The Fault In Reality

Chapter Twenty-Three

There's no real reason, no hint or clue. I just know. The phone rings as it has a thousand times before, compelled to compete with the after-dinner sounds of the running faucet and clattering dishes. Yet there's something about it, and I know.

I rinse my hands of dish soap and turn the knob on the water. My father's voice has sunken into a stiffly-polite, would-be careless tone that immediately banishes any remaining doubt.

It's my mother.

Wash duties forgotten, I creep across the kitchen and settle against the wall, head cocked at the opportune angle to eavesdrop. I listen as my father hurries through the pleasantries and pours out the truth about Pat's sickness. The situation is recounted bleaker than it feels when orchestrated in my father's sad, graveled words.

I can just imagine my mother's delicate apologies and condolences, executed in such perfect appropriateness, calculated figures it makes my throat hurt. Then comes the part I'm dreading...

"Would you like to speak with her?"

I know my hopes are futile, and that the proceeding silence harbors my mother's affirmation and not, as I so wish it would, a denial. Because in the end, it's easier than talking like there's nothing wrong.

"Era!" my father calls. I let a few seconds slip by before I heave myself off the wall and follow his summons into the living room.

"It's your mother," he says, hands clamped over the mouthpiece of an old, corded phone. "She wants to speak with you."

Well maybe I don't want to speak with her, I think, but still my tongue when it moves to say the words out loud. I nod and take the phone from him, bringing it gingerly to my ear.

"Era, dear, I'm so sorry about what's happened. How are you?"

She sounds crisp, eerily cheery, and any trace of melancholy is strictly artificial. I wonder if, subconsciously, it feels satisfying to her, that the woman her husband married should be taken ill. Terminally ill.

"It's not me you should be worried about," I mutter.

"Yes, I've heard. Listen, Era, that's part of the reason I phoned. With Pat sick I don't think it's appropriate for you to intrude on your father and Chase's last few weeks with her. You should come home."

Something in me aches, deep and endless and thick. It's a mix of loneliness, anger, guilt, and sadness, all knotted up and tightening around my heart. It hurts. It hurts the way it does when you get the breath knocked out of you, or you run too fast and your heart is flailing at your rib cage. I feel utterly abandoned.

"Era..? Era, is that alright?"

I want to say no, but then I catch sight of my father from the corner of my eye. My mother is right. I can't impose on them, because that's not alright either. I know this, yet I can't bring myself to say yes.

Devany. He needs me. Or at least, I think he does. But the more I think about it, the more I realize he doesn't, not anymore. Chase is here. He can finish Devany's training. The truth is heavy and raw at my chafing heart. He doesn't need me; I need him.

I feel like a leech, sucking away at those around me, groping wildly at their lives and tying myself to them. Burdening them. Holding resentment over my father, stealing hours better spent at the office from my mother, clinging to Devany - perhaps hindering his progress.

So finally I open my mouth.

"Sure, mom. Of course. I wouldn't want to-" -but here my voice breaks, and the tears come unbidden.