Trophies (13 page)

The scene in the library, all those years
ago, was more clear and vivid than many more recent ones. I
remembered Mum's shock and how I'd turned my back on her. I'd been
wary over the coming thrashing but nevertheless egged Father on,
knowing I was making the situation worse. And I remembered every
word he said.

He said,
You can't stay here.

He said,
I shall send you to
Edith.

And he said,
You two deserve each
other.
He'd said it as if he'd thought of some School for
Truant Boys that he knew I'd respect and where I'd cause no more
trouble.

He hadn't said anything remotely like,
I
never want to see you again.

I was the one who'd said that. A few weeks
after arriving, when Aunt Edith asked me if I wanted to return to
Wiltshire, that was my answer.
Never,
I'd said.
I never
want to see them again.

During her lifetime, I never had to. And
until now, I never wondered why. What was it he'd said tonight?
That arrangement was never intended to be permanent.

Then why had he never returned for me?

"Charles? Did he?"

Had Aunt Edith convinced Father to leave me
in Boston? What could she have said to persuade him to abandon me
so utterly? Had she thrown my words in his face?
No, William,
the boy never wants to see you again, so don't bother visiting.
It seemed laughable.

All those years, I'd assumed he never
returned for me because he didn't want me. It never occurred to me
there might be another reason. And I couldn't for the life of me
imagine what said reason might be.

That empty, lonely, abandoned ache around my
heart screamed for an answer.

"Charles?"

The mouse was on her treadmill. I rubbed my
eyes and selected my words with care.

"Patty, you know I love you dearly. In many
ways, you're my closest friend. My wardrobe wouldn't be the same
without the assistance of your unerring fashion sense. The way you
have supported me—" but that wasn't the right word "—cherished me
all these years has made more difference in my life than I can
possibly express to you."

Hopefully, I glanced sideways. In the glare
of oncoming headlights, I could see the I-want-an-answer expression
on her face hadn't softened. I was going to lose this one, too.

But I was an Ellandun and had to try. "This
is personal." Like that was going to make any difference. "And I
have to think about it before I can give you an intelligent answer.
So butt out."

She braked at a traffic light and swiveled to
face me. I stared back, hoping some section of my message had
gotten through.

"Are you saying you deliberately hurt your
father without even properly understanding the parameters of the
issue?"

So much for that hope.

Her anger was clear. But there was something
more beneath it, something akin to the living tension that had
enveloped Father and me during our argument. Patty upset and angry
wasn't a new experience for me, although lately she'd been taking
it to new levels. But the wariness I saw now had never been aimed
at me before. This was the look she gave to people she wouldn't
fight.

"Being your friend doesn't mean anything if
you aren't willing to talk with me, Charles. I don't understand you
any more. And I wonder if I ever truly did."

We stared at each other as if we were
strangers who'd bumped into each other in the wrong car. Of all the
night's hurts, this was the worst, and I knew without a moment's
doubt it was all my fault.

A horn honked behind us. Patty glanced into
her rearview mirror, then at the green traffic light, and drove
on.

The clouds lowered further as we approached
Cambridge. Before we arrived, it was sprinkling.

Weather be damned. "Stop here, Patty."

Obediently she braked at the end of the
street. The house was a dim shadow amongst the trees. The desk lamp
burned in Uncle Hubert's old study, another in the guestroom
upstairs, but the porch light and the light in the foyer were both
off.

"You're going back to the party, aren't you."
I didn't make it a question; I knew the answer.

Her smile was dim as the night. "I happen to
like our family, including your half."

And she wanted feedback from all those people
she loved and respected: her parents, the twins, William, my
father, maybe even Prissy Carr and the security guard, for all I
knew. The beating my reputation was taking wasn't finished yet, it
seemed.

"Then I'll get out here."

"Your lovely uniform will get wet." She said
it reluctantly, as if her good breeding forced her to be polite but
she really wanted to see the back of me.

"It will clean and I won't melt."

She paused then flicked open the power
locks.

"Thanks, cuz. And be careful. Make certain
you're not followed back."

She glanced at me, eyes sardonic, brows up.
"And what do you suggest I do if someone does follow me? Try to
lose them?"

I didn't care if she thought I was paranoid
so long as she was careful. "Silly. Drive to the nearest police
station and call ahead to let them know you're coming."

"Of course." She humored me — before I got
out of hand, I suppose — far enough to pull her cell phone from her
purse and set it in her lap.

I closed the car door gently and tapped the
glass until she flipped the locks down. Then I stepped back and
watched her drive away, wondering if our wash-and-wear relationship
would ever come clean.

A city is never really silent, of course. A
radio played down the block, traffic muttered a street over, rain
pattered, a distant dog barked and a closer one responded. But the
dense cloud cover dampened these noises and the night, leaving me
feeling alone again. Honestly, with even Patty not on speaking
terms with me, it wasn't just a feeling. I was alone and I hated
it.

Common sense told me to get in out of the
rain. My instincts and training both informed me I had to be
abnormally stupid to stay outside where I could be taken by
surprise and forced to lead the murderer to whatever it was he
sought. But I thought about chatting with Caren, that
super-sensitive, inhumanly empathic soul doctor, and trying to
pretend nothing was wrong. Then I thought about describing my
evening to her, my reactions to Father's words, my guilt and
loneliness now that I'd alienated even Patty. I stayed outside.
Lights were on; everything seemed quiet and under control; there
was no need to go inside until I'd thought through what needed
thinking through.

No stealthy forms huddled in the night as I
waded through the wet lawn to the bench by the fountain. The pump
turned off at night and the water slept. The rambling roses were in
full violent bloom, dark petals dripping onto the damp mulch and
the water's surface, and the scents of the living greenery,
flowers, and decaying pine bark, all swirled together and
intensified by the rain, made my head swim. I sat beneath the
protection of the sword-maiden, much as I used to hide behind Aunt
Edith, and scratched my chin.

It didn't bother me that I'd done something
stupid at the age of eleven. Didn't everyone? What bothered me was,
in all the intervening years, I never stopped wanting revenge long
enough to walk in anyone else's shoes. And the worst was, in that
time, I twisted the scenario in my mind until I was the only
victim.

In more-or-less adult retrospect, the family
had reacted to my stealing appropriately. Father, of course, not
only had a defiant son to discipline, he had his professional
reputation to protect. He was a barrister; he couldn't afford the
least impropriety be attached to his name, not even at one remove.
If I couldn't be controlled, I had to be contained until I learned
better, and if I wasn't going to listen to my parents then someone
had to be found whose opinion I would respect.

Of course Mum had been horrified at my
behavior. What mother wouldn't be?

Of course William had been furious. He'd been
reading for the bar at the time, as a dependable first son should —
particularly since the second refused — and I could only imagine
what his professors might have said had they learned of my
shenanigans. What his new wife and in-laws had said was probably
more than enough.

And of course the family hushed it up. It
hadn't been a lark; it had been budding juvenile delinquency.

If I'd thought this through, or discussed it
with Aunt Edith or Uncle Hubert, or sensible Patty, even as a child
I might have been more generous. Judging from the way I now hid my
stolen trophies even from myself, I already knew deep in my soul
that my behavior was wrong. But no one had confronted me on this
point during a vulnerable moment, so until I took the time to wrap
my adult brain around the situation, it had remained
unconfronted.

Instead, I'd nursed my anger and fed it as if
it was something to be proud of. I'd imagined arguments with Father
and Mum and William, where my oratorical brilliance convinced them
that, yes, they should be proud I was a thief. When those started
sounding silly even to me, I'd simply dropped the subject in my own
mind, rather than attempt to sort it out.

Perhaps the Army shrink was right. Perhaps I
didn't absorb the past. Supposedly that was how I developed PTSD,
from a memory I couldn't integrate.

And of course — of course — Father wanted to
make peace, no matter what arguments it caused wandering the
gallery with William. No matter what, I was his son.

I can't say I forgave him or any of them
while I squirmed on the damp bench in the drizzling rain. There was
too much anger for forgiveness to come so easily or quickly. But a
crack opened in the walls of my defensive fortress. And I had to
admit the evening's arguments had given me another perspective to
consider.

And that was when I heard breathing behind
me.

seventeen years earlier

"A thief," Father finally said. "You want to
be a thief." He shut his law book and set it, almost reverently, on
the low oak table beside his chair, and swiveled to face me more
fully. "My own son wants to be a thief."

For the first time in my life I had my
father's complete and undivided attention. With the insecurity I
felt as soon as I stepped into his presence, I found I didn't want
it.

Mum sniffed, her nostrils curling as if she
smelled something common in the library. "Why can't you be more
like William?"

It had taken me the first eleven years of my
life but I finally had an answer for her. "Because I'm not
William."

She made a sudden angry motion with her head.
"A good thrashing is what you need. Charles, I'm so ashamed of
you."

I didn't even glance aside. I had nothing to
say to her. I just stared into Father's unblinking eyes. Hard
seconds passed. He raised his eyebrows. His head tilted back until
it came to rest against the velvet of his wing chair and he stared
down his hawk-like nose at me.

"Yes," he said, "you do need a thrashing, and
I shall. But what's more, you can't stay here. You no longer
respect your mother and I won't always be home to keep you in
hand."

Mum froze. I glanced at her again. Her puffy
eyes were wide, staring at me in something akin to horror. I didn't
care. Father was right. I didn't respect her — she hadn't earned it
— and I wouldn't obey her. I turned back to Father and awaited his
judgment. I wondered just how far he could read me and what a
thrashing felt like. I'd never been hit before.

"On the other hand," he continued, "I cannot
send you to another school. You'll simply continue stealing, as I
see no regret in your mien or behavior, and I won't have it spread
all over the land that the second son of William Ellandun is a
common thief."

"I like to think I'm an uncommon thief," I
said. "I'm quite good at it, you know."

Mum gasped. Father straightened in his chair
and I braced for the blow. But suddenly and amazingly, he
laughed.

"Not as uncommon as you might think. Do you
truly wish to be an exile? Perhaps I should demonstrate how that
feels. I shall send you to Edith."

His words struck me dumb. Even then I knew
the family whispers concerning my Aunt Edith.

"Boston?" The sad remains of my carefully
constructed juvenile world fell into shattered ruins.

"Why, William, what a wonderful idea. Of
course, that's it. Edith is the perfect solution."

"I won't go."

"You shall have no say in the matter, my
uncommon thief. And just remember: you two deserve each other." He
arose and stripped off his elegant dark jacket. My earlier
rummagings through his desk had taught me he kept an old riding
crop there for a reason that suddenly seemed obvious. "Leave us,
Charlene."

I kept Langstrom's family photograph for the
next seventeen years. One of my trophies, as I called them: items
worthless in themselves but symbolic of my only achievements.
During the first of those years, I spent hours poring over all the
photo's details, the family's clothing and jewelry and smiles, and
I couldn't help comparing them with my own. Mum prattled on and
never said anything, and never accepted me as I was. William was
nice enough when he was around, but he was so perfect he was a bore
and therefore the bane of my existence. It had taken me eleven
years to get Father's attention, and then I didn't want it. And now
my family rejected me and sent me away.

I cried for hours, alone in my bedroom. Then
I turned cold, and stopped, and swore nobody would ever make me cry
again. One takes such vows very seriously, at eleven years of
age.

current time

If I was stupid enough to sit out in the
rain, then I shouldn't complain if my friendly neighborhood
murderer came to call.