Shards of Kairos

XVII - The Beginning of the End

They talked for a few hours, well towards the middle of the afternoon and until the lack of sleep was definitely getting to all of them. It was around noon when they took a break to eat and Julian to sleep - Mitch too if he'd admit it. Whatever was going on with Julian, Evie wasn't pushing. So Evie let it go in light of everything she'd learned about a family she'd never gotten to really know.

Nathanial Briggant had been a gifted archeologist and anthropologist. But he had hadn't a very willing and open audience in that day and age so he'd mostly kept to outskirts of the scientific community. He'd published well recieved papers, mostly in Greek mythology, and despite the oppression of the time period that was only beginning to lift - he'd become an expert in his field. And a respected one at that.

Evie couldn't help but feel a certain type of sadness looking back on her grandfather's life and all that he'd accomplished. While it was measurable, it had almost been begrudgingly received. And when all those controversial ideas he'd kept locked in his head had been set loose with early onset dementia well... that respect he'd fought so hard for and might have received unequivocally later in his life and after his death with the turn of less bigoted society was entirely gone. Dr. Nathanial Briggant been forgotten. It was like he'd missed something big, something huge, but only by a mere breath or two.

Nathanial, Nathan? What could she even call him? Grandpa Robby seemed so distant to Evie all of a sudden. It felt like she'd missed him by that much too. By a breath. By a whisper. Not even loudly. It was like he'd suddenly just been gone. Something sad to mention just in passing.

And Robby had left behind a son, Evie's father, who'd died young - leaving Evie an orphan. Evie knew now that her grandparents couldn't adopt her because of Robby's dementia. He'd been so sweet and in all her vague memories of him, Evie only remembered sunny afternoons and laughter and this warmth that was present, constant and radiant. He'd made her feel so secure, so comfortable and safe. Evie had been too young to really notice his passing. She didn't even remember his funeral.

Evie hadn't been told anything about her grandmother. Jerilene Briggant hadn't gone back to her maiden name after her divorce to Robby but that was about all Evie knew. That was all the nondescript police report had told her. The basics. But just a little bit of legwork at the local library had told Evie a lot more. Jerilene was a published anthropologist and finding her book in the library, the only one she'd ever published, felt to Evie like a remarkable connection to family she'd never known. And right now, that connection felt precious. Infinitely so.

So while Evie should be sleeping, she cradled the book in her hands and read through page after page. She'd found a quiet place on the floor above the condos where they were most bare and unfinished. Even though it was hot, the breeze was nice and Evie even forgot about the unforgiving concrete. The picture on the back of the book, the portrait of the author, was something Evie had stared at in shock and wonder for a good long while at the library. She was a beautiful woman and the physical resemblence to Evie was there. Present, uncanny and shocking. It meant more to Evie than she'd ever known.

Evie continued reading near Julian. Who still wasn't even remotely cluing them in about what was wrong with him. So Evie sat with him while he mostly slept, still pale - and even in whatever restless sleep he'd found - his expression was pinched with pain. Julian mostly slept with his back to her and Evie was torn between becoming completely absolved in the book in her hands or studying the lines of his back. Admiring the male stretched out beside her. And simultaneously worrying about if he was all right or not.

When Mitch found Evie hours later the sun was setting. And while he looked more rested, the swelling under his eye and across his nose almost completely gone, the bruising was a lot worse. It was a wonder Julian hadn't broken something. And she sensed that had been deliberate.