by Rachel Kane
Especially not when there were more important matters at hand.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told her. “I’m in shock. We grew up here.”
“And then you left, and you never came back. I’m curious why you care, Theo. I wouldn’t think you’d have a feeling on it one way or the other.”
“I didn’t realize I did have any feelings about it, until Val told me the news,” I said. “But apparently I do. And now, coming back… It’s overwhelming, really.”
“I’m surprised you brought Micah with you, given everything that happened.”
I blanched. We’d never really talked about Micah. Not after Dad died. Micah had sort of slipped off the map. It would make sense that the topic would’ve come up at some point since then…I could even see Val speaking to her privately about it. He’d been so appalled that Micah and I would be together.
But life had taken care of that problem, hadn’t it? Val should have been pleased the way everything turned out. He got his way. I’d dropped Micah, dropped my dreams, dropped everything, so I could be a useful, productive member of the family.
“He’s here on his own,” I said. “I guess he heard the news from his mom.”
She sighed. “It’s heartbreaking, watching Mildred. I truly wish there was something I could do for her.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Like not selling the house. I don’t understand what’s happening, Mother. There’s a man in your life or something, you’re moving, and I feel like I’m hearing about all of it second-hand.”
“Not to be a stereotypical mom,” she said, “but perhaps you’d know more about current events if you called or visited once in a while.”
“Touché.”
“What do you want to know? I met a nice man. His name is Nicholas. I’m sure your brother is already having someone at the company research him, looking for skeletons in his closet.”
“Forget the skeletons, who is he?”
“I think you’d like him. Nicholas is a great patron of the arts. He is part-owner of a gallery in New York, he set up a scholarship fund for young sculptors—”
“Ah, the kids who got to go to art school, instead of dropping everything for the sake of family, you mean?”
Her eyes tightened. I had the oddest sense she was about to reach for the pill-bottle. “We all make our choices, Theo.”
“And your choice is to pull up stakes and go?”
She got out of her chair and began straightening the pictures by the bookshelves. “I find this frustrating. This assumption that I should want to stay, that my job is to look after this old museum of a house.”
“It’s a beautiful house.”
“Yes. And everyone would like for it to become my tomb. No one would like me to move on with my life, to meet someone new—”
“I don’t have a problem with you meeting a guy,” I said. “That’s fine. But—”
“Is it? Is it fine? Because the way everyone reacts, I think you’d rather I be like Miss Havisham, growing old and dusty, covered in cobwebs and memories. I’m fifty-five years old, Theo. I’m too young to be the ancient matriarch of our family. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in widow’s weeds, flitting from window to window like a ghost, hoping someone will come by to interrupt the solitude. Assuming I even last that long, here all alone.”
It was such a striking image that I saw it all in an instant, the way it would appear on canvas, dark and gothic, like Fuseli’s The Nightmare. My mother all in black, before a window of an even deeper black, the darkness punctuated only by guttering candles smoking, throwing her into a chiaroscuro where only her pale face was truly visible.
I’m not a psychologist. I don’t understand how the human mind works, nor the roots of empathy. But I do know that there are emotions deeper than words, there are things I feel that I can’t express, except to picture them translated into painting.
The image of my mother, the way the candlelight would glimmer against her face, made me see her whole problem in a stark, painful way. I felt it in a way I knew Val never could.
I hadn’t come here expecting to feel sympathy for her…but here we were, and I understood why the house had to go. Why she needed freedom from it.
As much as that hurt.
I got up and approached her. At first she looked wary, as though I was coming to point my finger at her, accuse her of selfishness. Surprise broke over her face when I took her hand.
“I get it,” I said. “I hate to see it happening, but I get it.”
Her eyes studied my face. “Do you? No one else does. Everyone is treating me like a villain right now, Theo. A villain, because I’m not ready to give up my life for a memory.”
“Do what you need to do,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
My mother was far too dignified for things like tears. I don’t think I’d ever really seen her cry, except at my father’s grave. Yet her eyes shone as she said, “I’ll miss it too, you know? No matter where I go, I always come back here. It will be strange, not being able to come back anymore.”
I could have suggested buying the house. Or having it owned by the trust. Or a thousand other options that didn’t require giving it up. But she didn’t need to be bombarded with all that right now. She just needed to know someone cared, that someone was on her side. I squeezed her hand.
“Would it help if I stayed a couple of days?”
Her face brightened. “You! Theo, I would hardly know what to do with you around, it has been so long. But I know Mildred and Consuela would love it. You know…” She paused. “No, never mind.”
“No, what is it?”
“Nicholas has promised to fly down and help me with the arrangements. Would you like to meet him?”
As much as I felt a deep empathy for my mother right now, I bristled a little at the idea of meeting my dad’s replacement. The guy who was going to wreck everything. Would I be able to be civil around him?
God, knowing me, I’d start something. A big fight, an argument, chaos.
Maybe I’d just drink myself into a coma.
“That would be nice,” I said. “I’d like to meet him.”
Val and Micah had moved on from the patio, and were down by the dock. I threw the melting ice out of my glass, and replaced it with whiskey, then walked down there with them.
I didn’t like the way they were talking together. The ease. Just two guys chatting. They weren’t allowed to be friendly together. Not after all that had happened.
Not after Val ripped us apart.
But Micah didn’t know that, did he? Because I’d ghosted him. Ghosted, a word we didn’t know back then, but it fit perfectly, the way I’d vanished from his life without a word.
“Welcome back,” said Val. “Have you changed her mind and rescued the house, with your superior social skills?”
“Why Val, if I didn’t know it wasn’t part of your programming, I’d say you were trying out sarcasm.”
“As charming as sibling rivalry is to watch as an outsider,” said Micah, “can we stick to the topic at hand?”
I sighed. How was I supposed to tell Micah I was taking my mother’s side…which meant that his mother was out of a job?
Why couldn’t I be cold and emotionless like Val? I didn’t want to hurt Micah’s feelings, or his mom’s. My decisions had caused quite enough pain in Micah’s life already, hadn’t they?
I mean, he did get hurt when I left, right?
Had he been upset? Did he mourn the way I did?
He didn’t look like someone who mourned. He looked like someone who worked out his feelings at CrossFit. Some part of me wanted to reach over and pinch his bicep, just to see if it was real. When did lawyers have time to work out?
What if he’d taken it well, when I left? What if he hadn’t cared at all, but had gotten on with his life without me?
Why did I care? This was ridiculous. What had happened years ago had no bearing on anything happening now.
What was happe
ning now, was that I was siding with the person kicking his mother out…and I didn’t like that feeling, any more than I liked the idea of making my mother hold on to a house that made her sad.
“Things are up in the air,” I said. “They could really go either way.”
Both Micah and my brother looked puzzled at that. Val started to speak, but I shook my head.
“I’m going to stay here a couple of days,” I said, “and see what I can do. See if I can help settle everything.”
“You can’t stay here,” said Val, “we have a meeting with the Missouri—”
I glared at him. Shut up! Please get my signal to shut up!
“That helps,” said Micah, freeing me from having to kick Val’s shin. “I appreciate it, Theo. If there’s anything I can do…?”
“Give me your number,” I said. “I can call you when we’ve got it worked out.”
“Why don’t you stay?” Val asked Micah.
If I’d been glaring before, then right now my eyes were about to pop out of my head to slap my brother.
I said, “Look, Micah’s very busy, I’m sure—”
“Well…I mean, I just finished a case, and it’s the weekend, so in theory I have a little time…” Micah trailed off and looked in the direction of the caretaker’s cottage.
“I can handle it myself, don’t worry,” I insisted.
“Unless you can’t sway Mother,” said Val, “in which case he has to drive right back up here to help Mildred pack. That’s a lot to ask of him, when we have room right here. I’m sorry, Micah, I’m presuming. Obviously it’s your choice whether you stay or not.”
I wondered what was going through Micah’s head. Did he know what an emotionally tortuous day this had turned out to be for me? Was it the same for him? Val might have a point, from the practical side of things, but there was no way Micah wanted to stay here at Harrison House right now. Surely he wouldn’t. With me here? Wasn’t that just asking for trouble—for discomfort, for social awkwardness?
“You know, you’ve got a point,” Micah told my brother. “This might be the last time I see the old house, anyway. Nothing wrong with a little nostalgia, right? Sure, what the hell. I’ll stay. Maybe I can help Theo work things out with your mother.”
I froze. “You’re…going to stay here.”
“If that’s all right with you.”
“Val…come on, you can stay too, right?” Please don’t leave me here alone with Micah! Oh my god, Val, say you’ll stay!
My brother had never recognized subtext in his entire life. “I have work to do,” he said simply.
“So do it from here. Come on. When’s the last time you had a vacation?”
“I don’t like vacation,” said Val.
Was I going to have to ask him outright to stick around so that I didn’t have to talk to Micah? Was I going to have to make it that obvious?
I knew what I had to do. I didn’t like it. It was going to make me feel dirty, so dirty that I would have to go straight to the soap and water after this.
One of those weapons so powerful, so explosive, that you only deploy it at the most absolutely dire moments.
“I’d really like it if you stayed,” I said to Val. “You’ve got a better head for this stuff than I do. Maybe you can figure out how we can all come out ahead in this situation.”
You could practically hear the hiss as the last little bit of my dignity escaped my soul, and was lost on the open air.
Micah might not have been aware of what just happened, but Val certainly did.
“Very well,” he said. “It will be the three of us. Just like old times.”
Old times. I wish I could’ve drowned in the lake right then.
8
Micah
I wanted to walk around the lake, but I hadn’t thought to grab some old sneakers for this trip, and you didn’t want to go right down to the water’s edge in good shoes. I had a lot to think about, and needed the walk to clear my head.
The river lapped the shore, gentle breeze-borne waves that kept the sand and clay moist, shining in the late afternoon sun. It’s funny, I could practically tell what time it was, just from the light shining on the shore; a little later, the sun would’ve dipped just far enough below the trees, and that particular glimmer would be gone.
Once you got past the manicured lawn, the wildness of the pine woods took over, with roots jutting out through the ground. Every couple of years, the lake would wash away just enough ground, that one of these trees would fall. I’d spent a lot of time hanging around those fallen trees; fish loved to gather in their branches, like strange alien birds.
Everything about this place had a history for me, because I’d explored every inch of it in my youth.
But that’s why I had to get my head clear. History wasn’t going to help me with what was going on now.
Naturally my phone rang. Why wouldn’t it? I was only trying to have a calm moment.
“Do you care if I give Braddock Moore your personal number?” said Bernard.
I nearly threw my phone in the lake. “Hello? Who is this? Are you a telemarketer?”
“Very funny. Look, he’s been calling nonstop. Seriously eager to work with you on a new matter, as he calls it. I’m not sure if he means for it to sound mysterious, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it involves a late night trip to the woods with shovels and a body-bag.”
“I can’t think about that right now,” I said. “Besides, it’s Saturday. Why are you even at work?”
“Says the man who wanted to install a mini-fridge in his office so he never had to leave. I had a few things to prep for Monday, but I’m all alone here, and dude, he won’t stop calling. Can you just talk to him?”
I glanced back at the big house. I needed time to think. Val’s surprise invitation to have me stay had caught me off-guard, and from what I could tell, Theo was just as startled by it.
“Here’s the thing,” I said to Bernard. “I think I’m in the middle of a family crisis.”
“With your mom?”
“Well…yeah, but that’s not the family in crisis. I’m staying the weekend with my ex—”
“Whoa now, what?”
“Long story.”
“You’ve only been gone a few hours!”
“Okay, short story, but complicated one.”
“I swear, Micah, if you’re making me talk to Braddock Moore while you’re down there getting it on with some old flame—”
“Trust me, that is not what is happening here. It’s like the opposite of what’s happening here.”
“Sure, sure. You give me this sob story about your mom, and it turns out it’s just a cover for a big rebound weekend getaway.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Would you stop? Listen, first off, that’s not what I’m down here for, and second, even if I were down here for that, it wouldn’t be with Theophilus Vandiver Harrison.”
“Are…are you dating a Pilgrim?”
“You’re so helpful, Bernard. Listen, tell Braddock I will try to get back to him some time this evening. But for now, I’m in the middle of a mess, trying to figure out what’s going to happen with my mom.”
“All right, have fun with Hezekiah Mayflower. Seriously, call Braddock.”
I had barely gotten the phone back in my pocket when I heard, “Hey, sorry to interrupt…”
Oh no, I thought. I swiftly turned and saw Theo behind me.
Please tell me you didn’t hear the last part of that conversation.
“No problem,” I said. “All done. Big case coming our way, lots of…um…law.”
If he noticed anything strange, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded. “Look, I have to apologize for Val. It was out of line for him to ask you to stay while we work this out.”
“I don’t mind, really.”
“I feel bad that you got pulled into the chaos. Val is really sharp, but sometimes he misses the human element in things.”
There wasn’t going to be any head-clear
ing walk, I realized. I’d have to think on my feet, like when surprises came up in the courtroom.
The problem is, you can only say it’s fine, it’s okay so many times before it gets weird. We were going to have to have actual conversations at some point.
As long as we stayed on safe topics, it would be fine. Talk about work, talk about the house, do not talk about the past, do not comment on how damn awkward this is. Bonus prohibition: Do not comment on the way that his shirt was open now, just the space of a couple of buttons, drawing the eye towards his chest. Not allowed to think about the chest.
“I was surprised to see you,” I said. “You two, I mean. The both of you. Val and you.”
Theo grimaced. He was as uncomfortable as I was. “I fucking hate this. Okay, seriously, I’m done apologizing for it, I promise, but I just want you to know I hate it. This…this minefield, ugh.”
Okay, that was a little more vehement than I expected.
“Everything all right?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
“I’m just saying, I know this is uncomfortable for you, and you don’t have to stay. And please don’t say some variation of It’s fine again, I can’t stand that. I’m giving you a way out, and you should take it.”
I think it was the strangeness of his tone that got to me. From the minute I saw him earlier, he’d had this air of a man under a severe strain. I’d thought it might just be the house business…but nobody polishes off that many drinks in an afternoon because of a house going up for sale.
There was more going on here than I understood.
Given all that, it would’ve made perfect sense to drive back to Corinth right now, and kiss all this family drama goodbye.
I don’t like having things up in the air. Was I going to take in my mom, or was she going to stay here? In my world, it’s something that could’ve been decided quickly.
This wasn’t my world, though.
Not anymore.
I’d have to ride it out.
“Seriously, Theo, it’s—”
“I swear to god if you say it’s fine I’m going to push you in the water.”
