The Half Life of Dragons—Chapter 19

by Sonja Hakala

As we head into the final chapters of The Half Life of Dragons, there are so many questions still to be answered. Who is Suzanna’s biological father? Will Allison finally sit down to talk with her father? Who was using the Calliope house to ship fake Timmen Eldritch paintings around the world? And finally, is Eldritch dead or alive?

This chapter has a lot of those answers. And we will wrap it up in mid-September so be sure to come back to Carding, Vermont.

Oh, and if you need a catch-up, just click this link and it will bring you to the right place.

Thanks for stopping by. ~ Sonja Hakala

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“How long have you known that Mom had early onset Alzheimers?” Allison asked as Paula pressed tissues into her hands.

“Paula found the papers just after the first of the year in a box in the closet where we store winter stuff over the summer,” Robert said. “You’ll notice there’s no top sheet, nothing with a name on it so we weren’t sure what we had found at first. And with all those medical terms, we didn’t understand what it meant.”

“So what did you do? How did you go about looking?” Allison’s cheeks were now wet with soundless tears. When Paula handed her more tissues to stem the flow, Allison squeezed her hand. The two women looked at one another, and in that instant, Paula saw the frightened teenage girl who’d left Carding twenty years ago believing she was responsible for her mother’s death.

“The first thing we did was find someone in the medical profession to translate that language into understandable English,” Paula said. “It was Sarah Goodwin, Ruth Goodwin’s daughter. She’s a nurse, and she knew right away what all of that meant. Do you remember her, Allie?”

“Yeah, I do. She showed up at the farm once, on a dare from Smugs Gallagher, I think.” Allison hesitated. “You should know that Smugs is a loathsome excuse for a human being, and if Ollie hadn’t walked into the kitchen when he did…” She looked at Paula. “He was so awful to her. Ollie told me that Sarah’s parents showed up later on, and tore the farmhouse apart looking for Smugs. I’ve always wished they had found him.”

“Who’s Ollie?” Robert asked as he reached out for Allison’s hand.

“Oliver Quigley. He was the drummer for Calliope,” Allison said. She struggled to swallow. “Paula, could I have some water?”

“Of course.” As Paula left for the kitchen, she turned just in time to see Allison and Robert reach out for one another. “So much sadness,” she whispered, shaking her head. “And so much healing to be done.”

——————-

Nicholas made sure the door was firmly closed behind him before he sat at his desk. “Look, I know this sounds wrong but can I ask you for some identification? There are way too many clowns and idiots in the Calliope crowd so I need to be careful.”

“I understand,” Ted said. “Many of them are in Carding this week. We’re drowning in vermin.” He pulled out his wallet while Suzanna fished around in her bag until she found her library card, and the letter she’d received from Black Mountain detailing the weekend’s slalom events.

“Thank you,” Nicholas said as he returned Ted’s license. Then he opened Suzanna’s letter. “Wow, slalom eh? I ski but I don’t think I could ever do that. You must be pretty good if you got invited to Black Mountain.”

“She is good,” Ted said with obvious pride. “She’s among the top three in New England right now.”

“And Uncle Ted is the one who taught me how to ski.”

Nicholas nodded as he handed back Suzanna’s papers. “Sorry I’m so suspicious. Last month, one of those internet dollies tracked me down, and came in here wanting me to do a podcast or some such thing backing up her claim that she knew that Timmen Eldritch was alive and married and living in Florida or some other conspiracy theory. She even offered me money. I threw her out.”

“How can you be sure it was bogus?” Suzanna asked. “Eldritch could have married someone in secret. I mean, you weren’t together every single moment of every single day, right?”

“I didn’t need to be with Timmen to know that Timmen wasn’t married to that woman.” Nicholas laid a fat brown envelope on his desk. “Timmen didn’t do girls.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Timmen didn’t do boys either,” Nicholas said as he slid a large publicity photo of Calliope out of the envelope. “Timmen Eldritch is asexual. He has no interest in intimacy. I’ve known him since we were ten years old, and he’s never had any interest in intimacy. I’ve often wondered if he’s autistic in some way but he seems happy enough so there’s been no reason to rock that boat. I’ve often heard him say that intimacy just causes problems.”

Ted’s forehead was deeply creased with questions. It hadn’t escaped him that Kelvey talked about Timmen Eldritch in the present tense. But he decided to turn the conversation in another direction first. “But he was considered one of the sexiest men on the planet back when Calliope had its fifteen minutes of fame. How do you square that with what sounds like an aversion to being touched?”

“I know. Ironic, right? You know that magazine that’s always by the grocery store checkout line? They voted him the sexiest man alive one year,” Nicholas said. “We had quite a laugh over that.”

“But I did a lot of research into Calliope, and there’s websites out there still swooning over him,” Suzanna said. She leaned over to look at the photo. “What was it that made girls go so nuts over him?”

“Timmen’s got an amazing voice,” Nicholas said. “I remember one critic described it as ‘the call of the perfect lover.’ Did you know he trained as an opera singer? And if you watched him move on stage, he was slinky like a leopard on the prowl. He could play sexy like an actor in a movie but he wasn’t sexy at all in real life.”

Nicholas pressed his hands together, and took a breath. “It was all a bit of a joke, at least at first. We were surprised at women’s reaction to Timmen, and then we took advantage of it, figuring it wouldn’t last long. I mean, Timmen was never photographed with a woman, and he was never seen with a woman. That’s why I know that that marriage claim is total rubbish.” 

He pointed at the publicity photo. “Look, Timmen could and did definitely sing, and my voice blended well with his, and Oliver Quigley was a great drummer. He would be considered one of the best if he had lived.”

“And Smugs Gallagher?” Ted asked.

“He knew a few chords on the guitar but that’s about it.”

“So why was he in the band?”

“Please tell me he’s not my father,” Suzanna said. “I don’t like the sound of him at all.”

“Neither did your mother, I can assure you.”

Suzanna’s eyes narrowed. “Are you my father?”

“No, I am not though I’d be proud of that fact if I was.” He smiled as he tapped the photo, “No, definitely not Smugs Gallagher. Your father was Oliver Quigley. And I know he wishes he was here.”

—————————-

When Paula returned to Robert’s room, the elderly man had Allison wrapped in his arms, crooning to her as if she was a child who’d had a nightmare. Which, in a way, she was.

“I’m so so sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could take this hurt away.”

“Oh Dad, it’s my fault. I should never have shut you out. We were all in such shock. None of us was thinking straight, and I felt so guilty,” Allison said. 

Robert took her gently by the shoulders so they faced one another. “We’ve talked with a few people about early onset Alzheimers over the past month, and one thing we’ve learned is that it has a big impact on people’s ability to make good decisions. We have no idea how long your mother had been dealing with the disease, no idea at all. But the fact that she went to a specialist on her own, and never said a word to any of us tells me that she was probably frightened and trying to hide from the diagnosis even though she plainly knew something was wrong,” he said. “Your mother’s judgement was impaired. I’m convinced that’s why she went out on that icy slope to look for you.”

Paula handed Allison the glass of water. “You’ve cried so much, you’re probably dehydrated so get some of this in you.”

Allison nodded then gulped down half the glass. “Whoa, I think you’re right. You know, Ollie used to say that secrets create their own force fields like black holes in space, and they distort everything and everyone around them.”

“That’s a good way to understand this,” Paula said.

“Did you have any idea at all that something was wrong?” Allison asked.

“There were only vague hints that all was not well,” Robert said. “Her moods had been all over the map, and she’d become indecisive. But it wasn’t until your mother asked me how to lace up her ice skates that I realized something serious was going on.”

“Indecisive? That definitely wasn’t Mom.” Allison shook her head. “How long after that did she…?”

“Die?” Robert thought for a moment. “About three weeks. I had made an appointment for us to see her doctor right after the ice skates incident but Anna was gone before we could keep it.”

“How long had she known the diagnosis?”

“As near as we can make out, less than a week,” Paula said. “The specialist she saw, Dr. Yoh, works with Doctors Without Borders, and she won’t be stateside again until early April. We need her signature to release all of your mother’s records so until then, this is all we have. That’s why we have so many unanswered questions.”

She grabbed a tissue for herself. “I’m so sorry, Allison. So very sorry. This is a lot to take in.”

The two women smiled sadly at one another as they blotted tears. “So, does Suzanna know about her grandmother?” Allison asked.

“No, not yet. We wanted to talk to you first and then have you present for that conversation,” Robert said. “There aren’t any real guidelines for this type of situation.”

Allison shook her head. “Suze may not want to be in the same room with me. Bringing her here…to Carding…the way I did…it was awful what I did. But I didn’t know what else to do. I was so alone, and my life was in pieces. I felt she would be safe here, safe from me.” She drew a shaky breath. “Suze has no reason to forgive me.”

“My granddaughter will be here when we talk about Anna,” Robert said in a stronger voice than Paula had heard him use in quite a while. “I guarantee it.”

“How Dad?”

Robert sighed. “No one refuses a request from a dying man, my dear. Suze will be here”

—————————-

“Oliver Quigley was my father,” Suzanna whispered. She picked up the photograph, fingering the outline of his face. “Are you absolutely sure? My mother made up so many stories about my biological father, I don’t know what to believe.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Nicholas reached into the envelope again, and his hand came out with a birth certificate, and a second, smaller picture. “After your father died, your mother knew she had to keep you safe from Smugs. I was in Australia but I got back for Ollie’s funeral, and this envelope was in my mail. It’s from your mother. She sent it to me for safekeeping.”

“Safekeeping? From who?” Ted asked.

“Smugs Gallagher.”

Suzanna didn’t hear them. Her whole being was absorbed by the words on her birth certificate. “So I was born in Colorado Springs,” she said. “I had no idea.”

“Yes, Ollie was born and raised near there,” Nicholas said. “He and Allison were visiting his family when your Mom went into labor. I guess you were in kind of a hurry to be born.”

Suzanna picked up the smaller photo. It was of her mother in a hospital bed, a beaming smile on her face, her eyes locked onto the baby in her arms. Oliver Quigley was cuddled up next to them, one arm around Allison, the other helping her cradle the newborn that united them.

“They loved me.” Suzanna’s voice was faint with wonder.

“Yes,” Nicholas said. “And one another. I was there when they got married.”

“Married?” Ted and Suzanna said at the same time.

Nicholas slid the remaining contents of the envelope onto his desk. There were more photos, all of them including baby Suzanna, some letters, a tiny hospital bracelet, several newspaper clippings, and a marriage license in a plastic sleeve. Suzanna picked up one of the pictures. It had been taken outdoors, under a tree. Oliver Quigley stood next to an older woman holding baby Suzanna. Two younger women flanked them. All of them were smiling.

“Who are these people?” Suzanna asked. She felt breathless with questions.

“You, your father, his mother, and his two sisters,” Nicholas said.

“I have another grandmother? And aunts?”

Nicholas took a deep breath. “I’m afraid that your grandmother, her name was Laura, died not too long after your father. She was a widow, and I think losing Ollie kind of took the heart out of her.”

“Are my aunts…?”

“Alive? Yep. They’re both still in Colorado, as far as I know,” Nicholas said.

Ted looked up from the newspaper clipping he’d been reading about Oliver Quigley’s death in a hit-and-run accident. “I’m taking from what you say that my sister felt threatened by Gallagher. Why?”

Nicholas stood up and began to pace. “By the time Calliope broke up, we’d all realized how much Smugs had manipulated and used us. I have to say, Ollie didn’t trust him right from the beginning so Smugs was always cautious around him. But the touring and the recording and all of the frenzy directed at Timmen had taken their toll on him. Smugs realized when we were still in Carding that Timmen was vulnerable and easily controlled. Things got much worse when we got to California.”

“Mr. Kelvey, I think you need to sit down,” Suzanna said, pointing to his fisted hands. He seemed surprised to see them.

“You’re right. Sorry.” He sat then stretched and flexed his fingers. “Timmen had a word he used for people who were greedy like Smugs. He called them dragons. He painted the red-mouthed dragon on our last album cover, the one we called The Half Life of Dragons, because greedy people just go on and on, like the half life of uranium 235.”

“So what happened?” Ted asked.

“Smugs turned himself into Calliope’s agent without telling any of us. He made arrangements for us to record one more album, with him getting the biggest cut of the profits. He said if we didn’t get back in the studio, he’d expose Calliope as nothing more than a trick, and Timmen as an emasculated fraud.” Nicholas stopped. “I’m sorry. I never talk about this stuff and here I am unloading on you and that’s not fair.”

Ted and Suzanna looked at one another, blinking in the bright light that Nicholas was shining on the past. “So where was my mother at that time?” Suzanna asked.

“She was still in Vermont, thank goodness.” Nicholas picked up a paperweight, idly moving it from one hand to the other. “When we got to California, Ollie and I realized Timmen was addicted to heroin and other drugs. We were desperate to get him into treatment. He was our friend, after all.” He sighed. “At the same time, we found out Smugs was deep in debt from gambling, and he’d been counting on Calliope’s last album to pay it off. Ollie and I teamed up to smuggle Timmen on a plane to New Zealand with me and Ashley Bentsen as chaperones.”

Nicholas grinned. “That’s how we made Timmen Eldritch disappear. It was easy because his passport was in his birth name, and no one knew it but Ollie, Ashley, and I. We flew off, got him into a really good hospital, and eventually he got healthy again. And without the burden of Calliope, he was much happier too. As an extra-added bonus, Smugs got picked up in a drug bust, and got a year in jail. Your mother came out to California during that time.”

Suzanna sagged back in her chair. “I have so many things to think about, my head is spinning.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Nicholas fingered the envelopes now strewn across his desk then pulled one of them toward him. “There’s a couple more things you need to know, Suzanna. Your father was a very talented man, the most talented of all of us. About a month before we left Carding, Calliope drew up a contract that we all signed acknowledging the fact that your father, Ollie, was the one who wrote the Calliope songs. Timmen always got the credit because he sang them but it was your father who created them. After your father died, and Smugs got out of jail, he haunted your mother for that money and the contract, threatening her and you.”

Suzanna grew very still. “Is he…would he…?”

“I don’t think so but it’s a sure bet that Smugs is behind all of the conspiracy theories about Calliope. Knowing him, there’s more than one scam or another going on.” He looked at Ted. “You’re Suzanna’s legal guardian, right?”

“Yes, Suzanna is my adopted daughter.”

“Don’t trust anything anyone tries to sell you. Don’t trust anyone who tries to get you involved with anything about Calliope. It’s all fake, every bit of it. You call the culties vermin, and believe me, that’s exactly what some of them are.” He held the envelope out to Ted. 

“What’s in the envelope?”

“That, Mr. Ted Owen, is Oliver Quigley’s will. You can open it any time, but I would recommend you do it before Suzanna’s birthday so you’ll be ready,” Nicholas said. He was finally smiling.

“Ready for what?”

“Ready? Well, for the fact that Timmen Eldritch is very much alive and well. He spends the winters house-sitting for me and my family at our place near Black Mountain. He spends the rest of the year hiking the Appalachian Trail.” Nicholas sighed, deep and loud. “Man, I have been waiting for years to tell this story, and Timmen and I have plans to set the record straight. This time next year, Carding should be vermin free.”

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Thanks for sharing some of the minutes of your life with me and Carding, Vermont. I hope you’re enjoying The Half Life of Dragons. We’ll be wrapping it up in September.

It’s going to take a while but I plan to have the entire book ready for sale by the end of the year. In the meantime, if you need to catch up or would like to share this adventure with someone else, you can do so by clicking this link.

~ Sonja Hakala