by Rinelle Grey
It all blurred together for Marlee until she was sitting by the fire in her childhood home, a warm cup of tea in her hands and Weiss scowling at her. Marlee’s stomach clenched. It was silly to feel this way. She was an adult with her own home, not answerable to him in any way.
Except, her home was uninhabitable. The damage to the roof couldn’t be fixed in this weather. There would be no materials available for that kind of repair until spring arrived.
Tyris smiled at her mother. “Thank you, Yasmyn. It’s kind of you to open your home to us on such short notice.”
Marlee should have given thanks too, but her tongue wouldn’t move. Weiss’s scowl deepened. He hadn’t said anything yet, but it wouldn’t be long before he voiced his opinion. It wouldn’t be pleasant.
“No need for thanks, Tyris. Of course you and Marlee are welcome here.” Marlee relaxed a little at her mother’s words.
“Don’t think that means you can sit around doing nothing. I expect you to pull your weight and contribute to the household.” Weiss’s words sent a cold shiver through Marlee. They sounded reasonable on the surface, but she knew Weiss was anything but. He would make them pay for interrupting his life.
“Of course, sir. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Tyris took Weiss’s statement at face value. “If there’s anything at all I can do to help, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“You’re welcome to do my chores,” Colby piped up.
Marlee winced at her younger brother’s words. The only one still living at home, Colby would do anything he could to get out of work. She’d lost count of how many times he’d threatened or blackmailed her into doing his chores when they were younger.
Tyris raised an eyebrow but didn’t otherwise acknowledge Colby’s comment.
Weiss ignored his son, still staring at Marlee. Most people would have taken Tyris’s reply to be for both of them, but not Weiss. “What’s wrong with you, girl? Cat got your tongue?”
Marlee’s mouth felt dry. It was a struggle to get the words out, but she knew if she didn’t, things would only get worse. “No, Father. Of course I’m happy to do anything I can to help.”
Weiss just grunted. He stood up and walked into his bedroom without so much as a goodnight. Marlee heaved a sigh of relief. Her mother patted her on the head, the only sign she gave of understanding. “I’ll put some sheets on your bed and you can both get some sleep.”
When she finally crawled between the sheets in the room she’d occupied as a child, Marlee felt completely drained. She didn’t know if she could face the rest of the winter here. She certainly didn’t want Tyris to see the misery of her childhood. But what other choice did she have?
“Are you all right?” Tyris asked in a whisper.
“No.”
Tyris pulled her close and kissed her lips gently. Much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t relax. He stopped after a moment and just held her. “Being back in your parent’s home must be hard, but we’re lucky to have somewhere to go.”
She knew that. Knew she should be grateful. But she couldn’t. She’d rather be anywhere but here. It was too much to even try to explain. Tyris would see soon enough.
She snuggled against him, drawing strength from his presence. At least she wasn’t alone. The thought warmed her enough to sleep.
*****
A loud crash woke Tyris with a jolt. The bed faced the wrong way, and the pillow felt too thick. He wasn’t at home or at Jenka and Rejan’s.
“Colby, you stupid twit, can’t you do anything without breaking something?” Weiss’s loud and strident voice reminded Tyris where he’d slept. Marlee stiffened beside him, and he reached out to pull her close. It wasn’t hard. The bed was small, and though it had sheets—a luxury he’d almost forgotten—it wasn’t any softer than the bed at home had been.
“I wouldn’t have dropped it if you hadn’t insisted I pick it up while it was still hot.” Colby, said.
Weiss didn’t give an inch. “If you’re dumb enough to do everything someone tells you to do without thinking for yourself, then you deserve what you get.”
“Come and put that hand in water before it blisters.” Yasmyn said.
It was an odd match, Yasmyn and Weiss. What possessed her to choose to move in with the man originally, and what possible reason did she have for remaining with him now? Not that it was any of Tyris’s business.
There was silence from the next room. “Shall we get up?” Tyris asked in a whisper.
Marlee shrugged.
The sense of foreboding emanating from Marlee began to have an effect on Tyris. He entered the main living area almost expecting to be blasted the moment he stepped through the door, but though Weiss scowled at him, he didn’t say anything.
Marlee half hid behind him and slunk across to where her mother cooked at a plascrete replica of an old cast iron cooking stove. Tyris’s stomach rumbled at the smell of pancakes.
Determined not to let Marlee’s stepfather intimidate him, Tyris sat down at the table opposite him. “Good morning.”
Weiss mumbled something in reply, reaching for the jam in front of Colby and spreading it thickly on his pancake.
Marlee’s brother stared at Tyris, sizing him up. “So do you think you’ll ever get that spaceship of yours off the ground again?”
As his eyes met Marlee’s, her brow furrowed. They hadn’t talked about the Hylista since the day after he’d come back.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Tyris reached for a pancake off the stack in the middle of the table. “There was too much damage in the crash, and I don’t have the parts or tools I need to repair it.” Funnily enough, it didn’t bother him half as much now as it had when he’d first crashed.
Colby stuffed a pancake in his mouth and didn’t even wait to finish chewing to talk. “So you’re stuck here? Bet you’re impressed with that.”
Tyris spread jam on his pancake. Then he glanced over at Marlee and felt a smile curve his lips. “I can think of worse places to be.”
Marlee smiled back, her face lighting up for the first time since her birthday.
Weiss snorted. “Worse than this freezing cold, polluted hunk of rock? I doubt it.”
Marlee’s face fell immediately, and she turned away.
Weiss’s gaze followed Tyris’s. “Oh, that’s what you mean. I don’t see that bedding someone like Marlee makes up for the freezing cold, the crappy food, and the fact that every day is a struggle, but to each his own I guess.” The sneer on his face said what his words did not.
Tyris was so taken aback by his thinly veiled insult towards Marlee that he couldn’t think of a reply before Weiss continued. “Eventually, you’ll realise that the sex has to be bloody fantastic before it makes up for the misery on this planet.”
How did one reply to a comment like that? His immediate response, that the sex was fantastic, wasn’t quite breakfast table conversation. Yet he didn’t want to leave the comment unchallenged.
One look at Marlee’s pale and drawn face pushed him to speak. “How about we leave my relationship with Marlee out of the conversation.” He tried to keep his tone polite rather than angry.
Weiss made no such attempt. “Are you trying to tell me what I can and can’t say in my own house? I offer to take you in out of the kindness of my heart, and this is how you repay me?”
How had he turned that around so quickly? Tyris looked across at Yasmyn, hoping for a little help, but she just stared at him, face impassive. Colby grinned in glee. It was plain he wouldn’t mind seeing Tyris taken down a peg or two. Marlee’s eyes silently begged him to keep quiet. He fought an internal war with his conscience.
If he continued to argue, he and Marlee might well find themselves homeless in the snow. And even if they didn’t, an antagonistic relationship with Marlee’s stepfather wouldn’t make their stay any more pleasant. “I’m sorry,” he managed to force out. “Marlee and I are very grateful for the offer.”
Yasmyn’s face didn’t change, but relief spread over
Marlee’s. Weiss barely acknowledged his apology, instead saying, “Where’s the next batch of pancakes? These ones are cold.”
Marlee quickly flipped pancakes onto a plate and brought them over to the table. Weiss reached for the one on top just as someone knocked on the door.
Tyris recognised the voice even before he saw the visitor. “Morning,” Belac said as he came inside and sat down at the table beside Tyris.
“Get lost, kids. We have business to talk about,” Weiss ordered.
Colby grabbed his plate and disappeared into his room, closing the door quietly.
Despite the fact that no one had called him ‘kid’ in years, Tyris was pretty sure the message was intended to include him. Marlee’s head jerking towards the bedroom confirmed it. He gathered up half a dozen pancakes, ignoring Weiss’s scowl, and followed Marlee into the other room.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Marlee collapsed onto the bed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Tyris kept his voice low as he sat on the bed beside her, handing her the plate of pancakes. “Here, eat something.” She’d been busy cooking, and he hadn’t seen her eat even one pancake. “It’s not your fault your stepfather is rude.”
Marlee took the plate with a wan smile, but she didn’t touch the food. Tyris watched her in concern.
“I wish there was somewhere else we could go,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
Belac’s raised voice interrupted her, coming through the wooden door as clearly as if they were still in the same room. “But we had an extra mouth to feed for two months and a pregnant woman at that. Talla gave in to every one of her crazy cravings. Donuts at five in the morning, no worries. No wonder we’re almost out of sugar and flour. I don’t know what we’re going to eat!”
“Have you raised this with the council?” Yasmyn’s voice was lower but still easy enough to hear.
“Of course I have. But they’re so busy shovelling paths that they don’t have time to listen! As if paths were more important than having food to eat.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell them earlier? Jenka went home a week ago. Did you only just notice?” Yasmyn said.
“It’s not always that simple. Sometimes you don’t realise how low things are getting until it’s too late.” Was that Weiss’s voice? Being reasonable? Tyris listened, intrigued.
“No,” Belac grumbled, but he sounded less angry. “Talla didn’t even tell me until today how low we were. I don’t check how much sugar and flour we have. That’s women’s work. I don’t know what she was planning to do when we ran out—serve up dirt for me to eat? Anyway, we just need a bit of next month’s ration early. Maybe a third?”
The voices lowered, the mumbles too soft to make out.
“Why is Belac talking to Weiss about this?” Tyris asked. “I know he said he already talked to the council, but what can Weiss do?”
Marlee shrugged. “People come to Weiss to complain all the time. He doesn’t exactly hide the fact that he disagrees with a lot of the council’s decisions, so people think that he might listen when the council won’t.”
“But he can’t really do anything without the council’s agreement anyway, can he? Or do they just want someone to complain to?”
Marlee shook her head. “Weiss usually tries to do something about their problems, funnily enough. Sometimes he arranges something small, with other people. Sometimes he’ll take things to the council for them. Occasionally the council even listens to him.”
This was a side to Weiss Tyris hadn’t seen. How strange that the man who bullied everyone in his own family actually went out of his way to help others. “What’s in it for him?” he asked.
Marlee grinned. “Oh, usually he gets something in return. The thankful women cook him special food. The men are always around to help him out when he needs some work done. He’s not doing it out of the goodness of his heart, no matter what he might say.”
Tyris caught the reference. “No matter how nice it was of him to take us in, it doesn’t give him any right to speak about you like that. I’m not going to sit by and watch him bully you.”
“Don’t say anything, please?” Marlee begged. “It will just make things worse. We’re only here for a couple of months. If we lie low, maybe we can avoid a lot of it. I’m used to him. It’s no big deal, really.”
Tyris frowned. “I know his type, Marlee. If you let him get away with it, he’ll walk all over you.”
“And if I say anything, it just gives him a reason to yell at me and pick on everything I do,” Marlee said. “Don’t you think I’ve tried it all? He’ll be nasty no matter what. Arguing back just gives him more fuel.”
Tyris stared at her. “You want me to just say nothing?”
“Please?” Marlee’s face was so earnest, Tyris found himself relenting, even though he knew he was going to regret it.
“Well, okay. If that’s what you want. I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.”
*****
Marlee sighed at the sound of another urgent knock on the door. Visitors had come and gone non-stop the whole week she and Tyris had been here. They’d just come out of her room to try to get some breakfast after the last in a string of visitors had left, and already there was another banging at the door. No doubt with yet another complaint about damage from the snowstorm not being attended to quickly enough.
She was the one without a house to live in. What right did any of the rest of them have to complain so bitterly about leaks or blocked chimneys?
“Is Marlee here?” Jaimma’s voice startled her out of her self-pity. Jaimma hated Weiss as much as Marlee did and usually waited until she saw Marlee at the hall to talk to her.
The fact that she’d come here...
She put down her porridge, despite having only eaten a few mouthfuls, and hurried over to the door. Jaimma wouldn’t want to come in.
Tyris raised an eyebrow.
“Take it outside. I’m in no mood to listen to girly chatter,” Weiss said.
Her mother returned to the stove and opened the oven to check the bread. Marlee grabbed her shawl and gloves then slipped on her boots at the front door before following Jaimma out into the snow. Hopefully Weiss wouldn’t make Tyris’s life too miserable while she was gone.
Once she was out the door and saw her friend’s tearstained face, she forgot all about Weiss. “What’s wrong?”
Jaimma didn’t say anything, just walked briskly away from the house on the freshly dug paths that now looked more like a narrow valley with piles of snow on either side. They would be higher than Marlee’s waist in another month.
Once they were well out of sight, Jaimma spoke. “Jaidin and I are over.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and kicked at a lump of snow that had fallen onto the path.
“Oh Jaimma.” Marlee didn’t know what else to say. She reached out to touch her friend’s arm lightly.
Jaimma turned her red rimmed eyes up to the sky. “Why are we doing this, Marlee? I mean, why bother? It’s not like any of us are going to have babies anyway.”
“I don’t know.” Marlee shook her head.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want a baby. Instinctively her hand went to her flat stomach. Was there any chance? Her breasts had been heavy and tender, but that was probably just a sign that her period was due soon. She shook her head. Best not to think about it.
“It’s not fair, Marlee,” Jaimma continued. “I didn’t get why you were so upset when you and Nelor split up or why you didn’t want to be with anyone else, but I do now. When I even try to think of someone I might want to be with, all I can think of is that it won’t last.”
Her words brought up memories of how awful she’d felt before Tyris had arrived. She’d almost forgotten. Marlee’s hand went to the little jade dolphin around her neck. Would this time really be any different, or would she be crying again herself in a little over a year?
She pushed the thoughts away. She didn’t want them
to spoil what she and Tyris shared right now.
“Give yourself some time,” she told Jaimma. “It’s the middle of winter, the council is too busy with repairs and controlling food rations to worry too much about what you’re up to...” She trailed off, knowing as well as Jaimma did that time could only help so much. Nothing was going to change. Nothing ever did.
Chapter 21
Marlee kept her head down and ate the last of her food as quietly as she could. The only sound at the table was the slurping of soup. Soon, dinner would be over, and she and Tyris could retreat to their room. The last two weeks had been mostly uneventful, and she hoped it stayed that way.
“So, did you hear the news?” Weiss actually sounded pleased. That couldn’t be good.
If she didn’t answer, Weiss would berate her for being rude. “What news?”
Her mother’s hand paused, soup halfway to her mouth. Definitely not good. The rhythm of Marlee’s heart’s speed up uncomfortably.
“Nelor’s going to be a dad. Guess you’re the faulty one after all.”
Marlee’s heart skipped a beat. She pushed back her chair. Her cutlery clattered to the floor. The blood rushing in her ears drowned out the sound.
There was a stunned silence in the room for a moment.
“Are you really that insensitive, or are you just a bastard?” Tyris snarled. He stood up beside her and slammed the palms of his hands down on the table. The cups and bowls rattled as they jumped.
Until now, he’d kept his mouth shut at Weiss’s snide comments. He’d squeezed her hand under the table, but he hadn’t said anything, just like she’d asked. But now she’d had enough. Something needed to be said. And she knew Tyris wouldn’t let fear hold him back.
“What? I’m only pointing out the obvious. Everyone’s thinking it. Marlee’s never going to give you a son. You’ve been together for nearly five months now and still nothing. She’s going to have to face the facts—she’s the one with the problem.”