Heart in the Field (8 page)

           
Nick moved closer to her. “Are you
okay?”

           
“I’m fine. Why?”

           
“You look a bit dazed. I was
wondering if you were feeling well.
Because if you are,
sweetie, phone your brother.
We’re short of time, and it would save a
lot of hassles if we could use him.”

           
Nick affected the same type of tone
that he had in the pub on Wednesday evening, when she’d stopped suddenly in the
doorway. It was a condescending tone, and it told her that all he wanted was to
get this show on the road.

           
“I think I have his number.” She
picked up her purse, knowing full well that his number was on her cell phone.

           
Feeling the two men watching her,
Serena went to the other side of the studio. She opened her purse and found her
phone. After placing her purse-strap over her shoulder, she punched Seth’s
number. Her breath was on hold while the phone rang. Seth’s voice, sounding
like her father’s, came on to the answering machine. After clearing her throat
at the beep, she left a message for him to call her back on her phone. She
added what the call was about to spark his interest. She then called her mother
at her city hall office to find out if she knew Seth’s whereabouts. Her mother
was closeted in meetings for the rest of the afternoon.

           
When Don knew the score he said,
“Why don’t we split? We’ll get this thing edited and you guys can come back
tonight.
Hopefully with your brother, Serena.”

           
“I’ll do my best.” If Seth didn’t
feel it was the right venue for his sound she would have to add persuasion.

           
Serena decided to go and visit
Seth’s apartment. He might be home by the time she reached there. She’d rather
talk to him in person than on the phone.

•

           
Nick took a cab to the rental agency
to pick up his car. It was a fully loaded new Buick, a comfortable car. The car
gave him a chance to drive to his father’s jewelry store.

           
Fraser’s Precious Gems was still
open each day, even if his father didn’t have much faith in the younger man who
came in to work for him. Stephen Fraser couldn’t manage even a few hours a day
himself now. The store was running at a loss. Nick wanted to talk to his father
about selling it. Then his parents could move from the apartment above the shop
into a more modern place and live off the proceeds from the real estate. He
hadn’t put the plan to his parents yet. It was something he’d decided between
seeing their situation in April and now. He was always aware of how much of a
stranger he was to them, as they were strangers to him.

           
Nick parked the car behind the store
in the overgrown back lane. He opened the wooden gate, walked up a paved
pathway, climbed the iron stairs at a run and knocked on the door. The action
reminded him of when he was a kid, coming home from school. Only then he didn’t
have to knock and he always received a scolding for running.

           
“Break your neck doing that,” his
mother always told him.

           
His mother, Maria, didn’t say that
this time. She wore a pair of light blue slacks and a white top, her gray hair
tied in a sleek knot away from her now wrinkled features. Once her hair had
been raven-black, the same color as Nick’s. She’d had a few small illnesses
over the past year that had sapped her strength, but she still managed to look
handsome and in command.

           
“Nick.” Her manner was vague, as if
she needed time to remember who he was.

           
She raised a hand full of rings.
Beautiful rings, some merely engraved bands, some bursting with different
stones, all crafted for her by his father over the years. It made Nick
realize
how full of talent and what a wonderful craftsman
his father was, and it made him sad that Stephen had never taught him his
craft.

           
Nick took hold of his mother’s hand,
wondering why she’d never offered a hand when he was a kid. Now he had to hold
withered, cool fingers, and they would be his only memory of his mother.
Swallowing back a lump of emotion, he said, “My car’s still being fixed so I
rented one.”

           
His mother was the first to drop her
hand. “That’s good. Are you working now?”

           
His mother had never thought that
working in the field was actual work. One had to go somewhere to work, a store,
a factory, an office. “Yes. I got my new office this morning.
Dad in?”

           
“Yes. He’s in the front room. He
went down to help in the store this morning.”

           
Sniffing
a
slightly
musty lemon oil, Nick walked through the narrow hallway of the
dark apartment. He wasn’t sure why the rooms always seemed dark. The paintwork
was light cream and the floors a light wood. Possibly the darkness was caused
by the lack of windows, or the highly polished towering pieces of antique
furniture. He definitely saw his parents in something more modern and brighter,
without the stair-climb.

           
Stephen Fraser was sitting upright
on a leather armchair in the living room. Despite his most recent heart attack,
Stephen was still a big man with an authoritative presence. His suits were
always an immaculate dark navy blue. He wore a red kerchief in the breast pocket.
Nick remembered his mother ironing the selection of different colored silk
handkerchiefs.

           
From his position by the window
Stephen could look down to the sidewalk and see who entered his store. Rarely
did anyone enter the store these days. Nick had discovered the advertisements
his father used to run in the local newspapers had stopped a year ago.

           
“Look who’s visiting,” Nick’s mother
said, and went over to her husband. She touched the high back of the chair and
his father smiled at his wife. Nick was surprised that he still felt completely
left out. They’d been a twosome when he was born, and they’d always wanted to
stay that way. Possibly one night of unbridled passion had made Maria pregnant
with Nick.

           
Nick chose a chintz armchair and sat
down opposite his father.
    
Nick met
his father’s pale blue eyes. “How are you, Dad?”

           
Stephen patted his chest. “No pains
any more. Your mother takes care of me.”

           
Nick forced a smile. “She sure
does.”

           
Maria sat down on a footstool near
his father so the two of them faced him, appearing like a portrait. The
left-out feeling persisted. He was an intruder here, always had been. But they
needed him now. He wasn’t sure if he was using the excuse of help to hide his
own deeper feelings. Did he want to show them he was worthwhile having after
all, even if it was for help in their old age? Or to make them realize that
they loved him after all? Maybe they did love him in their way. Who knew? In
some ways he wished they’d died long ago, so he didn’t have to face this
uncertainty.

           
“I want to take care of you as
well.” Their silence made his words ring out into the room and sound as if he
were begging to do something for them.
Which he was.
He wanted their acceptance. He wanted to know that they thought he’d done well
in life. He wanted to be thought important to them. And he wanted to help them.
He really did. It was more than duty it was something he needed to do.

           
“We appreciate that,” his father
said after a while.

           
The pause had been long enough for
Nick to make the decision. He was going to plunge right in and tell them about
the changes he felt they should make to their lives to improve the quality,
financially and physically. “I was thinking that maybe you should sell the
store and move somewhere else.
Somewhere more convenient,
maybe with a bit of a flower garden to sit outside in.
I can help with
the money, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

           
They both stared at him.

           
“I’m not selling the store,” Stephen
said. “It’s doing well today.”

           
Nick knew that was his father’s
pride talking. “That’s not true, Dad. Last time I was here I saw the books, and
it’s doing abysmally. There isn’t the foot traffic along this street there used
to be, and you let the advertising slip. Besides, you lose out to big specialty
stores these days. If you were in a different area it might be of some help,
but trendy tourist traffic areas are expensive and, well, frankly, it’s not
worth a move at your age.” He held his breath, but nothing was said about his
reference to age. They knew where they were in their lives.

           
Maria moved forward. “Your father
can’t sell the store, Nick. It’s his life.”

           
“I’m talking about his life, Mom.
You two deserve to have a good life in the next few years, and I can help out
with that. There’s a hell of a lot of money tied up in real estate here. This
place is too much for both of you to cope with now. I’m not saying you have to
make a decision right away, but I’m here to stay over the next few months and I
want you to give some consideration to what I’ve said about moving to somewhere
easier to handle. In the meantime, I’ll look into hiring someone to come in and
clean and help with the meals.”

           
Stephen pounded the arm of the chair
with his fist. “I don’t want anyone in here fiddling around with my personal
things. I only eat your mother’s meals.”

           
Nick got up and walked to the
window. The sun shone hard and bright onto the road and glinted off the
windshields of the cars parked at the curb. A truck backed up to a grocery
store across the road. He could hear the beep of the alarm even inside these
solid brick walls. He’d spent little of his childhood here, but he remembered
it enough that the place depressed him. He’d never been allowed to bring
friends here, or make a mess with his toys. Not that he’d had many toys. His parents
had given him books, which he always read voraciously. All the solitude and all
the books were likely why he’d found himself writing by the time he was a
teenager. He knew if he’d had more inner peace with his home situation he might
have become a writer instead of careening around the world in search of
adventure.

           
Maria rose to put the kettle on.
Nick settled back in the armchair opposite his father to partake in the tea
ceremony. He left about half an hour later, feeling he hadn’t accomplished anything.
But at least he’d planted the idea.

•

           
Seth’s apartment was in a converted
warehouse area. Serena parked her car and hurried into the brick building. The
stairs and the wooden hallway between the loft apartments felt like a fire
trap. But she knew that inside the vast spaces were either
artists’
studios or luxury living quarters and the fire regulations had been taken care
of.

           
She’d only been to her brother’s
apartment once since he’d moved in about a year ago. She knew all her reasons
why. As well as Seth being extremely like her father, she didn’t really like
the area, and she was also somewhat in awe of her brother, even if he was
younger. He was a bit like Nick Fraser. A cool, handsome man, who didn’t have
to make a move to set women’s hearts fluttering madly in their
breasts
. My lean, mean brother, she’d called him once, when
he was sixteen and she felt he might have broken a girl’s heart. All he’d done
was smile, shrug, and say, “Whatever.”

           
Seth answered the door, his six-foot
frame covered in black jeans and a black T-shirt with his band’s name,
Lite
on the front in silver letters. His wavy brown hair
was long and he’d grown sideburns. He looked so much like her father that
Serena didn’t say a word for a moment as he raised an eyebrow over his
silver-gray eyes.

           
“Well, Sis.” He spoke in his rather
sarcastic eloquent tones that were similar to Nick Fraser’s. “I got your
message, so I’m not surprised you’re here.”

           
“Can I come in?”

           
“Sure.” He opened the door and she
walked in.

           
He’d done quite a bit to his living
quarters since her last visit. The wood floors were polished. The furniture was
sparse but expensive, each piece chosen individually and not because it matched
anything else. One good thing her father had done for his family, he’d left them
well enough off not to have to worry about finances.

She put her
purse down on a red and white striped sofa.

           
Seth watched her. “Do you want a
beer, wine, something?”