Children of Forever

Duchy of Aragoni Marco I WAS sitting in my office in the new medical annex of l’Ospedale d’Aragoni, enjoying the quiet time between the departure of my last patient and the end of my working day. And I was totally engrossed with the task of working my way through a stack of paperwork—so much so that I actually jumped when my telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and heard my receptionist say, “Dr. d’Argenzio, you have visitors.” “I thought we were through with appointments for today.” “La Duchessacalled and asked if they could stop by,” she said. La Duchessareferred to Angelina, the wife of my father, il Duca d’Aragoni, and since she was one of my favorite people, I said, “Send them in.” The door opened and my half siblings, the twins Valerius and Serafina walked into my office, then carefully closed the door behind them. The twins were an extremely precocious eight going on twenty and attended the Anglican Cathedral Day School in Aragoni, as did my three sons. “Have a seat, guys,” I said. “Where’s your mother?” “She’s visiting a friend in the hospital who just had a baby,” Serafina said. “And we asked her if we could come see you,” her twin brother added. “Because we need to talk to you.” Serafina and her brother often finished each other’s sentences. “Do you mind if we switch to English?” Valerius said, speaking English. “We need the practice.” At almost nine (their August birthday was still a couple of months away), the twins didn’t closely resemble each other. Valerius looked very much like my triplets had looked at that age, and Serafina was turning into a smaller version of her mother. “Sure,” I said in English. “What did you want to talk to me about?” “We need to ask you a question, first,” Serafina said. “I’m all ears.” “Is it true that what a patient tells his doctor is confidential?” Valerius said. “Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “that’s true for adult patients, but the waters get a little muddy when the patient is a minor—the parents have a right to know things about their children’s health.” “Told you,” Serafina said, somewhat smugly. “But what if we told you something that didn’t involve our health?” Valerius said. “Would you swear to keep it secret?” “Probably,” I said “Probably?” “Valerius,” I said, “if you guys told me that you’d learned of a plot to blow up il Castello d’Aragoni, or something equally serious, I’d have to tell somebody.” “That’s what we were afraid of,” Serafina said. “Yeah, but we’ve gotta tell somebody,” Valerius said, “and who better than our brother? I’m willing to trust him.” “Oh, all right,” she said. “Me too.” “If it’ll make you feel any better,” I said, “I’ll promise that if it becomes absolutely necessary to tell someone what you’ve told me, I won’t do so until I’ve at least discussed it thoroughly with the two of you. That’s the best I can do without knowing what kind of bombshell you’re going to drop in my lap.” They sat quietly for a long minute or three, and I wondered what they were thinking about, and if they believed me when I said that I would keep their secret—if possible. “You’re wondering what we’re thinking about,” Serafina said with a smug smile on her face. “Yeah,” Valerius said, “and you’re wondering if we believe you about keeping the promise you just made us.” He was grinning. “I’m waiting,” I said. “Really?” she said, more than a bit smugly this time. “We just gave it away.” “Gave what away?” I said. “Guys, I’ve been in this office dealing with some very irritable sick people since early this morning, and some of that irritability must have rubbed off on me. Besides, I’m a little too tired to play word games right now.” “Marco,” Valerius said, suddenly totally serious, “Serafina and I can read minds.” “You’re kidding… aren’t you?” “No, Sir,” he said. “Think of something nobody else could possibly know,” Serafina said. After a long minute, I said, “Okay.” “You’re thinking about Dani,” Valerius said. “He’s standing in a doorway in your old apartment in Boston with his back to you, and he’s naked except for a pair of brand new boxer-briefs that cling to his body in all the right places—” “Whoa!” I said. “That’s enough. I’m convinced.” “Marco,” Valerius said, “is it true that we’re gonna live forever?” “Where did you hear about that?” I said. “That’s something we in the family don’t tell our children until they’re much older. And the answer to your question is, nobody knows for sure. Father has lived a very long time, as have all of his male descendants, but we don’t really know if it’s going to be ‘forever’.” Silly question,I thought. They picked it out of Father’s brain. “Papa was talking to Mama one evening,” Valerius said, “and she was thinking about it.” “Wasn’t he thinking about it too?” I said. “We don’t know,” he said. “He thinks in a language we don’t understand.” “That would probably be Etruscan,” I said, “sometimes referred to as the ‘secret language’ of our family. That tidbit of information, by the way, is something you must never tell anyone.” “If it’s the ‘secret language’ of our family, why haven’t we learned it?” Valerius said. “It’ll be part of your education in a year or so,” I said. “We didn’t start the triplets on it until a couple of years ago when they were ten. Speaking of triplets—do your little brothers have this ability?” “Yes, Sir,” Serafina said, “but they’re not as good at it as we are.” “At least not yet,” her brother said. “Of course, they’re only three.” Despite Angelina’s often-expressed desire to fill her new house with “a dozen children,” Father had persuaded her to devote her full attention to the twins for five years before she attempted to get pregnant again, and she’d reluctantly agreed. After that, their questions flew, and I fielded them as honestly as I could. Finally I said, “Okay, guys, it’s time for me to ask you a few questions.” “Okay,” they said in unison. “How long have you been able to do this mind-reading thing?” I said. “As long as we can remember,” Valerius said. “And you’ve never told anybody?” “No, Sir,” Serafina said. “Why not?” “We were afraid Papa or Mama would think we were making it up,” she said. “Yeah,” Valerius said, “and Papa would have just ordered us to stop talking nonsense.” That’s exactly what he’d have said,I thought. “What’s it like, being able to read other people’s minds?” I said. “Kind of fun sometimes,” Valerius said. “Horrible, most of the time,” Serafina said. “Horrible?” “Yes, horrible,” she said. “Most people’s thoughts aren’t very nice a lot of the time, and some of them are downright nasty.” “I’ve read a few sci-fi/fantasy novels that deal with that problem,” I said. “Usually, the characters in them learn how to shield themselves and block out unwanted thoughts. Can you do that?” “We couldn’t at first,” Valerius said, “but we finally figured out how.” “That’s pretty smart of you,” I said, “and it’s certainly the ethical thing to do. It wouldn’t be nice to go around prying into people’s minds all the time, would it?” “No, it wouldn’t,” he said. “Who else knows about this?” I said. The question produced startled looks on their faces. “Come on, guys,” I said, “what else aren’t you telling me?” “Give us a minute,” Serafina said. I was watching them carefully, and it was obvious that they’d both retreated into some inner place. When their expressions returned to normal, I said, “You were communicating with someone, weren’t you?” “Yes, Sir,” Valerius said. “Then I know who it is.” “You do?” he said. “What makes you and your siblings unique,” I said, “is that your father and mother were the first couple to produce children who have all of the special genes that they both possess, plus an additional and totally unique gene. It occurs to me, therefore, that the children of my brother Stefano and his wife Maria—Gaetano and Matteo, who are, as far as I know, the only children other than your brothers who possess those genes, must also have this new ability as well.” “I told you he was smart,” Valerius said to his sister. “You’re right, Marco,” she said. “Gaetano and Matteo are just like us.” “Anybody else?” I said. “Maybe,” Valerius said. “Maybe?” “We just don’t know what to think,” Serafina said, “and that’s the real reason we’re here.” “You don’t know what to think about what?” I said. “Every once in a while when Serafina and I are linked together… is there a better word for that?” Valerius said. “When you’re in rapport probably describes the situation better,” I said. “Yeah. Anyhow, when we’re in rapport, I guess our ability is stronger, and sometimes we hear a man calling for help.” “We’re not even sure that he’s a man,” Serafina said, “but he sounds like he’s older than we are.” “Guys, this is serious,” I said. “What have you told him about yourselves and/or your family?” “Nothing, Marco,” she said. “Nothing at all.” “How can you be sure that he hasn’t read your minds and found out things?” I said. “The connection is much too weak for that,” Valerius said. “We’ve tried to read his mind, and can’t.” “Besides,” Serafina said, “we can shield ourselves pretty good.” “Since you’ve never encountered anyone else with the ability you have,” I said, “how can you be sure of that?” “Because I’ve learned how to shield my thoughts so that Valerius can’t read them, and he can do the same thing.” “And we’ve never had an actual conversation with him,” Valerius said. “We can hear him, but we’re not certain he hears us.” “Yeah,” his sister said, “because if he does, he never replies.” “Until you told me this last bit, I was thinking that we could sit on your revelation for a while, but not anymore. If the wrong people discovered who and what we are, the entire family could be in jeopardy—and I’m talking about thousands of people.” During the twenty-four hundred or so years of his life, Father had sired some four hundred children, roughly half of whom were male, and he had thousands of descendants in Aragoni and other places around the world. “I don’t understand,” Serafina said. “Me neither,” Valerius said. “That’s why we don’t tell our children everything until they’re older and have enough experience of life to fully comprehend the dangers,” I said. “Okay, I’m gonna run through as many bad scenarios in my mind as I can—you guys tune in, please.” It didn’t take long to do that because I’d thought about worst-case scenarios many times and had discussed them with other family members. Finally, I switched mental gears and thought about other things. “How much of that did you guys understand?” I said. “Most of it, I think,” Valerius said. “Yeah,” Serafina said, “it would be bad, wouldn’t it?” “You have no idea how bad it could be,” I said, “and I just realized that I left out one thing.” “What’s that?” she said. “You were too young to know about it at the time, but some bad people tried to blow up a van with Dani and me in it six or seven years ago.” “I think we’ve heard Papa talk about it,” Valerius said, “but we didn’t pay any attention.” “To make a long story short, Dani was injured so badly that one of his kidneys was damaged beyond repair and stopped functioning, and the other kidney began to fail almost immediately.” “Did he have a transplant?” Serafina said. “Yes, he did, and that created another problem. The donor was an accident victim who, it was discovered, was a previously unknown descendant of Father’s. Six months or so after the transplant, Dani discovered that he had all the genes that I do. Not only that, the process of healing after the surgery was much more rapid than expected, and… his bad kidney started working again.” “Why is that a problem?” Valerius said. “Because, dummy,” his sister said, “if people knew about what happened to Dani, bad people would start capturing and killing us for our body parts.” “Wow!” he said. “Now do you see why we have to take this to Father?” I said. “And as soon as possible?” “Yeah,” Serafina said, “I get it.” “Me too,” Valerius said. “What will you do, Marco?” “I’ll give Father a call, and tell him that we need to have an urgent family meeting, and I’ll ask him to have Stefano and Maria present.” “And us?” Serafina said. “Of course.” “You mean it, don’t you?” Valerius said. “Valerius, I never say anything I don’t mean. If you don’t believe me, ask Dani sometime.” “Ask me what?” Dani said from the doorway. “Don’t you ever knock?” “Of course I do, except when your receptionist says, ‘Open the door and go right in, he’s not with a patient’. Hello, Valerius, Serafina. Good to see you.” “Did you want something?” I said. “Only to see if you’re ready to go home,” he said. “Why the attitude?” “Because we were having a private conversation, that’s why.” “Should I leave?” “It’s okay, Marco,” Serafina said, “I think we were through talking. Right, Valerius?” “Yeah, sure,” he said. I focused on my two half siblings and sent what I hoped was a powerful thought in their direction, {Guys,}I sent.{Can I tell Dani about this? He’ll be at the meeting anyhow.} “Sure you can, Marco,” Valerius said. “But not right now,” Serafina said. “There won’t be time, because Mama’s just down the hall.” “Come on, Dani,” I said. “Let’s go say hello to Angelina.” I ushered a visibly perplexed Dani out of my inner office, followed by the twins, and we encountered their mother as she opened the door leading into my outer office. “Hi, Angelina,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.” “Have these two been bothering you, Marco?” she said. “Not at all. We were having a most interesting conversation until Dr. Rosati interrupted us.” “That’s great,” she said, in a distracted manner that clearly indicated she hadn’t heard a word I said. “Come on, children, your father is expecting us. Say good-bye to Marco and Dani.” “Good-bye, Marco, Dani,” they said, and she led them away. “What was—” Dani started to say, but I put a finger to his lips. “When we’re home, babe, and in private.” “What—?” “Dani,” I said, “what part of ‘home’ and ‘private’ did you not understand?” “Oh, I just love it when you get all masterful with me.” I pointed down the hall and gave him the look. “I need a minute to lock the door to my inner office, and I’ll be right behind you.” “Okay, I get it,” he said. “Home.” “I knew you’d understand—eventually.” “I’ll get you for that,” he said. “You can try.” We went to the new parking garage and retrieved the car. As we headed out of the hospital complex, I said, “This place certainly has grown over the past six years.” “That’s for sure. You even got a brand-new office when the hospital built a separate annex for doctors’ offices and remodeled the old medical wing to expand its bed capacity.” “And the much longer walk from one place in the complex to another is good exercise, right?” “Gotta look at the bright side,” he said. “True.” “And all of it thanks to the new medical school at the university,” he said. “It’s kind of strange to be back in a teaching hospital after so many years.” “Carpe diem.” “What’s that got to do with anything?” he said. “When Malcolm had to call in surgeons from Switzerland to do those transplants, he seized the opportunity to get what he’d been wanting for years.” “Yeah, he did do a good job of persuading your father and the council to establish the medical school, didn’t he?” “And he was able to finally retire on a high note, having been responsible for the establishment of the teaching hospital. The only thing he wanted that he didn’t get was to have me take his place as hospital administrator.” “Yeah, but he did the next best thing,” he said, “dividing the responsibilities for the teaching hospital and the regular hospital between two guys, and giving you the tie-breaking vote when they disagreed.” “Yeah, there was that. Speaking of the council,” I said, “I have bad news.” The Duchy of Aragoni, which was a landlocked country situated on a small plateau in the Alps between Italy, France, and Switzerland, was governed by my father, il Duca d’Aragoni, and a council of twelve men. Six of the council members were his sons, and the other six members were descendants of his sons. “What?” “My time has come,” I said. “Meaning that beginning in September, you’re gonna be doing your favorite thing for the next few years—attending those long and boring meetings.” “Unfortunately,” I said. We managed to slip into the house, go up to the master suite, and change into warm-ups before our presence was detected and the boys began to clamor for our attention. My cousin Lucia, who’d been their nanny for the first eight years of their lives, had finally found an apartment that was to her liking in the old quarter of the city and given us a month’s notice. Her replacement was another young cousin of mine named Biaggio Argenti, whose job title was tutor, but who also served as a companion to the boys. Like Lucia before him, he was attending the university, and his graduation would just about coincide with the boys’ scheduled departure to boarding school next year. One of our security people picked him up at the university every day and stopped by the day school the boys attended to pick them up as well. We’d just settled down in the boys’ room when the cook s***h housekeeper announced that dinner was ready. In the dining room we sat down to our evening meal. As the boys had gotten older, Dani and I had insisted that proper decorum be observed at all meals except breakfast—it being our hope that acceptable manners would be deeply ingrained by the time they went off to boarding school. After dinner, Biaggio said, “Cousin Marco, are you and Dani home for the evening?” “Yeah,” I said. “Enjoy your freedom.” “Some freedom,” he said. “Those two summer courses are keeping me on my toes, and I’ve got to hit the books.” Much later, when we were relaxing side by side on a pair of chaise lounges on the terrace outside our bedroom, Dani said, “Okay, Conte Marco, we’re home, and in private.” He only called me by my inherited title when he was really annoyed with me, so I gave him a blow-by-blow account of the last hour of my day, beginning with my two visitors. “Holy s**t,” he said, “no wonder you didn’t want to talk about it in the car or anywhere else. Did you call the Duke yet?” “First thing in the morning. Let’s go to bed.” “Okay, you convinced me,” he said. Afterward, we lay back on the pillows and Dani rolled over onto his side, looking at me strangely. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “You think?” “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I said. “Here we are, nearly twenty-five years after we became lovers and partners, and we still turn each other on.” “That’s true,” he said, “but it wasn’t what I was thinking.” “What, then?” I said. “I just realized something.” “And….” “I think you’re going into your active period,” he said. “Really! Been keeping track, have you?” “Actually, I have.” “So when was the last time?” I said. “I’ll have to get up and go to the den for that—my notes are in my laptop. But, you made me think of that twice last night and again this morning. For that matter, you made me think of it twice the night before last, and again yesterday morning. In other words, your normally randy self has become more so over the last couple of days.” One of the unique things about Father’s male descendants was their extreme longevity. In addition, and we assumed it was Mother Nature’s way of preventing overpopulation, the males in the family suffered from a low sperm count most of the time. But every five years, our sperm counts rose to normal, and our libidos went into overdrive for roughly six months. Which was why I had triplets and Father had twins and triplets—we hadn’t been in our active periods when we’d donated sperm. Because of that, we’d both used IUI—Intrauterine Insemination—and the surrogate mother I’d hired was put on a regimen of fertility drugs prior to the procedure, as was Angelina. The same cycle held true for Angelina’s family—the females only went into monthly estrus cycles for a period of six months every five years, during which period their libidos also became hyperactive. “Really? You mean to say you marked it on your calendar last time?” “Of course,” he said. “I made some notes as soon as I was certain it had begun, and again when it had passed.” “And said nothing about it?” “It was only a year or so after my transplant surgery,” he said, “and we were very busy at the time.” “That’s true.” “You got a faraway look in your eyes all of a sudden,” he said. “Speaking of your surgery gave me a flashback to your first hospital stay—after the explosion.” “And?” he said. “You were probably too busy recovering from the attack to notice, but I had a lot of time to reflect on the fact that it was the first time in all our years together that we’d ever spent the night apart. In fact, being alone in a bed was so strange that I had a hard time sleeping.” “I didn’t have that problem,” he said. “They gave me a pill every night.” “Lucky you.” “Sarcasm noted,” he said. “Ready to have a go at it again?” “Need you ask?” Still later, having secured the house and checked on the boys, we crawled back in bed and snuggled up against each other. “Can I ask you a question?” I said between kisses. “Don’t be silly.” “Does it bother you that I’m not more verbally affectionate?” I said. “In the first place, you weren’t raised that way, and in the second place, I’ve never approved of starting the soup with who we love. If every third sentence contains the phrase ‘I love you’, it sort of robs the sentiment of meaning. You don’t have to look any further than my family to see the truth of that—every one of them will ‘I love you’ to death at the drop of a hat, and we both found out how real that was when I told them I was gay and had a boyfriend.” “No argument there,” I said. “I remember the occasion quite vividly.” His old-world and staunchly Roman Catholic family in Boston’s North End had disowned him totally on that occasion. It wasn’t until years later when he was hospitalized after the attack on us that I was able to effect a partial reconciliation by inviting his mother and grandmother to Aragoni. “In the second place,” he said, “there’s an old-but-true saying, ‘still waters run deep’. You tell me you love me at odd times, when I least expect it. That has much more impact than hourly declarations of affection.” “I can’t argue with that,” I said. “And, in the third place, I’ve never been the least bit insecure about our relationship, and after all these years… wait a minute. What brought this on?” “I was just wondering,” I said. “Wondering what?” “What people think when they see us,” I said. “Who cares? If they’re observant, they can see how we feel about each other. As for everyone else, screw them.” “I’d rather screw you,” I said, “speaking metaphorically.” “No s**t, Sherlock. You could have fooled me. Now shut up and either do something about it or go to sleep.”