Requiem [COMPLETED]

Waiting

I bet Waldo was hiding for a damn good reason—like hiding from someone who wanted to hurt him. You don't get that good at hiding for no reason.

--Sven Trosvig

[Sigrid's P.O.V.]

At first there was only relief mingled with fear—fear we'd be caught—while I was still dazzled by Sven's resurrection. It had all the mystery of the Lazarus story, of 'he who was risen from the dead' although Chuck has told me of the long, slow recovery that contained no sudden miracles easing the path. Even now that Sven was returned to me, returned to life, I still had a sense of waiting, patiently listening for the familiar tremors of Sven's old surficial calmness that would indicate the brother I'd been accustomed to. He seemed to find me as strange and changed as I did him; despite our best efforts we were uneasy around each other. The house we were hiding out in didn't exactly have an environment conducive to either our emotional recoveries.

Chuck had an older cousin who lived with some friends in Wahpeton who were all fond of Chuck and accustomed to him escaping his homelife by frequent decampments to extended family. It wasn't hard to get a safehouse of sorts with them—they were used to asking no questions and having guests for extended periods. The guys gave us the spare room downstairs that the cousin's ex-girlfriend until recently had occupied with a home office; we slept on the fold-out futon with raspberry flannel sheets and the faint odor of fruity perfume that permiated the shag carpet. When someone (rarely) came unannounced to the front door we'd scamper downstairs like mice and silently strain to hear above the videogame noises for sounds of danger. It felt a little bit like being Anne Frank, except that no one came looking for us at the house—we just knew they were out there, somewhere, looking. The court had decided not to bring a verdict in our favor, but Sven swore he'd go to prison before he let anyone take me back.

It was a very quiet three months. It was too boring for any panic to sustain itself. I was nervous about getting caught but Sven was there to brusquely reason it away. He didn't want to get a job right away because then people would know he was in the region still, so we did nothing but hang out all day, every day. And by hang out, I mean we read on opposite sides of the room for most of the day and talked for a half hour here or there. Charlie bought us food and some thrifted clothes out of his own pocket that Sven IOU'd him for; I didn't see how he'd pay him back as the bills mounted up.

I was intensely homesick; I'd literally never slept anywhere that wasn't the farm since I was seven. I felt sick sometimes and Sven told me they were panic attacks; even if nothing was happening the fact that no one told me what to do freaked me out more than a little. I probably drove Sven nuts requesting his judgement and opinion on everything from food to 'what should I do now?' I had a lot of problems sleeping and spent some nights watching Sven sleep, moving restlessly when he was dreaming.

I worried about grandpa worrying, but I was also afraid of the punishment I knew would be awaiting me. Unlike Sven I'd never had courage when faced with his disapproval and it was more this than anything else that kept me from just calling home. I was angry at him too, for hiding Sven from me, for trying to cut him out of my life like cutting off one of my limbs. I felt betrayed. I didn't understand what had started it all, what had made them come to hate each other so much, what had driven them to this extreme—for grandpa to become someone I wasn't sure I knew—and now Sven, too. I felt like a chess piece; one's admonishments for my soul's sake and daily restrictions had merely segued into the other's claims of love while holding me hostage away from everything familiar.

I didn't tell Sven that, of course; I didn't want to hurt him when he already seemed so fragile emotionally. We talked a lot about his recovery, and about my year without him. I was thrown off by his newly extended range of emotions, and mistook his inability to control and suppress them for a tender disarming openness towards me. I didn't understand at first that he had lingering brain damage that would always make his emotions a challenge. It seemed like newly found gratitude for a sibling he'd taken for granted before. I couldn't help but remember Mr. Hansen calling us his changelings; Sven was still someone whom I couldn't recognize in certain moments; it was almost as if he were really an actor impersonating him who would suddenly slip out of character now and then accidently, going from stoic to melodramatic.