Amelia was sixteen when her parents died. They died in a car accident one afternoon when she had been at school. She remembered vividly the anguish of the days following. She couldn't do anything but cry. Her aunt and uncle flew in as soon as they had heard but she'd never been close with them, and there was little they could do to help her. She didn't have any other family. Her mother's parents had died when she was a kid, and she had never met her father's parents, they didn't talk anymore.
When she finally met her parent's lawyer, a few days after the accident, he'd said that her parents will had provided for her, but she still had some choices to make. He'd said she could go and live with her aunt and uncle, or she could stay where she was and live with Mr. Kirkland.
Her aunt and uncle lived in California and she knew moving with them would mean moving across the country and leaving her whole life behind. But she hadn't known that she another option.
Mr. Kirkland was an old family friend, an eccentric old man who lived down the street from them whom she had known for her entire life. He was odd, walked with a cane, and usually looked grouchy, but he had always been kind to her and she recalled her parents treating him with a respect that was near reverence. Once he had come to their 4th of July barbeque, only to drop off some gross food, and say a few terse words to her father and then leave. She had jokingly mocked him later, only to be strongly reprimanded by her mother, who said, 'Don't ever do that honey. That man has had a very sad life.' But Amelia never really knew what she meant by that.
So when her parent's lawyer informed her that he was written in their will, she was surprised.
"He would become your legal guardian until you turn eighteen. Your parents spoke with him about this, and he fully consented. But the choice is yours."
She told him she would need more time to think about it.
She hated the idea of living with her aunt and uncle if it meant leaving everything; she was it worth staying here with a stuffy old man?
She started crying again. It was so unfair.
She stayed in her room more and more. Her friends would call and leave sympathetic messages on her machine, saying things like ' we know this must be hard for you,' and ' I know you're going through a hard time right now,' but she hated listening to them, cause they didn't know. All they could do was feel bad for her. And what did they know? Their parents weren't dead.
They said 'you can talk about it' and 'it's okay, we're here for you,' but all they wanted to do was give her advice on how to move on, how to feel better. Well, her parents were dead, and she couldn't make it better. No one understood.
Even her aunt and uncle tried to pull that crap on her. She hated it.
Amelia started leaving her room less. Whenever she did, all she heard was her aunt and uncle telling her so-and-so dropped by , see what beautiful flowers they left, or so-and-so called honey you should call them back, it might help.
Or they were planning the funeral.
She couldn't stand it.
She would stay in her room and lay on her bed, or sometimes look at through old magazines. She slept and cried.
That afternoon, there was a knock on her door.
"Amelia," he aunt called. "You have a visitor, please come down."
"Who is it?" she called back.
"Dr. Kirkland." She replied before she heard her footsteps retreating.
In the end Amelia put on a brave face and went downstairs.
Mr. Kirkland stood up straight, almost rigid, in her living room among the flowers from sympathetic well-wishers looking solemn. He greeted kindly, but she told him that she hadn't been able to make a decision yet, and wouldn't be able to give him an answer yet. He nodded politely and told her to take her time. And she slunk back upstairs.
As the day of her parent's funeral approached, she found herself able to leave less and less.
They weren't coming back, they were never coming back.
She hadn't left her room except to use the bathroom in two days.
"Amelia!" Her aunt pleaded through the door, "Honey, please, you haven't eaten in days, will you please come out? We're really worried about you."
"I'm not hungry." She growled back. She heard her aunt sight and walk away.
Later, there was a sharp rap on her door that startled her. She jumped from where she'd been laying on her floor. That wasn't her aunt or uncle knocking…
"Yes?" she called apprehensively.
"Miss Jones?" she heard a rough accented voice call. Mr. Kirkland? She opened the door.
He stood outside her door looking sharp and when he looked at her his brows furrowed.
"Miss Jones, your aunt and uncle tell me you've been shut up in there for says. Your aunt was at her wits end, and asked me if I might speak with you. I apologize for appearing unannounced.
"Oh." Was a she could say. He didn't have that same pitying look in his eyes; rather he met her head on, but with a kind firmness.
"Now. I shan't suffer the idea of you wasting away in there. All that crying without any sustenance will have left you week as a kitten. You must come and join us for dinner." She stared back at him slightly sack jawed. No one had told her what to do since…
"I've brought fried chicken, from the grocery, you relatives tell me you rather care for it. Surely you won't have us waste you portion?"
She really did love friend chicken.
Numbly, she left her room. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her downstairs. She could barely hold herself up, and she was shaking.
But once she sat down at the table and smell the food she realized how hungry she was. She dug in, and did her aunt and uncle. Mr. Kirkland sat at the table, but didn't join them in eating she noticed. Seeing her eat, she saw her aunt and uncle smiling, the first time she had seen them smile since her parents had died. Guiltily, she realized everyone must have been very worried about her. After all, her aunt's sister and brother in law had died. This couldn't be easy for them. And they were stuck with her ungrateful ass.
After dinner, she hugged them both and apologized for being a pain to them. Of course they brushed it off, and told her not to worry about it, but they seemed happy to be acknowledged none the less.
Mr. Kirkland simply smiled a small self satisfied smile from where he sat serenely at the table with them.
When they were all finished, he rose.
"Miss Jones, shall we go for a stroll?"
She wanted to say no, but she wasn't sure how to without seeming rude. Somehow, she had a feeling he'd been counting on that. So she joined him.
They walked up the sidewalk in what she felt was awkward silence, but if Mr. Kirkland felt tense he didn't show it.
"Miss Jones, would you like to see my home? Since you are to be considering if you would like to live in it…" he asked. She hadn't even thought of the fact that she had never seen it before, not on the inside.
On the outside it was beautiful; its garden the best on the block, and it was one of the bigger and older houses. She had always wondered what it looked like inside, because the blinds were always drawn, and it was always dark.
"That'd be alright." She said, and he led the way.
She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to live with a stodgy old man. Would he be really strict, or would be a creep?
They walked up the path through his garden, full of spring flowers, and to the front door. He fumbled around for his keys, muttering to himself while patting down his pockets, then finally sighed and lifted up a potted plant by the door and pulled up a spare key. Amelia smiled to herself. What an absent minded person!
The inside was a lot like what she imagined when she was a child, and she had looked but at this house from where she had sat on her tricycle on the side walk.
The inside of the house was just what she had pictured it to be... it was dark, and even after Mr. Kirkland walked in ahead of her and turned on lamps, the house didn't get bright. The colors were mostly rich deep ones, and everything looked pretty old, or else just peculiar to her. She followed him down the hallway and into a kitchen that looked ill-used. The house was tidy and neat, but there was dust as well. It didn't look like he got to cleaning much.
"I'll put on some tea, shall I?" He asked as he walked into the kitchen.
"Sure, that'd be alright I guess." She was pretty sure he was making like British people tea. She had never had anything but iced tea, so this could be interesting...
He pulled out a chair for her, and indicated that she should sit at the table. She sat and after he filled a kettle with water, he joined her.
"Now. You know no one has ever told me exactly what happened..." He observed as if to no one. "I wonder, could you tell me?"
Amelia was totally taken aback. Seriously, this guy was asking her to re-tell the story of what happened to her parents? That was so rude! How could he even ask her something like that!
"How can ask me that?" She said, her temper overcoming her need to be polite or respectful of him. "I don't want to talk about it! What could you understand?" She cried, indignant. What kind of an insensitive person asked something like that?
But Mr. Kirkland replied in kind to her near yelling.
"Miss Jones, nearly everyone I have ever loved is dead." He said harshly, "You will not presume to tell me what I can and cannot understand. Now please, compose yourself."
She felt shame was over her. Okay, so she probably sounded like a brat there. And what did he mean nearly every one he loved was dead? What a horrible thing to say! But she was so ashamed of herself, she decided she had better just get on with it.
"Uh... okay. Well I was at school, I guess it was only on Friday, God, and I was just sitting there in class when they called me down to the office..." She began to explain, and he simply sat there, nodding here and there, but never saying a word. "...And now they are just gone! And everyone tells me how I'm gunna be okay but they don't get it! All my friends, all they do is give me all this crap and try and make it better, and it's never gunna get better!" She realized at some point that she had started crying. Mr. Kirkland still didn't say a word; he simply took her hand, and waited for her to keep going. And so she did. "... They are never coming back, and I miss them so much! I never even got to say goodbye, and now they are never coming back, and mom won't ever make me breakfast and dad won't ever watch movies with me, nothing!" She was bawling at that point, her chest heaving, and she realized that no one had ever let her get that far, everyone had cut her off way before this, telling her it would be fine. And Mr. Kirkland never did.
Instead, he stood and pulled her up with him, and gruffly hugged her. He pulled her close to him, and rubbed small circles in her back while her sobs shook her body. And she cried until she couldn't cry any more. Only then did he let her go, gently putting her back in her chair, and then placing a steaming cup in front of her. She blinked at it. Then she took a sip.
It wasn't the best thing ever, it was a little bitter, but it was warm and she continued to drink it.
And somehow, it felt like for the first time in days she could breathe. She sighed, taking deep breaths, and drinking deeply from her tea, and suddenly felt very tired. She lay her arms down on the table, and rested her head on them.
"Alright, let's get you to the couch, hm? Perhaps a bit of rest would do you some good." She barely remembered him helping her there. She remembered the warm fuzzy blanket that was laid over her, and wondering as she drifted off about Mr. Kirkland who lived alone in this big house by himself, and the people he might have lost.
She awoke the nest morning, aware that it was morning because the room was lighter than it had been before, but not much light made it through the drapes pulled over the windows. A small sliver of light broke through it, and Amelia watch the dust that floated through it. The house felt like it was asleep.
She took in the room she was in. She hadn't really seen it the night before. The couch was black leather, and there was a matching chair to it. There was a large fireplace and bookshelves that flanked it, full of all kinds of things. She noticed there were little artifacts all over the room as well. And there was a wing backed chair that sat next to the fireplace, in which a softly snoring Mr. Kirkland sat. God, this room looked like something from TV or something! She didn't know people actually lived in houses like this; it was like Masterpiece Theatre or something!
Was the whole house like this? Cool!
She got up cautiously so as not to wake Mr. Kirkland, and left the living room. The dining room was next to it, and it was the same! This was sweet! She began to look at all the things he had. There was a large framed old timey looking map on the wall, but it was in Latin or something. God, look at all this crap!
She heard a rustling in the other room, and assumed Mr. Kirkland was up.
"Ah, excellent, you're awake. I'm sorry I couldn't move you to the guest room to sleep, but it appears the couch was satisfactory? I phoned your aunt and uncle and alerted them of your whereabouts." He said.
'...alerted them of your whereabouts...'? That was such a weird way to say he told them where she was. This guy...
In the end, he insisted on walking her back to her house. She spent that day considering and weighing her options. At some point she would need to choose where to live.
And when she was at the funeral, Mr. Kirkland came to stand next to her when they lowered the coffins, about two seconds before she almost lost it she felt him at her side, his hand on her shoulder. How did he know? And in that moment she realized that she might need him. She decided to stay with him.
This decision wasn't without complication, however. There was still plenty to work out. He needed to clear out his guest room and make it suitable for her to live in, and they needed to move her belongings. Her aunt and uncle seemed only a little hurt that she chose not to go with them, but in the end they understood.
She was still nervous about being at the mercy of an old man, and the potential awkwardness of living with him. There were other conflicts as well.
"What do you mean you don't own a TV?" She said, her surprise making her louder than she had intended.
"I mean, I don't own a TV! I have a computer, what else do you want?"
"Yeah but like, what do you do?" There was still a lot that they needed to work out.
It certainly could be awkward. Like the first time she saw Mr. Kirkland in his pajamas, she felt like she should avert her eyes for his modesty or something. The house was strange, and she always noticed strange things in it. He had weird rocks and little statues and really old looking books and in one room she even saw an old sword. All these things made her intensely curious about him.
It took them about a week to get in moved in and settled. She also had to take a fair amount of her parent's old things with her, the things that had sentimental value and such. Mr. Kirkland had an expansive basement and attic, so they had enough room, but they were still mostly filled with more of his weird crap. Looking around his attic when they were bringing up a box of old photos, she made a mental note to sneak up there and go through all that stuff some time. He probably had lost treasure up there.
They were also learning about each other. Sure he had known her for her whole life, but they weren't all that close. Quite quickly, she learned a few things about him.
First, he was very smart. He had his doctorate she knew, and he also used to be a professor. He knew everything about everything, and if she had a question he would answer it, even if it was something she wasn't really expecting an answer too. ("… and I hate my calculus class! I wanna know who invented calculus, so I can push them down the stairs!" "Ah, well the use of calculus was developed by Isaac Newton, but is can be traced back to the Ancient Egyptians, who-").
Secondly, he was not to be trusted in food preparation of any kind. Either he would make something really weird and gross ("Haggis is what?") or he would simply botch the making of something pretty simply like eggs. She had learned quickly that she needed to insist to go grocery shopping with him, so that she might pick out food that required little preparation so she wouldn't starve. Then he would berate her for eating 'rubbish' so really it was a no win situation.
Also, that he could be upset easily by certain topics, and was very ardent about things. She suspected that he probably had quite a temper, even if after the first night she came there he never yelled at her. She sometimes heard him muttering curses at things he was trying to move that were too heavy, or something like that.
Eventually it was time for her to go back to school. She was dreading it, and she didn't want to deal with all the people looking at her differently, but she had always had a ton of friends, and she knew they would stick up for her.
Mr. Kirkland worked too. He said he was retired, but he got mail and phone calls and emails (on his dinosaur of a computer) that he always seemed to have to be dealing with. She wasn't really sure what he did. She was pretty sure he had been a history professor or something, but he must have been pretty legit is all those people where still asking him for his opinion.
One day, the night before she returned to school, they both sat in the kitchen considering their dinner options.
"Well, I suppose I could try my hand at a roast?" he asked tentatively.
"Uh, maybe…" she said, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
He fumbled around, again muttering curses, trying to get it together.
"Mr. Kirkland, what did you eat before I came here, you never seem to be able to do this part!" she said, laughing. He came and stood by where she sat at the table, he hands on the back of the chair next to her.
"Ah well. Not much I'm afraid. Over the years, I suppose I grew accustomed to my cooking." He said.
"Oh, did someone else cook for you before?" she asked curiously. "Oh Mr. Kirkland, did you have a wife?" She asked almost shyly.
"No, I never did." He blustered a bit, looking down. She looked at his hands, and saw the golden wedding band he wore on his ring finger. He seemed to be looking at it too. Never had a wife huh? Why would he say that? When he looked back at her, she had an eye brow raised. He huffed, clearly avoiding her, and went back to the stove.
She decided to drop it, but her curiosity only increased.
"Oh, and Mr. Kirkland-" she started, but he interrupted her.
"Please Miss Jones; you may call me Arthur if you like."
"Haha, if you want me to call you that, why do you still call me 'Miss Jones'?" she asked, laughing.
"Well, you never gave me permission to do otherwise. It would be impolite."
"You're so old fashioned! But thanks, I will call you Arthur, if that's alright. And call me Amelia okay?"
She was grateful when he offered to pick up her from school after her first day instead of making her take the bus.
"So, Amelia, how was your day?"
"Ugh, so frustrating! Every one stared at me the whole time like I was in a zoo or something, and they all had that stupid pitying look on their faces, I hated it!" she huffed.
"Please be more understanding. You are right; they don't understand what it is like to be you. They have never experienced that loss, and so they are curious, but they feel for you as best they know how. People have funny ways of responding to things they don't understand, but it doesn't mean they are trying to hurt you." He reasoned gently.
She supposed he was right.
Amelia was trying to do her homework after the first night of being gone that she came to Arthur. She was way behind, and while her teachers were very lenient about it, she still had make up work to do, and she didn't understand any of it.
That afternoon, when she had started on her English, realized she was screwed. They had started SAT prep and she was supposed be memorizing a ton of vocab. She didn't even know how to say these words, let alone what they meant.
Timidly, she knocked on Arthur's office door. He sat behind a large desk, with reading classes on, looking at one of those really old looking books.
"Arthur?" she asked.
"Yes?" he said, putting down his book.
"I need some help. This make-up work is crazy, and I don't know how to do any of this!"
"Have a seat then." He said, taking his glasses off, and laying them on the cluttered desk, "What is it?"
"Okay." She pulled out her word list, and started at the top. "What does aberration mean?" she asked, saying the word slowly, trying to sound it out.
"Ah, that would something that varies from the normal, or something not standard. And it's pronounced a-berr-A-tion."
"Oh. Okay, do what does-"
He knew the definition to every single one.
Later, she asked for help with her French homework, and he surprised her with his reaction. Normally he knew just about everything, and had never in her life told her that he didn't know something. But in this case, he got sour, said he would have nothing to do with the language, and told her she would need to figure it out for herself. She'd been stunned.
It was another thing she learned about Arthur Kirkland; he had a sometime not-so-subtle racism against the French. The mysteries continued.
And so they grew closer. He continued to pick her up from school, even though he always said that the next week he wouldn't be able to anymore. She learned that he had a pretty good sense of humor, even if it was a little weird. He was also fun to argue with, because he was quick and had really good comebacks. She remembered on she thought was so clever, and then she used it in school on someone. They had said it was a totally awesome come back, and told her how good it was and they had laughed about it. She told Arthur about it on the way home from school that day and he had smiled.
Her school continued to be a problem, and she was never the best student to begin with. She hated reading, and she hated all the boring crap they had to sit through all day. She probably would have failed all her classes were it not for Arthur.
In her absence, her class had read the Catcher in the Rye, and written an essay on it. So she got on sparknotes, and read the summary, then looked that the prompt. This wouldn't be too bad. She never read books like this, because they were always so boring, and they never made any sense. Screw those books.
She read the prompt again. This was so hard! She started a draft, wrote a paragraph, and sighed. Well, I give up, she thought, and walked downstairs once again and knocked on Arthur's office door.
"Yes?" he said, not looking up from what looked like a rock, which he was looking at under a magnifying glass.
"Uh, I need some help again."
"I suspected as much. What is it?"
"English again. I need to write a paper, on the Catcher in the Rye, have you read it?"
He was quiet for a time, and although he didn't look up at her, he no longer seemed to be looking at his rock either; rather he looked lost in thought.
"Yes, but it was some time ago. What do you need to do?"
She read the prompt, and handed him the paper were she had written her first couple of lines. He read both quickly, his brows narrowing.
Then he crumpled her paper and threw it out.
"This is rubbish, come back when you have actually read it." And he returned to his rock.
"Ugh! That was my paper!"She said, indignant that he had simply thrown it away.
"Yes. Was. It is no longer. Go read."
"But I don't have it!" she said, getting upset.
He looked up again, incredulous.
"What do you mean you don't have it?"
"I was reading a summary online and-"
"That is not what the assignment was! You were not asked to 'read a summary online and then right a paper'; you were asked to read the book. Do your side of the work, or don't expect me to help you. There is a copy of it on the shelf in the living room, the third shelf from the bottom, closest to the right wall."
He returned to his magnifying glass, and it was clear he was finished talking to her. She gave a growl of frustration, and stomped off to get the book.
Who did he think he was! What the hell. He didn't have to be so mean about it! She didn't have time to read it, they paper was due in three days! She just wanted a little help. Huffing, she searched the shelf for it.
Finally, she found it. It looked like a much older edition that the one given to her by the school (which she had left in her locker… she had enough books to carry as it was!).
Sliding it off the shelf, she opened it to flip though it, to see how long it was. In the inside cover was scrawled an untidy note:
Artie,
Hey doll. I know you say American stuff is shit, but you really should read this. It really is good. I think you should know a little bit about what he is talking about in here… but we're all looking for something huh? Anyway, I thought you would enjoy this, or at the very least acknowledge that American literature has a fighting chance, you snobby Brit. It's alright, I love you anyways. I love you forever and more than anything.
Yours,
A.
Amelia looked down at the note, and read it again. 'I love you forever and more than anything.' Closing the book, she held it gently and almost with awe.
Quickly she ran up to her room.
Arthur, that dog! So he had had someone once! He should have told her! Why was he so mysterious? What did the 'A' stand for? Abigail? Annie?
Her imagination was on a roll. What if she was his betrothed and he left her at the altar? She said she would love him forever and more than anything! That was no small thing. Or, Amelia suddenly realized, perhaps she had died…
Suddenly, the book became a clue, not an assignment. The mysterious A had said that Arthur 'should know a little bit about what he is talking about'. What did that mean?
It was no longer an assignment for school; it was a clue to the enigma that was Arthur Kirkland.
She read it until midnight, and then all the next afternoon until, feeling relatively depressed, she finished it. What did that say about Arthur? This person must have known him well. What she had approached as a clue only confused her more!
Wearily, she once again searched out Arthur, only to find him reading the paper in his chair in the living room.
"Hey." She said to announce herself.
He looked over his paper at her.
"I finished the book, okay?"
He folded the paper and moved to the couch, so she might sit beside him.
"And what did you think?"
"It was really sad! And I don't think I get it…"
Arthur sighed, and he looked sad too. She wondered if he was thinking about A.
"Yes, it was sad, wasn't it? I haven't read it for quite some time, but we can work through it…"
And together, they looked at the prompt, and he asked her questions about what she thought about the book, and slowly, she realized that the questions he was asking were leading her to make statements in her answers that would come together to answer the prompt.
"You know, you're an awesome teacher! It sucks that you don't teach anymore, I would love to have a class with you!" she said once she realized what he had done for her.
But he scoffed.
"Yes, well, there were some people who disagreed." He muttered.
"What? What do you mean?" she asked, confused.
"I was released from my position as a professor." He said, with a degree of bitterness in his voice.
"What? Why?" she asked, surprised.
"Nevermind." He grumbled, "Now back to this essay." And that's all he would say.
"Amelia, a word, if I might."
She looked up from where she had been looking at a magazine sprawled out on her floor. Arthur stood in her doorway.
"Sure."
"I have some old friends, er, colleagues of mine, who will be paying me a visit. I wanted to keep you informed about it."
"Friends of yours?" she asked, curious.
"Well, to a degree. One of them is more an old rival whom necessity has forced me to tolerate, and the other is in fact a friend." He grimaced a bit when speaking of the rival. She was now intrigued.
"Okay, well like when are they coming?"
"We can expect them next weekend. I hope you shall be on your best behavior around them, and be at your upmost polite."
"Oh, I mean, sure, aren't I usually?" she asked mischievously.
"You know what I mean. No taunting them the way you taunt me. And refer to them as Mr. Williams, or Mr. Bonnefoy. Well, actually, he might ask you to refer to him as Monsieur, in which case, that's up to you."
Ah he was French. Somehow that explained more than she thought maybe it should.
"Well, who are Mr. Williams and Monsieur Bonnefoy?" She asked, with as perfect a French accent as she could manage on his name, because she knew she could get him to make the lemon face.
His brows furrowed and he pursed his lips. Yup, there it was.
"They are both men I have known for many years, and they seem to take pleasure from imposing their company on me, so they have invited themselves."
"Oh, so you were all friends? Cool. Where are they from?"
"Well, they will come here from Quebec. Please do not worry much about it, and they won't bother you much. Well, Mathew won't bother you…" he said, more as if to himself. She wondered what that meant.
Amelia also started to get closer with her friends again. After her initial bitterness towards the world, she realized it was easier for her to be happy when she was with people; it helped her not to dwell on the bad things for too long. She went over to their houses some times after school again, and sometimes on the weekends they would go out. It seemed to give Arthur a bit of anxiety, and he always asked her half a million questions before she left, but he was never strict with her, as long as she did as she said she would, and let him know what was going on.
That Friday when Arthur picked her up from school, she knew that their guests had arrived. First of all, Arthur was late. He had never been late for anything since she had known him. And second of all, she had never seen Arthur look so frazzled.
"Hey there old man, you alright?" she asked as she got in the car.
He sighed.
"I'm sure somehow I will preserve. In fact, I feel having you home will help a bit."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you can distract them from bothering me."
"What! Arthur, is this a trap?" she said, with mock alarm.
"I will do what I must." He said with mock resolution.
She laughed at him for playing along, and he seemed to ease up a bit.
"Actually, I am more looking forward to your presence because you have a natural defusing quality to you. Hopefully, just having you there will make it easier."
Amelia didn't say anything to that, because she was too flattered to know what to say. That was sort of a strange compliment, but it made her feel happy regardless.
When they arrived at the house, she followed Arthur in the door apprehensively. He went into the living room, where two men sat on the couch. Both were older, probably around Arthur's age, but didn't look as aged as Arthur. One was a little thicker than the other, and balding more, and the other man was smaller, and his face looked sharper with age, not rounded. They were both gone gray.
"Ah! Arthur! Glad you made it back!" said one, his voice thickly French, and she had to assume that was Mr. Bonnefoy. So the other, the bigger one, must be Mr. Williams.
"Yes, yes," Arthur grumbled somewhat rudely.
"And who is it you have here?" Mr. Bonnefoy asked, trying to look around him at Amelia. Arthur moved aside to reveal her.
"This is Miss Amelia Jones."
She stepped forward, a little nervous.
"Hello, Mr. Williams, Monsieur Bonnefoy." She greeted. To her embarrassment Mr. Bonnefoy gasped.
"Arthur! Arthur, how cruel! You monster! How long have you been keeping her to yourself! She is lovely. Come here, my dear." He beckoned her.
She would have tried to hide behind Arthur again if it hadn't been for Mr. Williams, who smiled encouragingly at her in such a way as that she felt sure he wouldn't let Mr. Bonnefoy eat her.
She stepped closer.
"Nice to meet you, Amelia." Mr. Williams said. "How old are you?"
"Oh, uh, I'm gunna be sixteen this summer."
"Is that so?" He said smiling. She could see how he was actually Arthur's friend. He seemed much friendlier.
"She is beautiful!" Mr. Bonnefoy said.
"And what do you like to do?" Mr. Williams asked, ignoring Mr. Bonnefoy.
"Uh, let's see. I play baseball! And I like watching TV and stuff… um… I love food! But not when Arthur cooks…" she added slyly, laughing a little. Mr. Bonnefoy laughed a lot.
But to her concern, Mr. Williams looked sad. Arthur had given a grunt of indignation at her insult, but he was way passed having his feelings hurt by her playful insults, but did Mr. Williams think she meant it? Was there something else she said?
He looked over at Arthur, with this look on his face also, and she felt a little awkward.
"Amelia, could you go put the kettle on for me? I could do with a cup of tea. Please." Arthur asked, his voice light. She didn't argue.
"Sure! No problem old man." She said just as lightly and left the room. But she didn't go all the way down the hall, not right away. She lingered there to listen.
"…Arthur." Said Mr. Williams quietly.
"Yes?" he answered his tone terse.
"Are you going to be alright? She is just like him. And her last name is Jones? I thought-"
"Don't ask me if I'll be alright, I'm fine! Besides, she needed me. And she is Jeff's daughter, and her parents asked me after she was born if I would look after her if something happened to them. He would have wanted it, you remember how he was with Jeff -"
"Oh. Well that's explains the Jones I guess. Still. Baseball,.. And she called you old man too."
"I am an old man." Arthur growled, and Amelia had never heard him sound angry like that before.
"I would drop it Mathieu." Said Mr. Bonnefoy, his tone no longer anything like what it had been, but instead totally somber.
She scurried to the kitchen, her mind awhirl.
What did her father have to do with this? Her last name, baseball, the Catcher and the Rye, what did they have to do with each other? Who was A?
She wished Arthur didn't make this such a mystery.
When she came back into the room, they chatted with her a bit more, and Mr. Williams seemed full of questions for her. Mr. Bonnefoy only seemed too interested in irritating Arthur, and from the looks of it he was pretty experienced in this. She had never seen Arthur be that rude to any one in her life.
Around dinner time, Arthur proposed he make some dinner and Mr. Bonnefoy protested heartily, and followed him into the kitchen, leaving Mr. Williams and Amelia alone. She felt a little awkward and just wanted to go to her room and hide for a little while, but Mr. Williams was peering at her curiously.
"So how have you liked life here?" he asked.
"Oh, I like it. Arthur is very kind to me, and he seems pretty busy most of the time but I am doing school work too so I am busy too I guess. He helps me though! He's really smart, ya know. I know he used to be a teacher… but I don't really know what he does now…"
"Oh, he never told you? He is one of the most published historians on Elizabethan England in the world. He is one of the foremost experts on the period. He used to be a history professor, teaching British History." Mr. Williams said pleasantly.
Amelia thought her jaw might have dropped. Was that true? No wonder he knew so much, he was like some kind of genius or something!
"He never told me!" she said, delighted by this new information. Maybe there was more she could out of him. Feigning innocence she asked, "Do you know why he stopped teaching?"
Mr. Williams sighed.
"Ah, he had a disagreement with the university he worked for, and never really went back to it after that." He said, shaking his head.
"Oh, what was the disagreement about?"
"Well-" he started, but Arthur entered the room suddenly.
"Amelia, you're not pestering Mathew are you?" he asked.
"No!" she insisted. Man, she had been so close!
"Hm. Well, come help me set the table, please. Francis is cooking something, so you ingrates might actually eat it." He grumbled the last part, and Amelia rose and slunk after him. She turned to smile apologetically at Mr. Williams but he gave her a wink.
Why did old people always do that?
Dinner had been good, Francis was an excellent cook, and Amelia thought the kitchen was probably happy to have someone who didn't abuse it for once.
Both their guests were pleasant in conversation, even if they seemed to bring out the worst in Arthur.
She asked them about their trip.
"You came here together then?" she asked, after asking how their flight had been. She wasn't sure why they seemed to stick together so closely if they were just friends.
"What? Of course we came here together dear. Did Arthur not tell you? We are married."
Arthur grumbled something.
"You are?" she squealed, "Oh my god, that so sweet!" she gushed to them, before rounding on Arthur, "You never told me that!" he just shrugged.
Mr. Williams smiled.
"That's alright, I'm sure it slipped his mind. Anyway, yes, Francis and I are married."
That might have been the cutest things she had ever heard.
Then one weekend, Arthur announced he would be going to Chicago for a conference. He said that he would take her with him, but it began on a Friday, and missing school was not an option, and he would be back Saturday night, so she should be fine. She wasn't worried about it either, she would just come home on the bus for a change, and she would watch TV (the one from her old house that she had hooked up in her room) and eat junk food until he got back. She thought the freedom sounded nice.
If she was totally honest she was a little nervous about staying in his old creaky spooky house. But she was totally not scared.
On Saturday, in the early afternoon, the phone rang. She barely heard it over the music she had been blasting from her iHome (nothing keeps ghosts away like bad pop music) and so she had to make a mad dash for the land line.
"Hello?" she said out of breath.
"Amelia."
"Oh, hi Arthur."
"Why are you out of breath dear?"
"Oh, I didn't hear the phone at first, so I ran for it, nbd."
"N… b… d?" Arthur asked.
"Stands for no big deal. So what's up old man?"
"Ah, yes, I was wondering if you might do me a favor."
"Sure."
"I left something in my office, do you think you could find it for me? I should remember where it is, you won't have many problems. Then can you fax it to me? I will give you the number."
With the number in hand and a description of what she was looking for, she entered his office. She had never been in here past the threshold, and she wanted to see what was lying around while she had permission to be in there.
The office was still, and cluttered. She walked around behind the desk, looking for anything interesting. There were papers piled, and books, junk and…
A single photograph in a frame. It was of two men. She picked it up to look closer. Both smiling and bright, and she had to admit they were attractive. Wait. That was Arthur! She knew it! He was wearing something stuffy in a similar way to how he dressed now, but he looked young, probably in his twenties, and happy. He wasn't smiling, he was grinning, and he was laughing. His hair was scruffy even then, and he still had those thick eyebrows. And there was a man next to him, who had his arm slung over Arthur's shoulder. He was a few inches taller, and more broadly built, he wore glasses, and smiled even bigger than Arthur.
Nearly everyone I loved is dead.
She wondered if she was looking at a ghost.
She looked closer. He looked so familiar! Where had she seen him before… wait… in old picture with her dad maybe?
Her mind was racing. She put the frame down, and quickly found the paper Arthur was looking for and faxed it to him.
Then she got to other business. This was definitely another clue.
She ran upstairs to the attic, and found the old box of photo's that had belonged to her parents that were stashed there. Pulling it open, she began to go through it. Very soon she was crying, because seeing their faces made her miss them, but she had to keep going. She had to face them again for Arthur, if she was going to figure this out. After packet and packet of photos, she found what she was looking for.
It was picture of her father from his baseball team in middle school. He stood smiling with his coach, the same man with classes and a huge smile. She couldn't believe it.
Her father had loved his baseball coach, and her mother said he had been like a second father to him. Amelia knew her father's father, her grandfather, hadn't been a very good dad, and that baseball meant a lot to her dad. It was the reason she started playing baseball, was because of her dad.
He dad also told her that was where their last name came from. His father had been a pretty not nice guy, and Mr. Jones had sort of taken to looking after him. When her father had turned 18, he had changed his last name to Mr. Jones' because he said it meant more to him.
She had seen this man if photos with her dad before, there was a couple that were around the house when she had been a kid. But she never knew what happened to him. No one had ever really talked about him all that much.
So what did this have to do with Mr. Kirkland, why was there a photo of the two of them in his office? They looked so happy, and Arthur still had that photo which must mean it was really important to him.
She thought back to what Arthur had said to Mr. Williams back when he was visiting…
"Don't ask me if I'll be alright, I'm fine! Besides, she needed me. And she is Jeff's daughter, you remember-"
"Oh. Well that's explains the Jones I guess. Still. Baseball,..
She needed more information. She formulated a plan. Sorry, Arthur. I don't want to hurt you, but if you just trusted me enough to tell me, I wouldn't have to do this…
When Arthur returned home Sunday, Amelia greeted him, and when he sat down for tea, she joined him (although she opted for a bottle of water over tea).
He told her about the conference, or as much as he thought she could be interested in, and then asked her what she had done in his absence.
"Oh, well, I did my homework, I watched some TV, hung around the house and… I looked at some of the old picture of my parents."
"You did?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah. It was hard, but I wanted some good ones to keep around, so I thought I would go through them and face some of my fear about it…"
Arthur nodded.
"That's very brave of you Amelia, I know how hard that must have been for you. And you seem to have taken a very mature attitude about it, I am proud of you."
She felt even more guilty now for what she was about to do.
"Thanks… do you want to see them?" she asked.
"Oh, er, why not?" he said, shrugging.
She ran to her room to get them. Sorry Arthur.
She returned to the kitchen table with a selection of photos of her parents that she had chosen to keep for herself. Some were of them when they were still dating, there was one from their wedding, some with Amelia when she was a baby, a few from family vacations, and some old ones, from when they were kids…one of her father and his baseball coach…
She went through them, and told Arthur about what each one was of.
"And this one, this is from the summer that we went to Myrtle Beach, see, there's mom and me, we made that sand castle! I got so sunburned that day…" Arthur just smiled at them, nodding, and asked a few questions here and there.
"And then there's this one!" she covertly watched his expression, out of the corner of her eye, to gauge his reaction. "See, it's my dad!" as Arthur saw it, in that instant, she almost wished she hadn't done it. "And that was his baseball coach, there."
"So it was. Amelia, I am very tired from traveling, I need to rest. Will you lock up?" and with that he left the kitchen.
She sat there for a moment.
The second he saw the picture, he looked so heartbroken and sad, she knew she had hit something. He definitely was close to him. They looked sort of similar… were they brothers? And Arthur had been so upset by it that he had had to leave almost immediately afterwards.
You told me you were proud of me for being mature about it old man, I wish I could say the same…
For the last couple of days, Arthur had been becoming increasingly difficult to be around. She wasn't really sure why, and she wasn't really sure she wanted to know why. He was angry, he had snapped at her several time for no reason, he wasn't eating well, and he didn't seem to be sleeping. She would lay in her bed, at eleven o'clock, and listen to him bang around down stairs, or in the master bed room, which was just across the hall from her.
She had been invited to a 4th of July barbecue with her friends, and so she asked him for permission to go the day before, and he simply grunted in response. She was actually getting kind of pissed. What they hell was his problem? Well, because he had just grunted at her, he didn't ask when she would be home. Fine, no curfew? She would come home when she wanted.
She didn't feel bad about being gone at the party all day, and she stayed with her friends until the fireworks were over, at around eleven that night. Then they goofed off, and in the end she wasn't home until 12:25, which she knew meant Arthur was asleep. He never called her cell phone to ask where she was, so she had to assume that he didn't care.
It sort of hurt her feelings.
When she got home, she quickly pushed the front door open, expecting a dark and quiet house. But the light was on in the kitchen. Then she heard someone banging around in there. She almost called out for Arthur, to see if it was him, but she stopped herself when she heard a glass clinking on the counter. Was he just up getting some water? Then she heard it clink again. Wait, was he drinking? Were those shots?
Then she heard a growl, and the sound of glass breaking. She jumped. Then… was Arthur crying?
She was afraid to go in there, but at the same time she knew she had to. He needed her, the same way she had needed him, and he might not tell her what was wrong with him, but she was going to figure it out.
They he started yelling, but his words were slurred and she couldn't really make it out. She ran into the kitchen, which was trashed, and saw him throwing another glass at the wall. A small pile of shattered glasses and a few plates lay on the floor.
"Oh god," she said, running over to him. "Arthur! Arthur, stop!"
"No! Are you happy now, you prick? Does this make it better?" he yelled at the thin air as he hurled the shot glass at the wall. A bottle of some alcohol sat on the counter.
"Arthur," she said, "Please!"
"No! I won't! This is all your fault, Alfred!" he yelled turning on her, then seemed to realize it was Amelia there. Amelia on the other hand had realization hit her like a freight train.
In an instant it all came crashing into her. Alfred, Alfred Jones. That was that man's name.
The photo, I love you forever and more than anything, Yours, A., baseball, her father, and Arthur, nearly everyone I have ever loved had died, Arthur and Alfred, together in that photo.
Arthur on the other hand seemed to have realized what had happened, because he looked suddenly mortified, then turned and hobbled out of the room as quickly as he could. "Where were you?" he called back accusingly over his shoulder.
"At the 4th of July party, I told you." She answered, following him. But that was all he said. He retreated into his bedroom without another word.
She was left to ponder, shaking like a leaf in the hallway.
If Alfred, this Alfred, was the same person who had written the note in The Catcher in the Rye, then they definitely weren't brothers. Nor could they have been friends.
Arthur is gay? She realized. He has to be…
His ring! Oh my god… they had been married? Wait, that wasn't legal back then… maybe they had just worn them? And now some happened to Alfred, because now Alfred was gone, and Arthur was alone. Tears ran down her face.
Alfred might have loved Arthur always and forever, but it didn't look like he was around to do so any more.
Oh, poor Arthur…
She stood in awe for a few more moments before retreating to her own room still in shock.