by Anyta Sunday
Jace.
He glances up at me and steps to the side, offering me space next to him. But he doesn’t say anything. I take a cutting board and a sharp knife, then take over cutting the onions. They sting my eyes but I’m used to that now. I dice until Jace is ready for them.
They sizzle when they hit the pan. Jace stirs them into the butter with a long wooden spoon and languid strokes, cutting into the onions like he’s writing something of his own.
“How was Europe?” I ask when the mushrooms are frying and the pasta is boiling. I cock the lid of the pot so the water doesn’t bubble over.
“Good for me.”
“Better than home?”
He stops stirring and looks me squarely in the eyes. “I know we have to talk.” He swallows and looks toward his mum and our dad. “But can you wait?”
I can. I have. I always will.
When dinner is ready, Dad calls down Annie and Ernie and we all sit around the table and eat.
Lila smiles at each of us, winking at Ernie, who blushes the color of the roses in the middle of the table.
Lila eats a few mouthfuls more than she has the past couple of days. “This tastes great, Jace. Mushroom and capsicum cream sauce?”
“The very one you taught me.”
I poke at the pasta Jace served me, preparing to pull out all the capsicums before I dig any more into it.
I frown at Jace twirling his pasta on his fork.
You took out the capsicum for me, didn’t you?
Ernie clears his throat. “Hey, Jace.”
“Yeah?”
“Knock-knock.”
Jace raises an eyebrow. “Who’s there?”
“Amish.”
“Amish who?”
“Aww, I missed you too.”
Annie claps him over the back of the head. “Ernie!”
Dad and Lila laugh, and Jace grins too for the first time since coming home. I could kiss that dumb joke to bits; it’s like smoky quartz—immediately relieving the tension in the room.
“I have another one,” Ernie says as he swivels to face Annie. “Knock knock.”
A short laugh. “Who’s there?”
“Olive.”
“Olive who?”
“Olive you too.” Lila holds her breath and Annie smiles. Ernie pushes his chair back and kneels on one knee. He pulls a velvet box out of his pocket and opens it. Annie gasps. “Will you marry me?”
Annie bites her lip and throws her arms around his neck, knocking him backward until the chair behinds him tips and they are on the floor, laughing.
“Is that a yes?”
“Olive to marry you.”
Dad leans over and kisses Lila’s glowing face. I stand up on shaky legs, and everything is blurry as I round the table. Annie and Ernie are pulling themselves off the floor, and when my sister is on her two feet, I lift her into a hug and twirl her around. Her laugh puffs against my ear. “I’m so happy,” she says and squeezes me back.
I set her down and invite Ernie into a man-hug with three quick thumps on the back. “Welcome to the family. Remember what I said to you at the Halloween-birthday-masquerade wedding?”
He snorts at the mouthful. “Like I could forget.”
Dad pipes up. “Remember what I said too.”
“Said?” Ernie cries out. “You demonstrated what you’d do.”
“Yeah, but if you break your promise, the next time it won’t be with props.”
Dad is scary when he wants to be.
I laugh and hug him too. I breathe in the smell of pine on his clothes. “Jesus,” he says, “you’re all growing up. Next you and Jace will be engaged as well.”
I know he doesn’t mean engaged together but my heart skips a beat. Jace is hugging his mum but he’s looking at me.
“Thank you, Ernie,” Lila says when Jace pulls away. “I wish you and Annie a bright, beautiful future. Maybe you’ll even give this one grandchildren one day,” she says, pinching Dad’s butt.
He jumps and scowls at Ernie. “Not for a long, long time.”
Lila smiles, taking Dad in. “He’ll be a wonderful granddaddy.” She looks at Jace and me. “They’ll be the best uncles, too.”
Jace ducks out of the dining room and pounds up the stairs.
Lila makes a move to stand but Dad pats her shoulder. “Give the boy some time. He’s jetlagged and tired. He needs his space.”
I duck out as soon as I can, racing up to the gaming room where he’s playing something soft on the piano.
When he finishes, he faces me. “Bit rusty,” he says. “Haven’t been practicing as much as I should.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Are you living here?”
I incline my head. “Staying in a flat wasn’t working out for me. Thought I’d camp here again for a while.”
This isn’t the whole truth. I came home with my bags last weekend. Lila’s going to stay at home for the end and I want to be here.
“Me too,” Jace says, closing the lid to the piano and standing.
“Guess that makes us neighbors again.”
“Like the old days.”
“But without switching houses.”
He crosses the room and for a moment I think he’s going to stroke my cheek but he rubs his eyes. “I’m glad of that.” He yawns. “I really need to sleep.”
We step into the hall and make our way to our rooms. Our gazes flicker to the balcony before we each crack our doors open.
“Good night, Jace.”
“Night, Cooper.”
I drop lengthwise onto my bed, gripping my bedcovers. Breathing in the stillness, I replay the night of the infamous Halloween-birthday-masquerade wedding.
lazurite
Dad stays at Lila’s side reading to her, playing games, watching movies, and taking naps with his fingers entwined with hers. As the weeks pass into months, he wells up with tears every time he walks into their room. He sleeps less and takes daily shots of port in his study.
I take over the rocking chair at her bedside, giving Dad the time he needs to pull himself together. I understand though. Lila has lost so much weight, and her gaunt face is lined with pain that her meds can’t entirely take away. She tries to eat for us but she doesn’t want to. She only wants to sleep.
And then a surge of energy overcomes her.
This morning she decided she needed to vacuum the carpets.
A strange beacon of hope coiled itself tightly in my gut. Could the doctors have gotten it all wrong?
I feel Dad’s hysterical laughter and see his hand searching for hers at the dining table as they share a yogurt.
Then she curls up in bed like she does every normal day.
Dad hasn’t left his study since.
“It’s hard for him to see me like this,” Lila says.
“And it’s not hard for me?”
She pokes her tongue out. “I’m the witch that stole your father. Think of this as payback.”
I sober. “No, Lila. A long time ago I was angry but it’s been a long while now that I”—love you—“have come to like you a fair bit.”
She laughs but it comes with a wince.
I rock in the chair as we listen to Jace’s hectic music leaking through the walls. Three, four, five songs pass before Lila speaks again. When she does, it’s hushed.
“What’s the matter, Cooper?”
I meet her concerned blue gaze, which is so much like Jace’s it makes me tremble. “Nothing.”
She shakes her head and stares up at the lampshade, spinning from the vibrations of his music. “You wear your emotions on your sleeve. You’ve been sad ever since Jace came home.”
I let out a rough laugh. “You think Jace is the one making me sad?”
“Yes. I think it’s my boy that touches your heart the most.”
The music seems to swell, seems to fill the room and turn my skin to shivers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m a dying woman. I have no ti
me for lies.”
I shut my eyes and a tear escapes. My throat feels like it’s been scratched with a thousand toothpicks.
Lila continues, “You used to be so close. Right from the beginning, you and my son sparked.” My breath shudders. Lila’s voice softens. “He used to look at you like you held the answers to all life’s mysteries. When you were doing dishes, he’d sit at the table longer just to watch you. When you were at your mum’s, I’d find him curled in your bed holding one of your stones.”
“He did that?”
“Yes.”
This conversation feels like a confession. I’m afraid of what she might say, yet it’s exactly what I long to know the most. When she doesn’t say anything for a long time, I clutch the arms of the rocking chair and ask, “Is Dad Jace’s father too?”
Stunned silence.
Lila gasps out something akin to a laugh. “Of course not!”
But she took too long to answer. I don’t believe her. But she has no time for lies, right?
We look at each other for a long time, but she’s guarding her secrets well.
“Hypothetically,” I say during the silent moment in the music. “If he were Jace’s real dad, would you tell them?”
Again, she waits too long to answer. “Of course. They’d want to know.”
“Would they?”
She smiles.
The music vibrates through the floor with a violently hopeful beat, then tinkers to something soft and sorrowful.
“Do me a favor?” Lila asks. “Tell him to play something jolly.”
“We all grieve in our own way. This is his love song to you. It wouldn’t feel right asking him to stop.”
Tears streak down her temples and over her ears. She struggles to sit up. I plump a pillow behind her, and she grabs my wrist, rubbing her thumb over my skin. “I love you, Cooper. I know you have a mum but I have one secret to share with you.”
“What’s that?” I ask, kissing her forehead.
“You are mine as well.” She lets go of me. “Don’t tell him to stop but don’t let him play my song too long. There are others he should be playing.”
quartzite
Mum asks me to drive her, two casseroles and a coconut cake to Dad’s.
I pull up outside the house. Sunlight reflects off the windows and bounces onto the neglected lawn, making it eerily bright. The straight lines and glass have dated over the years. What once screamed We’re better than you now whispers Things change.
And haven’t they?
Mum stares out the passenger window. The light mirrors her freckled face and grim smile.
“You don’t have to go in,” I say, rubbing my thumbs over the steering wheel.
“I want to.” She glances down at the cake on her lap. White and square with a glassy luster like she dunked it in fine grains of sugar. It looks solid, like it might score a seven on the Mohs scale. A chunk of quartzite can withstand all pressure.
Mum sighs. “I just need to pray.”
“You don’t believe in God.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“What are you praying for?” Nothing can be done. Please don’t make me hope.
“For forgiveness.”
I drop my hands. Before I can ask, she speaks. “All those years ago when it didn’t work out with your dad and I?”
“When he left?”
“Yes. No, before that. During our arrangement.” Her breath hitches. “I wished something bad would happen to her. I didn’t mean it, not really. But now I’m sorry I ever thought that.”
Annie and I did the same thing.
I open our seatbelts and take the casseroles and quartzite coconut cake while she climbs out of the car. My belly is twisting at the sympathy I see in Mum’s tight smile. “Let’s go see your father.”
We walk up the path bridging the grassy moat, each of us holding a lukewarm casserole in our trembling grasp.
As I fish for my keys, I cradle the casserole under one arm. I’m unlocking the door but it opens before I finish. Dad is staring at Mum.
“Hello, David.”
“Marie. It’s been a long time.” He runs a hand through his hair and steps back to let us in.
Mum steps inside. “Too long.”
Dad can’t seem to stop nodding.
“Pass me the food, Mum.”
She blinks. “Cake is for now. You can freeze the casseroles for up to four months.”
I’m moving toward the kitchen when Mum’s heels clack over the floor. She mutters, “I am so sorry. You are both in my prayers.”
Dad gives a soft laugh, “You don’t believe in God.”
The house groans as I step into the dining room. Things change.
Mum’s voice trails behind me, soft and comforting. “Like father, like son.”
soapstone
“Hop in.”
I lean over the passenger seat and open the door. Clutching a bunch of mail, Jace stares at me through the open passenger window.
I’d just come home from university and driven up the driveway. When I saw him, I had to get him in the car. “Come on.”
He pulls the door open and slides in, gently tossing the mail on the dashboard. I rest a hand on the back of his seat and reverse swiftly out of the driveway.
He focuses on the view of the city as we wind down the hill toward the beach.
“Paua Shell Bay?” he asks, shuffling through the mail—again.
“Just like we used to.”
More shuffling. “Fish and chips?”
“Are you hungry?”
His breath comes out heavier than the last ones. “You have no idea how hungry I am.”
I go a touch heavy on the brakes and we jerk forward, belts tightening. “Sorry.” His expression is unreadable. Unreadable, but tired. “I’m hungry too.”
His gaze slips to my mouth but he quickly looks out the passenger window.
We park at the bay. We stuff the fish and chips under our parkas, zipped only halfway. We toe off our shoes and leave them at the car.
Salty breezes whip our hair and seagulls squawk overhead, flying over the low tide for anything to scavenge. Our feet sink into wet sand as we walk along the edges of the tide. Every few steps, the cool ocean bites our ankles. Jace is staring toward the horizon and the dark clouds drifting toward us.
The promise of rain is in the air but neither of us hurry. So what if we get wet? We’re not made of sugar, Lila would say.
My fingers are greasy from the chips but the salt is delicious and I lick it off my thumb and forefinger.
I’ve finished my scoop but I could eat another. “Jace?”
He turns toward me, weary, as if he’s not ready to talk yet.
I step closer, locking our gazes and feeling the warmth tingle between us. I dunk my hand down his jacket into his scoop of chips and pinch a handful.
“Hey!” he says with a relieved chuckle. “You had yours.”
“Yeah, but I’m really hungry.”
He sucks in a gulp of air just as a few drops of rain hit my nose and cheek. “Cooper—”
A loud squawk.
A seagull swoops down and boldly perches on Jace’s forearm, ducking his head into the chips. Jace stands there, shocked, staring at me as if begging me to get rid of it.
I laugh so hard that my vision blurs, and my attempts to shoo the bird are shoddy at best. The rumbling thunder finally sends the seagull on his way and turns the smattering of raindrops into a torrent.
Rain drenches our hair and slips down our necks and under our shirts. It soaks through our clothes but we just stand here and let it.
I can’t stop laughing, pointing at him, the bird, his face. “The seagull’s hungry too!”
Water splashes into my open mouth and it tastes fresh, revitalizing. Just like the smile quirking at Jace’s lips.
lodestone
My spiral-bound master’s dissertation stares at me from the passenger seat of my car, the plastic cover winking at me in the autumn
afternoon light.
“I’ll read it,” Dad said. “So long as you dedicate it to me.”
I undo my belt and open the door. Breezes ruffle the pages, flicking them open to the title page. I pull it onto my lap, and fold it back one more page. It’s not dedicated to Dad but I think he’ll be more pleased this way.
My dissertation is not a rock. It will not last forever, protecting her name and memory, but it is one of the stepping stones of my life, and I want her to know . . . want her to know . . .
I clutch the work to my chest and jump out of the car.
The distant sounds of laughter startle me, and I follow them over the moat to the back yard.
Dad has a soccer ball aimed at Ernie, who raises his hands to protect his face. “I haven’t done anything to your daughter!” he screams. “I swear she’s still a virgin. Now stop trying to kill me with the round, padded object. I don’t deserve to be taken this way.”
Dad laughs. “Open your eyes, doofus. I’m kicking it to you, not at you.”
Ernie reluctantly pulls his hands from his face and stares suspiciously at Dad.
I hover in the shadows at the edge of the house.
It’s been a long time since Dad has laughed. I miss it. Miss the way he jerks his head back slightly and squishes his nose, lines deepening around his eyes. Like Ernie, he’s wearing training pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Unlike Ernie’s, Dad’s shirt is rated PG.
Dad finally kicks the ball. Ernie steps out of the way instead of stopping it with his foot and it rolls to the house.
“I got it,” Ernie says, jogging over to pick it up.
“It’s a lost cause, Dad.” I follow Annie’s voice to the other side of the lawn, where she’s spraying the garden.
“I heard that,” Ernie says, positioning the ball at his feet and taking a few steps backward. “All right, David, here’s a taste of your own medicine.”
He puts energy into his kicks and swings his arms like a pro, except his foot catches the ball at the wrong angle. The ball smacks Annie in the back of the head.
