KINGSMAN

XVI

THE KEY WAS STUCK IN THE LOCK.

Sylvi pushed at the door to her house with one shoulder as she turned the key, frustration growing. It wouldn't budge. She was cautious as she pushed and fiddled with it, scared it might snap in half and force her to spend part of her weekend acquiring a copy. She needed to drop by to assure her mother that she wasn't dead and then she would- well, she would ditch again.

Her cane lay in a corner between the door and wall while she attempted to lift the door and shake it to no avail. Finally, shuffling sounded on the other side as Lorraine came forward and unlocked it. Sylvi pulled her key out just as the lock clicked and stumbled in.

"Thanks Ma. I don't know what the problem was but the door just wouldn't open." She unraveled her scarf from around her neck and shrugged off her coat. Sylvi felt awkward going around with her cane in one hand as she rummaged through the cupboard for a mug. "Sorry I haven't been answering your calls, I've been busy."

A door shut down the hall and Lorraine entered. "Sylvia?"

Sylvi spun around, confusion twisting her features. Her mother was in her home-clothes, but done up slightly. Jeans and a white t-shirt. She wore earrings and her hair was wrapped up, the braids undone, curls spilling out the top. She had a coat folded over one arm. Sylvi pointed towards the door. "Yeah. I thought you-"

The person who'd actually opened the door cleared their throat. Syed, her father, shifted from foot to foot, rubbed the back of his neck. "It's good to see you," he said.

Sylvi clutched the head of her cane and straightened a little, pushed her shoulders back. She set the mug down. "I..."

"I was calling to tell you," Lorraine whispered.

"We were heading out, to go eat," her father said. "If you want to come..."

Sylvi's brows scrunched together. She opened her mouth as if to say something but quickly shut it again. Her eyes found the antique phone and the sticky-notes all fighting for space on the wall, then at the man who'd just been a voice for several years. She gripped the dining chair until her knuckles ghosted with pain too and cleared her throat. "Actually," her voice cracked as though she were still pre-pubescent. "Actually, I already ate. The dining hall cleared everything out for break, so..." A lie, blatant. She didn't even try to hide it on her face as her mouth rounded around the words and her mother's eyebrows inched closer and closer together.

Lorraine looked between Syed and the child who carried twenty-three of his chromosomes. Sylvi watched the cogs work in her mother's brain, the guilt as her teeth tugged at her bottom lip and her hands kept clenching and unclenching. Syed stood completely, strangely still, like a soldier outside Buckingham Palace. He didn't meet her eyes. She didn't meet his.

It was like ice washed over Sylvi, the slow realization of their similarities. It'd been so long. She had his eyebrows and his nose and a curl to the ends of her hair that she saw in his own. Lorraine was gangly but short- all dark skin and thick hair and a wild, inexplicable comfort in her own skin that both father and daughter lacked. Sylvi stood weird, as Rhamah said she favored her right considerably, and she too was gangly but in a way that made her awkward. She never knew what to do with her limbs so she often did nothing, letting her arms hang limp at her sides as if dead. Her mother moved through every space she was in like it was familiar, Sylvi tried not to move too much because everything hurt all of the time. In Syed she saw that same stiffness, she saw how he leaned slightly forward against the table. She did not see his crutches. 

Sylvi's palms as the seconds ticked by.

Finally, Lorraine, lips pressed together, said, "We should talk." She threw her coat over the back of one couch and advanced to hug Sylvi. Despite everything, she let herself relax into it. Lorraine was warm and comforting, she had to bring Sylvi down a bit to wrap her arms around her. "I'm glad you're back. How were your tests?"