A Room in the House of the Ancestors Books One and Two

by Melody Clark

  “Yeah,” Edward said, feeling a resounding emptiness in the one word.

  He made himself walk out the door, wishing for a moment for the lack of connection, the coldness, he had felt upon arriving. The void he felt now struck him with a cold echo of pain – something that had been summoned that was now achingly missing. Edward compelled himself to keep walking. He had wanted a quick and painless goodbye. This wasn’t it. He realized now that could never have happened.

  Thomas, Tad and Andrew had all spilled out onto the front walk. They were watching him intently. Their arms were folded defiantly.

  It had seemed like an instant, and yet like an eternity, between Edward slipping behind the steering wheel and setting his belongings in the back. He fought not to look back as he shoved in the keys, and turned the ignition. The engine churned. And stopped. He tried again. And nothing. A third and a fourth time yielded the same result.

  “Something is wrong,” Edward said, climbing out of the car again to yank up the hood.

  “Well, I did warn you the odds of your driving it were slim,” Tad said, stepping forward as if to assist.

  Edward removed the distributor cap, immediately spotting the problem. He looked over at Tad with a thousand suspicions. “The rotor is missing.”

  Tad peered over his shoulder. “Blimey. You’d think that sort of thing would come standard on these models.”

  Edward shut his eyes, feeling the first waves of understanding hit him. He coughed out a dry laugh with the growing realization. “It was there when it was driven here or it couldn’t have driven at all.”

  “Oh, that thing. It’s little and shaped like a rotor?” Tad retrieved it from his pocket and displayed it in his hand. “Yeah, I found it in the distributor cap.”

  Edward shook his head. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. You know, there was another odd thing in the car when it was delivered, too.”

  Thomas came around from behind the car, displaying a revolver before him. “I don’t remember this as an option on the last Ford I considered buying. Trust me when I tell you I will find out how you ordered yours to come with it.”

  Edward averted his eyes from Thomas, looking everywhere but at anyone. “I bought that gun for protection while I was driving around.”

  “We don’t have that many highway men attacking the main stagecoach routes around here, pahdner. Aside from the local police force, I mean,” Tad said. “And then, of course, there’s the three page suicide note we found that would seem to argue against your self-defense claim.”

  “You searched my car? Why?” Edward asked, fully understanding how mercilessly long the road ahead of him was now. It had once seemed mercifully short. The future could only now tumble on into the blackness unfolding inside his head.

  “Numerous reasons,” Andrew said, “chief amongst them our morbid discussion. Your visit to Mum’s grave this morning didn’t bode well either. To say nothing of your giving me all of your code and documentation with an open source license.”

  “I had rethought the suicide idea after I wrote the letter,” Edward said. “I decided against it.”

  “Let’s test that assertion, shall we?” Tad asked, opening the body of the .22. “They say you can determine the seriousness of a suicide attempt by its earnestness. With wrist slashers, it’s one direction versus the other. With hangings, it’s all in the knots. With guns, it’s in the number of bullets. A standard .22, I’m told by Rocky Raccoon, can hold up to six rounds of ammunition. Shall we count the number of rounds Eddie loaded into his gun?”

  “Tad –”

  Tad popped the bullets out of their chambers – one, then two, then three, and four, and five, and then the last. “Six. I’d say that’s as serious as it gets.”

  Edward slumped slowly against his car. “None of it is on any of you. There is nothing more for me to do. My purpose was my work –”

  “You’ll find a new one,” Thomas said.

  “That was the work of my life.”

  “You’ll find another,” Thomas said.

  “You can’t do this.”

  Unseen by him, James had moved Tad’s car so that it blocked the exit to the driveway. Tad walked over to it and opened its door.

  “Oh, yes, Eddie, we can,” Thomas said. “In fact, I already have. I’ve alerted the authorities. You come with us of your own free will or they’ll take you to hospital for us. We’re going to make certain you get the help you need.”

  Edward stared up for a moment at the open sky. “Can’t I just drive around for a while first?”

  “No,” Tad said, sitting down in the driver’s seat. “Get in the car, Eddie.”

  “I’ll come right back, I swear.”

  “Edward,” Tad said, his palm hovering above the car horn, “we are not seriously going to have this discussion again, are we?”

  That time, Eddie was forced to laugh in spite of himself. He knew too well there was nothing to do but surrender. They had been this way before. “No. No, I guess we’re not.”

  “Good. Then get in the fucking car.”

  Edward slid into the backseat, followed by Thomas. Andrew and Tad took the front.

  Thomas leaned near him, lowering his voice. “Why not let someone else be the strong one for a change, hm?”

  “I don’t know if I can manage that, but I’ll try,” Edward said. After a few moments, he finally said, “Thank you, Father.”

  Thomas turned with a slow and steady look of happy surprise. ““I’ve waited for a long time to hear that from you. Really hear it from you. But all the thanks I need is your coming with us to get help, Eddie.”

  “See, I knew it,” Tad said, pointing toward the field as they pass. “You cannot possibly have severe allergies. We just passed by the lavender farm owned by the mother of my son.”

  “That surprises me.”

  “What? That I have a son?”

  “No, that I’m not sneezing. In fact, I can even smell the lavender. I haven’t smelled a flower in thirty years.”

  Andrew turned around to smile at him. “As I told you at the old house, maybe that sensing thing is something that comes back after a while.”

  Edward fought against the nod and lost. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I’d suggest we stop so you can smell the lavender, but the mother and I don’t get on,” Tad said.

  “Divorced?” Edward asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Edward actually smiled a little. “Now that doesn’t surprise me.”

  A Room in the House of the Ancestors

  *Book 2*

  Chapter One

  “After three months of addiction rehabilitation, our general physician has released you with an overall excellent bill of health,” Doctor Maxim said. “Because you’re only 35, you managed to survive long-term amphetamine addiction and short-term heroin dependency remarkably well. Your heart is sound, your brain appears to be functioning normally, your liver and other organs are in top shape. Now we must contend with your emotional equilibrium.”

  Three months? It seemed more like three years – and yet, somehow, three days. “Okay,” Edward said, repositioning himself in the chair to help alleviate his creeping apprehension.

  “I am left to make a final assessment about your emotional and mental health,” Maxim said, considering Edward over the tops of his wire glasses. “So, how do you feel about returning to your recently rediscovered family home after three months?”

  “Admittedly, wary,” Eddie confessed.

  “You have had weekend trips home. And many visits here with your family.”

  “I have,” Eddie said.

  “Still see yourself as something of an outsider, I would imagine,” Maxim said.

  “It’s not that they intend that I feel that way,” Edward replied. “It’s just a matter of circumstances. They’re all very kind. The distance is my own nature.”

&nb
sp; Maxim removed his glasses, balancing them between his hands. “They certainly appear to be very supportive. I sense you have developed a great deal of affection for them and they for you.”

  Edward nodded. “I have, yes. They saved my life. They’ve been very kind, and gracious, especially by inviting me to stay on with them from this point on, into the foreseeable future.”

  “You consider that kindness and graciousness?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes, I do. Wouldn’t you?”

  “You have no sense of inherent fairness in that? No feeling of appropriateness or justice around their actions?”

  “Heavens, no, why would I?”

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed as if he had merely glanced at something from afar. He seemed to be scrutinizing it – and Edward – more closely. The stare back at him seemed to Edward almost brutally direct. “Would you mind a rather personal question?”

  “I thought that was all therapy consisted of.”

  The doctor seemed to select his words very carefully. “You have told me, have you not, that you didn’t consider Wendell a good father to you.” Maxim offered a gentle smile. “Do you consider your biological father – Thomas – a good father?”

  “I’d say he’s an excellent father.”

  “And good fathers love their sons, do they not?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you believe Thomas loves his sons?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think his is an unconditional love?”

  “From what I’ve witnessed, without question.”

  The scope of the doctor’s stare appeared to narrow to a point. “You are one of his sons. Would that love include you?”

  At that question, Edward sat far back in his chair. He had been surprised by it, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been. He didn’t have a single idea how to answer it – how to begin to answer it. “You’d have to ask him. I don’t know what he feels.”

  “You certainly have – recovered or developed, however you would phrase it – a great deal of affection for Thomas. For your father.”

  “Yes, I have,” Edward said. “But we’ve been separated for a lot of years.”

  “So, if you were to give me one absolute, definitive answer, yes or no, to the question do you think Thomas, your father, loves you, which would you feel most confident to say?”

  Edward had his answer. He shrugged and merely offered, “If I had to answer one or the other, I would have to say no.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, yes. You find that surprising?”

  “Very,” the doctor said. “Personally, I would accept it as a given that he does. Why do you think that he doesn’t?”

  Edward shrugged. “I just think it would be very presumptuous of me to just expect that at this point, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. Not at all, really. In fact, I find it appallingly sad that you do.”

  With those words haunting him, Edward heard Tad’s strangely welcome voice booming through the thin walls of the outer office, “I’m here to collect my brother. the septic.”

 

  “Thank you, Tad,” Edward said suddenly, as Tad had already started the car. “I appreciate the ride. My car is still in the shop.”

  Tad tossed him a smirk in reply. “That lovely vehicle you purchased is in the shop? There’s a shocker. I guess you didn’t think to inquire about the engine when you were going to splatter your brain across the upholstery.”

  “Thank you for the vivid memory,” Edward said. “It’s not that bad, it’s just that the clutch is slipping. Besides, as you know, I’m getting a new car.”

  “A septic brand fit for a septic man,” Tad replied.

  Eddie grimaced hard. “Do you have to call me that word? Septic?”

  “Of course. Cockney rhyming slang – septic tank equals Yank. You’re my brother the septic, so yes, I do. And you can continue to call me what all my brothers call me.”

  “A punishment from God?”

  “Besides that.”

  Edward nodded. “Yes, yes, Toad, I remember. So, while I’m still feeling drifting bits of gratitude to you, Toad, I will say it was very considerate of you, Toad, to drive up to fetch me. I know it’s an imposition –”

  “Oh, would you stop it?” Tad said, groaning as if at the sounds of words he had tired of long ago.

  “Stop what?”

  “Wilse the carless one must call me ten times a day. Toad, drive me to the shops. Toad, drop me at the Park Theatre. Toad, come fetch me from my girlfriend’s house before her daddy gets home. You, brother septic, I pick up at the appointed destination because the doctor requested it formally in writing a week ago, and you spend the first two minutes issuing ceremonious declarations of formal appreciation.”

  “I’m just saying, you know, I could have taken a taxi, that’s all. So thanks.”

  “Oh, of course. It would be such an abruption of honor and pride for you to simply ask your own brother for a fucking ride.”

  “It would have been an – ”

  “Imposition, I know, I know. And nobody expects the Edward Imposition.” Tad headed out onto the street. “Very well, if you do think it was an imposition for me to drive the whole three damned kilometers to rescue you from the rehab then honor alone would compel you to play a game of chess with me as a reward.”

  Edward winced. “God, I walked right into that one.”

  Toad thwarted a laugh into a snort. “Yes, yes, you did, I admit it. And it was such fun to coax you along.”

  “But I hate chess.”

  “Of course you hate chess. No one enjoys chess. It’s not a party game. It’s a personal point of tactical will in reference to the rest of humanity. And with the very slim chance you might be superior to me in abilities, I want to prove that I can vanquish you beyond question.”

  “Oh, is that all? You should have just said so.”

  “So, you’ll play?” Tad asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I’m honor bound now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. Speaking of being bound by honor, I must confess that Maxim is a cheap bastard with office walls like onion skin. But I only heard parts of your discussion.”

  Edward glanced around toward Tad and then away. “Okay, what did you hear?”

  “Just pieces, like I said, not much. But tell me, what secrets did you impart? Did you confess you believe you’re Napoleon? Because at least then you’d be interesting.”

  Edward laughed roughly, shaking his head at the open road. “Yes, Toad, I told him I was Napoleon. I’m going to depose you and install myself as First Consul.”

  “What kind of shit First Consul will you make? Corsica is in ruins,” Tad said, as they pulled into the Croftdon House drive.

  Edward slipped like a reticent shadow into the vast and endless house. To him, the big house still felt sentient, alive, and overly suspicious of strangers. He had arrived there over three months ago, feeling as if he was a lost cavalry member trespassing into Indian Country. Nothing in his life had scared him as much as walking into this house and confronting these people. He had managed a marginal sense of comfort before being spirited away to rehab. And now, faced with returning, the place still seemed a little like he was a tangential homesteader in disputed territory.

  More of a stranger again, he made his entry slowly. By the time Edward had barely breached the archway, Tad had already stormed the great room and plunked his tablet down on the center of the game table.

  “Firstly, allow me to officially welcome you home. We’re a little early. Andrew is obviously still out fetching the food for your welcome home dinner. I reckon Father is finishing work in his study. God knows where the boys are. So, do you need anything? A soft drink? A fairy cake? A quick and comprehensive lesson in chess from a master? You have everything you need?”

  “Well, I h
ave to take my suitcase to my –”

  Tad wrested the luggage from Edward’s hand. He pitched it like a scratch ball into the laundry room. “That’s done. It’s all for the wash anyway.”

  “Most of it,” Edward said, nodding.

  “Good. Now then,” Tad said, shucking his jacket and brandishing it like a matador’s cape before him. “As the matadors say, toro, my brutha. It’s chess time.”

  Edward glared at the game table like it was an obstacle of tremendous proportions. “You were serious? There is no way I can get out of this? Bribery?”