Sunday morning in Braniff. Nothing moving but the wind as all the good people paid bright attention to their pastor within the confines of two small white churches. "Good Christian people," thought Peter Caine, in snarling sarcasm as he eased the Stealth down the vacant main street of the small town of his youth. His disdain for the hypocrisy of these people knotted his stomach. Supposedly decent people singing hymns and denying their own bias. Subtly skipping over the meaning of directives like "love they neighbor."

*Only if that neighbor isn't bald and wearin' a robe, huh, folks?* Peter supposed silently as he passed the First Church of Braniff.

The negative assessment was undeserved by most of the town's inhabitants and the young man immediately chided himself for the generalization. A number of the citizens of this simple, dusty town had accepted the odd priests and children with warmth and friendship. Only a handful of narrow-minded bigots had made harmonious integration with the town impossible. The majority only regarded the order as a curiosity. Causing no harm but refusing to mingle and refusing to intervene. In truth, these were the ones who grated most profoundly on his memory. Peter Caine saw indifference as a cancer. Denying growth and allowing evil to flourish.

Evil had flourished there, all right. Wormed it's way through Peter Caine's childhood and ripped his life into thirds. With Pop. Without Pop. With Pop Again. A Dr. Suess rhythm defining his life.

"Stop whining," he muttered to himself, and eased down the car window. The warm Spring breeze ruffled his hair and did improve his mood. Slightly. This trip wasn't supposed to be some morbid check list of his losses. He had a purpose of his own. Unfinished business.

The trip through town took only minutes. Leaving the clean storefronts in his rearview, Peter drove leisurely up the winding road to the remains of the temple. Ruins of stone now wrapped in a mass of encroaching shrubbery.

Killing the engine a few hundred yards from the rubble of his childhood home, Peter Caine sat in silence behind the wheel of his car. Feeling suddenly old in the face of his past. Had that life ever actually existed? The simplicity and truth that had been his goal as a student at his father's knee seemed lost to him in past years. Now, he began to feel their call again. Began to remember the clarity of that boy.

Unfolding slowly from the driver's seat, he left behind his car to walk the rest of the way. Gone was the order and discipline evident when the priests and children had maintained the grounds. All that remained was the chaos of overgrowth and abandonment. Almost to the felled stone remains, he hesitated. Opening his eyes to the present instead of the past.

Intermingled with the brush and vines was a kaleidoscope of color. Bright green leaves. Brilliant wildflowers dangling from the tangle of vines and bursting upward from between broken blocks of stone. Beauty grown in this place of sorrow. Life and nature had moved on past the screams of that one horrifying day in the life of a young boy.

The realization left a slight smile spreading over his face. "You're own Caine-ism, Pete," he complimented himself. "Not bad." Perhaps his lessons were returning after all. He was about to begin picking his way through the brush to explore when the breeze shifted. The clean smells from the lake wrapped around his face and turned him around with an almost tangible caress.

He remembered why he'd come here today. On this particular Sunday.

Moving carefully down the muddy slope, Peter picked his way to the water's edge. His last visit netted the detective a less than graceful tumble to the bottom and jeans full of heavy black mud. Thankfully, his father had been gracious enough to withhold his laughter. At least, outwardly. The twinkle in his eyes had been akin to a sidesplitting fit. At the time, the son had been embarrassed and annoyed. Now, he laughed, too.

The grass was soft and damp beneath his feet and the smells of Springtime whirled around in nearly dizzying layers. Living in the city made one more sensitive to the lush sensations of places like this. Birds singing and sailing over the water. Melodies of varying buzz tones from insects. Scents from the clear water and air. It required conscious adjustment for someone who lived on burritos and hot-dogs and stood on concrete.

It was clean here. Clean and innocent.

Just as he had been once. Pure and happy and open until someone had fouled his life. Fouled all their lives. The scenery had recovered from the wreckage. He was trying.

Finally, he allowed himself to focus on his goal. That small patch just beyond the curve of water at his boots. The place on earth that held more fear for Peter Caine than any of his nightmarish childhood memories. Not once, when this had been his home had he ventured there. The manicured spot among the wild lilies was to be avoided at all cost. Like the imagined monster under his bed when he was five. There was nothing under that bed that could hurt him. Nothing at all. But why risk it? Why not jump out a little further just in case, to keep out of reach? Why walk over to a grave and break your heart?

Ignorance was bliss. Ignoring was bliss.

Long strides carried him to the graveside. One clear patch edged with bubbling lilies and sunshine. Peter made a mental note to ask his father who cared for his mother's resting place with such care. Folding down to the ground, the young man swallowed the building emotion in his throat.

"You will see things that will clutch at your heart." His father's attempt at preparation had fallen woefully short before his last visit. Peter Caine had walked into this clearing with the casual confidence of adulthood and felt control drain backward to that of a child. A motherless child. It pelted him to the ground and dripped over his face. Overwhelming in it's power. Grieving that had been stored for far too long.

His journey had been cut short last time. Violence once again sucking his time and making choices for him. He had a connection to make here. To close a door. To open a door. Peter wasn't sure which was needed.

The well-meaning social workers at the orphanage had psycho-babbled him into silence. "The boy needs closure." How the hell was he supposed to get closure from a dead mother, a dead father, and a blown up home? "Screw you and your closure, lady," had been his reply. That had earned his permanent record the terms "uncooperative and combative."

Damn right.

Now, the world had changed. His father returned to his side by fate. Joy beyond measure. But, also turmoil. Peter Caine required redefinition. Each new answer pried from the tight grip of Kwai Chang Caine blinked a new question to light. The detective in the man cried out for orderly resolution. Where better to start than the beginning?

"Hello, Mother. It's Peter......"

Peter paused awkwardly after his symbolic greeting. Laura Katherine Caine. The marker was beautifully simplistic. As he imagined his mother to be. After all, simplicity and truth were the qualities his father embraced. It only made sense that his mother would have held those treasures. But, it was only a guess. Suppositions backed into from the glimpses of a long dead mother tossed from her heartbroken husband. The only visions of *mother* the son had at his disposal. Precious inventions.

Focusing on the thoughts that needed expression, Peter gave them voice.

"I'm sorry I stayed away so long. Seems it took me longer than I thought to deal with things." The son ran a nervous hand through tousled hair and smiled. "Now, *things* are dealing with me, so here I am.

"You were always some mist of memory to me. It seems so unfair to you that I don't remember you. I know I was just a baby when you died but not remembering you seems .....disloyal, somehow." And he did feel disloyal. His mother was younger than he when she was ripped away from her family by some thief of disease. It robbed them all but at least, father and son were left standing.

"I had a photo. An image, but no *feel* of you. No memory of your love. Your voice or touch." Absently twisting blades of damp grass between his fingers,he said lightly, "All I had of you was the memory of a flower. The smell of those jasmine flowers in your perfume. Funny thing is, I never knew that was a memory of you until Pop told me about making it for you.

"It seems so cheap that a child wouldn't remember the mother who gave birth to him. I hope you know that I'd give anything for one memory of us. Of you."

Peter fixed his gaze on the painstakingly carved words and conjured the vision of his mother. Ping Hi's comparison to Rhonda Fleming. His father's wistful mention of a yellow flower. Yellow for peace. Beautiful blue eyes and soft wheat-colored hair.

But this vision was now more than a invention. Laura herself had made sure of that. Now, the terrain would become littered with that nasty unfinished business.

"You must have been disappointed with the greeting you received when you joined Pop inside me head for a visit." The bardo. Peter still cringed in shame at the cache of self-pity and loathing he'd carried beneath his facade of acceptance. He was still unclear as to the reality involved. Had he conjured a surprisingly accurate image of a mother he never knew or had this mother's love been strong enough to punch through the gates of another life and fight beside his father to save her child's life? The former satisfied the factual explanations sought by a police detective. The later was more probable in light of the family tree involved. He liked the later. The later gave him a history with his mother.

"I'm not angry anymore. Well," Peter backtracked, "that's not entirely true. But, I'm not angry with you. You didn't leave. You were taken. I'm sorry that my anger focused on you, Mother." Flashing his best smile in the direction of the marker, he added, "Lucky for me spankings aren't the solution of choice in the realm of the mind, huh?"

Even through the blur of pain and mental turmoil, the look on her face had been clear. Pain. Worry. Anguish. "I hope you're not too disappointed, but I've discovered I'm a work in progress. Even so, thick as I am, I can take a hint. All that stored up anger nearly killed me. If that's the message, consider it received."

The morning sun was gathering strength and joining the afternoon. Peter slipped out of his jacket in the building heat. Temperature elevated by Springtime and revelation. "Pop could have at least picked us a spot with a tree."

Casting a glance over the gleaming reflections in the water, Peter could see himself as a young boy. Standing on the opposite shore, watching the formidable Kwai Chang Caine sit in front of this monument to his family's loss. Watching the man who could bear all, weep openly. Making a weekly pilgrimage to the resting place of his wife's ashes and pouring out his heart.

The sight was frightening. He wanted to go to him and comfort his father in his gut-wrenching pain. The few times Peter had asked his father about the mysterious mother he never knew, the pain had arced from him with the force of a tidal wave. After a while, Peter stopped asking. If the mighty Shaolin priest couldn't take it.......how could he? No. The only protection was denial. He wouldn't see. He wouldn't ask.

That was the way of a boy. No way for a man. Men face things. Stand and deliver. No matter how it hurts.

Getting up to stretch his legs, he walked over to rest one hand on the cool stone that bore his mother's name.

No matter how it hurts.

And this hurt. More than he thought it would.

"God, I wish you were here to help me, Mother." Peter tried consciously to calm the turmoil raging in his chest. "Maybe you could help me understand him. You were his wife. His partner. If anyone understood him, it must have been you."

His mother related to his father as an adult. Peter had been bound to his father by the adoration of a child. Just at the phase of his life when father and son were to begin adult understanding, exploding walls and a well meaning priest drove them apart. Beginning again from ground zero was excruciating for a grown man who now found himself in the role of child once again.

"We just took up where we left off. Only where we left off had me as a twelve year old student and him as God." Pacing around the clearing in tempo with his frustrated analysis, Peter vented his emotion to the only one who could understand. "Problem is, he's still God but I'm....well, I'm definitely not twelve."

The sharp tone of his own voice shocked him. He *did* love his father. Deeply and without barrier. But by the sheer power of his being, Kwai Chang Caine changed the equation Peter has used to formulate his life for the past fifteen or so years. Peter Caine. Police officer. Hot shot. Warrior. Aggressor.

To the air, he mocked himself. "Come to the 101st. As for Caine. He'll aerate the bad guy." After a short, self-deprecating smile, he explained, "You see, here's the problem, Mother. I'm beginning to see myself...my path...in a different way. Maybe I should take a different turn? But if I do, am I doing it because it's right for me or because of him?"

Pleading eyes looked into pale gray stone for a response. "When I was twelve, all I ever wanted was to be him. If Tan had left us in peace, I'd be there now," Peter waved one hand toward the remains of his home, "in an orange robe, teaching other twelve year olds what Pop shared with me. Was that my true path or is what I am now, what I was meant to be?"

The only answer was the echo of his own voice. Filling the air with more questions. "Kinda funny, huh? I'm almost thirty and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up. Do I go forward on this track or complete the training we began all those years ago?

"My experience with another mother, leads me to believe you'd tell me to listen to my heart for the answer. Right? That's what Annie would say, if I asked her."

Staring out over the clear expanse of water, Peter shifted gears. This wasn't supposed to be about his father. Not today. He and his father had a lifetime to build and demolish and rebuild.

Today was about her.

Peter pulled something from his pocket and crouched down beside soft mound of neatly trimmed grass that held his mother. "While Carolyn was pregnant she carried around these books about babies like they were Bibles. Once she read a part to me that said a child's personality is formed by the time they're three years old. Kids soak up all they can from those around them and in those years and the love and care they get from their parents molds who they are.

"I want to thank you for the gifts you left with me. Even if I never have a mental scrapbook of our time together, I know what you gave me." Peter laughed lightly as he recounted, "Pop commented once that you and I had the same sense of humor. The same clear cut way of seeing things. Maybe the two of us together could have helped him lighten up a little. Most of the time, my jokes fly right over his head. Or...he pretends they do.

"Anyway, I can feel the solid part of my being that comes from Pop, but I'm certain that all the gentleness that held onto me through all those dark years after the temple, came from you. Thank you, Mother."

Without warning, the light breeze once again shifted. Waving the fronds of lilies surrounding the clearing. As he stood there with his hand resting on the heart of his mother's grave, the breeze encircled his shoulders. Whirling in repetition until Peter gave it acknowledgment. It had form and substance. Slowly, he began to lose himself inside an invisible scented embrace. In the midst of surrounding stillness, a fragrant cloak held him.

Closing his eyes, that treasured scent from his childhood flooded his senses. Jasmine. Jasmine that didn't grow here. Time and time again, his father had tried to plant it in this spot, only to have it yellow and die in the heavy dampness near the lake. Now, the scent bathed over him like the tide.

Whispering through the swirling affection, he said, "I knew you'd come. I knew it."

After a few moments of blessed communion with that longed for touch of his mother, the scented breeze drifted away. Peter felt the conscious sensation of her fade back into stillness. The memory filed away within his heart for a rainy day when he would need it again.

Carefully righting himself, Peter moved closer to the stone marker. As if whispering into his mother's ear, he said softly, "When I first came to live with Annie and Paul, I didn't know about all those traditional holidays. I asked Annie what she wanted for Mother's Day and she said, 'Nothing.' Said that having her children there was enough."

Laughing at the memory of his awkward initiation into their family, he continued, "Well, Carolyn and Kelly explained to me the difference between what women say and what they mean and said I should get her something anyway. I had to walk to four flower shops before I found one with jasmine. When I handed her the flowers, she was so happy. The look on her face meant more than I thought it would.

"She didn't know what the flowers meant. Neither did I. But when I wanted to show her that I cared, that was the first thing that came to mind." Resting his head on the cool stone, he said, "You gave me that, didn't you?"

Holding a delicate piece of paper in his hand, he continued his heartfelt expressions. "For so long, I had no vision of what 'mother' meant. It was only a word. Then, there was Annie. She was so good to me and loves me like I'm her own child. You would have liked her.

"Now, I realize that though I never had a mental picture of you to put my finger on and say 'That's my mother' you left your gentleness and lightness of heart inside me. Sometimes I choke it down and cover it up with this crap that drags on me but it's still there when I decide to let it out."

Easing open the card decorated with a pale yellow rose, he explained, "I found this and it seemed to be talking about us." Clearing his throat, he read, "Mothers hold their children's hand for a while. Their hearts, for a lifetime."

Gently sliding the card between the soft blades of grass and the polished surface of the marker, Peter stood up to leave. Once more, he rested his hands on the stone curve and said, "Our time of holding hands was brief but you've been with me the whole time, haven't you? Even when I wasn't *with* you, you never left me."

Leaving his mother with a warm kiss on the cool stone, he breathed, "Happy Mother's Day. I love you."

With that, Peter Caine walked slowly back to his car. Followed by a warm scented breeze at his back.

THE END

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