A Capable Woman: 16/28 Nathan/Heidi, Peter, Mr and Mrs Arthur Petrelli

1994

When the future Mrs. Heidi Petrelli was officially introduced to the Petrelli Family, she had been dating Nathan for a little under a year. Nathan wanted to be sure of a lot of things before he introduced Heidi to his parents, and Angela knew that. The wise choice, Angela thought, although Nathan never confided that secret to Angela, only to Peter or his father. Nathan was considered a very sought-after bachelor in New York City at the time, despite his family’s now dirty reputation. Although Nathan seemed to be trying to go against that reputation by taking a job in the district attorney’s office, something Heidi found courageous in many respects.

“He must be serious about this one,” Angela retorted through her reading glasses, as she sat in bed with her husband, and a political book she had been given as a gift.

“I suppose so,” Arthur said, before kissing her goodnight. “Let’s see how special she is tomorrow.” He turned off his bedside light as Angela nodded her head, yes.

That night Angela’s dream didn’t make much sense. People with abilities in cages; being hunted. It was always her worst fear, something everyone in the Company knew would happen if people like themselves were revealed to the public. But was this dream real or just standing in for her own feelings and fears? Angela no longer kept a dream book, so she tucked the thoughts back into another part of her mind, where perhaps she could make sense of it later.

Angela Petrelli was now forty-eight years old.

Before Nathan and Heidi arrived for dinner, Arthur found Angela asleep in a chair in the living room, a book on her lap.

The doorbell rang and Arthur motioned to his almost fifteen-year-old son Peter, “Wake your mother.”

Angela opened her eyes to her son Peter’s sweet large smile. “Hey sleepy head, “ he said to her, just as she used to say to him as achild. “Come on, Nathan’s here.”

Angela smiled for she had been having a pleasant dream. She was visiting Claire, watching her grow up, and it gave Angela pleasure to watch Claire at important events in the girl’s life, watching over her the way no one else could, like an angel. But to Angela it still wasn’t enough and she and her husband had a plan waiting in the wings, biding its time for when Claire finally manifested, for the time when hiding the girl in plain sight was no longer an option. Based on her dreams, Angela guessed Claire would manifest around sixteen, just as Angela had - Claire had twelve years to go.

“Do, I have to?” Angela groaned in a joking tone.

“Yeah... I think so.” Peter gave his mother an off-center smile and motioned with his head toward the door.

“You know...we could just get out of here, grab a slice of pizza, no one would be the wiser.” She squinted her eyes, looking at him impishly.

“This is an interesting look for you.“ He raised his eyebrows. “You’re scared.”

“No... I’m not scared, please.” She stood up from her chair. “I’m just tired. Besides, you owe me.”

“And why is that?” He smirked at her.

Angela put her arm around her son and guided him toward the foyer. “You had a very large head.”

“Yeah, nice, like that’s my fault.” Peter laughed, as they reached the foyer and Nathan and Heidi. Peter smiled at Nathan and his new girlfriend, whom he had already met, as Angela took a breath, tossed her head back, and put on her best and most polite public smile.

Peter saw that change in his mother and wondered why she kept herself so guarded, that she felt at times she had to be two people.

The Petrelli Home

1995

Nathan leaned on the lip of a small shelf in his father’s study, looking as if he had something important to say. He gripped an old baseball he had taken off the shelf, which had been in his father’s office since as far as the boy could remember. Of course, Nathan was no longer a boy, he was a lawyer, twenty-seven-years old, an ex-military man, and a pride to his family - he was their hero. Nathan’s hero was standing right in front of him: his father.

Nathan’s father practiced his golf putting on a small green he had set up in front of his desk. Angela, sitting in the living room, pretended she couldn’t hear the two men, as she put together a scrapbook of old pictures.

Nathan looked on from the other side of the study watching his father. “Pop...” he paused, a little unsure how to ask. “When did you know... I mean... What...what made you fall in love with Ma? How did you know?”

Arthur got a devilish look on his face and paused from his putting. “She had a great ass.” He sent his golf ball forward and it hit its mark – hole in one.

“Pop!?” Nathan stood up in protest; he didn’t want to hear that.

Arthur walked toward Nathan with his putter in hand. “I’m tellin’ ya –you had to see it...” he teased his son.

“Pop!?” He gripped the baseball and gestured his arms out at his father. “Like now I’ll ever get that image out of my head.”

Arthur laughed. “Ya gotta learn kid, your parents are only human,” he patted his son on the side of his face like a good Italian man. He raised his eyebrows and crossed back to his desk.

“I’m serious, Pop. Come on. I never asked you about this before. I...I wanna know.” He got a little shy and boyish. “Ya know - that when you met Ma... how you knew that she was the one. The one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with...”

“That I loved her?” Arthur asked, as he set his putter up against the side of the fireplace.

Arthur looked off through the open double doors of his study at Angela, remembering the girl she had been. “Well, she was beautiful for sure.” He put his hands in his pockets and nodded his head. “She had that beauty, still does, that took my breath away – Ahhh and she was so young. “ He opened his mouth and nodded his head. “I couldn’t believe how young she was - her skin was so white I thought I’d break it if I touched it. And I just had to have her.” He looked over at his son. “She was like a babble in my collection. Just another thing on my shelf... and my mistake was I treated her that way. I wasn’t mature enough to see her as a person; I saw her as a thing – I wanted to possess her. I wanted to live up to her. I was blinded. I was weak. I wanted to be enough for her. Her smile, her laugh, her intelligence...” He made his hand into a fist for a moment, “That fire in her soul.” He put his hand back in his pocket and looked at his son. ”And I’ve put her through so much. Too much. I...I...” He trailed off, but got connected back to his objective. “ I have a lot of regrets, Nathan – but I think the biggest one - the things I did wrong. The thing I can’t make right. Is what I did to her, what I can’t take back – shaped who she became. “

“Pop, I’m not following-“

“Your mother has lived through a lot because of me and my actions. She was too young for all of this; I should have let her study –travel. I shouldn’t have married her so young.” He paused and looked at Nathan. “And she loves you boys so much, Nathan.” He walked toward his son. “You know that, right?”

“I do, Pop,” he said sheepishly. He wasn’t sure where it was all going.

“This is about Heidi?” Arthur put his hand on his son’s shoulder and gripped it. “You think you’re in love with Heidi?”

Nathan looked away and then raised his eyes up at his father. “I think so,” he nodded his head.

“You buy a ring?” Arthur asked.

“Last week...” Nathan had a sheepish look of pride on his face. He was obviously too afraid to ask her yet.

“It big? Never mess with a woman and her jewelry, I learned that from your mother.”

“Yeah, yeah...” he nodded his head in a self-conscious way.

Arthur looked at his son with such pride, his eyes popped. “Well, then congratulations.” Arthur grinned. “Your mother will be pleased.”

“Really? I think Heidi’s scared of her.” Nathan joked, but really he wasn’t. Nathan reached his arm back and scratched the back of his head.

“She’s very protective of you boys.” Arthur looked at his son and felt that warm fatherly feeling he had first felt in the hospital, when Nathan was born, so many years ago. He had to take a deep breath to hold in his emotion. Nathan was a true and loyal son to Arthur and made him feel, inside, as if Angela had given birth to his best friend. “No...” He shook his head and placed his other hand on his son’s shoulder. “She’ll be very happy.”

Angela smiled from the living room. She knew she would never be completely happy with any woman her sons brought home; it was just who she was. But Heidi was a perfect wife for Nathan in the best way Angela knew how and the only way Arthur was alluding to. And that was that unlike all of the other Petrellis, Heidi was just nothing special. She was the perfect wife for Nathan in Angela’s eyes. The cycle could stop; Angela only hoped.

Angela Petrelli didn’t worry about her son when he went off to war. When he flew missions in Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda, because she knew his destiny, she knew he would be safe. She knew his plane would be shot down and that the cuts on his chins would later become scars, and that he would walk with a cane for three months. That was as far as the story went. Angela saw him coming home, but she also knew that history could be changed. So, perhaps, she was in denial about how inevitable the future could be.

Still, Angela took too much notice and too much attention to Nathan’s wedding than Arthur thought was necessary. And when Heidi asked Nathan to find a way to get his mother out of her way, on what was “her” big day and not Angela’s — Arthur Petrelli laughed at the situation harder than he had in years. He laughed at his own wife; it was just who he was.

Angela stood off to the side as the photographer took pictures of her boys, nicely dressed in their black ties and suits. Flash. Flash. Flash. Angela brimmed with pride. She had no idea it would be the picture she would most treasure when mourning the death of one of them. One would say these pictures would become infamous, but all Angela Petrelli knew, at the time, was they were pictures that already had a reserved place in her living room.

For all of the Petrelli boys’ lives there was a table in the living room filled with pictures, so full it almost looked like a forest; many visitors to the house would remark on it. Until Peter was eleven, the pictures had all been set on a piano. No one in the Petrelli home actually played the piano. Nathan wanted to as a child, but he was told it would disturb his mother, while the parade of doctors came in and out of her room trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Peter didn’t even understand it was a piano until he was four; it was just a place to put the pictures.

Still, it was a monument that had always been around and something, Heidi would say, that spoke louder than words. And although they got along, but still hardly agreed, Heidi would tell Nathan that when she thought about all of those pictures in her mother-in-law’s living room, she knew the woman meant well, as much as often times

“But, isn’t that what mother-in-laws are for?” she would joke to Peter, whom she got along with famously.

“She means well,” Peter would say with a smile, hating to really be on anyone’s side in a difficult situation.

“We all do.” Heidi would say, before giving Peter a hug and asking him about his day, what college he was planning to attend or how she hoped her children would be as kind and understanding as Nathan’s little brother.

Most people at the wedding couldn’t believe that Angela was the mother of the groom. Heidi’s parents were at least ten to fifteen years older than she was. Angela loved that. She loved that power.

Long gone were the days when Angela’s youth and beauty got men’s heads to turn, doors to open, and opinions to change. She was still a beautiful woman, as Arthur would tell her – a handsome woman, “for her age.” But Angela no longer had that power a woman like Heidi had. And Angela remembered how much she loved it when she had that power and how it made her naive and foolish. Angela Petrelli was a woman well equated with the drawbacks of power.

“There has to be something you like about your power,” Charles once asked her. “It can’t all be a burden to you?”

“Truthfully...” She smiled, fingering the edge of the glass. “I love the way they look at me. The way they revere my thoughts, my words, the way the hairs on the back of their necks stand up when I enter a room. I loved the respect.”

Yes, Angela Petrelli was well equated with the spoils of power, and now she was slowly paying for it. Her foolish follies of epic proportion had thrown her down a sinkhole she was now crawling out of by her fingernails. But today was a happy day; there weren’t many of those.

Yet Angela still seemed to drift into the past on that day, something she almost never did - Angela Petrelli always looked to the future. Only fools look to the past, she often thought, but then who wanted to wallow in regret all the time?

Angela remembered the day she told Nathan Claire was dead, which was a lie, and that Meredith was dead, which she thought was the truth. He cried in her arms, something Nathan hadn’t done since he was a small child. She held his head in her hands and brought it to her chest, gently stroking her red fingernails through his soft hair.

“Shhhh...” She told him, like a child, “Shhhh,” knowing full well she had caused the pain in her son’s heart. Yet she felt it was the right thing to do.

Nathan’s folly would not ruin another life, as her folly had ruined hers. Angela Petrelli was a woman well acquainted with the truth; she just knew when and how to wield it. Angela knew full well that she was committing a wrong toward Nathan, but she felt it was a right towards Claire. And she knew she was committing a sin as a mother toward her son, but she didn’t care.

She didn’t care because she believed she was saving not just Claire, but Nathan, saving him from her own despair, the despair the life would cause that girl, and him, if she stayed a Petrelli. Yes, Angela Petrelli told herself she did it all because it was the best for everyone. But really it was the best for Angela. And she knew that too, deep down she knew, had to have known, that.

“We have a problem, “ Arthur scooped his arm into Angela’s arm as she walked outside of the party, surveying the guests on the veranda.

Angela kept on walking, as if nothing was wrong, looking up at him with her eye balls, she knew those words weren’t good.

After about five steps, Arthur looked around and opened a small glass door for Angela. Angela looked around and entered the door; Arthur followed and closed the door behind him.

“Stafford escaped,” Arthur pulled the curtains closed.

“How?”

“Adam tried another prison break. Stafford got out in the melee.”

“Anyone else?”

“A few rogues, but they were caught.” Arthur took his gun out. It was just a precaution. “He’s on his way here.”

“What?”

“He knows who we are, Angela. Of course he’d come after us first. Has he been in your dreams?”

“No.”

“I called in back-up. Just be aware. You see him, you call me.”

She nodded her head.

“Keep an eye on Nathan and Peter.”

“I will.”

He nodded his head and walked out the back door.

About a half hour later Angela was doing her duty as the mother of the groom when she saw Harry peek his head into the hall to get her attention. Angela excused herself and exited out into the hallway.

Harry took her by the waist and whispered in her ear as they made their way through the hallway. “We got him; it’s too dangerous to take him out in the woods – someone could see - we need you to watch the door.”

Angela eyed him.

“It wasn’t my idea.”

They reached the door Harry was referring to. It was the door to the same room Arthur had spoken to Angela in only moments before.

“By the way, sweetie,” Harry eyed her. “You look simply ravishing.” He smiled. “I’d eat you up, but I’m a vegetarian now.” He smirked and entered the door. Angela kept watch.

After about five minutes, Angela caught sight of Peter.

“Hey, Mom.” He walked over to her.

“Hello, dear.” She smiled

He kissed her on the cheek. “Dad in there? Nathan’s looking for him.”

“He’s making a phone call.” The door opened and a rush of air was heard. Angela grabbed the door and slammed it closed. “He wants his privacy.” She said without batting an eye, holding the door shut by the doorknob, and the weight of her body.

“Okay?” he was confused.

“We’ll be right there. Go tell your brother. Your father wants me to wait for him.”

Peter looked at her funny.

“He’s on the phone with Mr. Linderman.” She nodded her head. “You understand, Peter.” Angela looked at Peter and dusted a piece off lint of her son’s shoulder.

Peter got a sour look on his face and started to walk from the door. Angela knew just the right way to get her son to go away and just the right thing to bring him back again, if she needed to.

Peter walked away from his mother with an odd feeling in his gut. He looked back,one last time, to see his mother was still perched at the door, as if guarding it. Finally, Arthur Petrelli emerged to the sudden shock and relief of his mother.

“It’s done.” He said adjusting his tux and bow tie. Arthur Petrelli took in a deep breath. “Oh, man that felt good – it’s good to be alive isn’t it?” He grabbed Angela and pulled her close, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise. He reached down grabbed her ass for a moment and kissed her hard and long - Angela was shocked.

“Arthur!” Angela then caught sight of Peter, who was looking at them.

Peter tried to hold in his laughter.

Angela looked around, acting as if she was mortified that her husband had done such a thing in public, but Peter could see she secretly loved it. It was then that Peter saw for the first time since he was a small child how much his parents loved each other. He didn’t understand it, but he got it. And he hoped some day he’d have someone to love like that.

It was then that Peter turned toward the door of the main banquet hall and he caught sight of his brother dancing with his new bride. And Peter too wished he could find a love like Heidi and one day be a great man like his brother. They didn’t always agree, but Peter looked at his brother with hero’s eyes and hoped one day he could grow up and be like him, Peter was only eighteen.

That night Arthur Petrelli had his second “heart attack”.

Two Years Later

“It’s a boy!” Nathan screamed, dressed in scrubs from head to toe. “A boy!” He took his baby brother by the neck and shoulder and hugged him tightly. “A boy!” He held his brother’s face in both his hands.

Peter was elated for his brother.

“Five pounds, seven ounces.” He reached toward his mother.

“How’s Heidi?” Angela asked, kissing her son on the check and hugging him.

“She’s great, she’s doing great, Ma.” Nathan looked around, as he released from his mother’s embrace. “Where’s Pop?”

“Pressing business, he couldn’t stay. He wishes he could have.”

Arthur Petrelli seemed to be away at the oddest times. He wasn’t in the hospital when Peter was born, or now, at the moment his first grandson was born, but Angela was. Company business took Arthur from his family, but never Angela. But then again, her family had become her company business in so many ways.

“It’s a boy! Whoooo.” Nathan yelled. “I just can’t— I’m too excited now. I’m gonna call Heidi’s family.. I.. A boy!” And Nathan ran back into the maternity ward.

Peter laughed and Angela smiled bittersweetly -- a small smile that turned into a larger one.

“Looks like you’re an uncle,” Angela told him, as they looked off at Nathan in the distance.

“And you’re a grandmother, how does it make you feel?”

“Old.” She said with her wicked sense of humor.

“Oh, come on. First time grandmothers are always young.” He put his hand on her shoulder and she took her hand in his.

But of course, Angela knew she wasn’t a first-time grandmother at all. And Claire was growing strong and healthy and, most importantly, away from her world, away from being special.

And when their second grandchild, but their first known to the world, was only three days old, Angela Petrelli slapped her husband across the face as soon as he returned home. Not just with her hand, but with her accusations. It was something he was used to by now, not the slapping, but being accused of something he hadn’t yet done.

“You looked at her picture,” Angela said in her demanding tones.

“Whose?” he said as if to say, “Have you not learned by now, I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Claire’s.”

“When?”

“We need to keep our objectivity. You know this, Arthur.”

“It’s not fair, Angela. You get to see her. You see her in your dreams everyday. I don’t even know what she looks like!”

Angela walked up to him her eyes brimming with anger and emotion. “Just don’t look at the picture.” She gritted her teeth and left their bedroom.

Five Years Later

When Angela heard through vague Company channels that Claude had been killed, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Not in an evil way, not in a cruel way, it was just business - family business. Now no one but Angela and her husband, held certain secrets. It was just the way it was.

And on that sunny day in March, Angela Petrelli answered the phone, a call she had been waiting for, a call she had been waiting years to take. She answered in French, serious, with very few words. Short, clipped sentences to save time.

And after Angela hung up the phone she caught her face in the mirror. Her fifty-three-year old face looking back at her and she felt no longer young, but then she hadn’t felt that way in years.

Angela would soon be a grandmother for the second time, officially, that was, another boy for Nathan. The second of “two sons”, just like she had once told Arthur so many years ago, only this time Angela kept her dreams to herself. There would be no prophecies spoken out loud, on this or many other occasions in her sons’ lives. Angela Petrelli would just push her agenda, like most mothers, through cajoling and mother knows best comments. Just another way Angela felt she was protecting her family. Just another way she had no idea she was wrong about. Just another deception; it was all old hat by now.

For Angela had seen her sons and most people at their best and at their worst. To paraphrase what Claude would later tell her son Peter, “how people act when nobody’s around, is who they truly are”; it was, after all, when people showed their true colors. Yes, Angela Petrelli felt she knew her sons better than they knew themselves; it would be just one of many ways she would be wrong. Just another mistake in the fire, too many to mention now. Angela did know her sons, know them very well, and in some respects better than they knew themselves - she just underestimated the fact that they were, after all, her children - that they were, after all, Petrellis.

The next day, while her husband was at work and Angela Petrelli was alone in her house, a housewife and mother whose sons had grown and left the nest, she opened her front door to find a tall, beautiful, Haitian man standing before her. Grown and with a serene look on his face and in his eyes, he smiled at her as if this was a long time coming. Angela smiled back and nodded at the man this boy had become. Around the boy’s neck was the godsend symbol, a gift from the boy’s father, that reminded Angela how much the symbol connected them all and was beyond all logic, it just was. Angela Petrelli may have been the closest thing The Haitian had to a mother, but she was not his mother. Their mutual affection for each other was only based on deep respect and gratitude for acts gone past. She had protected him all those years ago, protected him since. And now it was time for The Haitian to return the favor.