Father Knows Best
Part Nine
By Miesque
miesque48@hotmail.com

RATING: PG
SETTING: End of S7
CATEGORY: A Luka Kovac/Kerry Weaver Story (9/?) Humor/comfort/angst/romance

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Luka and Kerry. If I did, they would currently be married and expecting their first baby. ;) Warner Bros., Amblin Entertainment, NBC and several other guys in $uit$ do own them. I’m just borrowing them for a while.

SONG: ‘Remember’ by Harry Nilsson
SYNOPSIS: Luka’s father pays a visit to Chicago and brings along one heck of a surprise.
SPOILERS: Maybe a hint or two of stuff that happened in S6, and hints of stuff seen in spoilers and on the show for S7.

THANKS TO: My three wonderful friends (and editors) for constant and steady encouragement. And thanks to Ellen Hursh for much-needed inspiration.



Luka was sitting at Kerry’s kitchen table, eating leftover pot roast and reading a truly fascinating article on diseases of the human eye, when the phone started ringing. She was upstairs taking a shower, so he sighed and picked up the receiver. The last thing he wanted, though, was to talk to a telemarketer. How did they always know he was trying to eat dinner? At least he could pretend he didn’t speak English.

“Dr. Kovac? Hey, this is Randi. We just got the weirdest phone call here.”

“Really? Weird phone calls to an ER? Will wonders never cease?” He bookmarked the page in the journal and leaned back in the chair. The shower had stopped (making that loud clunking sound which made Luka wish Kerry would be a little more insistent with that $60-an-hour plumber), and he paused for a moment, listening to the familiar sounds she made after showering without him. Usually, a lot of ‘hmph’ing and muttering.

Randi smacked her gum and continued. “Some guy called from Croatia. I didn’t fully understand what he said...I wrote it down phonetically. Want me to try and pronounce what he was sayin’?”

“Go ahead,” Luka mumbled.

“Okay, he said something like, ‘I want to speak with ‘moy seen’, Luka Kovac.”

“Oh, God.”

“What does ‘moy seen’ mean?”

“Moj sin. My son.”

“Oh, really. The guy was your father?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wow. Anyway, he said something about an airplane and then something I couldn’t quite understand and then something like ‘will be there at nine o’clock’.”

“Nine o’clock when?”

“Now, that I didn’t get.”

“Well, great, Randi. It could be nine o’clock tonight or nine o’clock in the morning next Saturday. Did you try to do the phonics thing with anything else he said?”

“Yeah. He said something like ‘moya dee-yev-oy-ka’.”

Luka nearly spat out the coffee he was sipping. “What?!”

Randi snapped at him for shouting so loudly, he told her to chew some more gum to get her ear to pop, and hung up. Girlfriend? His father had a girlfriend!?

Luka was pacing in the kitchen when Kerry appeared, running his hands through his hair. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“My father. Apparently, he’s coming to Chicago for a visit...and if I’ve been able to correctly add two and two, he’ll be bringing his...” Luka choked slightly. “Girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Yes. My mother has only been dead for three years, Kerry!”

“Well, some people move on a little faster than others.” She put the kettle on the burner and turned to look at her fiancé, fighting the urge to laugh at him. He looked adorably agitated.

“They were married for forty years!”

“Now, Luka, don’t go all postal on me. Relax. I’m sure she’s a perfectly lovely woman who makes your father very happy.” Her eyes were sparkling with laughter, though.

“Oh, don’t even go there, Kerry!”

Kerry ignored him, smiling innocently. “She’s probably a sweet little widow with three kids and a bunch of grandchildren.”

He breathed in slowly, glaring at her, clearly frustrated. Stepbrothers and stepsisters. Stepmothers...the only stepmothers Luka had ever known about were the kinds in fairy tales. They leave you in forests to be eaten by wolves, or feed you poison apples. “Kerry!”

She was in fits of giggles now. It was so fun to tease him. He just stood there, arms folded across his chest, glaring at her. “This is not funny!”

“Are you kidding? You look ready to blow a gasket, and you haven’t even met the woman yet. Now, what you need to do is call your father and find out when he’s coming and where he’s staying and so forth, then all the necessary arrangements can be made...maybe we can arrange a double date...”

She was pretty agile sometimes. A quick sidestep and she avoided the potholder he threw (gently) at her.



Luka spent almost an hour on the phone, having driven rapidly back to his bungalow to make the call to Croatia. He first called his cousin Draga, who was coy about giving him information about his father’s girlfriend. He did everything but threaten her with sadistic means of medieval torture to get any kind of background on the woman, but Draga (as usual...damn her) was tight-lipped. But he did find out that Dragan Kovac and his ‘girlfriend’ were to be in Chicago at nine o’clock tomorrow night. Which at least gave Luka time to calm down.

He had visited his father at Christmas. The old man has said nothing about a girlfriend. Nothing. And meanwhile, Luka had spilled his guts about his disastrous relationship with Abby, about the mugging, had told him about how depressed he’d been then, how badly everything was going, and all that time...why hadn’t Dragan said anything then? But if he hadn’t met this woman before Christmas, then he had met her after Christmas and was bringing her to Chicago after just a few months of knowing her and now Luka felt like perhaps he was on the verge of a mild stroke. He actually had to sit down for a few minutes to catch his breath. He even took his pulse.

“I swear to God, Draga, I’ll see you hanged for this!” he growled into the phone after she hung up. He berated the innocent receiver in Croatian, stood up, grabbed his jacket, and rushed out to work.

The past two weeks, with Mark and Elizabeth on their honeymoon, had been rough on Luka and Kerry. They were both pulling double shifts to cover for their colleagues, and since Kerry’s house was closer to CCGH, he’d been more or less living with her. He wasn’t sure, though, that he wanted to give up the bungalow just yet. Now, he figured it was a good thing he’d kept it, since his father was visiting. Dragan could stay at the bungalow, and his girlfriend could stay somewhere else. With Kerry, maybe. Or at a hotel.

Luka was at least doing a marvelous job of forming a comforting image of the woman. Being relatively imaginative, he was able to come up with a very nice picture: she’d sixty-five years old, grey...no, blue...hair up in a bun, round spectacles like all grandmothers wear, maybe one of those Butternick pattern dresses with a lace collar. Orthopedic shoes. Wrinkly, pleasant, smelling of talcum powder and Ben - Gay. Near-sighted. Hard of hearing, even. Plump and sweet and a bit giggly. Yeah, Luka could deal with that. He’d have no problem with his father dating a sweet little old lady with grown kids and a herd of grandchildren. Yes, he could deal with that.



The day had gone well. Denial is a good thing. A means of coping with what lies ahead, Luka supposed. He had woke up in denial, worked all day in denial, left work at six o’clock in denial, then headed to the airport in denial, having eaten a quiet dinner with Kerry at her house, calmly denying he was in denial. All told, it had been a very pleasant day. Denial can be a very happy drug. He didn’t like the idea of his father dating anyone, so soon after his mother had died, but if the old man needed companionship, then...okay. Some nice little old lady to take care of him in his declining years. She’d sit in the living room, knitting and forgetting the names of her grandchildren and all would be right in the world.

Kerry had opted to stay home, and he’d left her standing in her kitchen, singing along with Grace Jones, without a care in the world. Lucky girl.

The airport terminal was crowded, and it took Luka a while to pick through the teeming masses yearning to breath free (it was stifling hot at O’Hare, for some reason). Luka got past the bomb bins, watching with amusement as a pair of teenagers with noserings, eyelid rings, liprings, tongue studs and rings in God knows what other parts, being ‘wanded’ by the security guards. Luka often had nasty fantasies about getting a big magnet and scaring the hell out of people like that. It took him a while to find a seat, and he wasn’t pleased to end up seated between a behemoth of man wearing a beltbuckle you could get DSS on, and a very tiny old woman carrying a small bag which, according to Luka’s sense of smell, contained a small bottle of potent whiskey.

When he saw his father and his father’s girlfriend coming up the ramp, he wished he could have a belt of that whiskey.

The woman was younger than Luka...well, he wasn’t sure. Roughly his age, maybe...hopefully...older. She had one of those faces that didn’t show it’s age. She was tall, slim and willowy, blonde, blue-eyed, with flawless, bone-china skin. She glowed with health. She could be anywhere from twenty-five to forty but didn’t look old or young or anything in between and Luka again felt like he was going to have a stroke. She was laughing at something Dragan had said, and when she glanced up and saw Luka standing there, her smile grew even wider.

“Luka! Dragan has told me so much about you!”

She had an English accent. An Englishwoman. Oh, heavenly, Luka thought. A gold-digging Englishwoman. A kind of role-reversal version of ‘Wings of the Dove’.

Dragan made his way to his son, and the two men embraced. The older Kovac was strikingly handsome, his features not much different from Luka’s. The same high cheekbones, the same firm chin. He was tall and lean, very fit and athletic. A healthy, vigorous sixty-seven year old with silver hair. Years and loss had added a few wrinkles, and he stooped slightly, but all in all, he made a striking figure in his dark suit and long black duster coat that made him look a bit like a retired FBI agent.

A strikingly handsome man. Dating a...a...what? Forty year-old woman?

Luka’s gaze went back and forth from his father to the woman, unable to speak. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make him sound like he’d watched ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ too many times as a child.

“Luka, this is Alicia. Alicia, this is my son, Luka.”

“Uh...hello.” Luka was trying to name all seven dwarves now. Sleepy. Happy. Uh...Bob. Lunatic With A Chainsaw. Grumpy. Lispy. Droopy.

She smiled warmly, making good eye contact. Well, apparently she didn’t have any problems with her conscience, dating a man old enough to be her father. Luka hoped she didn’t know Dragan didn’t have a lot of money. Or that he was retired. A pensioner. Living in a small apartment in Zagreb. Or maybe she did know. Maybe she thought he was some kind of eccentric billionaire. Not that there were many billionaires in Croatia. Those that had hit it rich had been high-up government officials, anyway. Dragan had been a train conductor, for God’s sake...

Oh, God, I need to sit down. My head is killing me.

“Alicia speaks fluent Croatian,” Dragan said, eyes narrowing slightly at Luka. He could read the older man’s thoughts. ‘Act like an ass and you’ll buy it, boy.’

“Oh. Great. That...that’s wonderful,” Luka said. Well, at least she had scoped out the territory first, he thought sourly. He grabbed his father’s suitcase, but the old man stopped him.

“I can carry my own things. Alicia, however, could use some help.”

“Oh, Dragan, don’t be silly!” she laughed. “I don’t have many bags.”

Luka was surprised to see that she actually didn’t. Only two suitcases. No makeup cases or gigantic trunks. His gaze shifted from the suitcases to Alicia, who was watching him with interest. He had expected a cool sizing up. Instead, she was only...well, it wasn’t a flirtatious look, and it wasn’t a lusting look. It was just a look. Like she was merely curious.

“Uh...my car isn’t far away. Come on. We’ll...uh...go to my house first...uh...then we’ll have dinner somewhere, if you’d like.” He grabbed her bags just the same.

Alicia smiled and nodded. “A hot bath and a good night’s sleep would be wonderful...we ate on the plane.”

Ah, well, he thought. She’s English. Naturally, she’d think airplane food was good. Luka took his father’s bags as well and they headed outside into the hot June night.



Long ago, far away
Life was clear
Close your eyes

Remember is a place from long ago
Remember filled with everything you know
Remember when you're sad and feelin’ down
Remember turn around

Remember life is just a memory
Remember close your eyes and you can see
Remember think of all that life can be
Remember--

Dream
Love is only in a dream
Remember--
Remember life is never as it seems
Dream--

Dream
Love is only in a dream
Remember--
Remember life is never as it seems
Dream--

Long ago, far away
Life was clear
Close your eyes--


Dragan Kovac could read his son like a book. Unlike his elder son, Antin, Luka was Dragan’s emotional twin. Even more, they looked alike and behaved alike. He had done his very best to hide his relationship with Alicia from Luka as long as possible, because he knew Luka would become upset by it. And from what he could tell, Luka was upset. He had gripped the car steering wheel so hard it was a wonder parts of it weren’t coming off in his hands. His knuckles were white, and Dragan could tell Luka had one hell of a headache now. The veins on his temple were bulging a little, and he was clenching his teeth like Clint Eastwood after a bad day.

He didn’t blame Luka. But Elena had died three years ago, cancer eating at her until nothing more could be done. Saying goodbye to his wife had been the hardest thing Dragan had ever had to do, especially since he’d lost a beloved daughter-in-law and two grandchildren only a few years before. Antin was living in...where now? Brazil? Luka had been in America, living in New York at the time. But both of them had come, of course, before she died and had said their good-byes. For Antin, who hadn’t suffered the kinds of losses Luka had endured, the pain wasn’t quite so horrifying. But for Luka and for Dragan, the agony of losing Elena had been unbearable. Both men knew the pain of losing a soulmate.

Wolves mate for life, after all.

Forty happy years with Elena had passed, and Dragan had mourned his wife in a healthy manner. He had spent a year on Korcula, staying with relatives, talking openly about his wife and the happiness she’d brought him. Luka hadn’t done that, of course, when his wife had died. Of course, Elena had died in relative peace, at home in her own bed, her pain eased as much as possible by drugs. Luka’s wife had been dragged away... Dragan’s mourning had been active, and from what he could tell, relatively normal. Luka’s had been inward, and from Dragan’s point of view, not entirely healthy. It was only recently that Luka had come to terms with it all. His tears at Christmas time had been a good sign, and their conversations later had given Dragan hope that Luka was overcoming his grief and getting back into the light.

He understood why his son had withdrawn from the world for so long, and he made no judgment about it. He had merely given Luka as much support and understanding as Luka would accept. Which, for eight years, hadn’t been a lot, due to what Dragan had realized was a numbness in his son. For eight years after Jadwiga’s murder, Luka had been...what? The word wasn’t coming to Dragan. It never had. But he had changed a great deal from the charming, fun-loving young man he had known. Of course, the horrifying murders of an adored wife and beautiful children would do a lot to alter the general behavior of any man. And when it came to Luka, who was hardly just any man, the change was pretty startling.

The two men were well known for their silence. Not that they weren’t able to communicate. That was hardly the problem. Dragan and Luka were merely very quiet. In fact, they seemed to communicate best by saying very little. Luka called him regularly, and they were still very close, but Luka hadn’t returned to Croatia for the longest time, apparently believing he was doing all right.

Then, at Christmas, Luka had showed up at his door, broken, exhausted...a shell of his former self. His poor son, weeping as he told of having killed a man who’d assaulted him. Ashamed because of an empty, loveless affair with a woman he didn’t even like very much. “What happened to me?” Luka has asked him one night. “I’m not even me any more.” Thank God for that bishop, Dragan thought, looking at Luka, who was lugging suitcases up the steps to his front door. Thank God for whatever - or whoever - was making Luka look so much happier. Well, ‘happy’ wasn’t the word Dragan would use now. His son looked like he was ready to start throwing things, as he’d done (just once) as a child.

He was impressed by Luka’s home and neighborhood. His son was a success in America, just as Dragan had always envisioned. But as Luka carried the suitcases into the bungalow, Dragan noticed that he was wearing a new ring. For a while, he said nothing, waiting until Alicia retired to the guest bedroom to ‘freshen up’. Mainly, he knew the woman understand that she should get out of the way for a while.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing toward Luka’s ring.

“Uh...it’s an...an engagement ring, Papa.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and gotten that woman in trouble...that Abby woman...”

“No. Certainly not. We broke up a long time ago, Papa.”

Dragan sighed with relief. “So who are you engaged to?”

“Her name is Kerry.”

“Kerry?”

“Yes. Kerry Weaver.”

“An American?”

“Mm-mmm.”

Dragan nodded. “When am I going to meet her?”

“Tomorrow,” Luka answered. He went into the kitchen and searched in vain for the bottle of cooking sherry. God, he needed a drink right now.

“So what do you think of Alicia?”

Luka dropped a bag of flour on the flour and some of the stuff burst out in a cloud of white powder, dusting Luka’s pants legs. He sighed and brushed it off, tossed the bag back into the freezer, and made his way back into the living room.

“Uh...she’s...very...uh...young.”

“Yes. She is. And very mature.”

“How...uh...young is she?”

“Forty-three.”

Luka was sure he was having a stroke now. He ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could catch a breath.

Twenty-three years’ age difference.

God save us all, Luka thought. He sat down, struggling to find words to express how he was feeling. “Is this some kind of mid-life crisis, Papa?”

“No. If this is my mid-life crisis, I’m bound to live to a hundred-twenty or so. I love Alicia. And she loves me.”

“Really?” Luka asked, his expression skeptical. His next question would have been ‘Does she know you aren’t rich?’ but he held his tongue. He respected his father too much to ask such an insulting question. But it was still there, making a bitter taste in his mouth. What made it even more bitter was that he’d think that way. He felt ashamed of himself, but he couldn’t help feeling angry...and betrayed.

“Yes. She does. We met at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival last year, during a production of ‘Hamlet’. She was there on holiday with some friends and we started talking.”

Dragan had been sitting there, watching a young man who looked alarmingly like Luka portray the Melancholy Dane, when he’d seen the pretty blonde woman sitting not far away, looking at him. He’d found himself blushing and tongue - tied, but had approached her nonetheless, just to say hello. He’d been astounded to find that she spoke Croatian very fluently. She had smiled and laughed and the next thing Dragan had known, he’d been in love. A few weeks later, she had professed her love for him as well and...the rest was none of Luka’s business.

“Talking?” Luka swallowed. “About what, Papa? What would a forty-three year old woman have to talk about with a sixty-seven year old man?”

“That, Luka, is none of your damned business, and you will speak in a more respectful tone!”

A stony silence fell between father and son. Luka and Dragan had not fought much, even during Luka’s wilder years as a young man. But their personalities were so similar that they had clashed on occasion. Elena had compared it to watching two alpha wolves circling each other, too intelligent to fight because they knew the kind of damage they could do to each other. Luka, Elena had said, was bone and sinew, all boundless energy and beauty, while Dragan was muscle and power, quieter, more patient, not quite as beautiful but a sight to behold just the same. “My wolves,” she had called them. Antin, however, she had called “My hawk”.

Alicia came into the room, and immediately sensed the tension on the air. She swallowed nervously. “Well, I think I’ll be turning in for the night, if you two don’t mind. It was a very long flight and I’m quite exhausted.”

Luka stood up, beating his father to the punch, and nodded. “I understand. Good night.”

Dragan glowered at Luka for a moment. He kissed Alicia on the mouth, and she smiled affectionately at him. Luka winced inwardly, but averted his eyes. His father...kissing another woman! Luka made a mental note to fix a cold compress for his head tonight. And...once Dragan was asleep, a trip to the liquor store would be in order.



Luka was out of bed at six, unable to sleep anyway without Kerry beside him, and sat in the kitchen, eating Cheerios and gloomily reading the ingredients on the box. ‘Adult’ Cheerios - the type without honey and nuts and that stupid bee on the box - had only dry ingredient information on the back - the food chart, various stuff about how two bowls of Cheerios a day would help prevent heart disease and other such twaddle. The sweetened brand always had some kind of puzzle or maze Luka could figure out in three seconds. He cursed under his breath as he ate. Last night, he’d dreamed he was being chased by a blonde Englishwoman in a wedding dress.

Alicia appeared suddenly in the kitchen door. Luka’s manners, despite his misgivings about this woman, would not allow him to be rude. He stood up and nodded to her.

“Good morning,” she said with a warm smile. “I see you’re an early riser, too.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She studied him curiously for a moment, but said nothing about that. Instead, she stood for a moment, gripping the back of the chair opposite Luka.

“D’you mind if I make breakfast for Dragan and myself? I see you’ve already eaten.”

“Oh...uh...sure. There’s eggs, bacon...”

“Oh, none of that!” she laughed. “I won’t allow Dragan to touch that sort of thing. His cholesterol has been up lately.”

Luka bristled. He knew that! Of course, it didn’t help that he had forgotten, but still...

“Do you have oatmeal?”

“Yeah...yes. The instant kind.”

She nodded and set to finding the packages of Quaker Oats, pulling a bottle of milk from the ‘fridge, as well as a carton of orange juice. A few moments later, Dragan appeared in the doorway, wearing jeans and a white shirt. He, unlike his son, looked well-rested. Luka eyed him for a moment. He couldn’t help but notice that the older man did look very healthy. He’d looked healthy and fit at Christmas, too. After all, three years ago, he’d been weighed down with grief and mourning. His wife was dead. His grandchildren were dead. That kind of thing tends to make one look and feel pretty old. Luka certainly knew that. But now, his father looked...well...damn it, he looked happy.

“Breakfast is served,” Alicia said.

“I want sugar in my oatmeal,” Dragan said, sitting down opposite Luka.

“Not on your life,” she answered in a pleasant but firm tone. “But if Luka doesn’t mind, I’ll cut up some strawberries I found...”

Luka nodded absently and returned to his reading of the ingredients of Cheerios.

She set the bowl in front of Dragan, along with a glass of milk and another glass of orange juice. Dragan dutifully ate his breakfast, and Alicia cleaned up what little mess she’d managed to make. Then she sat down and ate. Luka watched them both, and the horrifying image of the two of them in bed flashed through his head. It had been horrifying enough, when as very young boy (ten or so) he’d realized that his parents had sex, and very regularly. The idea of his father having sex with someone else made Luka want to curl up under the table and suck his thumb.

Not, of course, that’d he’d say anything to his father about the nature of his relationship with Kerry. Well, Dragan wasn’t stupid, nor was he a prude. But...good God, there’s the image again!

Oh, God, I think I may go blind.

Luka rubbed his temples, wincing slightly, then turned his attention to her.

“So...uh...Alicia. I don’t think I found out what your last name was...”

“Barrington.”

“Where are you from...in England?”

“York,” she smiled at Luka. “But my family was from West Riding. Have you ever been to England?”

“Yes. A few times.”

“My husband was from Cork, Ireland. People called us ‘Corkie and Yorkie’. I should be more clear. My maiden name was Clarke...”

“Your husband?” Luka interrupted, his voice surprisingly mild. “You were married?” He was conjuring up images of divorce proceedings and lawyers and...

“Yes. Michael died six years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Damn.

She smiled at him, and continued eating her oatmeal. Dragan was silent, watching his son like a hawk, eyes narrowing every now and then, as if he were reading every thought going through Luka’s head and not liking most of them.

“Do...uh...did you have any children?”

“Yes. I have a son, Matthew, at Eton. He’s sixteen.”

Luka looked at Dragan, who nodded. He was through with his oatmeal. “Eton? That’s...uh...very impressive.”

“Yes, he’s a wonderful boy. He loves Dragan.”

Something in Luka’s chest started hurting. He wasn’t sure if it was the stroke finally hitting or if his heart had stopped. Another...another...interloper. Someone else to help erase the memory of Luka’s mother from Dragan’s mind. He stared at his father, struggling to keep himself under control. Dragan met his gaze with aggravating calm.

“So you’ve visited England with...with Alicia?” Luka asked, almost choking on every word.

“Yes,” Dragan answered.

“Wonderful!” Luka said with false cheerfulness. “Does Antin know about...about your...trips to England?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does. He and Alicia get a long very well. He visited for Easter this year.”

Luka made a mental note to pay a visit to Brazil to strangle his brother.

Alicia appeared to take no offense at Luka’s response. “Oh! Luka, I almost forgot! We brought you something from Croatia.”

Dragan looked at Alicia for a moment, and opened his mouth to stop her. She paused and stared at him for a moment. “What? Is it the wrong time?”

Oh, great. The woman is trying to buy me off with presents, Luka thought. Well, I won’t fall for it. He stood up and snatched his bowl and the box of cereal from the table. He made perhaps a little too much noise as he washed the dish and banged it into the dishwasher. When he turned around, Alicia was gone, apparently off to find the gift, and Dragan was sitting there, scowling at him.

“You. Are. Acting. Like. An. Ass,” Dragan enunciated coldly, his voice harsh, his expression the same as when Luka was a child and had done something shameful. A rare thing, actually, but it had happened enough for Luka to know that that look didn’t bode well for his general well-being.

“I’m acting like an ass, am I? Am I the one dating a woman twenty-three years my junior?”

There. It was out. Luka turned away, unable to meet his father’s gaze. He heard the scrape of the chair as Dragan stood up, and he wondered if the old man would start to belabor him with the bowl of oatmeal. But instead, Dragan stalked out of the kitchen. Alicia passed him in the living room, saw the expression on his face, and took a deep breath before going back in to speak to Luka. In her hand was a small square packet of something wrapped in brown paper. She set it on the table and cleared her throat.

“Luka?”

He turned around, after working his face into the right expression. He had to give her credit - she had not done or said an offensive thing since she’d arrived in Chicago. He owed her all proper courtesy, even though it pained him considerably to even look at her.

“Yes?”

She tapped the packet. “I found these in a box at your father’s apartment one day...I was helping him clean up to move out of the city...and knew you’d want them back. I hope you don’t mind that we made several copies from the negatives...”

Luka eyed the package as though it contained some horrible, diseased thing. But he finally gathered up his courage, grabbed it and yanked the brown paper off. What he found inside made his heart drop down to his feet.

Snapshots. A good-sized stack of them, maybe fifty or sixty. Of Jadwiga. Marko. Jasna. Other relatives that became blurry as the tears formed in Luka’s eyes. He looked at each photograph, greedily searching through them, remembering several of those moments frozen in time. Jadwiga doing a cheesecake pose in a two-piece bikini at the beach at Korcula, a sultry, sexy beauty, two pregnancies having done nothing to her slim, graceful figure. Jasna hugging her teddy bear, smiling and showing off her loose tooth (wiggling it with her tongue). He could remember her voice now, babbling in the secret language only toddlers speak. Marko, his face covered with ice cream. There was a copy of the black and white photo of Jadwiga and Jasna that Luka always carried in his wallet. He stared at it for a long time, then greedily searched for one of Marko, re-memorizing his son’s face, the reality of seeing that face again dawning on him. He would be able to look at it, whenever he wanted, from now on. It didn’t change the fact that they were dead. But they were somehow alive again for Luka.

He found one of the four of them, the photo taken by Luka’s mother. Luka in hospital scrubs and lab coat, Jadwiga in a pretty yellow shirt and jeans, Marko and Jasna standing in front of them, smiling into the sunshine. They were standing in front of a church. Luka realized, suddenly, that they had been standing in front of the church at Vukovar, in late March. A few more months, and three people in that photograph would be dead. For a long time, his gaze dwelled on their faces, wishing for the millionth time that he had never taken them there.

He looked up at Alicia for a moment, his expression one of pure delight, as if he’d discovered a buried treasure and was eager to share it with someone. All his animosity melted away, and he grinned at her...damn but that at this moment, he wanted to hug her.

Luka started to voice his thanks, but she gave him a smile that told him he didn’t have to say anything. She turned and quietly left the room, leaving him to gaze lovingly at each photograph, surrounded by memories of happier times.

Luka paused and looked up, gazing into the living room. Dragan and Alicia were standing there, holding hands in front of the fireplace, laughing and talking as if they’d known each other all their lives.

“Well,” he sighed, shaking his head wearily. “So long as I don’t have to call her ‘Mom’...”

TO BE CONTINUED...


--
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
~P.J. O'Rourke, "Parlaiment of Whores"
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
~Stephen Wright

Eclipse, all nags compared to thee
Excite contempt and laughter
There never was a horse, I do believe
So much run after.
~18th century English doggerel