember her laughter or her bright smile. What he remembered, the images that haunted him waking and sleeping were the things that therapists made their livings from.
If he closed his eyes, he saw the bathroom door opening inward, slowly, so slowly. Like a camera moving in slow motion, his line of sight was drawn toward the bubble filled bathtub. The smell of frescia hung in the air, and Tara rested there, her head thrown back, eyes closed in a mimicry of sleep, one pale wrist dangling over the edge of the tub. A river of red snaked its way from the bathtub and toward the bathroom door.
Sometimes Adam still woke up screaming her name.
Standing on the deck, he clutched the wooden railing for support. Adam forced himself to take deep, calming breaths, and choked back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm him. He would not cry. He would not give the ever-so-polite-mourners more reasons to pity the Newman boy.
"Adam? I need your help."
He turned, ready to shoo away the intrusion, but was flooded with relief by the sight of Karyn. Karyn, whose honey-gold curls and aquiline nose reminded him of Tara's. They favored one another so strongly that Adam wondered if he would ever be able to look at Karyn and not see the echoes of Tara.
Adam averted his eyes. "What's wrong?"
"It's Mum." What Karyn did not say said more than the words she did.
When he looked at her again, Adam noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes and the tiny wrinkles that pulled at the corners of her mouth and made her look far older than her twenty years.
He nodded. "I'll help you."
He heard their mother before he saw her. Between heart-wrenching sobs and slurred words, she cursed God and the saints for taking away her baby, her princess, her angel. She leaned against her sister, a half-empty drink tumbler in one hand, her dark hair already loosened from the severe bun she had worn all day. Mascara ran down Sadie Newman's cheeks in rivulets and Adam smelled the liquor on her from three meters away.
Karyn had been anticipating this. She slipped one arm around their mother's waist. "It's all right, Aunt Megan. I'll take her to bed."
Their mother jerked away from her daughter's touch. "I am not going to bed! I can't sleep knowing that my baby is in a cold wooden box--"
Their aunt was just as persistent. "Please Sadie, you need some rest."
"What I need, Megan, is my daughter back!" Sadie strutted, stumbled and sloshed half her drink onto the plush carpet. Steadying herself on the edge of the sofa, she stared into the glass. "I spilled my drink."
It was then that she noticed Adam and her eyes widened and then narrowed. He recognized the malicious hunger in her eyes and immediately wished he hadn't followed Karyn. He backed up, out of range of her long, manicured nails, but didn't run. She would only pursue or yell or generally make things more embarrassing than they already were.
"You! You didn't even try to save her!" She spit the words at him and they cut like knives. Because of the truth of them. Tara had been dead when he found her, her body still warm only because of the bath water; yet, he should have seen the signs. He should have been able to stop her.
"She was your sister!"
Adam ducked the flying tumbler and required no urging to leave his mother's vicinity. He fled; he fled from his mother's drunken tirade and the prying eyes that followed him. He fled from the memories and the what-ifs that plagued his mind. Adam was halfway to the door, halfway out of the madness of his house that could never be called a home when noise from his father's office caught his attention.
Not noise. Voices.
"I know how important this meeting with Tokinawa Industries is Martin, but you don't have to be there." The small voice came from the speaker phone on his father's desk.
Seated behind the desk, free of his suit jacket and tie, his father leaned back in the leather chair. "You said it yourself, Stuart. This deal will be the pinnacle achievement of Endeavor Technologies. It will change everything for this corporation, and I want to be there to see it. I _will_ be there tomorrow. I won't let minor family obligations interfere with something as important as this."
Adam flinched. Minor family obligations? For God's sake, the man's daughter was dead.
But did I really expect more? He hadn't even shed a tear at the funeral; and the look of disapproval on his face when Mum threw herself onto the casket. . .
"Then tomorrow morning it is, Martin. I'll see you then."
Adam pushed the door open further. He couldn't hide his bitterness and scorn. "You were having a business meeting."
His father gave him a withering glare. "You shouldn't eavesdrop, Adam."
"I wasn't. The door was open. Why were you having a meeting?"
"Because I run a business. Maybe if you paid attention a little more and weren't off daydreaming constantly---"
"We just buried Tara."
"And I still have a business to run. What do you think pays for this house, or those nice clothes you wear?" Martin Newman tilted his head, his mouth drawing into a sinister line. "What do you think paid for Tara's casket?"
The words hit Adam like a blow to stomach. For a moment he was torn between launching himself at this man, this man who cared more for his million dollar corporation than his family, and pounding him with his bare fists or running from the office. It took several deep breaths and a slow count to not lose control; that was exactly what his father wanted. This was the game Martin Newman played, this was how he exerted his control. Adam would not give him the satisfaction.
"Mother is drunk again. She's making a spectacle of herself." Adam delivered the words calmly and coolly. He had learned a few things from watching Karyn. . .and Tara. Sometimes you had to hit back.
He didn't wait around for his father's response. He knew that the returning blow would be even harder than the first, and he also knew that he wasn't strong enough to handle it. Not yet. Tomorrow he would be in trouble for walking away and turning his back on Martin Newman. Today, he just didn't care anymore.
As he stepped outside of the house, Adam looked up at the sky. It was darkening. Thick gray clouds were gathering overhead which meant a summer storm.
Somehow Adam thought that was fitting.
---Finis---