Echoes & Silence Part 1

by Angela M Hudson

  Hey! I thought. You left me! And Mike proposed to me. I was supposed to be close with him.

  I know. I didn’t mean to think that, he added. It was a fleeting thought.

  “Well—” Vicki smoothed both hands firmly down the front of her jeans. “I’ll leave you two to rest.”

  “Okay, thanks, Mom.” I held my skinny arms out to her as she passed. She stopped to give me an awkward hug, patting my elbow once before breaking away and closing the door behind her.

  My arms slowly lowered to my sides. I looked to David for a smile, maybe a bit of reassurance that I wasn’t imagining Vicki’s strange behavior toward me all afternoon, but he walked away, standing over at the window instead.

  “You should rest,” he said, keeping his gaze on the world outside. “Vicki will need you tomorrow to help with the funeral plans.”

  I nodded, rolling down slowly and numbly onto my side across the foot of the bed.

  “Ara?”

  “Mm?”

  He sat down just above my head and moved my ponytail off my shoulder. “Is… is the baby okay?”

  I laid my hand to her. “She hasn’t kicked since we left.”

  “She kicks?” he asked, surprised.

  I nodded. “I felt her for the first time the other day.”

  “Oh,” he said, but it carried a different sentiment than I expected.

  “What’s ‘Oh’?”

  “You mean Jason did.”

  The sludgy awkwardness I’d bathed in downstairs turned into stone on my limbs now. “Um…”

  “Forget it.” He grabbed the blanket corner from the top of the bed and rolled it over my curled-up body. “I don’t actually care, Ara. Now get some rest. I’m sure she’ll start kicking as soon as you fall asleep.”

  Which was true. Ever since that first kick, I’d noticed them more and more, and usually always when I was trying to sleep. But my mind couldn’t quiet itself enough to drift down through the layers of consciousness and find that blissful cloud of dreams. I chewed my thumbnail, splitting it slightly, so tight and tense I just couldn’t close my eyes.

  “How’s Sam possibly gonna cope, David? He—”

  “Shh,” he said, tucking the blanket around me again. “Don’t worry about that now. We’ll take care of Sam, okay?”

  I nodded, closing my eyes involuntarily then. I knew David was putting me to sleep. I could feel the fogginess of his mind moving into mine, forcing me down into the realm of the carefree. But I didn’t mind. I wanted to sleep. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to wake up.

  * * *

  The morning radio-show played as a background to the gentle conversations in the kitchen. I stomped down the stairs, stopping dead when I noticed a gold band on my ring finger.

  Okay, so I’d now taken sleepwalking to new heights.

  I put that there, David thought, leaning back in his chair so he could see me around the corner of the dining room wall.

  I started walking again, thinking, Why?

  He raised his brows at Vicki, who stood in the kitchen with her back to us, flipping eggs over a pan.

  You should’ve checked with me first, I thought, taking a seat across from him—avoiding my ‘usual’ seat beside him.

  I didn’t think it’d be an issue.

  Well, it is for me. Maybe I was content with her asking questions about why I wasn’t wearing it!

  And how would you answer them, Ara?

  I folded my arms. Tell her I lost it in the kitchen back home.

  Kitchen, huh? Better to tell her it was the bedroom, he added spitefully. That’s where you really lost it. Maybe leave off the bit where you were under my brother at the time!

  “Ara.” Vicki turned around. “I didn’t hear you come in. Did you sleep well?”

  I nodded, rubbing my face. I didn’t want to fight with David, and wasn’t ready for all this normality, either—for the version of Vicki that was ‘coping’ with everything so well. I could handle a few tears, maybe a quiet house, even making my own breakfast, but I couldn’t stand to see her pretending everything was okay—not when it wasn’t.

  The kitchen smelled like Saturday mornings, with the warm scent of cooked eggs and fresh coffee, but my dad wasn’t upstairs taking a shower. He wasn’t walking down the street to get a newspaper. He wasn’t mowing the lawns or marking term papers. He was dead. Cold on a steel table in a morgue.

  This is her way of coping, Ara, David thought.

  I didn’t ask for your opinion, I shot back. Just let me deal with this in my own way. And stay out of my thoughts.

  His top lip lifted on one side. Why are you being like this?

  Because I hate you. That won’t change because I’m grieving, David. So don’t expect it to.

  “Is…” She looked at David then back at me. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” David said absently and placed his napkin down as he stood, kissing Vicki’s cheek before leaving the room.

  She turned her curiosity on me then, laying an egg on the plate of toast in front of me. “Let me guess, tired?”

  The hurt, angry girl inside me wanted to say, No. Cold hatred! But the grown up me smiled. “Yeah. It was a long flight. And I think he’s pretty cut up about Dad, too.”

  “Well, he would be.” She sat down, placing the frypan on a corkboard at the center of the table. “He was a student of Dad’s for a few years.”

  “I know.” I picked up a fork and stabbed the yolk, sending it spilling out all over the whites, seeping into the toast underneath.

  “Something wrong with your breakfast?” she asked, nodding to my plate.

  “No. It’s really nice to have a home-cooked meal again. I just…”

  “I know.” Vicki reached over and took the plate as she stood. “It was the same when you lost your mom. You didn’t eat for a week.”

  “Well, that’s not an option these days.” I stopped her by the wrist and snatched the plate back gently. “I’m eating for two now.”

  Her eyes shot to my belly, almost as if she’d forgotten, and the emptiness flitted away for the return of a smile. “Of course. Want some bacon then?”

  “Thanks.” I grinned, taking up my fork. She needed me to eat this almost as much as my baby did. So I shoveled it down, nodding and smiling as we talked softly about my life in Paris, then I made a quick escape under guise of needing a shower. In truth, I really did need a good soak in some hot water and steam, but I really just wanted to escape the awkwardness I felt not knowing what I was to her now that she was officially free of being my stepmom. Something in my heart told me that things wouldn’t change, but I also knew from everyone else’s experiences that it often did.

  * * *

  The bedroom door closed as the bathroom one on the far right of the bed opened, clouds of steam wafting out around the tall, dark figure emerging from within. He looked a little like a movie star on the set of a cheesy romance film, his absent thoughts freezing with the white blank of alert when he saw me.

  I waited by the bedroom door, wondering if I should offer to leave.

  “Stay,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ll dress in the bathroom.”

  “No, it’s okay. You dress out here. I’m gonna go have a shower anyway.”

  He looked back at the steam. “Might wanna wait. I kinda used up all the hot water.”

  That was one thing I didn’t miss about my dad: his lack of desire to modernize anything—including the hot water tank. “Great.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” I flopped back on the bed, my arms sprawled outward. “I planned to do exactly the same thing.”

  He laughed and turned away, opening a drawer.

  I knew I should keep my eyes on the roof, but habit, I guess, made me watch him. Beads of water pooled on the ends of his dark hair, dragging them down over his ears before dripping slowly down the curves of his shoulder blades. He’d lost so much weight now too that the once-sinewy lines under his tight golden skin looked rigid, as if
they might snap, his spine peeking out like knuckles between the soft, rounded curve of muscle encasing it. He still had that sexy triangular shape guys with bigger chests and arms seemed to have though, and despite being thinner, he wasn’t so thin that I didn’t still find him… appealing. But my gaze stopped short when I noticed a new tattoo on his left shoulder blade, running onto his spine in an off-kilter kind of script, black and sharp-looking, like something spiking from under his skin rather than drawn on it.

  “Hey, what’s that?” I sat up to get a better look.

  “What’s what?”

  “That Mark.”

  “It’s uh—” He looked over his shoulder, even though he couldn’t see it from there, then popped his head through the top of his white T-shirt. “It’s just a Mark.”

  “What for?”

  “Nothing. Hey”—he faced me again, slipping a leg into his jeans under the towel—“Jason came to see you while you were sleeping last night.”

  A wave of dread dropped my stomach into the mattress under me. “Did you—”

  “I didn’t do anything.” He put his hands up. “I knew you’d want him here, so I let him stay for a bit. He’s coming back tonight.”

  I stared at him, my eyes narrowed. “Why are you being so nice?”

  His head flicked to one side in a half-shake. “It’s temporary. If I rip his gizzards out just after you lost your dad, that’s not gonna help anyone.”

  “So, you’re just letting him in? Letting him—”

  “I’m not letting him, Ara.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder. “I’m just not stopping him.”

  “With you, those two are the same thing.”

  He laughed then, at himself, I think. “I tolerate it because I came here to support you—”

  “Hmpf! Why?” I scoffed at the ceiling, and when nothing but an empty feeling replied, I looked back at David. His cold eyes locked to mine.

  “Enjoy your time with him while you can, Ara-Rose,” he said, the menace in his tone making it seem like he moved forward a step. “Because once we get home, my tolerance to this fraternization with that traitorous cretin is an entirely different matter.”

  I flinched, shutting my eyes tight as the bathroom door slammed behind him. But, all in all, I was kind of glad to see that version of him again. Nasty David had done a one-eighty since my dad died, and it was unsettling. I felt like he was a time bomb just waiting to go off—blast us all with a compounded version of the evil-David he’d suppressed for the sake of appearances.

  But it was still there—all that hatred—and I still knew where I stood with him. He was just very good at playing the role of the caring man when the need called for it. He’d always been good at that.

  * * *

  Vicki went home to take a nap, and Mike and I headed to the local mall to get something suitable to wear to a funeral. Shopping was the last thing I felt like doing, but I hadn’t packed anything black, since I hadn’t planned for my trip to New England to see my dad becoming my last chance to say goodbye.

  “I was pretty nasty to him,” I said after Mike changed the subject suddenly and asked how things had gone with David last night.

  He scooped my hand up in his, but it wasn’t enough for him. He dropped it and put his arm around me, and we strolled past the same shop window I’d seen our reflection in the day we got engaged: the image of us was exactly the same, aside from what we wore, but the relationship had changed so much that we looked almost like strangers.

  “He’ll understand, Ar. Besides, didn’t you say it was before breakfast?”

  I nodded.

  “See?” He laughed. “We’re used to the ogre. Don’t think too much about it.”

  “He was just trying to help, though. And I threw it back in his face.” I stopped then, seeing David up ahead. He had a suit bag over his arm, a few other bags in his hands, and that vacant, almost injured mask still on his face.

  “You could always apologize,” Mike suggested, jerking his head to the vampire down the street.

  I considered it for a second. “Yeah, but I still think he should’ve checked before he put this ring back on me.”

  Mike nodded. “Yes, he should have. Even I’d be pissed about that, Ara. But if you feel bad for the way you reacted, you can always just apologize for that.”

  “You’re right.” I nodded and took a step in David’s direction. “Even if it’s just to ease the tension. We played it cool at the funeral home this morning with Vicki, but she’s noticed things aren’t right.”

  “Well”—he stopped me and took my shopping bags from my hands—“let me take these home for you. You can ride back with David.”

  “No, I—” I started, but the damn vampire was gone. “Argh!”

  “Everything okay?” David asked, stepping up out of nowhere.

  “No.” My fists balled up and I almost stomped my foot out of frustration. “Mike just left me here!”

  “Why’d he do that?” he asked, laughing a little as he searched Mike’s escape route.

  “I’m not sure what his motive was,” I said, then looked at David’s bags. “Did you get what you needed?”

  He nodded, eyeing the garments and shoes sadly. “I… they asked what the occasion was.”

  I placed my hand on his upper arm. “They did the same thing to me.”

  “I’ve said it before, you know,” he mumbled, and then went quiet.

  “Said what?”

  “The word.” When he realized that I still wasn’t following, his eyes changed, and he looked at me, for once like we were both on the same planet. “I’ve bought black garments before—told people I was going to a funeral, but…”

  “But this one hurt a little more?”

  He nodded, his eyes returning to that glazed thoughtfulness. “I guess I’ve never really lost someone since…”

  “Since?”

  “Since my human compassion set in.”

  That simple little fact compressed my heart and squeezed all the blood out of it. For David, this would be almost like dealing with grief for the first time. He always said vampire emotions were more profound and felt more intensely than a human’s, and I could see that so clearly in his eyes now.

  “Here,” I said, forcing him to surrender a few bags. “I’ll help you carry these and, in exchange, you can take me home.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “No.”

  He offered a gentle smile in reply, and we both turned and headed to the parking lot.

  * * *

  We lay in the grass at the center of the school’s football field, hidden by the hour of the night. No one, not human or vampire, would’ve noticed us here. Even I could hardly see my own hands. The moon had disappeared completely since I last looked at the sky a few days ago, taking any light with it.

  “New moon,” Jase said.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a new moon.” He nodded at the sky. “That’s why you haven’t seen it for a few days.”

  “Oh. I didn’t even realize I was thinking about it.”

  “You were and, somewhere under that, you were wondering why everything that brings light into your life eventually disappears.” He held me a bit tighter, and I rolled onto my side, moving my head from the crook of his arm to rest my cheek on his chest. “Your dad isn’t gone, sweet girl. He passed away but, when you’ve lived for a few centuries, you see that death, new moons, they don’t represent endings, but new beginnings.”

  “How can death be a new beginning? And don’t rattle off some crap about life in Heaven, Jase, or I’ll—”

  He laughed. “No. Because, if you live long enough, you always see them again—as something new.”

  “What, like reincarnation?”

  “Yeah.” He angled his head awkwardly to kiss my hair. “One day you’ll meet someone, and they will remind you so much of your dad that you’ll wonder if it’s actually him—come back as your own little girl or a neighbor—someone that’s in your life somehow.” />
  “That’s a nice thought.”

  His head moved in an absent nod, his ribs lifting my cheek as he drew a breath and let it out. “We never truly lose those we love, Ara. We just miss them for a while.”

  A huge gulp of air hiccupped in my chest, but the tears in my eyes had been overused—dried up completely, so the need to cry just sat there inside me, hurting everything. “Do you know what I hate most about losing someone?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The never-agains.”

  “The what?” he asked with a little chuckle.

  “The never-agains. There’re things my dad will miss now, you know? Like seeing my baby when she’s born and watching her grow up. But it’s the things he’ll never do again that hurt me the most.” My lip quivered just thinking about it. “He’ll never come home again. I’ll never see his smile again, never hear his voice. He’ll never use that stupid coffee mug again, and the salt shaker, Jase… Vicki will never have to take it off him again.” My voice quivered. “And that’s worse—so much worse than anything he might miss in my future.”

  He rolled me into him a little more, firmly pressing one hand into my hip and bunching my fingertips against his chest with the other. “I won’t let it hurt for long, Ara—the missing him. I won’t let it hurt you for long.”

  “And what can you do to stop it?”

  “I know grief,” he said softly. “I know that you need to acknowledge it, not fight it. That hole in your gut, that tightening in your chest, you need to just feel it every time it hurts. You just need to acknowledge its presence and let yourself be in pain, because hurting right now is normal. Trying to fight that hurt—trying not to cry—that’s not normal, and that will make the pain last so much longer.”

  “So, accepting the pain will make my head and my heart stop missing him?”

  “No. You will never stop missing him. Ever. But one day, in a little while, it just won’t hurt the way it does right now. And I”—he kissed my head—“will always be ready to comfort you through those moments of pain, Ara, so you don’t have to cry alone.”