by Melody Clark
Ken grimaced with an ultimate reluctance. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“When you did find out, you couldn’t stage an intervention? You just let it happen?” Tad asked.
“I tried. Wendell is the most hyper-vigilant son of a bitch in the world. You do not understand the fishbowl world that kid lived inside. It may look clear and free, but it’s hard and solid. And Wendell is even more fucked up than Eddie is,” Ken said.
“Wendell should be in prison,” Tad replied.
“Hey, Wendell did the best he could,” Ken rebuffed his accuser. “Wendell’s father was a cultured barbarian. And, I might point out, he was your grandfather’s chief collaborator. When their business dealings broke down, Eddie was trapped on the Bakunin side of the divide, but so was Wendell. He didn’t have a lot of options. Wendell taught Eddie the only thing he knew – how to survive at all costs. Even if it meant killing himself.”
“I’m sorry, but my primary concern at this juncture is the salvageable one, who happens to be part of my immediate family.” Tad paced back and forth again across the entry arch. “How is it this rock-ribbed addict didn’t sneak his stash into the country?”
Ken gestured with four parts of darkness and one of despair . “I managed to keep him from bringing it with him. I had hoped, maybe, with all of you around, we could stage some kind of intervention. I thought we would have time. I didn’t know any of this would happen.”
“So now he’s crashing from a sustained twenty year high? Fabulous. The next time you start playing Celebrity Drug Rehab, call in a doctor, will you?” Tad folded his arms and walked up and down the line of carpet again, as if following the deft pattern of a singular line of thought. Tad stopped in his tracks. “Crashing from a twenty year addiction, with a probable massive resistance, he shouldn’t be managing half so well as he is. How’s he doing it? And don’t tell me herbal supplements, positive thinking and prayer.”
Ken shrugged again. “I don’t know. I agree, he’s doing too well. He might have stashed some, he may have bought something here.”
Tad’s forehead creased in thought. “There are numerous products he could find here without prescriptions, but he would need information. Appetite suppressants, that sort of thing. I’ll have Andrew take a peep at his computer. Of course, the illegal trade is what most concerns me. I’m trying not to think of the worst hypotheses, but the possibilities are endless.”
“I won’t lie to you,” Ken offered, “this has me worried. I have to admit it’s a relief to have someone to talk to about this anyway. I don’t know how he’s even on his feet.”
“Tad!” Andrew said, suddenly standing in the library door. “Something is wrong with Eddie.”
“Perhaps he isn’t,” Tad said before he bounded for the library with Ken following closely behind.
Slumped over on his crossed arms, Edward had sprawled across his laptop. He was pale and perspiring a little. Tad rolled him back against the chair while reaching for a penlight from his pocket. He drew back a lid to shine the light into Eddie’s eyes.
“What’s my name?” Tad asked.
“Big Ben,” Eddie replied.
“The bastard’s fine. He probably blacked out from exhaustion,” Tad said, “Ken, help me get him up and to the room we have for him. Andrew, fetch my tote, would you?”
“I’m just really tired. I’ll go back to the hotel,” Eddie muttered, trying to gain his balance and stand by himself. He immediately slumped against Tad.
“You’ll stay where I can keep an eye on you, you worthless septic,” Tad said, moving around one side to support him while Ken took the other.
They guided Eddie to the room he had been allotted and helped him to the bed. Edward sprawled across it as Tad lifted his legs to square him in the middle. He pulled a duvet up and dropped it across him.
Eddie blinked his eyes open and tried to focus. “I don’t know if I’m hot or cold.”
“It’s summer in England. It’s a cold heat.”
Tad accepted the tote from Andrew. He unzipped it and yanked out a stethoscope.
“I don’t want –” Eddie coughed out.
Tad stuck the chestpiece against Edward’s chest. “Shut up and breathe.”
“That’s cold!” Eddie gasped.
“Good enough,” Tad said, pulling out the blood pressure monitor. He grabbed Eddie’s arm to pull it down and open his sleeve. Tad wrapped Eddie’s upper arm in the blood pressure cuff and triggered the mechanism to inflate.
“I don’t need –”
“Shut up again and breathe again.”
After a moment, the unit beeped and up came the number. Tad sat back in relief. “Well, that’s only about half as bad as it might have been. At least you’re not going to stroke out on us.”
Tad withdrew a syringe and a cartridge from his tote. He pulled out the elastic band and tied it around Eddie’s upper arm. He pressed at the inside of his elbow to find the best vein.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, vaguely.
“Taking a blood sample. We’re going to clone you and create a slave race of septics to do our bidding,” Tad said, finishing the sample and isolating it. He stored it away in his tote with the rest of the items. “I’ll run that up to the lab as soon as it opens.”
Tad turned around toward Ken. “You’re welcome to use our guest room if you like.”
Ken shook his head. “I need to keep an eye on Arvo. I’ll head back to the hotel.” He gestured toward Eddie. “How is he?”
“Let me check,” Tad said, sticking up his middle finger in front of Eddie’s eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Fuck off,” Eddie replied.
“He’ll be fine for now. Tomorrow, we look into what we have to look into.”
Ken nodded and, with a last look at Edward, quietly left.
After the sound of the front door opening and closing, Tad actually exhaled, knowing the situation had been contained. And Edward, by some miracle, was actually sleeping on the inside of Croftdon House.
“What do you mean about tomorrow?” Andrew asked pointedly.
“I mean Edward has a long road ahead of him,” Tad said.
“He’s not seriously ill, is he?”
Instead of answering, Tad asked, “Where’s Dad?”
“On the phone trying to sort things out with Croftdon people in New York,” Andrew said. “It’s a conference call. He said it would be a while.”
“I can talk to him in the morning.”
“What about Eddie?” Andrew asked, leaning down to touch Edward’s foot. “He’ll be all right, right?”
“Yes, yes. He’ll be all right right. His kind built the world in six days, you know.”
Andrew chuckled, rubbing at his own eyes. “His kind is our kind.”
Tad held up a flat hand in protest. “It’s in my contract that I need not admit that aloud. Now go get some sleep yourself before you start passing out on me. I don’t need two semi-conscious computer savants.”
“Yes, Brother Toad,” Andrew said, heading toward his own bedroom.
Tad moved to stand, but Edward reached up to grab his arm a moment. “Wait, I mean,” Eddie murmured, again trying to focus. He swatted at the air like he was dismissing a thought. “God, I hate having to say this, but for everything you did, well … “
“Shall I insult you horribly and make it easier to bear?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Eddie murmured.
“Sleep, dauphin septic prince.”
Tad dodged the pillow tossed weakly in his direction. He grabbed it up off the floor. “Thanks, I actually needed this,” he said, and made his way to the easy chair in the corner.
Lights flashed in shattered patterns behind his eyelids. It almost looked like lightning across some bleak skyscape in his mind. Any moment, he expected the thunder to kick in. Then the thunder did kick in, and t
he eyelids became a window, and the skyscape took on the color and shape of the land. He could see out across the expanse of the Croftdon estate. The old house arose like some thing of obloquy out of an ancient landscape. It loomed across the night sky like something out of Disneyland.
“Eddie, sweetheart,” a voice from beside him said.
In the dream, he whirled around and the woman in silk taffeta he had seen in the portrait was standing before him. She smiled and kissed both his cheeks.
“Mother?” Edward asked, though he already knew.
She nodded, her eyes shining back at him, as if they contained some bioluminescence. “Isn’t this grand? We finally get to see each other.”
“Truly. Even if it is just a dream, it’s a nice one,” Edward said.
“Just a dream?” She pouted a little. “Oh, you’re not one of those non-believers, too, like your brothers.”
He shrugged. “Sorry.”
In the dream, Faith extended her hands as if in divine presentation. “Yes, well, here I am anyway. You won’t believe me, but I’m around you all the time, you just don’t know it. I have a very special surprise for you, my darling. Go look in the top drawer of that old bureau over there. You never know what you might find. It’s my reply to your questioning if I knew about you.”
Edward walked forward, sliding out the drawer and finding inside it a big bound volume.
“Go ahead,” she said, “look at it.”
He lifted it gently out of the drawer and into his arms. The cover was a kind of yellow netting material with seed pearls and small felt chicks. Tiny rattles and plastic baby bottles had been woven into the netting design. Across the top, in carefully delineated letters, was one word: EDWARD.
“It’s your baby book. Your brothers all have one as well. Theirs have all the usual in them. Yours I wasn’t as lucky with, but I did the best I could.”
“I’m amazed you kept this at all,” Edward said.
She smiled brightly. “Only because you don’t understand a parent’s love for a child.”
Edward opened the cover. Inside was pinned a faded photo of a very young girl – perhaps 16. Her smile seemed forced into brightness with an undertone of oncoming sadness. She was clutching a newborn infant in her arms.
“That’s me and you,” Faith said. “All your clothes were yellow, because my mother had dreams that you were going to be a boy and, well, I knew better, just like you do now. So I bought everything in yellow, as one must. You were so tiny and fragile. I wish I could tell you I was happy from the first. Mainly, I was terrified. And I listened to my parents – and to Thomas’ parents – which is why what happened, well, happened. But then I suppose it was meant to be this way. It was still heartbreaking.”
“You were just a child yourself,” Edward said. “I had no idea you were this young.”
“Keep looking,” she said, “there’s more in there.”
He turned the next page – it was a society page news story about Wendell and Jennifer Bakunin welcoming their adopted son, Edward. A photograph of the three ran with the story.
“I hated her then,” Faith admitted, “I just love her now, though. She’s such a card, your other mum.”
“You know each other?” Edward asked, smiling at the thought.
“Oh, of course. Everyone is besties with everyone over here. It’s like the biggest small town you’ve ever known. Keep looking.”
He turned the page. Next up was a photograph of a 4 or 5 year old boy staring up at the camera with frightened eyes framed in impossibly big glasses. MASSACHUSETTS’ ALL-TIME YOUNGEST CHESS CHAMPION.
“It was all chess with your brothers at that age, too. I daresay Thaddeus could have beaten you.”
“Please don’t tell him that.”
She shook her head. “Oh, heavens, no. Mum’s my name, remember?”
The next page showed him at a violin recital looking like the world’s most reluctant musician. Another showed him at about 15, sitting down at a track meet, his legs stretched out before him. The headline read LOCAL TRACK STAR ENDS FUTURE ATHLETIC PROMISE.
“I could never decipher what that headline was trying to say,” Faith said. “But I could have told you that you had your father’s knees. Thomas can’t jump to a conclusion without injuring something vital.”
“Just as well,” Edward said. “I hated track. Dad only got me into it because he wanted me to stop spending so much time at the computer. That’s ironic, given the circumstances. Quitting gave me an excuse. The computer is where I wanted to be.”
“Anyway, there’s a lot more all through it. You can look at it for real once you’re awake. Speaking of which –”
Eddie could feel the blood pressure cuff seize his arm. With great effort, he peeled open his eyelids. It appeared to be later in a morning. His eyes eventually focused on Tad as he was watching the gauge. The monitor beeped. The other man looked at the number.
“Not too shabby,” Tad said, opening the cuff and pulling it off. “You’re probably going to live for a while anyway.”
“Did I sleep?” Edward croaked out a question.
“Better than I did,” Tad said. “That Judas Chair in the corner is going to the charity drop at my first opportunity. Now, time to get up and at them, as they say. Breakfast is being prepared for you.”
“You have a cook?” Edward asked, squinting.
“Why, yes, of course. And I’ll just ask our butler, Jeeves, to bring ‘round your smoking jacket and a spot of tea.” Tad slapped at his leg. “The cook is Andrew who volunteered for the chore, God help him. He’ll serve it to you in the library, although I’d make you drag your useless septic self to the damned table. You need help up?”
Edward shook his head, sitting up slowly. “I’ll manage by myself.”
“Somehow I knew that you would.”
After a moment, Edward said, as if to himself, “I dreamt of our mother.”
“Oh, lovely,” Tad said, with a genuine smile. “What did she have to say?”
Edward laughed vaguely. “That you couldn’t play chess.”
“See, I know you’re lying now, Edward,” Tad said.
Edward nodded, chuckling a little more. “She showed me a book with my name on it. A baby book. Articles and that kind of thing in it. It was big and yellow and had all these –”
“Oh, I hate it when that happens,” Tad said.
“When what happens?”
“When things abrade against my truculent village atheism. Go look in the top drawer on the bureau. Then go shower yourself with some fine British water. I’ve laid a change of clothes for you, drawn from my least favorite fine clothing, on the chair over there. Breakfast will be served shortly. In other words, stir your stumps and get a move on, ya thick ya.”
“Yes, Toad. I suppose you expect me to thank you?”
“Oh, fuck, no. It sets a vile precedent.”
“Good, then thank you.”
Tad shook a finger at him. “See, I knew you’d go and ruin the moment.”
It was the most modern shower he had ever seen in England, but then he had seen all of one of them. After he dressed, Edward slipped back into the room he barely remembered entering in the first place. He had considered going onto the library, but the memory of the dream clung tightly to his mind. He knew what he had to do, before he did anything else.
He slid open the drawer on the bureau. The baby book wasn’t an exact match, but it was close. Yellow. Netting. Common enough color for a baby book, especially in the pre-gender-identification age. The Edward was to be expected.
He lifted it up gingerly, touching the cover with its seed pearls, tiny rattles and bottles but no felt chicks. The rattles and bottles would have been predictable. He nearly opened the cover to look at the pages inside, but stopped himself. He was afraid to inquire – just in case it remained empty. That would have made the most sense. A baby book f
or him was understandable, even to be expected. He preferred to remember it like the dream, even if it was an illusion.
The greater miracle to him wasn’t that it existed, but that it had been kept, despite everything, through the years. You don’t understand a parent’s love, his dream mother had said, but what else would one create a dream mother to say?
“Breakfast, Eddie,” Andrew called in.
“Thank you,” he called back to the man who had quickly moved past the door and down the hall.
He picked at the breakfast Andrew had made for him, devouring as much as possible in the requisite time. He supposed the eggs and bacon – eggs and rashers, he corrected himself – wouldn’t malign his health too severely, given he had taken in very few calories over the last two days or so. Meanwhile, he pecked insistently at laptop keys.
