Tease

by Mary E. Twomey

  I reached out and squeezed his fingers. “I think pythons are stupid, and I love you just the way you are. No place safer than with you.”

  “Pythons are stupid.” Ollie nodded once, and then let the silence settle between us while I tried to puzzle through it all. Ollie patted my hand to center me. “Kabayo told me you delivered September like a champ.”

  I didn’t know if I believed him, but I was too weak to argue much. “The nurse didn’t say, but can I have children again? That patayin didn’t permanently mess me up, did it?”

  Ollie was serious, leaving no room for questions. “You can absolutely have children someday when the time is right. Nothing about you is messed up.”

  I bit my lip and nodded, looking down at the hospital gown I was dressed in. “I think I’d like a shower. Do I have clothes?”

  “You do, but you’re not leaving today. Go take a shower and then come on back here so I can school you at cards. It’s about time I taught you how to really play.”

  I tried to smile at his joke that he could best me at poker, but I couldn’t find my sense of humor. Ollie seemed to understand, and didn’t take offense. He was good like that.

  My shower was careful and slow until something hit me midway through, speeding me up and making me impatient with my body. I fumbled with the soap sliver and did my best to figure out the best way to wash my feet without bending too much.

  “Where’s Allie?” was the first thing out of my mouth the second I was dried and dressed. “Is she here? I haven’t been able to get out of the house to see her, but now I can.”

  “She’s here, but she can wait. You need to take it easy before shouldering another hurdle. Seriously, kid. Deal with what happened before jumping headfirst into another mess.”

  My chin rattled from side to side rapidly, my eyes too wide for a normal conversation. “I can’t, Ollie. I mean, how do you deal with losing a baby? What’s the recipe?”

  Ollie stared hard at me for a few beats. “I guess that’s fair. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up about Allie right after being crushed like this. This thing with Allie? It’s a marathon that might not end well, and you just got beaten down all the way through one of those and barely survived.”

  “I lost a baby, Ollie.”

  My brother’s expression softened. I knew that look. He wanted to fix all the problems in the world for me, but he couldn’t. Ain’t no fixing this. “I know, hun.”

  I blinked twice. “I lost my baby.”

  Ollie nodded slowly. “You did everything you could to keep her healthy.”

  “I lost my baby.”

  His jaw stiffened. “This isn’t on you. I hope you understand that. This is all on the Manas. This one’s on Terraway.”

  My voice died down to a whisper. “I lost my baby.”

  Ollie gave up on responding, instead nodding to let me puzzle through how the words sounded on my tongue.

  “I lost my baby.” The words tasted bitter and felt hollow, like an echo of madness I could now add to my growing list of dysfunctions I specialized in. Madness was my specialty, and I was steeped in it. “I lost my baby.”

  Ollie’s arms raised and lowered a few times, debating whether or not he should hug me. He landed on extending one arm to me, corralling me to the hospital bed and lowering me down gently.

  “I lost my baby.”

  “I know, sweetie. Let it all out. How about I deal us a few hands, and you tell me anything you feel like.”

  “I lost my baby,” I reminded myself as I sifted through the hand he dealt. We played round after round, taking no joy in the game, but hypnotizing ourselves in the mindlessness of the ritual. “I lost my baby,” I repeated whenever it came into my brain.

  I’d lost September, and I’d never get her back.

  Finally, the tears started falling, breaking through the logic that had been the only thing that anchored me. They weren’t sobs of sadness, uncontrollable with loss; the few tears that birthed out of me paid tribute to the pain I hoped she hadn’t felt, and the agony I knew I might always carry. “I lost September.”

  It was the first thing I’d said with any variation in a while, so Ollie ventured a response. “She was beautiful. Absolutely perfect.”

  “Do you think she was in pain when the poison root hit her?”

  Ollie mulled this over, so he didn’t answer with an obligatory “of course not.” He shuffled the deck thoughtfully. “Did you feel anything other than the contractions to make you think she might’ve suffered?”

  “No. The contractions were pretty blinding.”

  “Then my vote is no. It sounds like she passed the second the poison went into your system. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for feeling pain.”

  I looked over the nightstand at my brother. The sterile smell of the hospital and the shuffle of feet in the hallway of people carrying on with normal life all faded away. I saw my brother clearly in his response that was both logical and kind. “Thank you.”

  Ollie nodded in response, thinking I meant thank you for not blowing me off with something cheery. It was far more than that, though. I hadn’t been able to feel much, but with his careful and honest response, I began to feel a small glimmer of something tender. Life had been so very rough with me, but Ollie’s gentleness softened each blow into something bearable.

  “You gave up your life for me,” I said. My eyes narrowed in confusion and something akin to wonder. “I was as tiny as September. I was that helpless. You and Allie... I don’t know how you did it. You were both so young.” I swallowed as my eyes welled with appreciation for the grand gift that was my brother. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you two.” And there were days that I treated the life that had been granted to me as if it was a labor, a chore, a punishment. “You didn’t just help me stay alive when Bev forgot about me, you went out of your way to give me a good life.”

  Ollie was quiet, unsure what to say to any of it.

  “I ate because of you two. I went to school and graduated early because of you two. I got a degree because of you two. I have a home because of you two.” I shook my head at myself. “I complain about this Terraway thing messing up my life, but I wouldn’t have a life at all if it weren’t for you.” I vowed to stop feeling so put out that the responsibility of feeding nations had been dumped on me. Ollie never complained that I’d been dumped on him. “You were just a kid yourself. I’m so sorry I made you sacrifice your childhood to raise me.”

  Ollie leveled his finger in my face. “That’s where I pause you. I wouldn’t have had a childhood even if you hadn’t been born. Bev didn’t take care of us, so that wasn’t in the cards either way. I know what you’re doing. You’re going to heap guilt on yourself, and I won’t have it. I’ll take the gratitude. I’ll take the you appreciating what a miracle your life is. But me not having a childhood isn’t on you. You gave me purpose and direction. You kept me from running off with Judge and getting into some real trouble.” He looked hard into my eyes across the nightstand, and I could see emotion sparking on his lashes. “Don’t you know, kid? You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. That’s what I want you to carry around with you in your back pocket when you start feeling like you can’t get things perfect, how you like them. You’re the best thing that ever happened to Allie and me, and we wouldn’t have done anything different.”

  I smiled, and though my facial muscles protested, lightness slowly began to trickle through my features. “I was just going to say the same thing to you. You and Allie are the best things that ever happened to me. I love you.”

  Ollie moved to sit next to me on the side of the bed, the muffled shifting of the tall frame accommodating both of us. The thin mattress shielded us from the storm that always seemed to overturn our safest of places. “Oh, kid. You have no idea. I love you, and I’m so proud of you.”

  In the seclusion of the hospital room, I let my brother hold me like I was his daughter. I allowed myself to be small, instead of always f
ighting and striving to be big enough, strong enough, smart enough and together enough. I let the mess be exactly what it was, and Ollie didn’t try to paint a pretty picture on any of it. The whole thing had been a horror that ended in tragedy, and we both respected the somberness of life’s many twists and turns that teased us all too often with a promise of peace.

  Seventeen.

  One Sister for Another

  Ollie and I went back and forth on the specifics of what “take it easy” meant, and eventually compromised on him taking me in a wheelchair to the ward where Allie was being held. He moved painstakingly slowly through the halls, being extra ginger with the turns. It was sweet, but I needed to see my sister, to make sure she was real. We had to slow down to accommodate a patient pushing their IV drip, the labored shuffle of her slippers on the floor trying my patience. With every passing moment, it felt like Allie might slip away from me yet again.

  When Ollie checked us in at the nurse’s station, I was scared the universe might implode before I got to actually see my sister for the first time in years. Ollie wheeled me through the door and pulled back the squeaky curtain, revealing a thinned-out version of the woman who’d raised me.

  I gasped at the sight of my sister. She was so pale; her pinprick freckles stood out across the bridge of her button nose that matched mine. Her auburn hair was curlier than mine, and lay back against the pillow like she was a sleeping princess, just waiting for the magic to come along and wake her from her eternal slumber.

  Her frail fingers that could French braid my hair like a true mama lay at her sides, motionless. Her whole body was still, as if she didn’t know we were there, watching her. As if she couldn’t hear my heart slamming against my ribcage because part of the missing piece was finally returned to me.

  “Allie?” I worked out, the gust of her name powerful in my mouth. I was surprised when the sound I made didn’t wake her at all. My voice didn’t rouse her one bit.

  Ollie fidgeted with the curtain again, tucking the edge to the corner of the windowsill, so Allie could see the world outside when she was ready. There was a vase of yellow daisies on the nightstand, bringing life where there was barely any to speak of. “Allie loves yellow daisies. Are those from you?” I asked, transfixed by the sight of my sister. I wheeled myself closer and placed my hand in hers, thinking that surely if she felt me near, she would wake up.

  “No. They’re from Ezra. He asked what kind of flowers she liked, and I remember her always stopping at the grocery store to look at the daisies. He has a fresh bouquet sent to her room once a week. He visits, too. Reads her Shakespearean plays. They sound pretty cool when read by an actual Brit. Not a bad dad, that one.”

  I nodded. “I can’t believe of all the things we’ve lost, that we got to keep Ezra.”

  Ollie walked to the other side of the bed and squeezed Allie’s hand. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately. I wasn’t sure which of you needed me more. Since you had a whole army at the house, I decided you could spare me, so I could sit with Allie.”

  I waved off his apology. “I’d rather someone was with her. I wished I could’ve been here. I can’t believe Philip actually had her this whole time. She’s been through I can only guess what because of him.” I studied my sister’s ghostly skin, running through the list of things that wouldn’t work to wake her. When the nurse list in my brain came up empty, I switched to the less traditional Terraway options. “Do you think there’s an herb or something that could wake her up? Like something from Terraway? Other than the one in the haunted forest in Hayop?”

  Ollie started applying pressure to Allie’s wrist. His grip moved up her arm to get the blood to flow the way it would if she was swinging her arms as she walked. “Believe me, I grilled Ezra on all of that. There’s nothing except that sigla flower that only grows in that cursed forest in Hayop, and that’s out of the question.”

  I couldn’t stand the sight of my sister so helpless. She’d given up too much of her life so I could have a future, and now here she was, defeated and motionless. It wasn’t fair. I waited a few beats before offering up my plan in a lowered voice. “I know Sama will give us whatever we ask if I go to his island and stay with him.”

  Ollie’s head shot up, his nostrils flaring. “Out of the question. First off, I’ll not trade one sister for another. Allie would wake up, and the first thing she’d do is run to Terraway to free you. Then you’d both be right where that jackass wants you. Find another plan. One that’s less suicidal.”

  “Challenge accepted. Give me a few minutes.”

  Ollie scoffed. “A few minutes? You think you’ll be able to solve what doctors and Ezra couldn’t?”

  “I think I’m far more stubborn than any of you, so yeah.”

  Eighteen.

  The B-word

  Even though I hadn’t woken Allie up after the few minutes I’d hoped it would take for me to find a solution, I didn’t give up, even after I was discharged and sent home. Having a problem to solve kept me focused on a solution instead of on the shambles my life was in now.

  Von had no such anchor. He stayed in our bedroom in the mansion most days, coming down only when I tried to do something by myself. He would sit in a chair facing the window that overlooked the expansive backyard. He didn’t talk much – I didn’t need him to. I’d hoped the scenery of the spacious grounds of the mansion would do him some good, but it seemed nothing got through to him.

  We grieved as any normal couple would after such a tragic event – psychically. I didn’t want people to see me carrying on in public; their pitying looks were already more than I could handle. So when we went to sleep at night, Von and I sat under a tall, thick oak tree in our park, not saying anything as we wept and held each other in our misery.

  “When we wake up, I’ll give you your ring back,” I offered quietly, cuddled in his arms that trembled as he cried. His back was propped up against our tree, the purple and blue leaves shaking to the ground, as if nature wanted to weep alongside us.

  Von recoiled, horrified. “Why would you kick me while I’m down?”

  “No! That’s not what this is. I just know you probably wouldn’t have proposed if I hadn’t been pregnant, so I’m letting you off the hook.”

  “I’m not on a hook.” His nose crinkled in distaste. “Did you only say yes because you were pregnant?”

  “Of course not. I want to marry you still. Is that what you want?”

  “It’s the only thing I want.” He shifted against the tree, drawing me to sit between his legs so all four of his limbs could encircle me. “Don’t leave me now. I’m afraid I can’t take it.”

  I exhaled my relief as I let my body go limp in his arms. “I’m here, honey. No matter what.” A swarm of cerulean and violet butterflies fluttered around us, sending a trail of gold glitter through the air, like a puffy cloud left by a jet in the sky. It was a beautiful place we dwelt in, while drowning in the depths of our misery.

  When we awoke, I’d hoped the mornings would be easier, but the crushing weight on my chest didn’t lift as the days ticked off on the calendar, piling up to a whole week since the incident. Von was still in his chair in our bedroom, looking out at the world but refusing to join it.

  I came back from the bathroom that morning in clean clothes that were not pajamas, making a statement that I would not wallow while my sister was in limbo. I’d tried to visit her a few times, but Von had insisted it was too dangerous to leave the mansion. I cleared my throat to garner his attention. Though he was a few feet from me, he seemed a million miles away. “I’m going to see Allie at the hospital. You want to come?”

  Von turned to me, as if seeing me for the first time. “Why are you dressed?”

  I pursed my lips, knowing that patience was the only attitude I could have in this situation. “I’m going to go visit my sister. Would you like to come?” I tried not to let any insecurity poke through. “I’d love for you to meet her.” While I knew she couldn’t disapprove of Von in her cur
rent state, there was a part of me that needed her to love him, and needed him to adore and respect her.

  Von turned back to the window. “No. And you shouldn’t go, either. It’s not safe out there. If the Manas got you before, they can get to you again.” His cigars had made a reappearance this week, making everything in the room fragrant with the sweet sting of the Von I’d first met. He clutched his cigar and took another puff, letting the smoke waft out without direction, flair or thought.

  “I won’t go alone. I’ll take one of your brothers if you don’t want to go.”

  He looked up at me, blinking his hurt through thick, black lashes. “You’re leaving me?”

  My eyebrows pushed together in concern at his overly fragile state. It was uncharacteristic of the playboy I loved. “You know I’d never do that. I’m going out for a couple hours. You’re welcome to join me. I can’t leave my sister alone, Von. She needs me.”

  “I need you.”

  “And you have me. This is me. I’m not the girl who holes herself up in her room when there’s work to be done. My house is a wreck and my sister’s in a coma. I don’t have it in me to leave those things untouched anymore.”

  “Give me some time to think about it.” He went to staring out the window again, puffing on his cigar to melt his brain a little. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow or next week.”

  “Okay, sweetie. Take your time. I’ll be home for dinner tonight, alright?”

  I didn’t expect Von to start crying, so I floundered, tripping over my messenger bag and a spare pillow on the carpet as I tried to wrap my arms around him to hold him together. The sobs wracked his body hard out of nowhere. “We were going to be a family!”

  I hugged his head to my breast and combed my fingers through his hair as he wet my white t-shirt with his tears. “Von, we still are a family. You and me, honey. You’ll be the husband and I’ll be the wife. That’s a family.”