I knew she was messing with me so I decided to mess with her back. “Sure. Once you get your motorcycle license.”
“What?” She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t think I can?”
Yeah okay. Good luck with that. She’d nearly broken my rib cage with how tightly she hung on to me.
I just made it to the door of my room when the doorbell rang.
“I got it!”
My stomach dropped as the hair on arms and at the nape of my neck rose. I didn’t know why but I just knew that she shouldn’t open the door and so I ran, almost leaped, down but it was too late. She’d already opened it. And there, standing in the frame of the door, dressed in his uniform with a bouquet of white lilies in his hands, stood the blond-haired snake himself.
“David?” she asked a little less cheerfully than she usually did, as if she was annoyed to see him and I was grateful for that at least.
He handed her the lilies and said, “I just wanted you to know, if you needed anything I’m here.”
“What? Thank you. You didn’t have to do all of this for—”
“Her birthday. We get it,” I said coming up to her. I glared at him telling him to leave. Hoping there was some…any redeemable quality about him. Sadly, there was not.
“It’s your birthday? I’m so sorry your loss—”
“SHUT UP!” I hollered at him.
And he jumped but she didn’t as she read the letter attached to the flowers. “Sorry for your loss? What loss?”
She looked up between us.
It was then that the fool, the inconsiderate intrusive ass of a human being, realized what he’d done. He looked to me for help and I had none to offer. Instead I wanted to kick him down the stairs hard enough to ensure that he never got back up.
“Malachi?”
I looked to her and the fear in her eyes. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. The flowers dropped from her hand as she ran. She ran towards the couch and reached for the remote control I doubt I’d ever touched and turned on the television.
“Esther—”
“Breaking News: IPN has just confirmed that Alfred Benjamin Noëlle, the famed screenwriter, director, and filmmaker, of such movies as Rise Son Rise and The Father of the Faithless, and longtime civil rights activist, passed away this morning at the age of seventy-three—”
“Ugh.”
She shook.
She took a step back and stretched out her hands switching between the channels in the hopes that it would somehow change the news. And when she realized that each channel held his name with the numbers 1944-2017 under his name and on his pictures the sound that came from her body as she tilted forward didn’t sound human.
“AHH! UGH! AHH! OGHH!” She screamed until she wasn’t strong enough to hold herself up any longer.
She screamed as she fell to the ground and I grabbed her as I tried to hold back my own tears but it was like trying to hold on to fire. Still I didn’t let go even as she hit me.
“You knew!” She screamed trying to break away. “YOU KNEW!
She slapped and smacked and dug her nails into me and I was more worried that she’d hurt herself so I let go and she ran. She ran towards the door and out into the white of the snow.
“Esther!” I called as I ran after.
She was at the bottom of the stairs when I got outside. David, the devil himself, was already at his car, unwilling to do anything because he was a coward.
“Esther!” I called once more as she slipped on the snow and ice-covered path while running towards the cabin. She picked herself up but slipped once more before she made it inside.
“GET OUT!” She grabbed the first thing she could, which was her lamp beside the couch and threw it at the door. I ducked and the light bulb exploded as it hit the ground behind me, leaving only the metal part intact.
“Esther—”
“Stop calling my name!” She wiped her face as she grabbed her purse, and threw her things inside. “You knew! That’s why you were being so nice! You knew! And you wanted me to just…how did you know?”
She paused. Her face was covered in tears and her hair was sticking through her hands. Her brown hands were now red and bleeding from her fall. But she didn’t look at me.
“I woke you up. I was with you up until we went to get ready. But you’ve been acting odd since you woke up…my grandfather? Did he call you? Did he say something to you last night?”
“No.”
“STOP LYING! Ahh!” She screamed again as she put one hand over her chest and the other over her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she looked to me. “You’re lying. How did you know? Why aren’t you shocked? He was… perfectly fine! This is some kind of mistake! There has to be a mistake—”
“He…was sick.” My voice cracked but I pushed on. “He’s been sick for a while. He didn’t want you to see him…die.”
“Stop talking.” She lifted her hand up to me. Her eyes seemed darker, hollow, as she stared back at me. She was a silent for almost a two full minutes before she spoke again. “You never had a book for me,” she whispered to herself. “I’m here…not to help you but so…so…ugh…he could…he…he could die alone? Is that what you’re saying to me?”
“He had tuberculosis…the end stage is bad. He wanted to spare you—”
“Tuberculosis? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!” She put her hands to her head once more. “He was fine! I spoke with him two days ago! He was fine!”
“He went for treatment—”
“WHY DO YOU KNOW THIS?!” She grabbed the things from her bag and threw it at me. “I’m his family! Me! I’m his granddaughter! WHY AM I HEARING THIS FROM YOU?”
I couldn’t answer that question and she began to hyperventilate.
“Esther…”
She backed away from me shaking her head. “This whole time…this whole time I was just being babysat? You were doing this for him? You were watching over me to keep me from going to my grandfather? You let him die alone!”
“He asked—”
“What about me?! WHY? Why isn’t anyone asking me?! Uhh…” She reached up to her throat unable to breathe.
When I came to her she backed away but I reached out. Not caring that she held on to me, I placed my hands on her shoulders I put my face in front of hers.
“Breathe. Esther. Just breathe.” She wasn’t listening to me. She was giving in to panic. Putting her hands on her face I made her look me in the eye. “I know it hurts—”
She slapped my hands away once more and slowly sank to the ground and curled into the fetal position as her tears rolled off the side of the nose while she tried to breathe. Laying down beside her she said three little words I never thought I’d hear.
“I…Hate…You…” she said in between breaths.
Hate me but live. I thought as she kept sobbing.
ESTHER
Was the wooden ground that I now laid upon cold or was it me?
I couldn’t feel anything.
I just sang. “Baby it’s cold…”
“I've got to go away...”
Through the streams of my tears I noticed him laying down beside me…singing with me. I tried to wipe away my tears but they fell even more. Everything…all the time he’d spent with me…all the things we’d shared. It had all been for my grandfather’s sake. He’d gotten to say goodbye. He’d gotten to…to be there for him, while…while I just played around.
“I hate you.”
“Sing with me anyway.”
I didn’t. Instead I made a wish. “I wish you’d bring him back. Bring him back, Malachi.”
“I can’t. If I could, I would, but I can’t.”
I needed to go.
I should have never come here to begin with.
I should have never left him.
The moment I did. He was gone.
Pushing up off the ground, I stood up. “Take me to the airport. I wish…I wish to never see you again.”
MALACHI
She
didn’t look back when she got on the plane.
I stood there watching as they ripped her ticket stub. I wanted to get on that plane with her. But her wish had stopped me. And so I just stood there.
“This is the final boarding call for Flight 2331 to New York. The final checks are being completed and the captain will order for the doors of the aircraft to close in approximately five minutes time. I repeat. This is the final boarding call for Flight 2331. Thank you.” The attendant called at the gate but I just sat there and stared out the window at the plane.
“Sir? Sir, this is your flight, isn’t it?” she asked.
“No.” Rising, I moved from the chairs to the window. I was hoping I’d see her again, but knowing I wouldn’t, I did my best to accept that. Turning around, I walked away from it all.
In the end…I hadn’t been able to do anything for the either of them. Walking into the bathroom I entered the stall, closed the door, and pushed against the walls until my knuckles were red and I sobbed. Just like that…Alfred was gone…and I wasn’t able to do anything for her.
I’m pathetic.
14. TATTERDEMALION SOULS
ESTHER
“Esther, do you need food?” Li-Mei knocked.
But I couldn’t reply.
“Esther, hey, it’s me, Howard. I brought some lobster soup, you want some?”
I wanted my grandfather.
“Esther…I’m sorry,” Li-Mei said still knocking. I thought she meant sorry for my grandfather, what she meant was sorry for my door.
“Ah! What the bloody hell is this thing made of?” Someone who sounded like Rafi yelled as he kicked the door.
“Esther?! Esther, if you’re alright—”
Closing my eyes, I drowned them out. They all kept calling but I just laid on my grandfather’s bed, hoping, praying, and dreaming of anything but this.
MALACHI
My house was cold.
The simple reason for this was the fact that I’d left the door open and snow had gotten inside.
The more complex reason was internal: I was alone. I was unable to help her, unable to do the one thing Alfred had asked of me. And now both of them were gone. I saw her journal. It and the remote control whose batteries had popped out sat on the wooden floorboards behind the couch. Picking up the journal, I read her list. She’d only made it to thirteen. Thirteen happy memories before…before she was gone.
“A promise is a promise,” I whispered to myself as I tore out the page. I folded the note and stuck it into my back pocket. She was a Noëlle and if there was anyone in this world I was in debt to, it was the Noëlles.
One day.
I didn’t know how far that day was from now, but one day I’d grant her everything she’d asked for and more.
“If you’re listening.” I looked up to the ceiling. “Let me, at the very least, keep my promise in this life.”
ESTHER
A man I didn’t know, make that just another one of the many people I didn’t know, walked up to the podium which was covered in white and red tulips. Dressed in black like the rest of us, he cleared throat a few times before addressing the whole church, my grandfather’s church.
“Alfred Benjamin Noëlle,” the man spoke, “was the type of man who made you feel small. He didn’t mean to. I don’t even think he noticed he was doing it…but just by being authentically himself, in all his greatness, he made all those around him want to grow and keep striving. He showed us there was no limit to our…”
I didn’t want to hear him.
I didn’t want to hear any of the people who stood to talk.
“Esther, no…”
Ignoring Li-Mei, I discreetly reached up to my ear and put my earbuds in. I didn’t want to be here but there was no avoiding it. I looked up at his photo, my only contribution to this funeral. It was one of him laughing at me. One of three hundred or so people here knew that. It just looked like he was genuinely laughing at something.
I can’t.
Biting back the sob I put my head down and tucked my hands under my legs. I could feel a few hands on my back rubbing and patting me. But I didn’t want that…I wanted…I wanted them to move. To get out of my way so I could run.
I didn’t want to be here.
That casket was empty.
His body was there but he was gone so what was the point?
MALACHI
“Why?” I grumbled as I looked up at the wood paneling of my bedroom ceiling.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks since his...since he had passed and she’d left… yet…
“7:37 a.m.” I was awake at 7:37…now 7:38 a.m. according to the cellphone I no longer needed, since one of the two people in my contacts was no longer here to call me and the other had no reason to. Two weeks and yet I now woke up before 8 a.m. no matter how late I went to bed or how badly I wanted to sleep in.
“It’s all her fault…” I muttered putting my arm over my eyes. I tried not to think of her but what could I do when I awoke and knew the only reason I was up at such a godforsaken hour was because of her?
Not just her but Alfred…if he didn’t…if he hadn’t passed, none of this would have happened, so I was blaming him too.
Alfred.
Esther.
Myself.
I was blaming the world for anything and everything today.
“If I’m like this, she’s probably much worse.” I needed to get myself together. Rising from the bed I stretched out and walked into the closet to change.
However, how she was feeling wasn’t my business now.
ESTHER
“Please have a seat, Ms. Noëlle.”
“Thank you,” I whispered softly as I took a seat on the white chair that sat behind the glass conference table. Putting my bag on the ground beside my feet, I took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with, Mr. Morell.”
I didn’t want to be in his office any longer than needed. I wasn’t a huge fan of lawyers—they were like grim reapers: they only came around when something was about to die, or dying, or already dead, whether it was you personally or your bank account.
“We’re still waiting for one more person,” he said as he looked through the glass doors and into the rest of the office. “Ah…here she comes.”
Part of me knew it was her. It could only be her.
I gritted my teeth together as she strode into the room and ignored the lawyer who held the door for her. She was dressed in white with her red coat hanging off her sounders. Her black hair was styled into a pixie cut, and the string of pearls around her neck were the same pearls I’d seen in old photographs of her and my grandmother. I couldn’t see her eyes because of the big bug-eyed sunglasses she wore, but as she walked towards us she moved as though she was striding down a runaway instead of coming to deal with the will of her own father…the same father whose funeral she didn’t even have the courtesy to attend. I tried not to glare at her as Mr. Morell stood to shake her hand, but she ignored him and set her purse on the chair before she sat down.
“You could at the very least—”
“I still have the apartment on West 18th and my usual allowance, correct?” she asked, cutting me off and looking only at him.
“West 18th?” I yelled. “You live less than ten minutes away from me?”
Again, she didn’t reply and continued to look at Mr. Morell. “Well?”
He sat down and took a deep breath as he consulted the stack of paper in his folder. “You will have the apartment for another six months and your allowance will be cut in half for the remainder of the year. After that you’ll need to provide for yourself.”
“You’re funny,” she cut him off as she took off her glasses. “But I’m not in the mood for jokes. My father and I had a deal—”
“Which expired the day he died,” Mr. Morell said as he handed her a piece of paper. “This is all you get and he said I should tell you to be grateful with even this.”
“GRATEFUL?!” She screamed and I flinched and
looked away from her as she tore up the paper. “He’s worth billions and he wants me to be grateful for the remainder of the year? You’re lying. What did you do with all my father’s money huh? I know your vultures have probably been stealing—”
“Mr. Morell and Grandpa have been friends for almost four years. If you don’t want to respect me, fine. But you should at least respect him!” I hollered at her.
Her nose flared and her brown eyes finally shifted to me. Even though she was glaring, at least I wasn’t invisible now. “And why would you I respect a—”
“Mr. Morell, what else is in my grandfather’s will.” This time I cut her off, not wanting to hear whatever insult was going to come from her mouth. I didn’t have the strength…I didn’t think I ever would.
“It’s very straightforward. Anything he did not leave to his charities, foundations, and a Mr. Malachi Lord, is now entrusted to you, Ms. Noëlle.”
He tried to show me the documents but she snatched them from his hands and read through them. “You can’t be serious! She’s just a child! She knows nothing about how to handle all of this.”
“I know more than you. And what I don’t know I’m willing to learn,” I said to her as I reached down and picked up my bag. I rose from the chair and regarded her. “If you want your flat and your allowance back, mother, try acting like a decent human being first.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?!”
“Thank you, Mr. Morell. We’ll continue this later.” I shook his hand and walked to the door before she screeched at me.
“DON’T YOU DARE WALK OUT! NOT BEFORE YOU FIX THIS—!”
“GRANDPA DIED!” I yelled at her. “HE DIED! HE’S GONE! And you’re making a scene over his money? I didn’t want to believe that you could be so selfish but…whatever. You just keep being the miserable person you are; I’ll make sure you still have money. I’ll take you of you…but first, I need to take care of myself. The worse you make me feel the harder it will be for you to get anything for me.”