“I didn't realize how late it was,” he said after a moment. “I must have … lost track of time.”
“It's fine. We've still got an hour before we have to leave.”
“Right. But I would have … I should have asked if there was something you wanted to do today, for your birthday.”
He looked at me apologetically, but I couldn't think of why he felt any need to do so. He should have stopped visiting my mother's grave, I decided. He was getting too sentimental.
“You took me to the opera last night,” I reminded him. “You didn't need to do anything today.”
“Right, well … your father will complain.”
“That you took me to the opera, or that you didn't do enough today?”
“Both.”
He retreated into his room to change his socks and pants, and at five we walked down to his car to go to my father's. It was fairly warm for March and the snow on the streets was turning to a muddy brown, and the sky was clear and starless above the artificial lights from the neighboring buildings.
“I'd rather just have dinner at home,” I said as the car pulled out onto the street, already envisioning another of the standard meals that I too-often attended at my father's house. Though I got along with him well enough now for it to be passable as a substantial relationship, there was no use in pretending that either of us understood the other or would have attempted such a strained existence if we weren't obligated by our shared genetics.
“You'll have a good time,” Karl said neutrally.
Before I could make a remark to counter his, the phone in my pocket buzzed against my side and I reached to look at the number lighting up the screen. Jack was calling to wish me a happy birthday; he must have just finished his work for the day.
“Are you going to answer it?” Karl said.
We had just pulled up outside of the Colonial house that belonged to my father, and even though we were a good fifteen minutes early, I could hear the apprehension in Karl's voice at the thought that I might be late regardless by choosing to speak to Jack. Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I shook my head.
“He'll leave a message.”
Karl let out a carefully-contained breath.
“I'll come back at six-thirty to get you,” he said, putting the car in park as he waited for me to get out. “But if your father wants you to stay longer, just come out when you're done.”
“The earlier the better.”
I pulled myself from the car and trudged up the front path. They had failed to shovel it since the snowfall earlier in the week, and my shoes had completely filled with slush as I tried to navigate my way towards the front porch. Pausing before I reached it, I waited until the taillights from Karl's car had disappeared down the street before sidestepping behind the snow-covered juniper hedge and retrieving the phone from my pocket again to dial Jack's number. From where I stood, I could just make out the forms of two of Melinda's children moving in the living room; they'd be grateful if I didn't arrive a moment too soon.
“Happy birthday, Nim.”
As Jack's voice crackled into the night air, I ducked down further to completely hide myself from view and pressed the phone closer to my ear.
“If you say so.”
“Heading to your father's?” he asked, his voice clear in contrast to my lowered one. It was difficult to imagine him speaking without fully knowing where he was apart from the name of the town he was residing in, though I felt certain, at least, that he was in his wrinkled sweatshirt with the hood pulled up to cover his eyes.
“I'm standing outside.”
“Hiding, more likely,” he cackled. “Have a cigarette in the bushes for me. Better yet, leave it in the garage and set the place on fire – consider it a birthday present to yourself.”
“I'll have to take a rain-check,” I said dully, throwing another glance up at the brightly-lit living room. The house was a bit less modern than the one that they had lived in in Amsterdam, but I disliked it all the same. It was a bit too much like the one that I remembered living in with my father when I was the age that his step-son was now, and though I had absolutely no desire to ever be under the same roof as him for more time than the occasional dinner invitations called for, I still didn't like the idea of him being there with his new family.
“You have no fun anymore, Nim.”
“I never had fun with my father. He's not really the type.”
“Not really what I meant,” Jack said, his voice slightly muffled as he switched the phone to his other ear. “How long are you going to stay in Connecticut?”
I paused for a long moment. Though Jack had understood why I had returned to live with Karl after everything that had happened on Bardom Island, it wasn't lost on me that he, at least, was still hoping that I hadn't completely retreated from the person that I had been beforehand. And while a part of me was rather glad to think that someone hadn't found fault with whoever that had been, the larger part of me was certain that it was better to be cold and indifferent than it was to be the person that had caused so many things to go wrong.
“I live here, Jack.”
“Right.” He paused, evidently not pleased with the answer, but when he spoke again his voice was just as light and mischievous as ever. “You can still visit me, though, can't you?”
“Where? In Kipling?”
“That's the place.”
I rolled my eyes and stole another glance at the living room window, certain that I should have been heading inside instead of continuing the conversation.
“Not sure I want to go to Maine, Jack, especially in the winter.”
“Ah, it's not so bad.” He waited, knowing that I was raising my eyebrows even though he couldn't see me. “Well, it's not so bad compared to Bickerby in March, then.”
“I don't know.” I fidgeted with my sweater beneath my jacket, righting it as I prepared to head up the front steps to the porch. “What would I do there?”
“Visit me, of course,” he said. “It'd be fun.”
“That's what I'm afraid of.”
“Ah, come on, Nim – come visit me. I haven't seen you in months. Besides, I have to give you your present.”
“My what?”
“Your birthday present,” he said. “Didn't think I wouldn't get you anything, did you?”
I shrugged despite the fact that he couldn't see me do so and ran a hand through my hair. I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was up to something, and even though it alighted some of the distant longing for carefreeness and adventure that he had always managed to dredge up from the nothingness all around, I knew better than to think that I should go. I was doing fine now – as fine as I would ever be – and there was nothing that could make me risk being anything less.
“I don't know, Jack. I don't think I should leave the state.”
“You make it sound like you're wearing an ankle bracelet,” he remarked.
“It's similar enough.”
“Come on, Nim: you'll like it,” he persisted. “I promise.”
“Is it coffee?” I asked dully, wondering what he supposed could possibly lure me away.
“Better.”
“What's better than coffee?” I said, allowing the joke to fall from my flattened tone.
I could almost hear him grinning.
“A mystery.”
Ch. 2
With the excuse that I had to go, I hung up the phone and shook my head. I already knew what my answer would be when I called him back, of course: I wouldn't go to Kipling, and certainly not to partake in another one of his insane ideas of an adventure. We had grown out of that by now – or, at least, we should have – and though I was certain that whatever he was up to was nothing as horrific as what we had found at Bickerby, I also knew that nothing good would come of it. I knew better than to twist my mind around anymore than it had already bent, and perhaps he didn't particularly like who I was now, but it was all that I was, and I was quite certain that it was all tha
t I would ever be.
It was exactly five-thirty by the time I reached the front door. Sighing as I stamped my wet feet out on the welcome mat, I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer.
“Happy birthday, Enim.”
Emily opened the door wearing her usual morose expression. Her hair was dark like her mother's and had been straightened into sheets that fell forward onto her face that only highlighted her stern appearance, and given the look that she was throwing at me, I rather thought that she should have been banned from greeting guests at the door.
“Thanks.”
She had already turned and was walking back to the kitchen when I spoke. I shrugged off my jacket and hung it by the door and kicked off my shoes before following her. The house was quiet except for the muffled sound of voices in the living room where Oliver was playing a video game. He didn't acknowledge me as I passed through, though I was certain that he knew that I was there; it was difficult to decide which of the two siblings disliked me more.
Entering the kitchen, I paused on the threshold and blinked across the room. Though it wasn't messy by anyone's standards except for Karl's, it wasn't as tidy as usual, either. Bowls and glasses from that morning's breakfast were still in the dishwasher, and the towels hanging down from the counters and laying on top were in need of changing. The floor, too, was streaked with footprints from someone who had forgotten to take off their shoes before passing through, and miscellaneous objects were thrown in every corner rather than in their rightful spots. The place looked like it had been lived in for far too long.
“Happy birthday, Enim!”
Ava, at least, harbored enough enthusiasm for the entire household. She was standing on a kitchen chair in order to get something out of a high cabinet, but shrieked in a greeting upon seeing me come into the room, flinging her arms out wildly for good measure. I smiled at her in response, but didn't want to add to the commotion. Melinda was frowning at the stove as she hurried to finish dinner, and steam was billowing from beneath a pot lid that was threatening to boil over.
“Happy birthday, Enim,” she said, forcing a smile despite the downward turn of her brow. I seemed to have arrived at the wrong moment despite being perfectly on time, and as it was clear that she was both unready for me and more than a little frazzled, I continued to stand by the door to keep out of the way.
“You're exactly twice my age now,” Ava proclaimed, hopping down from the chair and bringing a stack of plates over to the table to set it. “It'll never happen again – that's pretty exciting.”
“It sure is,” I replied, though I couldn't think of why.
“Do you like being twenty-two?”
“It's … fine. So far,” I said.
Someone moved behind me and my father came into the room. He, too, was frowning, though the expression was so typical that his face had become accustomed to it. He said something to Melinda in a low voice that was completely covered by the surrounding noises in the room, but upon realizing that I was there, he quickly straightened and came over to me.
“Happy birthday, son,” he said, giving the tiresome greeting along with a squeeze of my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I said. He was looking at me fixedly as he said it, and when neither his eyes nor his hand moved away from me, I added, “... for having me.”
“Of course we have you,” he said, leading me over to the table. His hand was still on my shoulder, and I had the urge to shake it away. “You should spend your birthday with your family.”
“Well, Karl's family, too.”
“I suppose that's true, yes.” He pulled out a chair and motioned for me to sit down, and I stiffly followed suit. Ava was still arranging forks next to each plate, but placed a spoon next to the spot that he had taken. “Perhaps I should have invited him. That was thoughtless of me.”
I raised my eyebrows slightly but gave no response, choosing instead to straighten my silverware into even increments where they laid upon the wood. I wished that the dinner had been ready on time; I was already itching to leave.
“Dammit,” Melinda said suddenly, midway through putting the rest of the food on the table. “I forgot the cake.”
My father looked up at her wearily, a hollowed look in his eyes.
“Weren't you going to pick one up at the store?”
“I forgot,” she repeated, then glanced at me and added, “I'm sorry, Enim.”
“That's fine. I wasn't expecting one.”
The chair off to her side screeched against the floor as Oliver came in to sit down. He threw me a look before reaching into the bread basket for a roll.
“Mum usually bakes cakes when it's our birthday,” he said.
“Don't start eating until everyone's sitting down,” Melinda told him, taking the roll and tossing it back into the basket with an even more frazzled expression. Brushing her bangs from her eyes, she turned back to me and uttered another apology.
“It's fine, really, Melinda,” I said. “I really don't even like cake.”
“You don't like cake?”
Oliver made a face at me as his mother circled the table to put something unrecognizable and mushy onto my father's plate. Between the childish behavior and the look of the shapeless food, I vaguely felt as though I was back in the Bickerby dining hall with Julian Wynne.
“I have a slight sore throat,” my father explained, catching the look I was giving his meal.
“Sorry to hear that,” I replied, though it was clear from my tone just how far my empathy extended.
We ate hurriedly, due in large part to the fact that no one aside from Ava was speaking, and by the time that the dishes were being cleared off the table, it was only ten to six. I stared at the clock longingly, wondering if Karl had decided to show up a half hour early to get me or if I would have to wait around in the house for forty more minutes.
“Can we show Enim his present now?” Ava asked, her neck white and bent as she stretched her head back to look at my father. The expression was almost too adoring, and between her admiration of him and her seeming penchant for me, I was beginning to wonder about her judgment.
My father gave a tight smile.
“In just a minute,” he said. “I need to speak with him first.”
He turned back to me.
“Why don't you come back to my office?” he said. “I wanted to discuss something with you.”
“Right,” I said, unable to mask the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. “Sure.”
I followed him down the hallway and over to the small room off to the side of the staircase. Even though the space was limited, he had still managed to pack an exorbitant amount of papers inside of it: they spewed over the desk and littered the surrounding surfaces with no concern for the filing cabinet where they were supposed to be contained. As I stepped over the threshold, he lightly shut the door behind me and ushered me into the room.
“You didn't have to get me anything,” I said, not liking the sound of the silence that had crept into the room after us.
My father looked over at me.
“It's your birthday,” he said.
“Right, well ...”
As far as I could remember, he hadn't gotten me a present for several years; and even before that, I was quite sure that the gifts that had been wrapped and presented to me had been the work of my mother. I wasn't even certain that my father was capable of picking out a gift for me at all – he certainly didn't know me well enough to make a guess as to what I would want – and he more often than not opted to send me a check enclosed in a standard greeting card.
“It was Ava's idea, really,” he said. “But I thought it would be nice, especially since we haven't spent many of your birthdays together, you know, with you being away at Bickerby and whatnot ...”
“Right. Because I was away.”
I turned and looked off to the side of the office. If I could have gotten anything from him for my birthday, it would have been an admittance that he had been at fault for somethin
g for once rather than me.
“I'm sorry about dinner,” he said unexpectedly. “Things have been a bit hectic around here; I had wanted it to be nicer.”
“It was fine.”
He paused at my indifferent tone, evidently trying to discern if I was being evasive or if it was simply my usual affect.
“We do enjoy having you here,” he said. “All of us. Ava adores you, and Melinda's ...”
“Polite,” I said, offering the word when one wouldn't come to him.
“She's very fond of you,” he said, though we both knew it was an overstatement. “And I … I guess what I'm getting at, Enim, is that they all very much feel that you're part of the family, and you're always welcome here.”
“Right,” I said, not quite sure what he was getting at. “Good to know.”
“So you've been doing well?”
“With Karl?”
“No, just … just with everything.” He paused and looked me over as though searching for any indication that it wasn't so. “What have you been up to?”
I shrugged.
“Nothing, just … the usual.”
“The usual?”
“Playing the piano, mostly.”
“Anything else?”
I pulled my shoulders back, suddenly realizing how stiff they were.
“Sure. The usual,” I repeated, not in the mood to delve into the monotony of my daily life.
“I see.” He nodded, suddenly looking unsure. “And have you given any thought to what else you might like to do?”
“I don't really need another hobby.”
“No, I meant more along the lines of … your future. Have you thought about going further with your education? Maybe getting a degree?”
I sighed and crossed my arms. The last thing that I wanted to give any thought to was how wasteful it would be for me to attempt to lead a normal, non-secluded life.
When I Am Laid in Earth (Damnatio Memoriae Book 3) Page 2