Sleight (21 page)

“A wheelchair? Realy?”

Marlene smiled at me.

“Hospital policy, miss,” the nurse said.

Ted had come to the hospital in his work truck, a dirty, uncomfortable pickup with only two functioning seatbelts, one of which was for the driver. He and Marlene began bickering about his decision to drive the truck instead of her rented sedan, and Ted insisted we wait at the hospital while he ran back to the grounds to swap cars.

“Ted,” Henry interrupted, standing with his hands on the handles of the wheelchair, “I drove separately from Lucian, so I have my car here. If you’l alow it, I’d be more than happy to provide Gemma with a ride home.”

Ted wrinkled his forehead and stared at Henry’s expectant face.

“Gemma, is that okay with you?” Ted said. I nodded and gave everyone a lazy thumb’s up. Yes. It wil give me a chance to ask him why the hel he’s been carrying on with me if he knew we were related.

“Wel…okay, then. But folow me and Marlene, and drive safely,” Ted grumbled. “We’ve had enough trauma for one night.” Henry wheeled me out, past the elderly woman. She smiled again and waved, her fingers bony and wrinkled. His pace was slow and deliberate to avoid jarring me with any unseen bumps in the pavement. I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at his exaggerated caution.

“I’m not an egg.”

“Zip it. You’re mine now.” While his tone was playful, it bugged me. I wanted to jump out of the wheelchair and scream at him, “I can’t be yours! You’re my brother!”

Henry helped me into the car and although I felt weird with his hands on me, upon standing, I found that I was stil pretty unsteady on my feet. After he belted me in, we eased out of the parking lot behind Ted’s rust bucket and made our way back to the fairgrounds. Henry rested his hand on my leg. I wanted to enjoy it…I wanted to drown in the warmth and the protection flowing from his hand into my body. But it was wrong.

Henry was my brother.

“Henry…”

He shook his head and shushed me again. “Just rest, Gemma.

We can talk tomorrow.” I was sleepy. Maybe not talking would be better. Who knows what crazy stuff I would’ve said. Instead, I began to fantasize about my soft pilow and heavy quilt…

It was wel after midnight when we puled in. The lights around the perimeter had been dimmed, and the grounds were quiet. Henry parked as near to my trailer as possible. Marlene materialized at the side of the car to help carry me in, though she and Ted were left walking behind us when Henry scooped me out of the car into his arms. He held me tight against his upper body as he walked across the grounds with gentle, sure footing. I nestled my head, the uninjured side, against the angle of his jaw and breathed in the sublime scent from his skin and coat. I was pretty sure that if heaven had a smel, this would be it.

That’s wrong, Gemma! Pull your head out! I righted my head and forced my eyes open. It was gross for me to think of my brother that way.

The effects of the medication had begun a slow retreat, lifting the sedative blanket I’d been wrapped in for the prior few hours. Henry carefuly set me on my bunk as Marlene checked the discharge instructions and fretted about the precise position of my pilows, the warmth of the trailer, the dosage requirements of the antibiotics and pain medication.

“Warm enough?” Henry said, tucking my legs under a knitted afghan.

“Yeah. I’m good. Thanks.” He sat in the chair Marlene had scooted next to my bed and extended a hand toward me, but I tucked both arms under the blanket. I can’t touch you anymore.

“I’m going to go make tea. You shouldn’t stay too long, Henry, or Lucian…wel, he might worry,” Marlene said. Lucian… She moved toward the door. “Milk or sugar, Henry?”

“Yes to both. Thank you, Marlene.”

“We need to talk, Auntie,” I managed.

“I know. I know, Gemma.” She walked out, her head down.

I tried roling onto my left side, my preferred position for sleep, but immediately realized I’d be sleeping on my right for the near future. No pressure on the left side of my head. Ginormous ouch.

Instead, I fluffed a pilow and sat up a bit. I had to talk to Henry now, not tomorrow, and as Marlene had disappeared for the time being, I needed to get this out before I had to take more of the pain medication that would cripple my ability to formulate complete sentences.

“Henry, I have to tel you this,” I said. I had to blink a few times to zero in on his face, but I didn’t feel too groggy to speak.

“I was serious when I said no talking. You need rest.”

“Henry, please.”

He looked at me, then to the clock radio on the shelf over my right shoulder. “It’s late, Gemma…”

“This is wrong, Henry. Al of this…it’s wrong.” He relented. I was going to talk, no matter what. “What’s wrong?”

“You being here. This. Us. It’s wrong,” I swalowed, my mouth cottony, my tongue sticking to my dry palate. “You’re my brother.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, realy? It is what I think! My mom—a package arrived from her. I saw Marlene with it yesterday, but she didn’t give it to me. So I went looking for it. In Ted’s trailer. I picked the lock on his cabinet, and found the letters from Delia,” I said. “The letters—

they were drawings, pieces of a face. But if you stacked them up and held them to the light, it showed a whole face, al put together.” Filia est pars patris/A daughter is part of the father.

I started to cry. Henry tried to wipe a tear from my cheek, but I yanked myself away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Gemma, please…”

“Is it true? Is Lucian my father?”

Henry nodded.

“How long have you known?”

“I’ve known for a while. Lucian told me. This is so messed up, I don’t even know how to explain it to you.”

“Why didn’t you tel me?”

“How? You never would’ve believed me!” he said, his tone defensive. “Besides, I’ve tried to give you hints, tel you what I could. If I’d told you outright, Lucian would’ve had me kiled.”

“He wouldn’t kil you. He’s your father. He loves you.” Henry looked away from me and shook his head.

“But what about everyone else? How long have they known?

He’s my father! Lucian? Oh, my God, how is that even possible?

We’re half-siblings! This is so…so gross! You took advantage of me, this whole time! You knew!”

Henry didn’t say anything, but kept his eyes downcast.

“I think we should talk about this when you’re more awake.

Things are very confusing for you right now,” he said. “Please, believe me—it’s not what you think.”

“You keep saying that, but it is what I think! If we have the same father, we’re related. I’m not too drugged to understand how that works, Henry!”

The door to my trailer opened and Marlene walked in, a tray in her hands. Ted was behind her.

“Ted, you knew! You’ve known this whole time!” I screamed at him, my voice cracking. I could feel the veins in my throat strain against the skin. “Henry is my brother, and you let…we kissed!

That’s sick! What the hel is wrong with you people?” I pushed myself up against the back wal of my bunk, wishing the wal would open up and swalow me whole. The sudden movement sent a rush of blood to my head, the surge of pain causing me to cry harder.

My upper arm was sore from the tetanus shot, and I was reminded of its tenderness when I jammed the shoulder into the fiberglass wal of my bunk.

Ted kneeled next to me, his hand resting on my blanket.

“Gemma, listen to me. I need you to look at my face so that you’l hear my words. Can you do that?”

I sniffed but agreed, my chest seized by deep gulps from crying.

“Remember I told you that I brought Henry’s mom to the US

after she learned she was pregnant.”

“Yes…” My nose dripped. Marlene handed me a box of tissues.

“Lucian was very unhappy about that, even though the night that I found her, she had been badly beaten. He was cruel to Alicia. So, so cruel.” Ted seemed lost in his memories for a moment, unable to continue speaking until he regained his composure. The trailer was dead quiet beyond me sucking air between sobs, Marlene’s dainty sniffs, and the tick-tick-tick of the heater kicking on.

“Lucian felt…betrayed, especialy when Henry lived. Thing is, AVRA-K families who lose their books are cursed. They aren’t supposed to be able to have babies who live past their seventh day.

But Henry survived, even though Alicia’s family had lost their book.

He was the first—no other child of falen families had lived,” Ted explained. “Henry was special. Chosen…” He was talking very slowly. My vision was clouded with tears, my eyelids puffy and tender from rubbing at them.

“The fact that Henry lived has made Lucian fearful of him, for good reason. Henry is a Delacroix, an heir to their AVRA-K. When Henry lived, Lucian knew the Delacroix line would survive, even though, at the time, they didn’t yet have their book back.”

“Why didn’t Lucian kil Henry, then? If he’s had him al this time?”

“Thibeault Delacroix warned Lucian that if Henry were harmed in any way, the book would be destroyed. That would ruin everything for Lucian. He very much wants that book,” Ted said.

“But what does any of this have to do with me? I’m so confused.

Please, Uncle Ted…” I looked among their tired faces, wishing Ted would hurry up and get to the point. I was so tired. Henry tried to reach for my hand, but I recoiled from him.

“Lucian knew that Henry would become the Delacroix heir, and a powerful one at that. So Lucian decided he needed one, as wel.

That’s when he found your mom.”

“But Delia? Why Delia?”

“Because he knew it would hurt me. Delia was practicaly my—

our—daughter-in-law,” he glanced at Marlene. My mom was supposed to have married their son. “Lucian was very angry at me for my involvement with Alicia. So he wooed Delia, and left her.

But he toyed with her long after his physical presence had ended.” I thought of my mother’s letter…he only found me, and created you, to settle his own vendetta…

“Gems, when you were born, we knew you were special, and we did everything we could to protect you. You and Henry, you represent the same thing. Things didn’t quite work out the way Lucian wanted, especialy now that you and Henry have become so close. He brought us—the circus—to Eaglefern so he could have you close. He knew that Henry would leave eventualy, go to France to be with the Delacroixs, so he hoped that you, Gemma, would be the heir he’d train to help him. He’d hoped that you and Henry would hate each other, once you realized what was at stake.”

“Ted, I don’t even understand what Lucian being my father—

and Henry’s father—has to do with any of this. The book, heirs, or whatever you’re talking about.” The back of my throat ached from trying to hold back more tears. “Henry is my brother. And you lied to me about it. You let me fal in love with someone I couldn’t have.”

“Gemma, honey…,” Marlene said.

Ted cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders, as if preparing himself for the next bomb he was about the lob out of his mouth. “Lucian came to America when Henry was ten days old. He kiled Alicia and took Henry as a show of revenge. I hurt him. I had an affair with Alicia, during those months when we were traveling, performing across Europe, when I was his student and he was my mentor. He was cruel to Alicia. She looked to me for protection.” The look on Marlene’s face could only be described as pure anguish. And yet she stood, listening to her husband openly discuss his betrayal of her nineteen years prior. She must’ve known. She must’ve dealt with it in her own way. But the sadness in her eyes said it al. It stil hurt like hel.

“But that wasn’t al. I had his precious book,” Ted said. “In exchange, Lucian took something precious that belonged to me.” Henry reached across the bed and placed a tender hand above the bend in my elbow. In that split second after hearing Ted’s words and feeling Henry’s warmth rush through me, the clouds parted. A moment of clarity. I had an affair with Alicia…

“Gemma,” Ted looked at my face, straight on, expressionless,

“Henry is not your brother because he is not Lucian’s son. He’s mine.”

The bomb detonated. My ears filed with the hiss of flaming shrapnel as it whizzed past my head and impacted the earth around me. The faces of the people I loved most, the faces of the people entrusted with my wel-being, were twisted in torment, brows wrinkled, noses red and raw. What a horrible burden to have carried al these secrets; what a trial to have manufactured so many layers to conceal the truth.

Suddenly, Delia was there. In the trailer with us, her ghostly outline by the door to the bathroom. She was shaking, visibly distraught, her eyes sunken and scared. I thought things were supposed to have been better for her in the afterlife. This didn’t look like much of an improvement.

“Delia?”

Henry touched my hand. I heard Alicia’s voice. It’s okay, Gemma…it’s okay…

Ted stood and backed against the wal, wiping his face on a red kerchief, trying to folow the path of my gaze. “Mar…?” he said.

She put her finger to her lips to quiet him.

I pushed Henry’s hand away from me and broke the connection with Alicia’s voice playing into my head. I scooted to the edge of the bed. “Mom, what’s wrong? Why are you here? What’s happening?”

“My Gemma-Juliet,” she said. I hadn’t been caled that in a long time. Not since the letter. Not since before last Christmas Eve.

“Gemmy, write this down. Write this down so they can al see,” she said.

“Paper! I need some paper!” I shouted, frantic she would disappear. Marlene ruffled through a drawer and handed me a notepad and pencil. I didn’t dare look away from Delia. She began to speak, her voice agitated; I transcribed her words, my hand moving across the pad, my eyes glued to the sobbing ghost of my mother.

You gave the AVRA-K away,

But return it you shall to my hands one day.

For if you don’t, the boy will die,

Before his twentieth July.

If you resist or foil my rule,

Next to go is the precious jewel.

Delia shimmered. “Mom, wait! Please! Don’t go!” She was gone.

I remembered crying so hard, I thought my eyebals would launch out of my head.