Anthony DiNozzo let himself into his apartment. He sat his backpack down in a living room chair and fell onto the couch, exhausted from the day. He sifted through the usual junk mail, bills, etc and was about to throw it all on the table to look at later. That was, until he saw the handwritten envelope. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten a letter. The return address, he thought said Stillwater, PA. but he wasn’t sure. He opened the letter, and pictures slipped out into his hands. He put them aside leaned back on the couch and began to read.
Dear Anthony,
I have a lot I feel like I need to say to you. First of all, thank you for your generosity. I have had that picture of Hawaii on my wall for about 30 years. I had always planned on saving up enough money to take Leroy’s mom, Millie, there. But she got sick, and all the money we had saved went to her care. It went to hospital bills and it gave us a nice little cushion to lean on when I couldn’t work. I spent most of the last two years of her life on the road, driving to the hospital in Philadelphia. I wanted to stay with her the entire time. Millie insisted, though, that I go home. So I would work in the store in the evening and spend my days with her in Philly. It got harder though as her cancer progressed. They said, at first, they had caught it early enough to treat it successfully. But that was not the case. My Millie died at the age of 63. We had had 45 years together. It was a wonderful life.
Forgive me, Anthony. I don’t mean to ramble. I know you are curious about me and Leroy’s life here in Stillwater. I also know you will not get any information out of Leroy. Leroy was born when I was just a kid myself. I was almost 21 years old. I never thought I would be a father at that age. We were living with her parents. I was working at a mechanic’s shop trying to save up enough money for us to live on our own. Millie had wanted to go to nursing school or got to college and get a teaching certificate. That was not the proper thing for a woman in her standing to do at that time. Not that there is anything wrong with those occupations. It was just that only spinster ladies did those things. Married women were expected to be homemakers and take care of the kids. Millie never told me, but she always wanted a career and she hated she wasn’t able to work. She loved being a wife and a mother. But I think she always wondered what it would be like to make her own money.
Anyway, when Leroy came along, he wasn’t exactly expected. I had wanted to wait at least another 4 or 5 years. But he wouldn’t wait, sounds familiar, huh. So, at any rate, Leroy arrived. He turned our lives upside down and he was the best thing that has ever happened to me. He has always done things on his own schedule, according to his own time table, and I see that that has not changed.
I’m sure you have wondered where Leroy Jethro came from. Leroy was the name of a friend I lost way back when I was a child. His name was Leroy James Carter. He was a neighborhood kid. He lived two doors down from me. We were the same age. He found out he had leukemia at the age of 8. He never made it to his 9th birthday. I decided if I had a son he would be named Leroy and that way my friend Leroy would live on through him. Jethro came from Millie’s side of the family. All the males in the family line had Jethro in their names. I really hated the name, and to be honest, Millie didn’t like it either. I think she just wanted to carry on tradition and not hurt her family’s feelings. Millie had only had one brother and he died in infancy, so Leroy was the only way the name would be carried on. I really hope that if Shannon had had a boy Leroy would not have called him Jethro. My son likes the name though, obviously. I am probably the only one who calls him Leroy.
I guess I will tell you about Leroy’s car now. He worked on that car for years. He was not terribly mechanically inclined and neither was I. But I taught him what I could from what I had learned working with cars. I only worked another year after Leroy was born in the garage. I really was not good at the work. The pace was a little too demanding and Millie hated me coming home every day looking like a grease monkey and smelling of motor oil. So, it was about that time she talked to her dad. He had just opened a grocery store in town and needed stockers and bagboys. I jumped at the chance. It paid more, for one thing and I really was a bad mechanic. Anyway, Leroy worked on that car religiously for years. He bought books on auto body mechanics and tried to learn what he could there. He got really frustrated towards the end. All his friends had cars, cars that would run. He couldn’t get his car to start. He tried everything he could think of, he read and reread the books. He went over the engine and could not find the problem. He told me when he left for the military to just let the heap rust, it wasn’t any good anyway. But I could tell by the look in his eyes he didn’t want me to do that. He wanted me to fix it. So then I took it on, as a hobby. I found the problem, fixed it, got the car painted and left it in the garage for the day Leroy would come back and claim it.
So, back to Millie and I. We moved into our apartment days after I started the job at the grocery store. The store had plenty of room above it for a two bedroom apartment. I still live there actually. That was how we got our first place. Millie’s dad died about 20 years later. He left the store to me. I was running it by that time anyway. Millie and I lived our lives above that store. We used to let Leroy ride his tricycle in the store, as long as he didn’t knock anything over.
(Tony stopped reading and smiled trying to imagine ‘Little Leroy’ on his tricycle. Then he continued reading.)
Leroy was always into something. He got in trouble with the law regularly. He and his friends were always causing trouble, spray painting barns, cow-tipping. They even spray painted the word ‘MOO’ on one of Alfred Smith’s Holsteins, in bright red paint. Alfred never found out who did it, and it was probably a good thing. It took Alfred a month to get over it and a month for the paint to finally wear off after repeated washings.
Then Leroy decided it was time to grow up. He was going to go into the military, be a Marine. I never told him, but I never thought he would make it. Not because he couldn’t handle it, but because of his size. He was always so skinny. When he left here, the day he joined. His uniform looked like it was weighing him down. He just looked so small in it. He did well though. He excelled. He was a model solider. He surprised me when he left the military, going into law enforcement. I didn’t know what career would have suited him. But I would never have dreamed that.
That brings us up, pretty much, to today. My son has the team with the highest solve rate at NCIS. I have the opportunity to meet the people he works with. The people he holds dear and I meet an Israeli bombshell, a computer genius, a gothic mad scientist and a green-eyed Italian ‘kid’ who I somehow feel like I ‘should’ have known all my life.
I had no idea you had paid for that trip, Tony. Not until Leroy and I were in the car headed home to Stillwater. I just assumed Leroy had decided to take me after all those years. I didn’t know what had gotten into him. But I was so glad he did it. I had not been on a plane since my years in service. I had forgotten how beautiful the world is from up there. The clouds looked so close I could reach out and touch them. It was kind of scary though. Looking out at times and seeing nothing but ocean.
Leroy and I took a helicopter ride over one of the live volcanoes. We went scuba diving near one of the largest coral reefs on the island. I thought I had forgotten how to swim, it had been so long. Leroy and I had time together, Tony. We didn’t talk much. Neither one of us is much into that, but we SPENT time together. I never see him much, so that was great. We were comfortable together. We haven’t been that way in years. Since he left to join the Marines, things were strained. He sent cards and letters occasionally and an occasional phone call. But that was it and it was always things like “I’m safe.” “I’m fine, don’t worry.” nothing more, nothing deeper. I only saw him once, before his recent visits, since he joined up. That was when Shannon and Kelly died and I would not have seen him then if Shannon hadn’t been from here too and still had family here.
I know Leroy still blames himself for Shannon’s and Kelly’s deaths. I think that may be the whole reason he hadn’t been back to here. Shannon’s family is still here. He wouldn’t have the constant living reminder of what he’s lost. You can shut out memories. Living people, well that is another matter. I think he feels too like he has robbed me of something. That he has robbed me of my grandchild. And it is true, Kelly is gone. But that is not his fault.
What I told you about Leroy in this letter is part of my thank you to you. I know he would never tell you this stuff. I know you really want to know about his past. I would have told you all you wanted to know when you visited, which is why Leroy limited you to one question. I don’t know what it is about you, Tony. But I liked you the first time I met you. I didn’t even like Millie the first time I met her.
Like I said, there is something about you. It draws people to you and they either think you are a huge pain-in-the-ass or they look deeper and see you for who you are. I am glad you gave me that opportunity. Leroy gets his skills of perception from me, by the way. He was always good at reading people. When I met you and I saw the interaction between you two. I could tell that he thinks he’s found the son he’s always wanted. Leroy never talked about having a son, and he loved Kelly dearly. But I think all men want a son, at least one male child, if for no other reason than to pass on the family name.
(Tony paused at this point, a little surprised at Jackson’s statement. Could it be true?)
My son cares a great deal for you. He talks about you a lot and I ask about you a lot. I cannot express enough to you in words what that trip meant to me. It would take pages and pages to tell you everything we did. But there is one thing I think you should know about. It really was the main reason I went. I took Millie with me. I spread her ashes over the sand and put some into that crystal clear blue water. She will always be in Hawaii. That was something she had always wanted to do. She was the one who found those pictures in magazines. She was the one who put them up on the wall. She used to talk about seeing the live volcanoes, swimming in the clear blue water, watching the sunset from that part of the world. I feel like I fulfilled my promise to her, Anthony. After all these years, I felt like she did get to do all those things she wanted to do. That may seem strange to you Tony, but when you’re married to someone as long as we were and have as great a relationship as we did, you get to know your partner very well. It is almost like telepathy. I knew how she would think and react to things and vice versa. So, when the other person dies, it is not like they’re really gone. They are just ‘absent’ for a little while.
That vacation was a life-long dream for both of us. We never imagined it would ever happen and after Millie became ill she knew it wouldn’t for her. But she told me to go and to enjoy. Enjoy it enough for both of us, and I did Tony. I truly did. I thank you for that. I felt close to Millie, like she was right there beside me. It was really, really nice.
I know to you, you just saw a few pictures on a wall and thought you would send an old man and his son on a nice vacation. But it was so much more than that to me, Tony, so much more. You are a kind and gentle soul, and I appreciate your generosity. (I don’t think I can say that enough.)
I hope I am not out of line when I say this. (I know that your relationship with your father was not good. I don’t know the particulars and I hope you don’t think Leroy betrayed your confidence.) But your father is an idiot. He is an arrogant, selfish bastard. I am not sure how you overcame such a childhood. But I am so glad you did. I am really glad I got the opportunity to get to know you a little. (You are welcome at my place anytime, by the way.) Again, please don’t think that Leroy betrayed a confidence. I ask about you a lot when I talk to Leroy. He told me about you and your dad’s latest conversation. Leroy told me about his conversation with your father. He said that your dad didn’t really get what he did to you as a child. He said it was that, or he just didn’t care. Leroy said he wasn’t sure which it was.
At any rate, despite him, he raised a great son who turned into a kind, generous young man.
Thank you again,
Jackson Gibbs
Tony leaned back on the couch and smiled. He thought he might take Jackson up on his offer.
The End
Story Notes:
ALL the stuff about Gibbs family history is my creation. I do not know what Gibbs’s mother’s name was or if it has ever been mentioned on any episode. I do think though, Jethro said something about a divorce that he blamed his father for, but since it didn’t suit my story I changed history. I also don’t know if Jackson had any pictures of any kind up in his store. But since I mentioned Hawaiian pictures in “It’s All Relative” and those pictures are the reason or the creation of this story, I thought I would run with the concept.
I just used our beloved characters. Don’t sue, they’re not mine.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Written in response to “It’s All Relative.” I just wanted to write a sweet, mushy thank you note to Tony from Jackson Gibbs.
Chapter End Notes:
ALL the stuff about Gibbs family history is my creation. I do not know what Gibbs’s mother’s name was or if it has ever been mentioned on any episode. I do think though, Jethro said something about a divorce that he blamed his father for, but since it didn’t suit my story I changed history. I also don’t know if Jackson had any pictures of any kind up in his store. But since I mentioned Hawaiian pictures in “It’s All Relative” and those pictures are the reason or the creation of this story, I thought I would run with the concept.
I just used our beloved characters. Don’t sue, they’re not mine.
I just used our beloved characters. Don’t sue, they’re not mine.