by Dyrk Ashton
She squirms, watching patterns of light and shadow from the window play across her colorful star-patterned quilt. Mrs. Mirskaya, her old babysitter and one-time employer, made it for her using patches of fabric and intricate needlework to craft Russian folk designs of swirling fairy tale birds, minarets and gray thrushes, colorful onion domed bird houses, matryoshka dolls, and pomegranates with blooms.
Her eyes roam over her little bedroom. It’s one of the smallest rooms in this enormous house, but Uncle Edgar let her pick any room she wanted when she moved in. She chose this one because it’s intimate and cozy. She loves its worn wood floor, the uneven horse-hair plaster and lathe walls and ceiling, and the window of wavy dimpled green glass set in an original wood frame with weights on cords that rumble in the walls when you open it. There’s just the one window, but it’s always been her portal to imagining what life might be like in the wide world outside Toledo. The collection of travel posters and cheap paintings tacked to the walls attest to her wandering spirit. London, Paris, Venice, Berlin, Prague, Norway, Greece, Egypt, India, Africa, and many more. Edgar has been to every one of these places. Fi’s been to none of them, but she’s promised herself she will. Some day. There’s also a poster of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out, which she just thinks is funny, and a graphic chart of human anatomy, a sign of her chosen area of study. Lame, she thinks. It’s all lame. She manages a self-deprecating smile. Just like me.
Her eye catches the only two pictures she has of her mother, standing in frames on her dresser opposite the foot of the bed. In one of the photos a smiling woman with shining red hair sits holding a silver flute, a publicity photo for the symphony. In the other, five year old Fi leans her head on her mom’s shoulder in the park, both of them grinning. Fi has no pictures of her father. She never knew him. He left before she was born and they’ve had no contact, not a single letter or even a card on birthdays. She used to fantasize he had a good reason for leaving, that he lived a secret life doing something really important, but now he’s just dead to her. As far as she knows he might really be dead, but she’s learned the less she thinks about him the better.
When Fi was seven her mother was killed in a plane crash on the way back from a concert in Vancouver. Fi was staying with Old Lady Muskrat. That’s what she calls Mrs. Mirskaya when she’s not around, much to her uncle’s chagrin, (but she does have a mustache and buck teeth). When the police and an airline representative showed up at the door with the news, Uncle Edgar was right behind them.
From what Fi understands, her mother met Edgar shortly after Fi was born. He had recently moved to Toledo from London, but some months before then he’d received a letter from Fi’s father, whom he claimed was his cousin, telling him about the new love of his life and their unborn child in America. Apparently Edgar had seemed quite saddened to hear that Fi’s father had abandoned them.
Fi’s mother had no living relatives, so the day after her death Edgar took Fi to Children’s Services to begin the custody process. The courts wanted proof they were related. DNA tests confirmed they were, and not too distantly. He also had paperwork that linked him to her father’s family. The courts were satisfied, she was given into his care and he took her into his home. This home. That was ten years ago. Edgar could have left the country, Fi reminds herself, just not shown up for her, or downright denied custody. But he didn’t.
She’s very fond of her uncle, though he frustrates her at times, embarrasses her at others. Still, sometimes she feels bad that she doesn’t spend more time with him. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t know him at all. He doesn’t talk about himself or his past. She doesn’t even know his favorite color. When he is in a talkative mood he just goes on about ancient history, the foibles of science and “jolly old England.” She feels bad when she gives him a hard time, too. It has to have been difficult for him. He never had any children of his own, then suddenly took it upon himself to take care of a sad little girl he hardly knew.
She was worse than just sad, though. After her mother’s death she turned into a brat. Hyperactive, bored at school, depressed, unable to concentrate. So she took it out on Edgar, and Mol. She acted out, talked back, threw snit fits. Not violent or vicious, she was just such a grouchy little turd.
She never had many friends, not close ones, anyway. The mean kids in grade school called her an orphan. Technically that’s true, but she told them they were stupid, that orphans have no family and she lived with her uncle. They’d laugh and call him “Uncle Hippie Mutton-chops.” When she played soccer (not very well) he’d pick her up from practice in his old beat-up Bentley. They’d call out, in bad English accents, “Oh Fee-oh-nah, it’s your but-lah, come to fetch you home!”
Her “episodes” didn’t help, either. It only happened once at school, in third grade, but that was enough. Most kids just stayed away. Others teased. She’d wet herself that time, too. It didn’t always happen, but often enough. For many of her old classmates she’ll always be remembered as “pee-pee Fi.”
Thank God it didn’t happen last night with Zeke! Which reminds her, she’s going to have to talk to him today. Definitely not looking forward to that.
She got terrible grades in middle school, detentions. Never dyed her hair pink, pierced her nose or got tattoos. But she thought about it. Her experimentation with cigarettes, pot and alcohol didn’t last long. Except for the occasional glass of wine she never liked it, no matter how cool it was. She just isn’t cool. That’s all there is to it.
She finally got her shit together a few years ago. Mostly a matter of focusing her OCD tendencies on school and staving off the ADD. She’s never been officially diagnosed, but she swears she’s both. She’s always dived into things intensely, whatever caught her fancy, whether it be fantasy books, drawing and painting, playing the flute or jigsaw puzzles, and would stay up all night for weeks on end, completely devoting herself to her flighty focus. Then she’d suddenly lose interest and something else would take its place. She can do schoolwork regularly now, she just considers it a job, never misses a class and way over-studies. She aced all her classes sophomore and junior year and actually got to graduate early. She’s always wondered, though, if the school just wanted to be rid of her.
Now she’s enrolled in pre-med in college. Straight A’s, so far. Edgar encouraged her to study whatever she wanted, said that he’d manage to scrape up the money and cover the rest with loans. But that’s the problem. She just doesn’t know what she wants to do. What do you want to be when you grow up, Fi? Huh?! Grow up? Hell, most of the time she doesn’t know what she wants at all, period! She thought about international business for awhile, then journalism, so she could travel, but settled on health care. For now. It is the practical thing to do. And honorable, her uncle says.
For all the trouble she’s caused him, Edgar has never grounded her or punished her in any way. He has never even given her a talking to about responsibility, mutual respect or common courtesy. In one of her more maudlin moments in her younger years, when feeling guilty about having a tantrum over not being allowed to have chocolate cake (in spite of the fact that they didn’t have any chocolate cake and she already had ice cream for dessert), she asked her uncle why he put up with her. He looked genuinely taken aback and said, “Why, this is what family does, dear.” Then he made her a chocolate cake.
As crazy as Edgar makes her sometimes, he’s the only father she’s ever known, and she truly believes he’s done the best he can. She’ll be grateful to him forever. She just has to learn how to show it.
Fi hears a soft tick tick and muffled hiss coming from the old radiator in the corner of the room. Edgar must have turned on the heat last night. Not because it’s all that chilly yet but to test the boiler before the real cold comes. He does the same thing about this time every year. Her uncle is nothing if not a creature of habit—Oh shit!
Speaking of habit, every Sunday morning since she first came to live with him, Edgar brings her breakfast in bed before going to church. At
8:00 AM, on the dot. And it’s Sunday morning. Over the years she’s tried everything she could think of to dissuade him from it, but it’s become a tradition, and her uncle is all about tradition.
She checks the clock. 7:59 AM. She needs to get some clothes on, right now. She tosses the covers back and hears Edgar coming up the stairs, whistling “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” his favorite song. Maybe the only song he knows. Well, that, “Amazing Grace,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
He’ll knock, he always does. She leaps to her dresser, grabs a pair of boy short underwear from the overflowing, half-open drawer and tugs them on. She catches her own bright green eyes in the dresser mirror. “Irish eyes,” Edgar calls them. Her hair is somewhere between light auburn and soft copper in color and tumbles down over her pale shoulders. Even when in a ponytail or bun there are strands that escape across her brow and cut down the edge of her left eye, threatening to obscure her vision, so she pushes them back over her ear often, as she does now. She’s been asked a dozen times if she dyes her hair that particular shade, but it’s entirely natural. She gets it from her mom.
At 5’ 4” tall, Fi considers herself medium height. There have always been shorter girls in her classes and some much taller. “I don’t know what they’re feeding people these days,” Edgar has commented. “It’s a known fact that human beings have been consistently increasing in height as a species for a very long time—but today! You would have been considered an Amazon in my time, dear. I was thought to have quite an impressive stature in my younger days, now I am average height at best. My father was considered a veritable giant among men, and he was just six feet tall!”
Fi squints at her reflection. She doesn’t think she’s particularly attractive, not like her mother was, but she’s slim, athletically built (if not athletically inclined), and has high perky breasts—which she thinks are too small, and her round butt sticks out more than she’d like. Still, she thinks she looks okay. Not good enough for Zeke, obviously!
There’s a firm rap on the door and Edgar’s voice comes from the other side. “Miss Fiona? Breakfast!”
“One second!” She flings clothes from a pile on the floor until she finds a tank top that doesn’t look too dirty and pulls it on. She runs to the closet, throws a jacket off the door hook and snatches her bathrobe from underneath, slips into it and jumps back in bed.
“Come in!” she shouts, dragging the quilt over her legs.
Edgar opens the door and peers in to make sure it’s safe. Fi fears he’s never gotten over the time when she was 14 and feeling ornery and hid in nothing but underpants and bra to jump out in front of him as he headed up the hall to the bathroom. “Flabbergasted” is a good word to describe his reaction. He ran away faster than she’s ever seen him move. He never mentioned it afterward, but since then he’s been cautious when coming anywhere near this part of the house.
Assured that all is clear, he enters, wearing the only suit he owns, maybe has ever owned, a three piece navy blue pinstripe with a golden silk necktie, and carrying a silver tray with a plate under a dome cover. “Good morning, Miss Fi. Happy Sunday to you.”
“Good morning, Uncle Edgar.” Mol trots in and throws himself down with a loud thu-whump, hard enough to shake the room. “Good morning, Mol.” The big dog grunts, rolling onto his back and wriggling to scratch himself.
“And what are we busying ourselves with this morning?” Edgar asks, eyeing the unfolded clothes on the bed, open dresser drawers, laundry on the floor, desk strewn with papers and open books. “Ah, tidying up, I see.”
“Funny, ha ha.”
“It’s your sanctuary dear, do with it what you will.” From the look on his face, however, the condition of her room is not what he’d prefer.
He steps up bedside, pulls a folding stand from under his arm and sets it up. On it he places the tray, which also contains a glass of orange juice, a steaming cup of coffee, a bowl of cut fruit and buttered English muffins—real ones, not the spongy American knock-offs—with a dollop of orange marmalade on the side. He lifts the lid and steam rolls out. “Voilà! Eggs Hussarde with minced potatoes and onions” (of course he says ‘poe-tah-toes,’ like a good Englishman should). “I even made that foul black substance you like to drink,” he adds. “What is the word for it?”
“C-o-f-f-e-e,” she plays along.
“Oh yes,” he grimaces.
Fi pulls the tray to her lap and digs in. At least she knows he won’t bring up the fact she missed dinner and came in late last night, and never will. He isn’t one to dwell on things. “What’s done is done,” she’s heard him say on more than a few occasions. Usually after she’s done something rotten or broken something.
“You know, Uncle,” she says, taking half an English muffin in one bite, “you really don’t have to do this anymore.”
“You don’t like the Hussarde? It’s the Marchand de Vin, isn’t it? Too much thyme?”
“It’s delicious, as always, thank you.” Whatever else Fi might say about her Uncle Edgar, he’s a damn good cook. More like a chef. “You know exactly what I mean. Breakfast in bed, every Sunday. I’ll be 18 in a month.”
“So a woman of legal age is not allowed breakfast in bed? I’ve been in America all this time and I still learn something new about this queer country every day.”
He’s in a particularly good mood. That hasn’t happened much lately. He’s always polite, but he has been more and more despondent of late. She doesn’t know why for certain, but he works for some rich guy Fi has never met and the man became ill a few years ago, a slow but progressive condition of some sort. That was about the time Edgar began to seem down.
Fi isn’t sure what her uncle’s title is, some kind of property manager for his employer’s homes—plural—the guy has houses all over the world. Edgar arranges to have them cleaned and maintained and pays the household bills. The reason he moved to Toledo was to oversee the restoration of the man’s most recent acquisition, one of those huge old stone mansions along the river south of the city.
Edgar lifts a rumpled bath towel from its perch on a chair, holds it between forefinger and thumb as if it’s disgusting. Fi gives him a look and he folds it.
“I know very well that you have been indulging me and my brekky routine all these years because you think I like it,” he says. “The truth is, I do, and that’s exactly why I do it. This may come as a surprise, but what you prefer has never been my greatest concern.”
“Obviously!” She makes as if to throw an English muffin at him. She doesn’t, of course. She’d never mess up his only suit before church, even if it does look like it was made in the 1920s. Which actually makes it kind of cool. “It’s good to hear you finally admit it,” she says.
He settles into the chair. “I know you’re growing up, dear, as you have made so very clear on every possible occasion since you were ten. Very soon you’ll move away to attend medical school, then have a residency, a job, meet a man (a good man or not, probably not), become married, relocate to someplace exciting and exotic, or more likely terribly mundane, and have thirty-seven horrible children.”
“Oh God!” Fi exclaims, then covers her mouth, having taken the Lord’s name in vain in front of the only person she knows who might actually care.
“I doubt you’ve done Him any harm,” says Edgar, glancing at the ceiling. “I will, however, say an extra prayer for you this morning, young lady.”
“Sorry Uncle.”
Edgar shrugs. He’s religious, but other than saying grace before meals he never speaks of it. He gave up asking if she’d go to church with him years ago. She always said she had to study.
“So, how are you faring with classes?” he asks. “And work?”
This is more like the conversation she’s used to having with her uncle. Simple, impersonal, to the point. “Classes are good, work is fine.”
“Good, good. And your boyfriend?”
She chokes on a piece of egg. How could he possibly know about Zeke? An
d he is not my boyfriend! All she can manage in reply is a muffled, “Huh?”
“Peter, dear,” Edgar clarifies, “the elderly gentleman you’re always taking flowers to. And dates, is it?”
She relaxes. “Figs. He loves figs. He’s okay, I guess. He smiled again last week.”
Peter is very old, a patient at the hospital where Fi works for her internship. He’s “taken a shine to her,” as her uncle puts it. He really has, actually, as much as he can, and because of that the hospital has assigned her to him full-time. Well, part-time, since Fi only works three or four days a week. The fact is, she’s the only person Peter responds to, as limited as it is. She’s “taken a shine” to him, too. He seems so lost and alone. On the rare occasion when she can get him to look at her, her heart leaps. When he smiles, which is rarer still, it brightens her whole week.
“Kindness is the best medicine, dear, and I know you’re giving him that.” He notices the digital clock on her bed stand. “Goodness me, is that the time?” He pulls out his pocket watch. “No, actually it’s one minute behind.” He stands, stuffing the watch away. “I must be off. You can leave the dishes,” then he adds with emphasis, “in the kitchen sink, Miss Fi. I’ll do them upon my return.”
“I’ll do the dishes, Uncle.”
Edgar grabs his chest. “The Lord be praised, miracles do happen!”
Fi points her fork at him. “Get! Out with you! Begone!”
“Well, if that’s the thanks I get,” he snorts. He pats his thigh and Mol rises with a groan, heads into the hall. Edgar pauses, hand on the doorknob. “If it truly be your heart’s desire, dear,” he says kindly, “after your 18th birthday I will trouble you with breakfast in bed no more.” He places his hand on his heart, “I solemnly swear,” and pulls the door shut softly.
