Chapter 14
Then
Da started bringing back souvenirs from his walks. A flower he’d picked from the waterfront lawn, the stem crumpled and broken from gripping it so hard, refusing to lose it to the tremors. A smooth stone he’d found on the side of Gormill Road, damp with sweat from his palms, along with feathers, leaves, bits of parchment… He found beauty in the simple and ordinary. A pile ofthingsbegan to grow on our table, getting bigger each day.
That was my father coming back.
The tonic had helped his memory. Even better, it had seemed to lift his spirits. He still had moments when the grief left him hurting, visibly broken. But the light was shining through the trees, breaking up the shadows one by one.
“This f-feather comes from a ciakoo. I haven’t seen one s-since I was a b-boy, and I found this feather on the s-side of the s-street! Can y-you believe it? Very r-rare!” His voice bordered on excitement, the dampening effects of the last several months keeping it from cresting. I took the feather from his shaking hand, lightly running my finger down the vane. At first glance, it was black, but as I looked closer I saw the base was a deep, rich purple that faded into an even deeper blue, the color of the night sky in the dead of winter.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“‘Means good fortune is c-coming our way.”
“Is that so?” I laughed, placing it on the table and turning to prepare his evening dose of tonic.
“Mhm, that’s what the l-legends say,” he said, tipping his head back as I lifted the vial to his mouth. He winced at the bitterness but choked it down. “Thanks, love.”
“You look like you’re feeling better.” I leaned against the decrepit counter.
He sat back, his shoulders slamming against the chair. “I think I a-am,” he mumbled. “And y-ye? How are ye f-feeling?”
The question hit me the same way it did when the stranger — Calomyr, I remembered — asked me a few weeks back. The pain rang like a bell in my chest, the vibrations buzzing against my ribs. Should I tell him? Should I burden him with my pain when he had so much of his own?
I longed to be a child again, running to him with every hurt. He’d scoop me up, his tremors only a ripple then. I wanted to run to him with this. “Actually, I’m not doing well, Da. I’m really not.” I watched the dim happiness we had shared just moments earlier shatter in his eyes, his body thrashing.
“W-why?” he asked.
“Since everything happened, I can’t escape it. The sound of it, the sight of it, the smell of burning wood and gunpowder. I watch her die every day of my life, Da.”
“Watch who die?”
And there it was. The progression of time was never far from my mind, but I had hoped the tonic was working to slow it down. As my father spoke those words, the reality of it slammed into me. I watched as he searched my face for answers, finding only circles the color of the ciakoo feather under my eyes and the sheen of forming tears. “Larka?” he said abruptly, and my heart stopped momentarily.
“Yes, Da. I watched Larka–”
“Larka, w-where’s Petra? Can you f-fetch her for m-me please?” he asked, concern in his voice. “I’d like t-to show her what I found.” I closed my eyes, my lips a thin line. I would not break in front of him.I would not break in front of him.
“I’m going to get Ma for you, okay Da?” I said, planting a kiss on his head and walking to where my mother sat reading in their bedroom. She took one look at the tears spilling over my lids, the silver trail down my cheeks, and nodded.
She knew.
???
The makeshift table in the kitchen was full of Da’s finds, and even though the tonic wasn’t preserving his memory as much as we’d hoped it would, the small pile of odds and ends made me smile. They were tangible evidence of my father’s happiness, his soul — things he’d seen and thought were worthwhile to pick up, hold on to, and show his family.
My mother wrapped his cloak around his convulsing shoulders while he stood near the front door, pushing the two buttons through their loops and tying the straps over them. I had been able to purchase him the cloak a month ago, the double fasteners ensuring it wouldn’t come loose on his walks like his old one sometimes did. Even so, he had managed to snag the hem on something already, so there was a tiny tear on its edge.
My latest unsavory endeavor landed me a small golden pendant in the shape of the sun that hung on a golden chain. The man at the shop gave me enough to feed my family for a week. With the money for minced beef, Ma and I decided we should make meat pies, Da’s favorite.
“I can smell ‘em a-already,” he said excitedly, pointing his nose in the air.
“Gimme a break. We haven’t even mixed the dough for the crust yet,” my mother shot back.
“It matters nae. I c-can still smell ‘em.”
“They’ll be ready when you get back. Be careful,” my mother called.