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“Good,” I said. “Maybe next time we’ll find someone he’ll like.”
“Chances are excellent, sir,” Waev said.
No doubt he felt as sure of that as I did.
I felt tired. Dog tired.
“What am I going to do with him, Waev?” I said. “I try to give him everything a boy his age needs—access to all the things I never had when I was a kid—and he keeps acting up.”
“You’re doing everything you can, sir,” Waev said. “No one could demand more from you. What with your workload, it’s difficult to spend more time with Cleb. Many children would kill for the same advantages he has.”
“But not all kids have been through the same terrible experience,” I reminded him.
Waev nodded and his body creaked.
It was difficult for me to lose my sister, so what was it like for a boy of Cleb’s age to lose both parents? I couldn’t even imagine.
Waev coughed politely behind his hand that spoke volumes.
I turned to find Cleb standing in the doorway to the front room. He was a little man that liked to wear smart suits. When he first came to live with me, he wore trendy clothes his parents had bought for him. I supposed wearing black suits was his way of mourning his parents.
“Has she gone?” he said.
He knew she was. The whole household knew. The whole street knew. And soon, the rumors would swirl through the upper classes once again about my poor parenting skills. What did they expect? I never married, never had children. And now I’d been left to take charge of my sister’s only son.
Still, it was a better subject for rumors than those concerning how my sister and her husband lost their lives. I’d taken special pains to ensure no one ever learned the truth. It’d been surprisingly difficult to discover. I doubted any of them—as much as they might make the attempt—would put in half as much effort as I had.
The truth had shocked me. It’d cost a small fortune to solve that particular problem and ensure neither Cleb nor the family name suffered from the fallout.
Cleb was under my protection now and would be for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t like I had much choice in the matter. Not only was I Cleb’s uncle, I was his godfather. My sister promised it was a ceremonial title, that I would never have to do any actual caring for the child.
Familiar with contracts and legal loopholes, I said I’d prefer not to have the title and just be Cleb’s uncle.
But my dear sister had insisted.
Had she known even then how she would die?
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
They died in that terrible accident and I got a knock on my door. A late-night delivery of a large trunk of Cleb’s things and the boy himself.
I got in contact with other family members—cousins, aunts, uncles on both sides of the family… and none would take him. It wasn’t that they weren’t open to the idea. It was just that I was Cleb’s godfather and they figured my sister chose me to take care of him for a reason.
No one ever told me what that reason was.
I let Cleb choose his bedroom. He decided on the one furthest from my own and for the longest time, he refused to come out. I invited friends’ children over to play with him, signed him up to various sports teams and meeting groups…
All for nothing.
He never played with the others and always sat by himself.
The worst part was, I wasn’t even sure if that was normal for him. I’d never exactly been the most… attentive uncle.
I hired a live-in governess to watch over and educate him. The one request my sister had ever given me was that he should be homeschooled.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” I said, leading Cleb into the front room.
