by Rowe, Brian
My mom set a slice on a plate for my dad and passed it down. Her next slice I passed down to Kimber, who looked at me with the saddest of expressions.
“Hungry, sis?” I asked.
She shook her head, jumped up from the table, and darted for the nearby ladies’ bathroom.
I turned to my mom. “I think she’s a little nervous.”
“More than she’s ever been,” my mom said. “She’s performing a solo in front of the President, Cam.”
“Oh God,” I said, opening my eyes wide. “I’m happy not to be in her shoes right now.”
I patted Liesel’s hand, and she patted mine back, giving me a forced smiled.
“You want some cake?” I asked.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m not that hungry.”
“You barely ate any of your dinner.”
“Yeah, my stomach’s been bugging me today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She gave me a kiss on the cheek, but I could tell she was only doing it to make me think she wasn’t in pain. I could tell—either she really was sick, or she had something on her mind. This was the first day in six weeks she hadn’t been overjoyed at our spending quality time together. I figured her sour mood would pass, especially after taking our seats in the giant auditorium for Kimber’s performance.
I took a few bites of the gooey chocolate cake. It would have been better with some vanilla ice cream, but it was still fabulous. It tasted even better than the cake I had enjoyed on that drunken night fifteen months ago at Uncle Tony’s, Charisma on my lap, my basketball buddies all looking on, as Liesel blew out the light on a cake that would change my life forever. I knew, though, after blowing out those birthday candles tonight, tomorrow morning I wouldn’t wake up a year older, or a year younger. It was over. Life was back to normal. For good.
Kimber returned to the table and looked out at all of us. She put her hands at her sides, nodded, and took a big, satisfying breath.
“OK,” she said. “I’m ready.”
---
The Misner Auditorium at the corner of 16th and Northwestern Street housed thousands of people, and when my mom, dad, Liesel, and I took our seats in one of the front rows of the massive place, I looked behind us to see a seemingly never-ending room of faces. I tried to think of an auditorium in Reno that could house as many people as this one did. The stage was so big I figured it would be impossible to even see my little sister among all the other young strings players. But I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
“Oh my God,” I said, crossing my arms. “This is so exciting. I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe my sister’s going to be up there.”
“I know,” Liesel said, bringing her hand on top of mine.
“I’m so happy you can be here for this.”
I brought my head against her shoulder for a moment, but she didn’t return the favor. What’s the matter with her?
“Are you sure you’re OK?” I asked.
“I’m fine, Cam.”
“OK.”
She was clearly getting a bug of some kind. I figured after the performance I’d go buy her some Pepto Bismol or antacids. She’d be better in the morning. We were planning on spending the weekend in D.C. to do some sightseeing, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to give it up to spend the whole two days in a hotel room watching infomercials while Liesel hovered over a toilet.
Tell me what’s wrong, Leese. I’m your husband now. You can tell me anything.
The lights inside the auditorium started flashing about twenty minutes later, and everybody took their seats. A short, stubby woman waved to everybody as she waddled to the center of the stage.
“Hello everyone,” she said, “and welcome to our Musical Night of Shining Lights, an evening that showcases some of the best musical talent under the age of eighteen that our country has to offer. I’d like to start by introducing, in our front row, the President and the First Lady!”
The famous couple stood up at the center of the first row, turned around, and waved to the audience. They were dressed in formal attire, and while I couldn’t tell for sure, the President’s hair looked a tad grayer than it did the last time I’d seen him speak on television.
“And now,” the lady said, “here are all your gifted musicians!”
She walked back over to the left side of the stage as fifty, maybe sixty, children and teenagers took the stage, without instruments, to wave to the audience and bow their heads. I found it a little conceited for all of these kids to bow already—what if some of their playing was not as great as everyone hoped?—but I clapped anyway. Kimber stood on the right side of the stage, waving to the audience, but to her family mostly. She looked better, calmer, more confident than she did at dinner. I knew she would do well.
Unlike her Reno performance from a year ago, when I stumbled in at age eighty to enjoy her final performance of the night, my sister went on pretty quickly tonight. She was in the second group to perform. There were about fourteen teenagers on the stage, all with violins, with Kimber looking to be, surprisingly, one of the youngest of the set. She sat on the left side and played to her heart’s content for five minutes or so, until finally, without warning, a solo forty-five seconds of Kimber, and Kimber alone, began.
I tuned out the whole world for that minute, just concentrating on my sister’s controlled, harmonious playing. While she continued with her trusty violin, I thought of how much our relationship had grown in the past year, how much closer we’d become. She’d felt like a stranger to me fifteen months ago, but now, she was a significant part of my life. I thought of my parents, who in the last six weeks had gone back to the way they used to be. When we returned from Europe, I was happy to see Dad not sleeping on the couch anymore. They were close again, and I hoped it would stay that way. I thought about the immediate future, where I was to leave Reno at the end of the summer to travel to New Haven to officially begin my four years as an undergraduate at Yale. I was excited to finally learn all I could about architecture, and dive straight into my overdue college experience. I thought about Liesel, and how our love for each was only growing, and that at the end of these six weeks I couldn’t have been happier about my decision to marry her. Life, for the first time, in every way, was perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
Kimber finished her solo, and while the group continued playing, loud applause erupted in the auditorium. I looked over to the front to see even the President clapping for Kimber. She was beaming up on stage, still playing, but clearly overjoyed that she had made it to the end of her solo in one piece, earning great respect from the entire crowd. I must’ve clapped loudest of all. I couldn’t have been happier for my talented baby sister.
“Cam,” Liesel said.
“Hmm?” I turned my head to see Liesel in tears. “Whoa, hey… Are you all right?”
“Cam, I need… I need to get out of here…”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just… please…” She started standing up. There was nothing I could do to stop her. “I need to get out of here.”
“You need to what?”
She stumbled over my legs and started moving to the edge of the row. “Sorry,” she was saying to everybody. “I’m really sorry.”
I turned to my left to see my parents shaking their heads, dumbfounded. I put my hands up in the air in confusion and started making my way to the end of the row as well. I watched as Liesel charged down the aisle, out of the auditorium, and I followed her, stopping just once to see Kimber and the others finish their performance. I clapped from the back of the building and stepped out into the warm night air.
I took a few steps forward and didn’t see her for a moment. “Liesel? Where are you?”
I turned to my left, then my right. There was nobody around.
“Came
ron,” she said. “I’m over here.”
I turned around to see her sitting at the edge of a fountain across the way. She was looking down, her hands on the back of her neck—she was clearly lost in thought. I knew anything out of the ordinary with Liesel was never a good sign.
I rushed up to her. “Hey, baby, what’s wrong?” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “What happened? Did you get claustrophobic or something?”
“No.”
“Are you still feeling sick? Do you want me to get you some medicine—”
“No. Cameron, I feel fine.”
I sat down on the ledge next to her. “Then what is it? What’s going on with you today?”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she put her hands over her face. She just started bawling.
She wants a divorce, was my first thought. She doesn’t want to be married to me anymore.
“Is it me?” I asked. “Is it something I did?”
She shook her head.
“Does it have… something to do with… you know… our marriage?”
She shook her head again, and brought her hands down. She wiped the tears away from her face and licked her lips. She took a deep breath and stared at me, not saying anything for a moment.
“Something terrible is coming, Cameron.”
I shook my head. “What?”
“I managed to delay her… but for only six weeks…”
I brought my hands to her arms and pulled her closer to me. “Liesel. What are you talking about?”
“It’s Hannah,” she said. She hesitated, and a painful cloud of fear passed through me. I didn’t like hearing that name. “On top of the mountain that night… she was going… she was going to kill you.”
“I know. And you saved me.”
“I saved you, Cam… only because I made a deal with my sister… to keep you alive. To keep you with me.”
“A deal?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a deal?”
Liesel looked to her left and got up on her feet. She crossed her arms and turned away from me for a moment. “There’s two very important things I’m going to tell you right now, Cam. And I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Two things?” I hesitated. “OK… can you start with the bad news, please?”
“First,” she said, “I made a deal with Hannah to keep you alive, in exchange for giving her all of my powers.”
“You did what?”
“She needed them for something she’s wanted to do since January, since our mother died.”
I tried to make sense of what she was telling me.
“She told me, explicitly,” Liesel continued, “that in exchange for my powers, she would let you and I live…”
I shrugged. “OK… well that’s a good thing, right? What does she want with your powers, anyway? Does it concern us?”
“I asked her to give us six weeks, until your nineteenth birthday, today…”
“Until… until what…”
She sighed and took my hand. “Until the beginning… of the end…” She took a deep breath. “The end of the world.”
I shook my head and leaned in closer. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right. It sounded like you just said, the end of the world.”
She didn’t flinch. “Cameron, starting tomorrow, a lot of people are going to die. And there’s going to be nothing either one of us can do to stop it. The two of us… well… we’re going to be fine. But everyone else is going to be in immediate danger.”
I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up. But I just sat there, my mouth agape, my eyes bulging out of their sockets. I stared at my wife in horror.
“Starting tomorrow,” she said, “everybody in the world, except you, and except me, and except Hannah, is going to start aging a whole year of their life with each passing day. Everybody. And the only way we’re gonna be able to stop it… is to find and kill my sister… wherever she may be.”
My head was spinning. My stomach was churning. I started breathing so fast I thought I would start hyperventilating. I stood up, looked up at the night sky, and felt two tears fall down my cheeks.
I turned to Liesel. “Well if that’s… if that’s the first important thing you have to tell me… then what in the hell could possibly be the second?”
She stood perfectly still, a small but worrisome smile on her pretty face. “I’m pregnant,” she said.
# # #
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Brian Rowe graduated from Loyola Marymount University, where he studied English & Film. He is the writer of five novels and a short story collection. His fiction has appeared in The Absent Willow Review, Mobius Magazine, and Wilde Oats Magazine. He lives in Reno, Nevada.
ALSO BY BRIAN ROWE
OTHER BOOKS IN THE BIRTHDAY TRILOGY
Happy Birthday to Me
Happy Birthday to You
GRISLY HIGH TRILOGY
The Vampire Underground
The Zombie Playground
The Monster Apocalypse
ADULT NOVELS
Slate
Townhouse: A Tale of Terror
CONNECT WITH BRIAN ONLINE
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrbrianrowe
Brian’s Blog: http://mrbrianrowe.blogspot.com
