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“Adam!” I call, even though my head is reeling with new doubt. “Come over here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
He runs over to me and promptly hides behind my back when he notices Celine standing there. “Guess what, kiddo?” I say in the calmest voice I can muster. “This is your Auntie Cee.”
Her eyes go wide. “You’ve told him about me?”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ve told him a bunch of stories about you and Mom. Isn’t that right, buddy?”
He peers around me and looks at her. She watches him tentatively, but I can see her smile brighten. She hikes her dress and kneels down in the grass in front of him.
“Hi, Adam. I’m so happy to meet you.”
“I like your garden,” he mumbles shyly. “And the fountain.”
She smiles. “I’m glad. I had it installed years ago when I realized that the birds didn’t have a place to come and relax.”
“I like birds.”
“So do I,” she says. “But I don’t like cages. Which is why I keep them outside.”
She doesn’t talk to him like he’s a kid. She talks to him like an adult, and bit by bit, he sidles out from behind me.
“Do you want to see the rest of the gardens?” she asks. He nods and she holds out her hand. “Maybe we can take a walk, and I can show you?”
He nods again, head bouncing like a bobblehead, and Celine laughs. I realize it’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh since I’ve been back. It sounds different. A little softer, a little heavier, a little more self-conscious.
Then Adam looks past her and his face lights up. “Grandpa!” he yells. “You’re awake! You have to see the birdbath!”
He takes off at a run and jumps from the grass to the veranda to Dad’s arms in a matter of seconds. Celine straightens up and watches the two of them. I wonder what she’s feeling right now, because for the life of me, I can’t tell.
I don’t know what I’m feeling, either.
“Grandpa,” Adam says, pointing towards us. “Look! It’s Auntie Cee, from my bedtime stories.”
I smile. It must feel a little bit like a fairytale coming to life for him. Celine has always been just a character in a story and nothing more.
Celine walks forward as Dad steps off the deck to meet her. I glance off to the side where Mila is standing with the ball. She gives me a small nod and vanishes into the house to give us some privacy.
“Hi, Dad,” Celine says coolly. “I’ve missed you.”
Tears well in Dad’s eyes. “Oh, honey…” It’s all he says before he gathers her up in his arms and hugs her tight.
I blink back my tears and try to figure out how Celine can stand there and keep her emotions in check. She used to cry at the drop of a hat. And now…nothing.
I wonder if life and the reality of it has made her cold. If the nature of what I left her to suffer through alone has forced her to be tougher.
Or if maybe it’s all just smoke and mirrors, hiding secrets I have yet to find out.
I’m not sure what I say to excuse myself; I just mumble something dumb and slip away. No one is really paying attention to me, anyway. Adam is back to running around the garden. Cee and Dad are sitting by the deck and talking.
Me?I’m freaking the fuck out.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I thought I’d prepared myself for coming back. But apparently, I’d just avoided thinking about what it would be like. Which, I’m now learning, leads to nervous hyperventilation in an empty room of a house that’s too big and too fancy and too full of Ilarion Zakharov to be safe for me.
“Ma’am?”
I jump and scream.
The maid who spoke backs away in alarm. “Oh, I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just came to clean.”
