Loglet plus Lorna and Haller

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Wednesday: Lorna stays in California an extra day to visit old friends and hang out with her parents.

Thursday: Lorna makes dinner and talks to Haller about things she's learned.




The old, tired flash and glitz of Hollywood gave way to genteel neighbourhoods and mansions tucked behind ivy-covered gates and rows of shielding trees. From noise and bustle to serene silence, then from silence back to noise, Lorna navigated out of Hollywood and onto the freeway. Despite the madness of merging, lane changing and being sworn at, it made her smile. No matter how many years she spent elsewhere, she was really a Cali girl at heart.

Getting to her parent's house required close attention to the directions. They'd moved again, the second time in four years. Janice had decided that her passion was redecorating and remodelling and found a 'fix 'er upper' for a good price--for California. The new house sat on nearly two acres and rambled with a six bedrooms. More than half of it swarmed with work crews, bring the house up to date.

Driving up the long driveway was a little surreal. Nothing at all like coming home. Lorna parked on the side of the house, pulling in next to a snazzy silver Jag that she recognized instantly. A moment later, her door was pulled open and the Jag's owner bent down to over his hand, a slick grin on his tanned face. "Mr. Cates!" she exclaimed delightedly and let him help her out of the car.

He tugged her immediately into a hug, "My little Lori. You've got great timing as always, kiddo. You're looking good--a little thin, don't they feed you in New York?"

She hugged him back, tight with her good arm, less so with her still sore bad one. "What are you doing here? I called Mom an hour ago and she never even mentioned your name!" Her parents' lawyer was practically an uncle, so often had he been around while she was growing up. She was pretty sure that he'd made more of her school events than her dad had.

The tall, silver-haired man ruffled her hair like she was no more than ten, "Just dropped by to get your parents to John Hancock their wills. Gotta keep up on their wild and crazy lives, you know. Buying houses and the like. By the way, kiddo, make sure they show you this one. Your sister got shuffled out so you're the new primary beneficiary."

Lorna chuckled, "Yeah right, she's out and my brother's back in right? That jerk always gets the best stuff." Imaginary siblings were par for the course with Mr. Cates. At least this time he wasn't trying to tell her that they were selling her car to pay his retainer. That had been his joke on graduation.

But though he smiled, Cates didn't laugh. "Go talk to your parents, Lori. It's good to see you." He gave her a kiss on the forehead and walked away, jingling his keys in his pocket.

Lorna frowned after him, puzzling over his strange reaction then slowly turned and walked to the front door, letting herself in. Her low heels made no sound on the scraps of carpet hastily thrown down over the not yet set tiles. "Mom?" Lorna called into the mostly quiet house.

Her father appeared instead, still dressed in his tennis outfit. "Hey, sweetie!"

"Hey Daddy," Lorna hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek, "I just saw Mr. Cates leaving. Do I have a sister?"

Paul stared at her for a long time, his stunned expression an answer all on its own, then he sighed. "Kermie, I think we'd better get your mom. We should talk."

*********

"Zala. Her name is Zala." Lorna frowned meditatively as she shredded lettuce, ripping apart each leaf with frightful meticulousness. "She's their real daughter...well, you know, their biological daughter. Not adopted. And she babysat me when I was little."

The salad was dumped into a bowl to be washed and dried. "She left. Dropped out of school and ran. They sent her money for years, let her keep their credit cards. She'd just call up and demand things. A couple of years ago...four, four years ago, they told her no more. And they haven't heard from her since. This year...they gave up. And they decided to take her out of their wills."

Lorna thought she was doing a remarkable job of staying calm. Granted it had taken 24 hours of shrieking at Jamie and Alison to get there but she thought it was impressive nonetheless.

Jim winced from his place at the counter of the kitchenette. Lorna's voice may have been level, but she was moving with the carefully controlled tranquility that meant she was trying her best to make appearance personal reality. When Lorna had returned from California Jim had thought for sure the raid on the strip club exploiting under-aged mutants would be at the top of the week's traumatic encounters. So much for that.

"Lorna, that's . . ." her friend began, not sure where to go with the statement. This is big, Jim thought, and Cyndi concurred. This is really big. She's freaked out. Say something supportive. "Wow," came out. Jim fought the urge to bang his head against the countertop on the grounds that it would be even more disruptive than what Lorna was already dealing with. Argh. You're no help! Oh come on, what are you supposed to say to that? Like really!

Jim turned his thoughts away from the unhelpful voice in his head and to a statement that was more relevant. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Lorna nodded and pulled some thawed chicken out of the refrigerator, laying it carefully on the cutting board and covering it with waxed paper before pounding it flat with a mallet and just slightly more force than was strictly necessary. "Yes. It was just really shocking. I mean, I have a sister. Cousin. Whatever. Even if she does hate me."

Jim frowned. With Lorna's conversation-pace sometimes steps got skipped. "Hate? Wait, how did we get from babysitting to hate?"

Lorna waved the mallet, "That's why she left. Me. Mom and Dad adopted me. They didn't say that. They were all 'oh, she was a troubled girl' and 'it was a difficult time, after my sister'--that's Daddy's sister, my bio-mom--" Lorna interjected helpfully, "'after my sister died.' But really what it boils down to is she hated me, hated them and still hates us all."

It was probably a testament to their friendship that it didn't even occur to him that maybe an emotionally unstable woman waving a meat-tenderizer was something to worry about. "But how do you know?" Jim asked her, raising a questioning eyebrow. "I mean, she might, it happens. But it sounds like she had a lot to deal with back then. That would mess anyone up, for a while" totally unlike this "but things change. That was a long time ago. I guess your parents haven't talked to her for a while, either? And you never, really."

"Yeah, no, but what am I supposed to do? Hunt her down and have a long-lost family reunion? If she didn't hate me, she'd have--oh, I don't know--acknowledged my existence in the past two decades? Parachute pants were in style the last time she saw me and it isn't like she didn't know where to find me." The chicken - appropriately flattened - went into an eggwash then was coated with a bread crumb mixture and set into a frying pan. "Do you like capers?"

"I think so. They're pickled, right?" Jim studied her back as she unscrewed the lid of the jar. "The thing is, she hasn't talked to you. Met you, I mean. Maybe she doesn't like what you represented, but she doesn't actually hate you. She doesn't know you. That's a little different."

"Yeah, they are." She shrugged stiffly and added lemon slices to the chicken, spraying juice over it liberally. "She didn't bother to get to know me either. She knew where we lived, it was her choice to not know me. Just like it was my parents' to not tell me. Whatever, you know? That's not part of my life and it's not like she's really my sister. She's my cousin."

Jim looked at her for a long moment. In reality, he was counting to ten. Slowly. Cyndi sputtered. Did she seriously just suggest voluntarily cutting off contact with a family member? To Jimmy? Whoaaa, back away, lady . . .

"Okay," Jim said quietly, carefully setting aside the urge to snap at her. "Let's think about it for a minute. If you never pursue this, are you really going to be okay with that?" The implied answer was 'I really doubt you'll be okay with that.'

Lorna's movements when she cooked were always efficient and professional. If they were unduly sharp at the moment, well, that was just the speed she was moving. Not at all because she was nearly shaking with tension nor because her head was starting to pound from the way her jaw clenched. "I've already had to accept that I'll never know my real parents. I've had to face a man who claimed that he was father, lying to me because...god only knows. He thought it would earn my loyalty. And now I have a sister. Am I supposed to be overjoyed?" She turned to face him, expression hard, the only way she could even begin to deal with this. "Should I run right out and go find her? She left first!"

Unbidden, guilt tugged two phone numbers to the top of Jim's mind, side by side. One as recent as the last few months, one so old he didn't even know if it was still functional. Numbers he should call, and knew he wouldn't. Who are you to talk about reaching out?

Well, watch me.

"She did leave first," Jim conceded, taking a deep breath. "That was her choice. But this is yours. You'll never know your real parents. Do you really want one more big unknown hanging over your life? I'm not saying you should run right out, but . . . do you want to cut her out? Just like that, sight unseen, without even trying?" Jim folded his hands on the countertop, fingering the old scars. "Family's worth fighting for," he murmured. "You should. If you have it."

Lorna made a face and turned back to take care of the chicken, setting it on a plate and turning the heat down low to deglaze the pan. "She's not family that I ever knew I had. If Mr. Cates hadn't told me, I still wouldn't know." White wine splashed into the pan a little carelessly then Lorna shrugged and poured a glass for herself as well. Not like this day was going to get any better. "What am I supposed to do? Hire a private eye to track her down? She could be anywhere, it's been years."

Jim frowned again, but said nothing about the wine. He was already being a flaming hypocrite for the purposes of this conversation. Bring on the unhealthy coping mechanisms. "Uh, is there a reason why you couldn't? A private investigator isn't exactly an intelligence network, but normal people have been finding things out for years just fine. And family's still family. You can't judge a connection you've never even tried to make."

Lorna sipped the wine and stirred the sauce. "I...no. But it just seems rude, going out, disturbing her life when she's gone to all this trouble to stay out of mine." She added capers to the sauce. "I just...I don't want to find her and have her hate me. It's bad enough to know she blamed me then."

"Yeah. That's a risk. But do you know she would? It's lonely, cutting off all ties. Maybe she'd be glad to hear from you. It's hard to make the first move after so long. Harder if the other party doesn't know you exist. Then it's all on you." Jim lay his hands palms-down on the counter, mismatched eyes fixed on them. "I'm not saying just go out and contact her, but . . . you're not losing anything if you just check up on her. That's not a commitment. I just think it'd be good if you kept that in mind."

She served him the chicken along with some rice, and a salad. The sauce was in a small ceramic carafe. Lorna sipped her wine, using it to avoid having to answer right away, trying to analyze why exactly the idea filled her with such panic and dread. "What if she doesn't want to know me? What if that's why she never bothered?"

"Then that will suck, and you can hit me," Jim said softly, accepting the plate. It smelled good. Everything Lorna cooked smelled good. "You can hit me a lot. But what if you can change her mind?"

"Then I get knocked out of the top spot in the will and I'll be poor and penniless and I'll have to sleep on your couch for the rest of eternity." It was a good flippant answer, the kind that meant they were done talking about this for now and that he should eat because it would make her feel better. "You really don't want that, do you?"

"I don't know, the live-in chef aspect might be nice. I'd have to actually find the couch again but at least I'd get food." Yeah, conversation over. Jim understood. He'd said what he could; what Lorna did now was up to her. For the time being, set it aside. Jim smiled at her and took up the proffered knife and fork. "Bon appetite," he mangled horribly and without shame.

Lorna smiled at the bad French and poured herself more wine. "Bon appetit."