By PSI322

He dreaded the feeling of wax on his hands, yet somehow, he knew he would be next. The candle passed into Jeff Andonuts' hands, bringing an uneasy feeling over him. He had the hands of a mechanic, an inventor, and he didn't like venturing into the realm of emotions. It was much easier to be stern and stoic, kind of quiet, studious, strict. Emotions were for hiding away, for holding inside, for shielding from the harsh light of outside.

But now, the light of truth shined on his hands, radiating from the candle flame, and it petrified him. "Maybe I shouldn't have..."

Welcome it, a voice said. Let it set you free...

"Welcome what?" Jeff said aloud. "Who said that?"

"Huh? Said what?" a girl asked.

"Never mind," Jeff said, shrugging it off. "I guess I have no choice but to... welcome this..." He blinked. "But keep in mind, I was never very good at telling stories, or sharing thoughts, or..."

"Just relax. Talk. We'll understand," the girl said.

I'll understand.

"Okay. I don't really know how to start, so I'll just... see where the words take me, I guess." Jeff took a long breath and began in a soft exhale.

"I've always been particularly intolerant of missed opportunity. As an inventor, a scientist, the worst thing that can happen is to have an idea slip away, a theory go untested, an experiment crumble in the planning stages. I can't stand the thought of what might have been... what could be."

"But we all do things like this every day, I guess. We shun the road less traveled, in favor of the way we've always known. We operate the same, day in, day out. We're like machines, in that way. We each have a mechanism from which it is impossible to stray. Unless we break."

"But we hate it when things get broken. What good is a pane of glass when it's all in pieces? Glass..." He stopped there, as if he'd said something wrong.

"Maybe glass isn't a good analogy. Or maybe... I don't know. Maybe there is no good analogy. Maybe the machine one is the best it can get. Mechanisms. But analogies don't matter. I guess it's time to open up."

* * * * *

"You know me as Jeff Andonuts, boy genius, zealous student and inventor. You probably just think of me as Jeff. My home is Snow Wood Boarding School, in the north of Winters. My family consists of the students and teachers there."

"A few of you might think of even more details. You might say that I must be originally from the south of Winters, that I am the son of Dr. Arthur Andonuts, the famous scientist."

"How often do I see him? And how many lonely years were spent..." Jeff was blinking now, more and more rapidly. "I had a real family once, when I was very young, but that ended for me. And I had an origin once... a mother."

A hush fell over the already thick silence. It was as if the idea had never crossed anyone's mind before, that Jeff had a father but no mother.

The flame flickered as Jeff released a sigh. "Let me begin at the beginning."

"The beginning," Jeff started, "is something that I've only read about. My birth, in the maternity ward of Sun Hospital in Summers. In an old journal of my father's, he wrote: Today, we have a son. His name is Jeffrey Michael, and he has Dotty's blond hair and green eyes... what a joy! If only Dotty would smile..."

"My own mother couldn't smile for me. She was sick, battling an intense depression... she'd been in the process of filing for a divorce from my father when she learned that I was on the way. And then she couldn't leave him, but I gather it made her miserable to stay." Jeff frowned. "My dad's like me. Silent, and scientific. He's not an emotional character. He's like stone. I guess I don't really blame her for wanting to leave..."

"She tried to be happy, to enjoy being three together instead of her off and alone, but..." Jeff's glasses were misty, just thinking about it. He kept reaching for something in his jacket pocket, coming up empty. "She and my dad had their differences. Too many differences. But they had to work together, to take care of me..."

There was a silence as Jeff stared down at his hands, at the paleness of his skin, the fine blond hairs on the backs of his arms. He looked either fascinated, or despairing. Or both.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but... what happened?" The girl's voice was full of curiosity.

Reaching into his pocket, Jeff removed a small slip of folded paper. Ironing out each crease, he began to read.

"Dear Art,
I'm sorry. For promising I would stay. You know I can't. I wouldn't have, if it weren't for Jeffrey. But now I have to go. You know how to make his bottles and change his diapers. Wash his blankets often. And give him toys. That's what I liked about growing up in Summers, all the toy stores. Teach him to love art and music and poetry, not just science and statistics. And when he's old enough to understand, tell him that I love him.
Always,
Dorothy

"She left it pinned to my crib one night. She was gone by morning. I was six months old." His stare was looking decidedly Jeff-like, deep and serious. His eyes were like ice.

Jeff closed his eyes, remembering his first night away from home. He was five, a kindergartener, living and learning at an exclusive boarding school for small children in Summers. He shared a room with three other boys, whose names he still could recall: Jack, Robby, and Tyler. A teacher slept in a room across the hall, to make the kids feel safe. Jeff had mostly felt alone, even with the other boys around, as he shivered under his one blanket. The sky was a deep, dark sea without stars, and Jeff wanted his daddy. He had felt scared... but the fear had worn away. He had to get over his fear.

"My dad sent me away to a boarding school at age five," he said, summarizing his thoughts. "He couldn't bear having me any longer, because I reminded him so much of my mother. Fair and green-eyed."

"I stayed there through sixth grade, and then I got a notice one day that my dad had requested a transfer for me, to Snow Wood. My immediate thought was that he wanted to see me again, but that hope soon dwindled as I realized things were exactly the same in Winters."

He could picture it, coming back to Winters again... coming home. It had been seven years since he'd been there, in the land of snow and ice, and it was so faint in his memory, so distant, that he could barely recall the early years of his childhood there. In those days, his time had been spent in his father's lab, watching him work. He had a little chalkboard and four different colors of chalk -- blue, purple, pink, and the traditional yellow-white -- and he passed his hours drawing and designing new inventions, just like his father. He taught Jeff about his tools, and would let him play assistant, bringing him his slide rule or a pair of pliers. Dr. Andonuts wasn't the outdoors type, and he seldom brought his son outside.

Jeff stopped trying to censor himself and let the words spill from his lips. How awe-inspiring the sight of snow had been, that first time, and always. The way the moon shined silver on the fresh snow, the night he arrived from Summers. A clean, heavenly scent that seemed to fill the air -- pine trees and ice and chicken soup cooking at the Tessie Watchers' Club, all combined into one fine perfume, a sweet aroma. How his eyes must have shined, looking out on that Winters night, a boy of twelve, without glasses, peering down from his new dormitory room! Life in Summers had always felt so ordinary and artificial, and all at once, Jeff knew he was a Winters boy at heart.

"Looking out across the lake was painful. I pulled up a map of Winters on my computer and found my dad's lab, way in the south, and I knew that he was over there somewhere, that he was so nearby, and yet he hadn't gotten in touch with me. I wondered if he was okay, if he was still alive. I hadn't heard from him during the seven years I'd been schooled in Summers. I spent my breaks with babysitters and teachers, getting ahead in my lessons. My father could have summoned me to come home, but he didn't."

"My new roommate, Tony, always asked me why I looked so sad, peering out at Lake Tess. He said I looked like I had lost something over there, and thought I'd never find it again. I didn't want to tell him the truth. I had lost something across the lake, my home, my childhood, my family, but I couldn't admit it to anyone. Thinking about it made me feel sick and lonely and unwanted. I didn't even know my dad's phone number. I felt orphaned."

"And he never called you?" a girl's voice interrupted him.

Jeff shook his head slowly, a heavy motion, as if it was difficult to do. "Not once. I lived my life at that school, day in, day out. A lot of the other boys went home for breaks, but I was one of the few who stayed. Maxwell was always there, and Tony didn't go home much, so it wasn't like I was alone. But I was alone. I knew I had no family, and that was a terrible feeling."

"A short time after my arrival at Snow Wood, a package arrived for me. I was so excited to open it, recognizing the handwriting of the address as my father's. Mr. Jeffrey M. Andonuts. Reading my own name generated feelings of happiness and emptiness at the same time. For although it clearly showed someone had focused their attention on me, at least for the few seconds it had taken to write it, my name felt meaningless. I was an Andonuts. But who was that? What did it mean? I hadn't seen my father since I was five, and my..."

Jeff removed his glasses, dabbing at the corners of his eyes. "I didn't have a mother. Some people did, maybe most people, but I just didn't, by luck of the draw. Bad luck."

"I opened the package anxiously. I remember, I was on my bed, tearing open the brown paper as fast as I could. Tony wasn't there. The only sound was the paper tearing in my hands, until finally I unwrapped it completely. It was a shoebox, battered cardboard with a dented lid, but it smelled like home. I lifted the lid to my face and inhaled. It was the scent of my father's lab, the scent of a chalkboard and toys, the scent of my youth."

The contents had been carefully wrapped in white tissue paper and laid inside a lining of old newspaper. In memory, Jeff saw himself sifting through the paper, searching for a card, a note, but there was none.

"I was disappointed not to have a note from my father. But that feeling faded as I began to unwrap the contents of the box."

Jeff had smiled at the objects as he removed each one: some pictures he'd drawn with crayon and colored pencil on faded construction paper, a colorful cap he must have worn as a toddler, a tiny blue toy puppy that he'd carried with him everywhere up until just before he left for school in Summers. The last item, however, just made his mouth hang open in surprise.

"It felt brittle like old paper, but as I lifted it from the tissue paper, I knew what it was. A photograph." Jeff paused, taking a slow breath. "An old photograph of three people. The man wore a long coat and had a dark mustache, and the woman was beautiful. Long, yellow-blond hair and eyes that sparkled, though her smile looked a little forced." Jeff could tell she'd been trying extra hard for the camera. "A baby was cradled in her arms, wrapped in a blue blanket, showing a few wisps of golden hair on his head. It took a second to realize that the baby was me."

"Almost immediately, my attention turned back to my father. He looked so young, frozen in time, and I wondered what he looked like now, if he'd grown old with the passing years. Then I looked back at the mysterious woman, her beauty unmistakable, her eyes trying, her lips not trying hard enough. And I knew who she was."

Jeff had flipped the photograph over, glancing at his father's words written in faint blue ink: Art and Dotty with Jeffrey, aged 6 mos. He saw another slip of paper underneath the spot where the photograph had been, and removed it as well. It was the note that mysterious woman had left on his crib so many long years ago.

"My mother. For the first time in my life, hard evidence that I'd had a mother once. That this woman had once called me her son. It was a strange feeling, like knowing I was real for the very first time." He repeated the word. "Real. Validated. I don't know why. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. I was still the same Jeff, sitting by myself in my room at Snow Wood, but something was different. Something important. Something real."

"But nothing changed right then. Nothing changes quickly, except when you don't want it to. I wanted to be part of a family right then and there, but I still wasn't, and I cried myself to sleep that night, realizing it in full."

He was pausing, dropping his head down, avoiding eye contact with the group gathered with him. "I must sound like such a crybaby."

"Aww, don't think that... it must have been hard for you." The girl was speaking again, a kind and understanding tone to her voice, and Jeff was thinking that he should meet her once this whole therapy thing was over and done with.

"Yeah, it was. And it is." His words sounded hollow, despite a small smile, which he mustered just thinking of the girl's understanding voice. "Very hard. I wanted to talk to my father, but I didn't know how to reach him. I was new to Winters and didn't even know how to get a ferry to the other side of Lake Tess, and even then, what would I do? Just show up at the lab and say hello? Would he even recognize me? I had so many questions, and no one to answer them. I still felt lonely."

Jeff removed something else from his jacket pocket, something he'd been fiddling with for quite some time now. It was an old photograph, the colors fading, the corners aged, but the subjects unmistakable. The Andonuts family. The proud parents holding little Jeffrey Michael, six months old. He stared at it, smoothing a finger over his own face, the baby's.

"It was late that winter, a few months before I met up with Ness and Paula in Threed, some time before I saw my father for the first time in eight years, when it came. I had spent the whole fall semester wondering about my origins, my family, and now, there it was, staring me in the face, begging to be opened. It was a letter, but it was far from just ordinary mail."

"The envelope was milky white, the address printed freely in dark blue ink. Mr. Jeffrey M. Andonuts. My name again. It reminded me of my dad, the way he'd addressed the package I'd received months before. But this wasn't his writing. His printing was sloppy, and this looked fairly neat, just... free-spirited, casual, somehow."

Jeff was seeing it in his mind as he told it. He flipped the envelope over, started picking at the sealed flap, when he noticed the semblance of a return address smudged along the top edge. Ms. Dorothy A. Lyons. His heart jumped at the sight of the name Dorothy; since October, he'd associated that name only with the mysterious woman whom he knew was his mother. He read on. The address had been marred by a dampness on the upper edge of the envelope, but he could make out the word Summers somewhere in there. Did he know any Dorothys, from his school days there?

Tearing opening the envelope, the letter had fallen out on his lap, face-down. He rushed to flip the paper, and started to read:

Dear Jeffrey,
Hello, darling. I'm someone who you've never met... there has to be a good way to start this, but I just can't think of one. Maybe... no. I just can't... so forgive me if this sounds less than perfect.
I don't know how much your father, Dr. Arthur Andonuts, has told you about your past, your origins, and your life. Lord knows I haven't been there, although maybe I should have. I'm sorry, Jeffrey, I'm so sorry, you don't have any idea. I never meant to hurt you, but I'm sure I have. What kind of mother am I...

Mother. She said, What kind of mother am I... Jeff felt like there were butterflies in his stomach, all fluttering around all at once, and he had to reread the phrase over nearly ten times to comprehend it. What kind of mother... The word was there, sitting right in front of him. Mine. My mother. He continued, his heart racing.

Maybe it's best if I just come out and say it. I'm... your mother, Jeffrey. And I'm sorry... at the time I left, you were so young, my adorable angel, and I had to leave, but I didn't want to leave you... I had to leave. And I left you behind with Art, your dad.
I'm not going to try and make excuses for myself, but Jeffrey... honey, I was sick. I've battled with depression for most of my life, since adolescence, and I couldn't take life anymore. I had to get away, get away from everybody, and your father and I were fighting so much that I just wanted to get away from him...
Then I found out that I was going to have you. And I couldn't leave then. I decided I'd be brave and stay, and we'd have a little family, the three of us, settled down in the south of Winters where your father's lab was just being completed, snuggled up by the fire on cold nights... but I couldn't do it, Jeffrey. I was too weak, and I wanted to escape. I left when you were about six months old, in the middle of the night. I kissed you goodbye, while you were sleeping, and believe me, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life, leaving you behind, my son. I dashed off a note to Art and then I was gone.
You're probably angry at me. I can understand if you are. I started a new life, living alone in a little apartment in Summers, where I could focus on my work. I used to draw and write poetry when I was young and naive, but now I make crafts out of far harder materials than ink and words: I'm in the stained glass business. I guess you could call me a sculptor or a decorator or a sort of painter, a craftswoman, many things. Making stained glass windows is my life. But I wish I could add a little something to it.

Jeff held his breath as he started the last paragraph. Would she say the same thing he was thinking right this second?

I want to see you, Jeffrey. I want to meet you again, and see you looking all grown up. I want to see what a handsome young man you've become, see if your hair is still that fine gold like it was when you were an infant. I want to know you, and know all about you, and be the mother I couldn't be when you were younger. It's completely your decision, Jeffrey, and I want you to think about it before you choose. If it's something you'd like to do too, send a reply. My address is written below, just in case it's not quite clear enough on the envelope.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you, hopefully. I love you, Jeffrey.
Love,
Mom

"I felt something in that moment that I'd never felt before. I was ecstatic, overjoyed, I finally felt loved! My mother wanted to see me. I had a mother. Love, Mom, she had written. My mom! I was already ransacking my desk, looking for paper and a pen so I could start a letter to her."

"But then I stopped. Something came over me, a sick feeling, and I froze in my tracks. Here was this woman, my mother, who'd stepped out of my life, left me miserable all those years, left me in my dad's care, when his idea of care was to send me away and never see me again! I thought of all the nights I'd cried, and the days, the long summer breaks, my silence, the coldness I'd developed, the shell that only weakened when I'd cry. I thought of the tears, and the pain, and those nights looking across Lake Tess, and the photograph, and all the wondering I'd done..." Jeff stopped to breathe. "And a voice inside me said no. No, this is not okay with me. No, you've hurt me more than I could ever forgive. No, I don't need this part of my life that I never knew anyway. I don't need this. I won't give in. I won't. Just like that. And my heart was aching, and so was my head..."

"So I never replied. I stuffed her letter into the shoebox my dad had sent me and shoved the whole mess underneath my bed, behind some things I never used, so I'd never have to look at it again, or at least not for a long time. I wanted to forget, to forget I'd ever had a family at all, that my mom had written me a letter, that my father was in his lab on the other side of the lake. Solitude would be my way of life. I'd always relied on myself alone, and that's how things were going to stay."

"Oh, Jeff..." came a sad voice from the crowd.

"Jeff, is that what you really..."

"What I really wanted?" Jeff finished. "Was it what I really wanted? Was it? I thought it was. I really did. I wanted to shut the world out, live in my dormitory room forever, be a scientist, a teacher at Snow Wood, and never leave. I wanted to be left alone... but what I failed to realize was that all I'd needed all my life was to be part of something. Anything, something. Becoming a Chosen One made me realize that." He smiled, thinking of his commrades in battle. "But I know I've hurt my mother by not answering, by refusing to meet with her, and I don't think I could ever go back and fix things. I made my choice, and to this day, I'm still haunted by this photograph I have, by the image of her face."

Jeff was teary-eyed now, and sniffling, and looking as weak as anyone had ever known him. No one had ever seen such a display of emotion from Jeff before. He had always been so stone-like, immovable, silent and cautious, shy, that no one had ever known his secrets, not until now.

"Jeff," the female voice said again, "you should go see her."

"You should. You sound like you really want to," a boy chimed in, "and you can."

Jeff shook his head. "No, no, I can't," he said miserably. "The time for that has passed. A missed opportunity. The biggest one of my life."

"But you have control of your life, and what happens to you," the girl said. "And you can change it."

"What worries you most?" the boy asked.

Jeff sighed. "That she won't forgive me, or that I won't accept her, or that she won't like me, or..."

"You worry too much." He knew it was true. "A mother's love is unconditional, and it sounds to me as though she'd really love more than anything to meet you."

"Really?" Jeff said, thinking it over.

"Really."

Jeff rose, carefully placing the papers and the photograph back in his pocket. "I have to go," he said, sounding sure of himself for once. "I have to fix things. I have to take back that opportunity." A smile, and he was off.

* * * * *

It was late when he found himself standing in front of number 305, Ocean View Apartments in Summers. There was a callbox outside, but rather than use it, Jeff had snuck in behind an unsuspecting tenant and raced up the stairs, letter in hand. He kept rereading the address, afraid that he would knock on the wrong door, sure of himself and unsure of himself all at once. He had to knock sooner or later, though. This was what he'd come here for. To reclaim a missed opportunity.

Slowly, a little cautiously, he knocked on the door. He made the knock firmer as he went along. Three good knocks, and then he stopped to listen.

"Hello?" came a voice from inside. "Did somebody knock?" Jeff didn't blame her for being surprised. It was awfully late for visitors.

"Umm, yeah. Yes." Jeff realized his hands were shaking as he heard footsteps coming towards the door. He saw the knob begin to turn, and then the door opened.

The woman standing there was of average height, not much taller than Jeff, and had a slim figure. She looked like an artist: long, yellow-blond hair pulled into a loose ponytail, a white blouse and faded blue jeans, and sandals on her feet. Jeff pictured her getting older, but always dressing the same. He was willing to bet her style hadn't changed in fifteen or twenty years.

"Hi there," she said sweetly. "Can I help you with something?" She appeared confused, but remained pleasant as she looked the boy over.

"I was hoping you'd help me," Jeff said nervously, unable to believe that this woman in front of him was his mother.

"Help you with what?" she asked, still looking puzzled.

"May I come inside?" Jeff stammered.

"Umm, sure, why not? I'll try as best I can, but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help..." She caught sight of the letter Jeff held in his hands as he walked into her apartment, and wondered what it was. His hands were turned in such a way that they shielded it from her.

Jeff looked around the room in wonder. It looked very artsy, with a casual, homey decor, and he smiled. In one corner, he spied a desk on which a magnificent iron sculpture was propped up. It was a pattern, some kind of window design, and in between each opening in the iron, she had been filling in with a splendid piece of colored glass. The reds, greens, blues, and purples were deep and vibrant, simply beautiful, and Jeff couldn't help but comment.

"It's magnificent," he said, pointing at the unfinished window, colored glass with black iron laced through it.

"Well, thank you. I thought it was turning out to be one of my best pieces myself." She stopped to pick up a few pieces of green and blue glass that she'd left on an endtable and replace them on the desk where she had been working. "Now, what kind of help do you need, young man?"

As Jeff turned around to face her, she glimpsed the letter again, noting the familiarity of the blue ink. She squinted, trying to read some of the words. Dear Jeffrey, Hello, darling. I'm someone who you've never met...

She inhaled sharply as her lips drew themselves into a look of surprise. "Jeffrey?"

Jeff blinked at the sound of his name, then looked up into the woman's eyes. They glimmered bright green in the soft light. "Mom," he said carefully, confidently, addressing someone by that name for the first time in his life. My mom.

Now she blinked, and tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. "Jeffrey! Oh my God, my Jeffrey Michael!" She rushed to him, setting the glass down on a sofa, catching him in her arms in what would be the first of many hugs. "Jeffrey, honey, I'm so sorry... I can't believe it's you..."

Jeff's eyes were closed, so he could keep from crying too much. "Oh Mom, I never thought a day would come when I'd have someone to call Mom, but I'm so glad..." He paused to think. Everything in his brain was whirling around so fast, he could barely find words. "I'm sorry I waited so long..."

She spoke the exact same words at the same time. "I'm sorry I waited so long... all those years, Jeffrey, and I never stopped thinking of you, my little baby boy... now you're all grown up. You must be about thirteen."

They had stopped hugging now, and stepped back. "Right," Jeff said with a grin, his hands still shaking. "Mom, I wanted to get in touch when you wrote to me... you have no idea how happy it made me... but I didn't, because I was scared, and hurt."

"I understand..."

"And then by the time I realized that I really wanted to find you, I was afraid that I'd hurt you. I knew I'd tried to make myself so emotionless, like a machine, and I didn't want to break down from how I'd always been, but it was so hard to fight the feelings..."

"Welcome those feelings, and those dreams, Jeffrey. Let them set you free... don't be afraid to be open." She paused to look at her son again. "I'm just so glad you're here..."

Jeff turned towards the desk, admiring her work. "It's so amazing, your stained glass. Where do you get the glass from?"

"I have friends on the lookout for broken glass that looks about the right size constantly." She grinned. "I like rescuing lost, broken glass, giving it a home in my windows." She squeezed Jeff's hand and smiled.

"Wow," Jeff commented, eyeing the brilliant reds and purples once more. "I never knew that something that was broken could be so beautiful." He squeezed back, and she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

"I love you, Jeffrey."

"I love you, Mom."

—The Candle: Stories of Confession