by Ky Lehman
And, on top of it all, it turns out I have seen my father hundreds of times. In town. At school. At the GGM’s. Eating at our dining room table. We have exchanged countless smiles and talking with him was always easy. There was even a warm moment or two. I assumed this was all because he was very good at his job. Getting someone to trust you is no easy task. Especially if that someone is me.
But was he easing me into dropping my defences to get to know me, or was it all a farce to find the best way to get me out of the picture? Is he a father who was growing to love me or a Father who wants me dead?
As it stands now, I might never know. Father Yarden didn’t turn up for mass this morning. The rectory at St. Peter’s has been emptied of his things. He has vanished without the usual cloud of smoke. To where is the burning question.
Aunt Romey is finally off the phone. She is pouring a cup of tea for me and a stiff drink for her when someone banging on the front door barely snags my attention. I’m really not up for any more drama. Whoever the hell it is, I hope they piss off right quick.
“REN! ROMEY!” The booming voice sounds desperate and furious.
I still can’t bring myself to care.
“REN! ROMEY! ANSWER THE GOD DAMN DOOR!” The banging and yelling becomes clearer and louder as it moves around to the side window. It’s a shame Aunt Romey closed the drapes because whoever it is won’t be able to see my turned back and raised middle finger.
My aunt comes bustling into the front room. She kneels in front of me and searches my face. She seems flustered which looks strange on her.
“Renay, do you want me to answer the door?” she whispers.
“It’s up to you. It’s your door. But I vote, no.”
“Are you sure? It’s for you.”
“How do you know?”
“I could hear it was Mike from the kitchen.”
“Ren. I know you’re in there. Please. Please let me in.” It does sound like Mike, except for the pleading. Even when things seemed to be at their worst, I can’t remember him ever speaking to me like that.
“What do I say to him?” I mouth, panicking.
“That Georgie Pa is going to a hospital to dry out and we are organising it together,” she is quick to answer.
I immediately warm at the thought. If only it were true. I give anything to have my grandfather back.
Thinking of the old man getting his head around all this kills off any hope of that ever happening. I don’t even think Mike could convince me otherwise.
“Ren. Please. I just need to see that you’re OK.” His splintered voice tells me that he is at the end of his rope too. The shudder at him feeling that way sets me in motion.
“I can ask him to come back later,” Aunt Romey whispers.
I shake my head no. I slowly stand and on dead legs I stumble my way to the door.
I don’t know why, but I open it just a crack. Then I remember it’s because I can’t trust anyone outside the fold, not even my best friend. My eyes and my gut tell me that it’s him and only him. Flickers of relief, happiness, and rebellion give me the energy to throw the door wide open.
“Oh, thank God.” He grabs me and hugs me tight. The dam breaks and I cry into him with a force I can’t stop. He doesn’t break his hold. He takes my tears until he is soaked through. I sob until I ache inside and out.
“Lay her on the couch,” I hear my aunt say.
I am floating until my head finds a firm but comfortable pillow. I am thankful for it and give in to the heaviness that insists on pulling me under.
xxXxx
I wake up to find my head in Mike’s lap. Although he is sitting upright, he is fast asleep with his head lolling off the back of the couch.
I look around the room. It is dark like night time. I check my watch. It’s just after two o’clock in the morning. The last memory I have is when I opened the door to Mike with the late afternoon sun at his back. I do a quick mental calculation and sigh. I haven’t slept this long in months.
I tip toe towards the linen closet to get a pillow for Mike and nearly trip over Uncle Craig on my way there. He is trying to get comfortable on a blow up mattress that has been set up on the other side of the room.
“I put some pillows and blankets by the couch,” he murmurs, blinking to help his eyes adjust to the dark. “You OK, Ren?”
“I feel better after that sleep. Where’s Aunt Romey?”
“With Georgie Pa. Don’t worry, he’s OK.” He sits up and squints at me through the shadows. “He wants you home first thing though.”
“OK,” I’m quick to agree. I was planning to leave at sunup anyway to see Georgie Pa. “Hey, you go off to bed. That thing doesn’t look very comfortable,” I say with a grimace.
“You’re not wrong,” he groans, stretching. “I keep rolling off the bloody thing. You sure you’re alright?” he asks again.
“Yeah.” I like talking to Uncle Craig and I have a lot of questions, but I’m not sure of how much he knows.
He gingerly gets up. “Back in a sec,” he whispers, and pads down the hallway.
While he’s gone, I sneak back to the couch where Mike is still snoring. I place the pillow against the armrest and gently manoeuvre his heavy head towards it. Thankfully, the rest of his body sleepily follows. As he curls up, I cover him up with a blanket and the moment I see him settle, I softly kiss him on the head like I do Georgie Pa. He groggily smiles. Seeing him all snuggled up like this, I can’t help but smile too.
Uncle Craig reappears. “Georgie Pa told me to give you this, ‘and to be mindful of it’,” he says, putting on a serious face like Georgie Pa would.
I nod and carefully take it from him. It’s box-like, heavy and wrapped in brown paper.
“There are still a few hours left ‘til dawn. Whatcha gonna do?” he asks through a yawn.
“Make some warm milk, open this, and then have another go at sleeping, I guess,” I answer with a non-committal shrug.
“Don’t bother with this thing. All it’ll do is give you a crook back,” he says, giving the blow up mattress a swift kick. “The spare room is all yours.” He pats me on the head. “‘Night, Ren. Make sure you wake me up in the morning before you head home.”
“I will. ‘Night.”
He turns to walk to his bedroom.
“Oh, and Uncle Craig?”
“Yeah, Ren?”
“Thank you, you know, for all this,” I say, gesturing to myself and Mike’s peaceful face peeking through the pillows and the blankets.
Uncle Craig fully turns to face me. His expression is uncharacteristically serious. “Anything for a Rose,” he says with a deep bow, and he turns on his heel and disappears into the darkness at the end of the hallway.
I snort. What was the solemn face and put-on bow all about? Uncle Craig is such a dick.
A dick and his dragon lady. He and Aunt Romey are such a strange mix. How they make their marriage work is beyond me.
Uncle Craig is loud, funny, affectionate, and messy. He paints people’s houses for a living and he also paints beautiful landscapes. He doesn’t own a collared shirt, and he wears his unruly, sun bleached hair in a short ponytail thrown together at his neck. His idea of a good night out is karaoke night at the pub. He goes mountain bike riding with his buddies, rain, hail, or shine. On a whim, he’ll book a trip for the two of them to God knows where, and be gone for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. He reckons that this summer he is going to learn to surf; knowing him it’ll probably be at the world’s wiliest beach. Of course, Aunt Romey is not going to like it, but he’ll schmooze his way into going like he always does. Although he seems to be only one with the power to change her mind, I’m sure that if the weather conditions are evenly slightly rough, she will hide the car keys and tie him to a chair to keep him out of harm’s way.
He loves and hates that Aunt Romey worries about him so much. I know she drives him crazy, and not always in a good way, but he can’t seem to keep his hands off her. She always scoffs and m
akes out that his smooching in company is inappropriate, but she never tells him to stop. I see the way she gazes at him when she thinks no one is looking. I know she always wears blue because it is his favourite colour. They may fight like cat and dog, but they make up like they’re from the same species. Sadly, I know this firsthand. Accidentally walking in on them once is what taught me how to knock.
I once asked Uncle Craig how two people so different could fall in love. His short answer was, “I was a bear who didn’t know how to swim and she is the fish who taught me,” before patting me on the head the way he usually does before excusing himself from one of our conversations.
Both Uncle Craig and Georgie Pa say I’m more like Aunt Romey than I realise. I love her to bits, but she gets under my skin like no one else, so how can that be?
But really, what does it matter? Fish or not, I can’t imagine ever finding a bear who will want me for anything else but dinner.
The heavy box in my hands reminds me that I should be doing more than standing in the dark hallway like a statue. I’m a few steps away from the kitchen when the tingling that reminds me of my beloved dead dances at the back of my neck.
“Seeing a great king bow before you like that never gets old,” a familiar, sleep-heavy voice from behind me croaks.
Startled by his presence and his bizarre words, I spin around.
“Mike?” I gasp.
He takes my hand, drops down on one knee, and gently kisses the top of my clenched fist.
Chapter 4
I am gawping down at Mike who is gazing up at me in awe like I have spontaneously started glowing or something.
Him looking at me this way sparks an impossible notion that descends, hits solid ground and falls open like a book, flicking through pages upon pages of familiar images that couldn’t possibly belong to me.
Clear moving pictures of me and Mike in different places, wearing different costumes, speaking in different languages...
Suddenly, I am terrified that I have been possessed by a band of fast talking demons whose streams of blended jabbering bypass my ears, hell bent on getting to the pounding that has started in the centre of my brain. I quickly learn that shaking my head to the side like I have water in my ears does nothing to shut them up. But thankfully, after a few more noisy seconds, their buzzing and fossicking slows as they settle into place and some of their words and broken sentences become recognisable.
Then, to my horror and my amazement, their voices blend and tune in together to mimic my own, and I can understand the meaning of every sound, syllable, and pause.
It turns out I do know how to speak French, well. And Hebrew. And Latin. And Egyptian. And Italian. And Gaelic. And Spanish. And Malay. And Afrikaans...
Mike is nodding at me. Nodding with eager eyes as if he can see what I’m thinking. Nodding and feeding my harebrained thought process.
“Same light. Different house,” he gently affirms.
Suddenly, a very anxious Uncle Craig appears from nowhere. “Knock it off, Mike. Ren has had enough to deal with today,” he stresses loudly.
Mike ignores him and stands, his eyes holding mine as he slowly rises from his knee to his feet. “Look into my eyes, Ren. Look hard. They haven’t changed since the first time we met,” he says.
Uncle Craig charges forward to break up our exchange. “Don’t,” Mike snarls, thrusting his palm into Uncle Craig’s face. “She’s ready. She’s been ready for a while now,” he vows through gritted teeth.
To my surprise, Uncle Craig steps back with his hands raised in surrender. “You’d know better than anyone, mate, but if you’re wrong, you’re going to have more than just me to answer to.” My eyes are still glued to Mike’s, forcing Uncle Craig to move behind him to get a good look at my face. “If you don’t want to hear this now, Ren, just tell him to stop. It’s OK,” he says, trying to play it calm.
“If she’s not up for it, she’ll let me know. She’s never held back before,” Mike growls, and I get the feeling he doesn’t mean just lately.
I am besotted. I am compelled. I can’t stop and I don’t want to. I need to know more. I need to know all of it.
I stare into Mike’s chocolate-brown eyes: those sweet, warm depths that have looked out for me for as long as I can remember. Eyes I have allowed to see all of me: the good, the bad and the very ugly. Eyes that always manage to find me in the dark. Eyes that are blind to any shame I harbour. In them, I see the first time we met at kindergarten thirteen years ago: the moment Mike became the first boy I despised when one of his mud pies splattered all over the back of my favourite Snow White dress. And, when in the same afternoon, he also gave me my first taste of revenge when I finger painted all over his prized Star Wars backpack.
“Do you see me, Ren? Can you see the first time we met?” he presses.
“Kinder-”
“No!” he yells, suddenly losing his patience.
Uncle Craig is quick to intervene. “She’s not ready, mate. Maybe after she sees Josh-,”
“Once she sees him, what hope will I ever have of her seeing me!” he shouts. I’ve seen Mike blow his top before, but not at Uncle Craig, and not like this.
Weirdly, my mind’s eye shows my ignorance as a painful, festering sore Mike has kept bandaged for too long, and although he’d rather keep it under wraps, if it’s not lanced soon, it will explode, infecting everyone close to him.
“Open your eyes and look harder, Shoshanna,” Mike pleads.
Shoshanna...
And as that familiar name rings in my ears, through his eyes and behind mine, I see him. And I see me.
We are on a small boat with three others: two middle aged women and an older man. It is the dead of night. The full moon and the stars are our only guiding light. The waves are big and the salt spray is cold. The damp, course fabric draping our bodies provides next to no warmth. We are all huddled together, freezing, scared, and hungry. Mike reassuringly rests his large hands on my swollen belly, even though the baby I am carrying isn’t his. We are escaping, but not from the father of my child. We are escaping for him.
I surface from the earthy depths of Mike’s eyes to notice small shards of amber scattered around his irises like chips of toffee in a chocolate drop. “What did you see, Ren?” he urges.
“Your eyes? Why do they look different?” I choke on a sob.
“They’re not. They have always been the same. You had just forgotten what’s behind them,” he says, stroking my cheek. “What did you see?” he persists.
“Us on a boat with three other people. I was pregnant and we running away from something horrible.” The entire weight of the voyage crashes down on me, forcing me to my knees. “We left my husband behind,” I cry out as I am pulled under by the depth of our connection, how difficult it was to leave him, and the horror of knowing that during our forced separation a half-life was the best we could hope for.
Mike sags down onto the rug, dragging me with him. I lay my sore, heavy head on his chest. “Well done, Ren,” he says, rubbing my back. “This remembering has been the easiest one yet. Usually I have to deal with a much bigger shit storm.”
Sudden, unbridled rage propels me from the foetal position to my feet. After rolling his eyes, he finally reacts and jumps to a stand too.
“EASY?” I shriek. “EASY? Listen here, you ignorant bastard,” I snarl with my finger pointing in his face, “that was a lot of things, but it definitely wasn’t…EASY!”
“Well, stop insisting that you have to forget,” he says, smug.
Now I want to punch his face in. I swing at him with my opposite hand, but he catches my clenched fist and easily pries it back down to my side.
“You fly off the handle, every freakin’ time! I hate it when you get like this,” he yells, taking a step back. “I know you’re pissed, but you’ve got to settle down. For God’s sake, Ren. Take a minute,” he growls as he turns to leave the room, gruffly motioning for Uncle Craig to follow him. Surprisingly, he does.
I
throw myself down on the couch face first as a surge of furious tears takes over. I cry and scream into the cushions so they won’t hear me; even in mid-hysteria, I am well aware that if Mike knows I’m behaving like this he’ll accuse me of having a temper tantrum.
So what if I am? And, if the self-righteous prick does bring it up, there’s more than enough left in the tank to give him one hell of an encore...
After what feels like an eternity, I hear him come back into the room and sit in the chair across from me. He infuriatingly says nothing.
I roll over and glare at him. “So, you don’t forget?” I ask, seething.
“I choose to remember,” he evenly answers.
“Why?”
“Because who else is going to kick your arse into gear?” he asks rhetorically.
“Well, if there is a next time, remind me of how I’m feeling now before I make my choice,” I rasp, my throat swollen and sore.
Exasperated, he sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “I do. Every time. Well, except for the first.”
After a long pause, seeing that I’ve calmed down enough to hear sense, he squats down in front of me, takes my hand and explains, “You say you have to forget to get a good understanding of the world you’re living in before you remember why you, why we, are here.”
“Oh.” Now he has said the words, I vaguely remember them belonging to me.
Shortly before I bit Mike’s head off and the tears of fury came in a flood, every picture, every memory and every feeling connected to it was so alive and vivid, but now my thoughts have turned to sludge, heavy like the sleepy fog that insists on taking over. “Mike, my brain won’t work. You’re going to have to tell me the rest,” I mumble through a yawn.
“We’ve spent thirteen earthly lifetimes together. Telling you the rest might take a while,” he says with a scoff. “I’m happy to answer most of your questions, but now your mind is open, everything you need to know will eventually come back to you, Ren. I promise.” He reaches for a cushion, but instead of smothering me with it like he probably should; he tucks it under my head. “Remembering…followed by your one of your hissy fits,” God, he can’t help himself! But, I have no fight left in me. It’s an effort just to grunt…. “-always knocks you out, so sleep now and we’ll talk again before we go and see Georgie Pa in a few hours.”