IT - Pieces in the Dark

Chapter 10 - Meeting of minds

Chapter 10  -  Meeting of Minds 

 

The following morning he woke up in their large, light and airy bedroom to sunshine flooding through the soft, cream, plush curtains.

Brina was still asleep lying on her right side away from him. He was curled up close behind her, on his side with his arm arched over her side and across her front holding her right breast fully in his hand.

He had his bent knees up behind the back of her thighs. She had her arms around his, and was holding his hand, and she had pressed herself tightly up against him, breathing softly and steadily in her sleep.

He could never work out quite how he managed to always wake up like that, the bed was massive, and yet they always seem to be clinging together.

Somehow it seemed right though, comfortable, and Brina always slept deeply in that position. He could feel her physically relax, and her breathing slow and soften, and she pushed herself against him, like he was some sort of protective shield along the length of her spine, defending her against something. It was so tempting just to lie there all day, but eventually something would force him to move, the spell would be broken, and the day had to start.

These days he always seemed to wake up mentally and physically tired, almost as if he had been working all night. He would struggle out of bed, and step into the shower. The hot water and solitude would allow ideas, thoughts, and knowledge to start flowing through his mind.

He had left himself a notepad on the side of the washbasin next to the towel rail so he could jot down ideas and thoughts after he got out, before the ideas went away. It was very annoying having ideas or thoughts, and then not being able to write them down somewhere, and subsequently not being able to remember them. It was at least something to get them out of his head in some form of scribble that he could try and make sense of later in his journal. 

Brina’s mother arrived mid-morning and it was fairly obvious that she was in on the secret that he hadn’t been let in on yet.

She was just bubbling and busy and excited, and was far more overtly polite and interested in him than she normally was, even pinching his cheek at one point.

He could see Brina was very unsure about how to go about telling him, and had clearly wanted to do so before her mother had arrived, but she simply had not had the courage or opportunity to do so. So instead, before her mother got there, she had busied herself with tidying up and vacuuming to occupy herself mentally, as well as using up the available time.

She had always been that way. She would somehow always find things to do rather than have to think about things, or do the things she didn’t want to do. In times of pressure and stress, things in the house became very clean.

He could see her suffering so he decided to make it easy for her to talk to him about it. When they were all in the garden he made out that he had picked up a splinter in his right hand, and asked Brina to come into the house with him to help get the splinter out.

She followed him into the utility room and got a needle out from the sewing kit. He held his hand forward and let her take it to get a closer look. It soon became obvious that there was nothing there, and she looked at him questioningly.

In that moment a wall of understanding passed between them, he smiled, and she smiled back. “It’s a girl” he said, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung to him like there was nothing and nobody else in the world.

Some minutes later they returned to the garden as Brina’s mother was not the sort of person that liked her own company, and was not happy for more than a few minutes on her own.