by Indie Gantz
“Ah,” he says quietly after a pause. He closes the book and takes off his reading glasses again. “It’s Calla then.” He says her name softly, like if he doesn’t form the syllables correctly it would be a crime against nature.
I nod, blood pooling at my cheeks. Cravenness can’t be a good look for me. If Kor notices, he doesn’t mention it. He sets the book and his glasses down on his desk and walks around to the other side. There’s a certain level of thoughtfulness in his movements. It’s as if he’s consciously performing each individual step, worried he’ll forget how.
When he leans back against the edge of the desk, just barely sitting, Kor sighs.
“To be honest, I thought you’d be banging down my door with questions as soon as you could.” Kor smiles warmly at me, and a lot of my fear starts to melt away. “It struck me as odd when you didn’t come to me that first night, but then you were tired and your brother needed tending to. I kept waiting, expecting to be ambushed with memories of Calla, but that never happened. I was forced to sift through my memories of her alone and without preamble.” He looks down into to his clasped hands with an unreadable expression. When he finally looks up, I see something behind his eyes that wasn’t there moments before. Heartache.
“What changed?” he asks me, my heart thudding in my ears as the moment progresses.
“I… I decided it didn’t matter,” I reply. “No matter what you tell me about her, I’m still going to love her, and I’m still going to miss her. Maybe my perception of her will change slightly, depending on what you have to share, but then maybe my view of Calla could stand to be shaken up a bit. I mean, I guess I’ve always put my parents on a pedestal, you know?” I sigh and shake my head slightly. Everything just kind of comes out in a jumble. It feels like I’m about to unload a lifetime of personal problems to a relative stranger, which doesn’t feel right to me. There’s a chair in the corner of the room and I head towards it, plopping down gracelessly as I add, “And that isn’t fair to anyone.”
“Ah.” Kor holds his pointer finger up. “A wise notion, Charlie.”
“Can you tell me about her?” I ask cautiously. “What she was like growing up and before she...”
“Ran away?” he finishes for me, a slight frown on his face. “Calla was...” Kor sighs again and adjusts his weight against the desk. “Lovely. Your mother was lovely, Charlie.”
I can’t help the overwhelming disappointment in his answer. Not for the words themselves, but for the way they’re delivered, like a scripted report. It sounds like something that’s been rehearsed in a mirror, rather than an honest assessment.
“Lovely,” I repeat back to him blandly. “She was... lovely.”
“Yes,” Kor answers, obviously aware of my displeasure but pretending otherwise. “She was-”
“Lovely,” I finish for him, one eyebrow raised. “Really? That’s it?”
“I’d say it’s sufficient,” Kor responds, standing up from his position at the desk and rounding it to go to the other side. “Lovely is a perfectly good adjective. Can’t imagine what you’d have against it.”
“Kor, come on. If you don’t want to tell me about her, just say so.” I cross my arms in defiance.
He turns back towards me then, and gives me a leveling stare. “Charlie, I don’t know what you’re expecting…”
“The truth,” I respond simply. “Honestly, I just want to know her. I feel like there’s this huge part of my mother’s life that’s hidden from me, and you’re the only one I know who can tell me anything about it. I feel like I’ve always had this image of my mother and now…” I want to say that everything has changed so much and that Calla doesn’t fit in the box I made for her, but I can’t. Kor thinks Calla died when I was little. He thinks I’m just a girl trying to get to know her mother through her friend’s memories of her. He doesn’t know I’m attempting to rewrite history with a clearer picture of who my mother really was.
I pause, wracking my brain for something more specific to ask, something concrete that Kor can answer.
“Did she at least tell you goodbye before she ran away?”
“No,” Kor exhales sadly and leans back in his chair, his eyes going down to his hands. “Your mother left when your grandmother was very sick. We had an argument about Calla’s increasing disappearances and how that affected her mother, and then she stormed off. I never saw her again.”
A cold chill runs down my body.
Calla told us that her parents were dead by the time she met our father. She told us she was an orphan, raised mostly by family friends and the land. She lied to us. Again.
I guess I can just add that to the growing list of things to be angry with her about.
My stomach twists with the implications of Kor’s statement. “She left even though her mother was sick?”
“Yes. Calla left her younger sisters to care for their mother. Your grandfather was not the most nurturing man. He was of no help.”
My mind warps quickly to a dimension or timeline where Kor didn’t just say that. Instead of the truth, he says something about my mother having no idea her mother was sick and how she would have never left her. He doesn’t tell me about aunts I never knew existed. In a split second, I imagine my mother continuing to perch beautifully on that pedestal I set her on years ago.
Then I see the very real set of Kor’s jaw and the pedestal in my mind starts to wobble. His jaw clicks as it moves, a motion I recognize from a film I saw recently where the protagonist is in a faceoff with the man who killed his wife. His jaw was set just like Kor’s is now. They wear identical furrowed brows and pursed lips too. Just like the man in the movie, Kor’s face screams nothing but pain and anger that has yet to be dealt with.
The pedestal tips, threatens to fall.
I’m about to say something, anything to diffuse the moment and somehow keep my mother’s image intact, anything at all to make everything make sense again, when Kor closes his eyes and bows his head. He takes another deep breath, letting it out slowly as he looks at me again.
“Your grandmother died not long after Calla ran away. I tried to find her. I tried... but Charlie, your mother knew Beatrice wasn’t long for this world. Calla knew her mother needed her. She just didn’t care.”
And with the pedestal, my mother falls.
I stand in silence for a very long time. So long, I wonder if my legs might give out, and then I realize I don’t even know when I stood up from my chair.
Kor waits for something to bring me back for a few moments, but then he turns to leave.
“How could she not care?” I ask more aggressively than I intend, but I make no move to remedy it. “She must have cared!”
“Charlie-” Kor has his hand up, a comforting gesture that I want nothing to do with.
“You’re telling me that my mother knew my grandmother was sick, knew she was dying, and yet chose to leave anyway? She left her mother and siblings with a father who couldn’t care less about any of them? That’s what you’re saying?”
“I’m not saying anything—”
“Yes, you are. You said she didn’t care.” I’m suddenly shouting again. Why am I shouting so much? I’ve never yelled at anyone before, and now I’ve done it twice in one day to two different people. I’m overcome with anger, but I can’t get a manageable grip on it. “How do you know if she cared? Maybe she had to do it. Maybe she didn’t want to but had-”
“Why?” Kor pushes back, shaking his head in disbelief. “What could possibly be more important than her family? What was more important than—” He cuts himself off. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You asked for the truth.”
“The truth, yeah. Not your personal hang-ups!” I know I’m being unreasonable, but I still don’t stop. There are tears stinging at the edges of my eyes too, another thing I can’t seem to control. “I want you to—”
“Stop,” Kor interrupts, his voice low and patient. “We should put this conversation on hold until you have had time to thi
nk-”
“I don’t want to think.”
“—about what this means,” he finishes with some condescension. Kor looks at me like I’m one of his own grumbling teenagers. I guess I am now. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you right now.”
And then he’s moving faster than my brain can figure out a way to get him to stay. He leaves me alone in his office. It’s just enough to send me over the edge, my tears falling freely as I crumble to the floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
Heart de la Brache
The next couple days are filled with awkward silences and stolen glances. Kor dropped the bomb and left me alone to deal with the fallout.
To think that Calla just left her family, without regard to their well-being, just to run off with my father, makes me feel…
Dirty.
Like my very existence is forbidden on more than one level now. It’s not as if I’m ungrateful to be alive, but now I can’t shake the idea that I was marked at birth for something to atone for. As if the sins of my mother are now, somehow, my sins too.
Just thinking of my mother as a sinner at all is something I have yet to get used to. I didn’t think she was perfect, not by any means, but she was the perfect mother for me. She was just as entertaining as she was encouraging, thoughtful, and kind. The kind of person you think of as being genuine. Honest.
And now…
Now that trust is gone, and I’m thinking of my mother in the past tense.
I don’t blame Kor for running away after he told me the truth about my mother’s disappearance. It’s not as if I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I had to give bad news to a relative stranger. He’s probably just trying to give me space to digest the information, letting me deal with it in my own way and time. Although, his exits from rooms I’ve just entered are not at all subtle, usually bordering on comical. If it wasn’t kind of funny, the habitual action would get on my nerves.
It takes me a few days, but I finally convince myself it’s time to put the awkwardness behind us and apologize for my overreaction.
I find Kor putting laundry on a clothesline behind the house. Sheets swing wildly in the wind and beat up against his body as he hangs them in place of the children’s clothing.
I watch him through the window for a few minutes, contemplating how to break the tension, until Avias’ voice in my ears cuts into my thoughts and startles me out of what was becoming a creepy stalker moment.
“You’re aware your brother is the only one who can read your thoughts, yes?” He sips tea from a small cup and watches his father work outside.
“What?” I shift so I face him more than the window.
“If you wish to have a conversation with him,” he says, placing his tea cup in its saucer and taking a step closer to me, “I suggest you open your mouth.”
There’s a hint of a smirk on the Aérasian’s face. I feel my face getting hot and silently thank my father for his dark skin so my embarrassment isn’t so readily apparent.
“You don’t even have to leave the house,” Avias continues. “My father is excellent at manipulating sound vibrations in the air. He can hear from kilometers away.”
I take note of that interesting bit of information and make a point to ask more about it in the future. Now’s not the time.
“He’s upset with me, I think,” I tell him cautiously, taking a glance outside before returning my eyes to Avias. “He told me something about my mother, and I guess I didn’t react in the best way.” I stand up from my place on the window sill and try to look as natural as possible. “Do you… I mean, has your father ever spoken of her? My mother, that is.”
Avias arches a brow like he knows exactly where the question came from and exactly how our conversation will go. “Yes.”
“Really?” I miss my chance to play it cool entirely. “What did he say?”
“Enough,” Avias answers vaguely, eyes traveling to the window once more. He takes another sip of his tea. “If there’s something you wish to know, however, your best source for information is currently performing a puppet show with a pair of training pants.” He sips his tea with a knowing smile then turns away and heads back towards the kitchen. “Perhaps when he’s finished you can ask him.”
His words confuse me slightly, until I see that Cyra and Robin have joined Kor outside and are rolling around in the grass, giggling their little tummies off. Their father does indeed have training pants on each of his hands and is hiding behind a sheet, appearing to make the makeshift puppets tell jokes. The scene pulls an unexpected laugh from me, which I quickly stifle. Laughing just doesn’t seem appropriate right now.
Tirigan still isn’t speaking to me, and I recently learned our mother wasn’t the woman I thought she was, and we have no leads as to where she could be. I haven’t seen my father in a couple weeks now, a fact that is starting to make my body heavy with sadness. And, of course, there’s the ever-present threat of being found out and murdered in our sleep. You know, basic concerns.
I push myself towards the back door. If I don’t want to laugh, then I guess an uncomfortable, possibly homeless-inducing conversation is in order. I hear the children laughing wildly first, Kor’s high-pitched puppet voices only coming in once I clear the porch.
“I told you, the monkey was the baker!” Kor screeches, and the children fall into hysterics yet again. “You’ve just forgotten you’re a lobster!”
“Daddy!” Robin yells through laughs. “Make them sing! Make them sing!”
Another laugh pushes itself through my lips, just barely audible, but Kor still swivels in my direction. His expression doesn’t change, mirth spreading over his features in a way that makes me wonder why I was so worried about talking to him again.
“Ah another member of the audience!” Kor says in his puppet voice. “Do join us, Miss Charlie!”
This time I force a laugh, trying to make it sound as natural as possible. The quick pull between Kor’s brows tells me I’m unsuccessful.
When he speaks again, it’s in his own voice. “Or perhaps another time.”
He offers me a thin smile then pulls the training pants off his hands. Robin and Cyra protest, but Kor jumps around the sheet a second later, growling at them like a monster and making them laugh again.
“All right offspring, go inside and fill your bellies with something atrociously sweet. The goal is to be so full your mother will be incapable of getting you to eat any dinner.” The children scream in glee and jump up and down. “And remember,” Kor yells to their quickly retreating backs, “Your mission is top secret!”
“Vi will make you pay for that,” I tell him with a smile.
“Ah, but then who would she have to fold the laundry?” He holds up the training pants in his hands which are, in fact, in the process of being folded. He stoops down to place them in the basket when he’s done.
“So,” I start nervously. “I uh, wanted to say that I’m sorry, you know, for before...” I trail off, feeling a bit unsure about how the rest of my statement is going to go. “I know I upset you, bringing up the past like that and I just-”
“Charlie, no,” Kor cuts me off, stepping closer and putting his hand on my shoulder. “It’s I who should apologize. Thinking about Calla... talking about Calla, it’s not an easy thing for me to do, but I know you want to hear more about what she was like, and you deserve to hear it.”
It’s obvious there’s more he wants to say, so I refrain from responding and just wait for him to continue. After a brief pause, Kor pulls his eyes from me and back to the remaining bits of laundry to be folded.
With a sigh, he finishes his thought. “I just wish there was someone a little less biased for you to talk to.”
“Biased?” I ask, his emphasis on the word confusing me. “What do you mean?”
Kor takes in a deep breath then looks back to the house, carefully considering whatever it is he wants to tell me. When his eyes come back to me, they’re intense and unwavering. It’s a look I’v
e started to get used to, as I’ve been on the receiving end of it quite a few times since I’ve met Kor. It feels like he’s inspecting me to some infinitesimal degree, like he expects to find the inner-workings of my soul written on my forehead. It’s a little unnerving.
Finally, after a moment more of his scrutinizing gaze, Kor smiles. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
◆◆◆
A short while later, I find myself on a narrow walking path, surrounded by firs and wildflowers. Thankfully, Kor breaks the silence first. I wouldn’t know where to begin again.
“Your mother and I, as I’m sure you’ve inferred, were very close when we were young.” I nod, because I had assumed as much. Not just because of the way she wrote about him, but also because of the way Kor speaks of her. “We were practically inseparable as children, always going on adventures, usually avoiding detection.” His features shadow with his nostalgia as Kor’s hands slip into his pockets. I mimic the posture. It’s not exactly cold outside, but there’s a slight sting to the air. “I thought we might spend our whole lives doing just that.”
His admission is soft, like a confession. It takes me a moment to realize what he means.
“You were in love with her.” It’s not an accusation, and I hope it doesn’t come out that way.
“Yes.” Kor nods, still smiling, albeit somewhat sadly now. “I was.”
“So when you said she didn’t care about her mother—” I try to connect the dots of our last conversation to this one.
“Beatrice was not the only person Calla didn’t care about,” Kor finishes.
“She didn’t love you back.”
“I thought she did. She told me as much,” Kor replies as he pulls a flower from the ground. He begins picking its petals without using his fingers. “But I assume she wouldn’t have left if she saw a future with me.”
Something in me wants to ease Kor’s past heartache with pieces of the truth. That my mother fell in love with a strange creature who turned out to be my father, and could Kor really blame Calla for wanting to be with him? Maybe he could. Maybe Kor could blame my mother for abandoning her family to start one of her own. Maybe I could blame her too, even if that meant diminishing my own existence.
