Reunited After 25 Years 6: Danger

Andrea awoke and couldn't remember where she was at first. Then she looked into Anton's clear blue eyes and remembered.

"Good morning, Andrea." He smiled.

"Morning." She yawned and stretched.

"It's nice waking up together, is it not?" His arms around her felt so cozy she was tempted to close her eyes again but knew that she didn't dare.

"Oh, it's lovely!" She smiled briefly. "But I have to go back to the library today." He looked so disappointed that she was tempted to call in sick.

"Unless..." Her fingers lightly brushed a few strands of hair back from his forehead.

Anton laughed softly and kissed her nose. "Go to work. I don't want you to get in trouble."

With her last ounce of determination Andrea rose, quickly went home to change clothes and freshen up, and made it to work within a hair's breadth of being late.

It was the time of day when Andrea was typically drowsiest, a couple of hours after lunch yet several hours before time to go home. She was struggling to stay awake while logging returned books back into the computer when a commotion outside jolted her wide awake. She and her co-workers rushed outside to find the government building across the street in flames.

"What on earth happened?" she asked.

"A small aircraft crashed right into the side of the building!" someone told her.

"Oh, no!" she groaned. "How many people were on board?"

"It appears to have been unoccupied," someone else replied. "The pilot must have realized that he was about to crash and parachuted to safety."

Andrea sighed with relief, but then another frightening thought occurred to her. "Is anyone still in the building?"

"Oh, no," one of the government workers assured her. "The airplane crashed into a storage area that held mostly files and documents. Everyone was evacuated well before the fire got out of control."

"Oh, thank God!" Andrea felt dizzy with relief until excited shouting caught her attention once more.

"Look, they've got him!" Andrea looked in the direction in which the man was pointing and saw a group of policemen surrounding a slight, dark-skinned, bearded man who was wearing a turban.

"I tell you, I am innocent!" the man shouted in heavily accented English. "Before Allah, I swear that I am innocent! It was an accident!"

"Yeah, right," growled one of the policemen, grabbing the man roughly by the arm and dragging him toward the squad car.

"I try to miss building, land in field, but the wind is too strong, blow me off course!" the man insisted.

"Tell it to the judge!" growled another policeman. The man mumbled frantically in Arabic as he was shoved into the back seat of the squad car.

"One less rag-head to threaten society," the man standing beside Andrea said sourly.

"Maybe it really was an accident," said Andrea.

"Like hell it was! They come over here and try to force their Koran down everybody's throats, threaten them with jihad if they don't convert to Islam, and blow up innocent people thinking that Allah will reward them with seventy-two virgins in Paradise!" The man's face was livid with rage. He was screaming now.

"I hope they lock him up and throw away the key!" shouted someone else.

"Mom! Are you all right?" Suddenly Denny was there, embracing his mother. "We saw the smoke and couldn't tell if it was coming from the government building or the library," he continued. Andrea noticed that Darya was a few steps behind him, Anton following a few steps behind his daughter.

"What happened?" asked Darya.

"One of those crazy fundamentalist Muslims just crashed an airplane into the side of that building over there," someone told her.

"Andrea!" Anton had reached her and was holding her tightly, murmuring something in Russian. Andrea looked up at him. "Thank God you're all right," he whispered. Do you realize what you just said, Anton? Maybe deep down inside, you really do believe, after all...

"Come on," Denny told her. "I'm taking you home."

Later, Andrea, Anton, Denny, and Darya sat in Andrea's living room talking about what had just happened.

"Nobody was killed or even injured," Andrea said. "Yet that man may end up with a long prison term just because of who he is and where he came from. He might have a wife and children who'll be worried to death about him. He said it was just an accident, that he tried to avoid crashing into the building. What if he's right? They probably won't even listen to him! It's not fair!" Andrea was so upset that she was almost crying. She looked into Anton's eyes and knew that they were both remembering a similar incident that had happened many years before and had involved a submarine and a different kind of foreigners from a different country.

"From the others there I felt much anger, much hate," said Darya.

"Some people just always have to have someone or something to hate," Andrea said. "And when the person or thing they originally hate either goes away or stops being a threat, they just move onto something or someone else and keep right on hating!"

"Dearest Andrea." Andrea looked into Anton's eyes and saw a new emotion there, a deeper and more tender one than she had ever seen before. "Let me stay here with you tonight. You are very upset and don't need to be alone."

"That's OK. I'll be all right," Andrea said quickly. "Darya needs you."

"Dasha is a big girl. She will be just fine. I'm not at all sure that I can say the same about you."

"Really, Anton, I'll be fine. Honest."

Anton held her like she hadn't been held by a man in a very long time. He gently ran his fingers through her hair and kissed the top of her head, murmuring words she didn't understand. "Moya dragatsyennaya."

"Things seem to be getting awfully cozy between you two," Denny remarked after Anton and Darya had left.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Andrea asked sharply.

Denny sighed. "I'm sorry, Mom. But I do worry about you, you know."

"I'm a grown woman, Denny. I can take care of myself just fine."

"You're a woman who's been lonely for a long time. It would be all too easy for a man to take advantage of you."

"Anton isn't going to take advantage of me. He's a good man."

"What happened between you two last night?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but nothing at all happened between us last night."

"Did he try anything?"

"No, he didn't. I'm thinking of possibly going to the jail tomorrow to visit the pilot who crashed into the building today. I'm sure he could use a friend. Perhaps Anton would like to go along as well."

"What? Are you crazy?" Denny gaped in disbelief. "You're entirely too trusting, Mom. You always have been. You think that everyone all over the world is just like you on the inside, but they're not!"

"I love you, Denny, but sometimes you sound entirely too much like your father."

"Well, maybe Dad was right about some things!"

Andrea went to bed that night with Denny's words ringing in her ears. She hated arguing with her only child, especially when she suspected that there was a grain of truth in what he had said. She knew that she tended to give others the benefit of the doubt far too easily. She hadn't always thought of that as a fault but could see how it could be dangerous in some instances. She also halfway regretted her decision not to take Anton up on his offer to stay the night with her. Had she been trying to put up a brave front, or had she been afraid of what might or might not happen between them?