“Right, maybe to you. Last time I checked, though, she was still breathing.”
“She was hooked up to machines that breathed for her; that's hardly living.”
“But she was still living all the same.”
He briefly shut his eyes and breathed a sigh, not seeming to know how to go on.
“I was – this wasn't – the timing would have never been right, Enim. I couldn't put my life on hold forever.”
“You couldn't put in on hold for ten seconds, more like it.”
“I put in on hold for ten years,” he countered. “I've done nothing wrong.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway and the woman returned with a tray of mugs. The tea smelled strongly of something both flowery and putrid that turned the air between us to something heavy and dense.
My father cleared his throat.
“Melinda, this is my son, Enim. I've – I've told you about him.”
His tone was formal and he added the last part for my benefit rather than hers, but she still smiled warmly as she nodded at me.
“Of course; I'm so pleased to finally be meeting you. Dan talks about you all the time.”
My father's eyes shifted downwards, saving me the need of questioning the lie, but I gave her a polite smile all the same.
“That's nice. He's never mentioned you.”
“Enim,” he cut in warningly, but the woman reached over and placed a hand on his arm to keep him from saying anything more.
“Would you like to sit down?” she asked.
My leg was throbbing horribly, but I had no desire to sit on one of the strange-looking couches and share the pot of tea with them. Doing my best to keep the grimace off my face, I shook my head.
“Are you sure?” she said, taking a seat herself as though the action might entice me. Her well-manicured nails matched the shade of her skirt, and the ring on her finger flashed in the sunlight falling through the window. “Your father mentioned your leg injury. Is it still causing you trouble?”
“Is that all he mentioned?” I asked, speaking to her but staring at him. His expression was hard and stoic again, but I could tell that he was cautioning me not to go on even so.
“It's … no, he mentioned that you were ill as well.” She paused to look between us again, evidently unable to keep from being uncomfortable despite her best efforts. “But he – he –”
“I told her it was a private matter, Enim,” he said pointedly. “I hardly thought you would want it discussed.”
“Right.” I finally pulled my eyes away from him. I hardly thought that he wanted it discussed, either. Through the ceiling, the sound of children screeching playfully and running along the floorboards was audible. “Would you mind if I used the bathroom?”
The woman startled and stood up again, surprised but thankful for the interruption.
“Of course. I'll show you where it is – the house can be a bit tricky.”
I followed her from the room without another glance at my father. Turning down the hallway, she led me up a spiral staircase to the second floor and down towards the end. As we passed the room where her children were playing, they paused in the circle of toys scattered upon the floor to look over at me. The girls' hair was curly and bounced against their shoulders in the same way that their glassy-eyed dolls' did, but the boy's was straight and flopped against his eyes. As he lost interest in me and began wheeling a plastic truck over the carpet again, I couldn't help but think that he bore more resemblance to my father than I ever would.
“It's right down here,” the woman said, indicating to the room at the very end of the hall. I thanked her and sidled past her to step inside, shutting the door against the image of her smile.
The bathroom was covered in rose-colored tiles that had turned musty beneath the orange glow of lights. I turned on the faucet and quickly cupped my hands to splash water over my face, scraping my fingertips over my skin to try and wake myself from the stupor that had come over me. He was married. The idea wasn't shocking, nor was the thought that he had failed to tell me – I hardly thought that he would have invited me to the wedding, after all – but it dug at my stomach even so.
I wondered what he had told her about my mother and me. He had often made excuses as to why my mother didn't accompany him to events or on trips, or why she was never seen at Bickerby the first few years that I had gone to school there. After her fall from the bridge, he had resorted to telling people who inquired further that she was terminally ill; the large majority of them assumed it was some sort of cancer that had worked its way through her and rendered her too debilitated to leave the house. Perhaps he had told Melinda that I was terminally ill, too; he would have to explain how I was up and walking about with such ease.
I pulled the sleeves of my sweater back down to my wrists from their bunched location on my arms and combed my fingers through my hair to make it fall neatly again. Even with the sleepless plane ride, I still looked healthier than I had the last time that he had seen me, which was due in large part to the lack of cuts and bruises on my face and grayish skin skimming in circles beneath my eyes, but I still frowned at my appearance even so. The prescription bottles were clearly visible in either of my pockets. I took one of them out and uncapped it to tap a white pill into my hand, hoping that it would ease some of the pain in both my leg and my head.
When I returned to the first floor, I paused by the base of the stairs to look down the hall. The layout made it difficult to know which room was which, and I couldn't decide which of the closed doors led to my father's office. The thought of something from Jack laying so close and just out of sight was enough to make me want to abandon the lingering conversation in the living room and try each door until I found the room with the mail, but just as I started down towards the first one, the woman's voice sounded behind me.
“Oh, it's this way, Enim.”
She had come down the stairs after me, her hands pressing a wrinkle out of her skirt as she went, and indicated to the living room at the other end of the hall.
“Right. Thanks.”
I returned to the living room at an achingly slow pace, wishing more than anything that I could just find the mail and disappear from the horridness of the house and its residents. Melinda veered off and returned to the kitchen rather than following me, and I was left to deal with my father on my own.
He was sitting on the sofa when I entered, sipping at the tea in his mug with a frown over his dark eyes, but looked up as I stepped through the doorway and indicated for me to sit down. I took a seat on the edge of the couch that ran perpendicular to him; the cushion was firm and stiff.
“What are you doing here, Enim?”
“I told you: I wanted to visit.”
“What are you really doing?”
Though I hadn't spoken to him in months, and not properly for years, his tone of voice was as familiar as ever. It was the same once he used to adopt whenever I had done something wrong that he had not yet proven: he would ask me about the incident in a seemingly gentle way as though if I admitted to the crime outright I would be in less trouble. Yet now that I was out of grade-school and I knew him as more than the person that I had looked up to for all those years, I knew that the only way to stay out of trouble was to feign that I had done nothing wrong to begin with.
“I wanted to visit,” I said again. “I'm sorry that that's so hard to believe.”
He folded his lips and put the mug down on the coffee table, debating whether or not to believe me.
“You wanted to visit, so you didn't call, didn't write, and just decided to show up here out of the blue?”
“I didn't think it would be a big deal. I didn't know you were living with someone else.”
“Well, that's even more of a reason that you should have called. This isn't how I wanted you to find out about this.”
My eyebrow twitched, but I managed to keep it from raising.
“No? How did you want me to find out?”
He p
icked his mug back up and took another sip, trying to give himself a moment to think of what to say.
“I told Karl that he should tell you.”
“Well, obviously he didn't.”
“No, obviously not.” He placed the mug back down. It had left a ring of liquid on the glass coffee table. “What did he say when you said you were coming?”
I shrugged.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? He just let you go?”
“Basically.”
I had no intention of telling him that Karl had tried to dissuade me, nor of the fact that I hadn't told him that the visit hadn't been a mutual decision. I looked back at the fireplace where the line of photographs stood along the mantel mockingly and had the sudden urge to knock them all to the ground.
“Well, I'm – I can't say that I'm surprised,” he said after a moment. “Though it hardly matters now. You're here, obviously, and we have to figure out how to proceed.”
He folded his hands together contemplatively as though I was an issue that had cropped up in international regulations that he had been chosen to sort out. I tightened my jaw as I waited for him to formulate his plan.
“Obviously we should keep the previous year's events between us,” he began, “and your stay and whatnot in the facility, as well. We can set up a room for you while you're here, and I think it's best if you keep to it for the most part. I don't think you should be around Melinda or the children unless I'm there, as well.”
“Right.”
“I'll tell them not to ask you too many personal questions. They're already aware that you've been ill, but if they inquire about it, don't feel as though you need to answer. Like I said, it's a private matter.”
“Right.”
“And maybe it would be best if you didn't mention anything about Karl or me, or your mother. I don't think it would be appropriate, given the circumstances.”
I stared at him for a long moment, wondering despite the familiarity of his features and tone and the ever-present frown that fell over his eyes if he had somehow morphed into someone else when I had looked away, or if a stranger had taken the place of the person that I was so certain that I had known for all of those years beforehand. But he hadn't changed – that much was evident now. It was me who had turned into something else.
“That's fine,” I said. “I wasn't planning on it, anyhow.”
“Right. Well, that's good then. We'll see how it works.”
I shifted my eyes down to the floor, suddenly unable to look at him.
“I won't be trouble, Dad. I mean, I won't be – I can be normal.”
He tapped his fingers against one another in an anxious uncertainty, not quite sure how to respond.
“Well, of course, Enim, I – I wasn't suggesting that you wouldn't be. I just wanted to make this easier for you.”
“For me, right.”
The response was lackluster and emotionless, and he cleared his throat accordingly. As the silence stretched between us, he searched for a way to answer that wouldn’t require him to admit that I didn’t fit into his life anymore, but was saved the trouble by his new wife returning to the room.
“Dan, I don't want to interrupt, only the kids were getting hungry and –”
“Of course, of course,” he said, standing up. “Let's eat.”
He motioned for me to go into the kitchen, trailing behind me as though afraid to let me out of his sight, and I stepped inside to where the table had been re-set for six. Melinda remained in the hallway to call up the stairs for her children before returning to hurriedly put food on the plates.
“It might be a bit cold, I'm afraid,” she said in an apology. “I didn't want to leave the burner on low; sometimes it turns to mush.”
The sound of pitter-pattering footsteps came from behind me and the three dark-haired children circled around where my father and I were standing to take seats at the table. They were still chattering about the game they had been playing, either oblivious or unconcerned with my presence, but grew quiet when my father shepherded me forward to the table and indicated to where I should sit down.
“Enim, this is Emily, Ava, and Oliver,” he said, indicating to each of them in turn. The youngest girl swung her legs excitedly as she looked up at me while her brother held his fork upright in his hand, digging it into the table as he surveyed me. “Children, this is my son, Enim.”
“Is that your real name?” the boy asked as I sat down.
“Yes.”
“Is it American?”
I glanced at my father to ask which answer to give. He unfolded his napkin to put on his lap.
“It's an uncommon one,” he said, though 'unheard of' would have been more accurate.
“It sounds like an imaginary name,” Ava chimed in. “Like an elf.”
Melinda gave a smile and sat down, smoothing her skirt over her legs again before lifting the bowl of spinach to pass around the table.
“I think it's a lovely name,” she said. “I thought it might be Swedish the first time Dan mentioned it.”
“No, not Swedish,” I murmured while my father looked about for another way to steer the conversation.
“You look a bit like an elf,” Ava continued, still swinging her legs beneath the table. “Except you don't have pointy ears. Emily and I thought you were one the first time we saw you.”
“No, I didn't,” Emily said, throwing a glance at her sister.
“Yes, you did. Remember? When we saw the picture of him in Dan's office.”
I looked down to my plate where individual piles of food were expected to be placed, trying not to think of how the photos of the two of them had made it to the mantelpiece while mine had not, and instead realized that with her accent, the name Dan sounded far too much like Dad for my liking. For all I knew, she might have said the latter.
“I hope the food's alright, Enim,” Melinda said, noting the way I scraped my fork through the potatoes. “I would have made something special if I had known you were coming.”
“No, it's fine.”
It was undoubtedly better than fine given the smell of it, especially in comparison to the food that I had been served at the facility and Bickerby, but I couldn't bring myself to give her a better adjective. My mother had never been much of a cook, and it didn't seem right that my father and I were sitting at the table pretending as though we had any right to be there.
“Was there something else that you wanted?” she asked, indicating to the assortment of food on the table and glancing at my sparsely-filled plate.
I had wanted him to be alone. I had pictured him that way – alone and miserable in some small apartment, eating food that had to be reheated in solitary proportions and capped back into leftover containers when he was done. I had wanted him to be wretched now that my mother had died, to be lost without her – to wish that he had done things differently and been better to her, and to regret everything that he had done wrong. And I had wanted him to be relieved when he saw me at his door, even if he didn't express it, because I was there to fill the void that his life had become, and because I had chosen to forgive him even when he didn't deserve as much. But he didn't feel that way and he didn't need anything from me, because he had already stretched the spaces that had so vastly filled up my insides with nothingness into ones that he could use, and he wasn't lonely or miserable or regretful for anything, but happier and more content than I could ever remember him being, and he would have been more so, even, if only I hadn't shown up on his door that afternoon to wreck it for him.
“No, I'm fine.”
“Of course.”
“The time difference must be throwing you off,” my father said. “It's still mid-afternoon in Connecticut.”
I chewed the insides of my mouth, unable to bring a forkful of food to it.
“Yeah, that must be it.”
“Though if there's something different I could get you, let me know,” Melinda said. “Oliver's a picky eater, so I'm no stranger to m
aking separate meals.”
“Right. Thank you.”
Across the table, the boy was swirling individual strands of pasta onto his fork. There was no trace of any of the meat or vegetables on his plate that was on his sisters', and he was drinking milk instead of juice, as well. I bit down harder on the insides of my cheeks as I watched him. My father would have never allowed me to eat something different than what was placed in front of me when I was growing up.
The clinking of dishes was the only sound for the rest of the dinner, except for the occasional polite question and well-worded answer that was given and taken across the table. When the meal had finally drawn to an end, my father waved me up under the pretense of showing me which room I would be staying in, though I rather thought that he was as anxious as I was to get out of the room.
“Are you still not eating?” He opened the door to one of the children's rooms and showed me inside. It was painted in a pale shade of pink with yellow trim and lavender curtains, and there was a border of turtles along the edge next to the ceiling. “I thought they would have fixed that by now.”
“I guess not.”
He hummed as he looked back at where I stood in the middle of a circular rug decorated with flowers and leaves, evidently not pleased with the answer.
“But everything else is … going well, I take it?”
It occurred to me that he had no idea what to expect of me now that Karl wasn't providing him with weekly updates on my progress. Perhaps he envisioned that I would have been perfected by now given the amount of money he had spent on my treatment so far, or perhaps the memory of what I had looked like when he had last seen me overly-medicated and overtaken by outbursts was still too fresh in his mind.
I gave a slow shrug.
“Everything's fine.”
“Is it? The doctors at the facility are good? The medications are working well?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good. Good.” He gave the briefest of smiles before his face fell back into its stoic expression and absentmindedly picked up a pillow from the floor to replace on the bed. “And have you – I mean, the last time I was there, you were still a bit … confused about what had happened. Has the medication … have you remembered what happened yet?”
Song to the Moon (Damnatio Memoriae Book 2) Page 9
