one—
Grown, struggling and succeeding almost completely by herself even with the constant offered help by the foster family that had built themselves around her, Helga had lived her own life.
There are no pictures on the walls, no television in the main room, no knickknacks on the shelves.
Arnold searches the little house she had been so proud of after the memorial without much thought, only sure that he is trying to find something he has no words for, and finds only pieces of a puzzle.
The food bowl of the same dog currently curled up miserable and alone on the still unmade twin bed sitting in the kitchen; piles of textbooks stacked on the desk with a still-open notebook, an ancient laptop charged and sitting nearby to be used by a woman who will not return; an mp3 player sitting by a basket of unfolded laundry, white and pink ear buds tangled on top.
When he presses a button, it lights up and he finds Fleetwood Mac paused mid-song. When he skips forward a few times, curiosity dull and heavy and unfamiliar in his chest, he finds Bob Dylan and some truly godawful heavy metal band that he hates next in the list of musical selections.
Only Helga, and he can only barely force himself to put it down and continue on his way.
A worn pink towel hanging by the shower, half-empty soap bottles sitting inside, and he slips back out of the bathroom after only a moment, feeling uncomfortable and too much like an intruder.
Arnold opens the walk-in closet and finds one half only partially filled with clothes and a couple of pairs of shoes; he glances at the other side and blinks at the wall of yarn, so thoroughly confused (and mildly frightened) by the sight that he steps right back out of the closet and closes it behind him.
In the little nightstand by her bed, he finally finds an old picture envelope hidden behind a half-empty bottle of lotion and another little ball of yarn with tiny (and incredibly painfully sharp) little needles sticking out, and doesn't think twice. The dog ignores him when he eases down onto the mattress beside her, more focused on waiting for her owner than caring what the bunch of humans were doing while she was out (after all the dog knew all the others intimately), and Arnold searches the pictures.
Phoebe from middle and high school; Gerald and Phoebe's prom picture, and Phoebe standing with her parents, proud and smiling in her graduation gown; Olga, Phoebe, Olga; Gerald and Phoebe together on the steps of a church, and then Phoebe in the hospital with the newborn baby snuggled contently in her arms; Olga, Olga, Olga, Olga… and if these shots seem odd, the blonde woman's face increasingly sad in the last handful of pictures, he doesn't think much of it.
Because there are none of Helga and for a moment Arnold hates her, despises her, wants to hurt her for leaving him nothing and it's stupid since Phoebe and Gerald have already promised to give him copies of everything they have, not just the pictures but also the family movies she drifts through like a ghost, and none of it matters as he drops the pictures on the nightstand tiredly.
Another wave of emotion, a slow building crush barely held back and he drops his head into his hands as he tries to breath, sits and shakes and smells her in the room she's left behind.
(and he'd snuck into her room in the boarding house every few nights after she'd left until her scent had vanished and no one has been allowed to have that one since, and not even Gerald knows it.)
He can hear their voices in the kitchen area, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes.
Shudders and struggles to keep his breathing steady.
Movement behind him, a subtle shift before something bumps his back and he looks over his shoulder with burning eyes, finds Helga's dog gazing up at him, her expression flat and forlorn.
The tag on the light pink collar reads "Betsy".
Arnold pats her on the head and then doesn't quite know what else to do with her.
It isn't too much of a problem a moment later, Phoebe gazing at him quietly from the small hallway and looking impossibly small in her black dress and cardigan.
"Olga brought her for her a few years ago," she explains, and he swallows, doesn't know why the idea tugs at him so oddly. "She complained about her from day one but we all knew better… you should have seen her the first time she was sick, I haven't seen her so upset since—"
Sudden silence, Phoebe's eyes shifting quickly away, something dark and angry creasing her mouth for a moment, and he tenses uncomfortably, eyes dropping back down to the dog.
Since you left us for your parents, since you gave us up for San Lorenzo and then showed up and acted betrayed that we had managed to get along just fine without you…
Arnold has never kidded himself when it comes to the feelings of the few friends he still has, knows in that awful hollow inside what loss had finally caused Helga to learn to hope for nothing from no one.
Betsy stares up at him, sad and impossibly aware, and he knows that Helga must have curled up with her for so many years through long nights— and then his arms encircle the dog's neck, body bending as he curls tightly around her on the same bed.
His own breathing sounds harsh in the silence of Helga's bedroom.
Phoebe says, "Arnold…" in a tear-thick voice and then nothing else, and he does not look at her again.
Dr. King could retire off him.
Her short brown hair shot through with gray, glasses always perched on her nose, she looks startlingly rough the morning he shows up without an appointment and accepts him without question.
"How are you doing?" is skipped, as well as "did she suffer?" and "would you like to talk?"
Each question would be as useless as the next, and he sits dull and tired on her couch, eyes locked on the wall above and behind her head as he struggles and fails and struggles more to simply speak.
"You haven't slept since the hospital," she doesn't even pretend to ask and he only sighs silently, head tilting back to gaze up at the ceiling instead, unwilling and unable to even lie to her.
Instead Arnold lies at home in his bed avoiding his parents and the few people that are calling him constantly, helpless and useless in his mourning as two days pass and time does not restart.
"When is her—?" Dr. King starts and then stops at once when his voice escapes, small and helpless:
"I wanted her to know," he begins to say before an aching moment's hesitation, before he then continues, defeated and powerless and harshly honest, "I couldn't even…"
The new awful weight sits inside him, crushing pieces of him into dust.
"What were you going to tell her?" the doctor asks quietly, curiously emotional as she gazes at him.
But Arnold says nothing, eyes focused blindly on something only he can see until he breathes out and closes his eyes, remembers things that will not happen because he has left that man behind, because he has risked too many things and even certain things, now, create nothing but panic inside.
"Arnold."
"I was already grieving," and the words burst out of him like an old confession, his voice splintering but somehow staying strong as he admits what he can no longer ignore. "I don't even know when I started and everything feels concrete now, like I built a sandcastle and thought it was gone but it was just sitting there until I stepped on it—"
He is crying, sharp awful noises ugly in the silence, and the window of the doctor's office overlooks a promise of rain that rolls across the sky and it seems there's so little rain on this coast these days, so little anywhere, only endless storms that light the sky and fade away into the night—
He cannot stop crying and rain splashes against the glass, thunder trembling far in the distance.
And the rain passes but the storm does not, is still rolling above him when he drives alone to the small chapel early the next morning after his third sleepless night.
Phoebe does not bother him again.
No one does.
So Arnold sleeps in Helga's cold bed on top of her sheets, Betsy comfortable against his side.
When he wakes so many hours late (close to morning, actually, and he cannot feel guilt past the weight) he does not touch the contents of her fridge or her cabinets, only searches long enough to find the dog food before he goes back to his nameless search for what he can't possibly explain.
His jacket is tossed aside within the hour, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up almost an hour after that, and he goes through her closet like a living ghost, wide awake and calmer than he's been in—
Arnold does not remember.
Sneakers and sandals, no heels (he's only vaguely aware that the grimace on his face is close to a smile) and no skirts, only a small handful of summer dresses, bright blues and pinks and two in black, the last still with their price tags attached, unworn date dresses purchased and then tucked away. The rest of her clothes are made up of sleeveless tops and old band shirts and hoodies of all colors that hang close to the door of the closet, easier to grab when she'd been rushing out the door.
A box of hats is stacked above, and a search through them has him struggling for a moment, fingers closing spastically around the old knit hat she'd worn for years (to at least partially hide the old pigtails she'd struggled so hard to finally get rid of in their senior year, he knows now). Under that more hats and he finds one made with intricate designs and ones worn so roughly they'd developed holes— no, not developed holes, there were holes in the hats and now he glances curiously over his shoulder at the wall of yarn he'd been so confused by the night before, stares at it thoughtfully.
When he starts to search that side he finds plastic drawer units set side by side beneath the yarn, two filled to the brim with long needles and long hooks and far too many little organizers full of things that just leave him confused and curious at the same time, having no idea what she'd been doing with them but left a little fascinated. In another drawer are wooden hoops of all sizes and little balls of thick thread; when he opens a few he finds pictures drawn out in sharp little stitches, buses and buildings and a dozen images he's almost forgotten from their childhood.
Their old neighborhood, mapped out perfectly in cross-stitch.
The third is filled with a rainbow of folded fabric, and now he sees stacked on top of those drawers an old sewing machine, most of the text on the plastic worn off but lovingly cared for.
The fourth drawer is enough to make him hesitate, this one tucked against the far wall and, he notices as he crouches to study it warily, papered inside to hide whatever it holds.
He hesitates for the first time, hands reaching out to touch the cold plastic only to still as he considers her effort at privacy in a home she'd shared with only her dog. He studies the last unit of drawers hard for a long time, just able to make out what looks like books and papers past the edge of the scrapbook paper that blocks the contents from his view, and is decided.
Swallowing emotion he turns his gaze back to the yarn, some of which he can now see is still on needles or attached to hooks, tucked away into worn Ziploc bags and, some of them, labeled clumsily.
"cot/lin, neck, circ 6," one reads and he wishes she were with him just to explain what the hell that means because he's curious even if he feels like he's just walked into her private crazy land.
But—
But.
There is something right in this corner, something alive and her in the chaos of her creation, and he leans back against the wall of the closet, takes the feel of her in as if he can make this last.
It aches, that she had hidden these things away, and this pain is enough to swallow him for a moment, enough to leave him sliding down the wall to find some semblance of control, some stability.
There is none.
Only the weight that will not leave and a growing jagged agony beneath even that—
Betsy is barking, the sound hopeful and a little happier, and by the time he's lifted his head tiredly to blink dumbly into the light of Helga's bedroom, Phoebe's gaze flutters from him to that hidden corner and then back again. Her expression is hostile for a moment, savage and vicious as a mother bear until she blinks, shifts and seems to calm. "You didn't—"
"I didn't," he manages past the pain and she looks confused now, awkward and unsure as she shifts from one foot to the other, looks down at the black coat folded over one arm. "You could have—" Hesitation, Phoebe seemingly struggling with the words before she closes her eyes and takes a brave breath, lets it out as if she's decided something. "You could have," she starts again, and the strength in her voice almost makes him envy her, "she— she wanted you to have it if anything ever—"
"She had a will," he starts, and she nods, and he's still crouched miserably against the wall, grief overwhelming as he glances at the plastic drawers she'd done such a careful job of hiding.
"She got it after Olga—"
Silence, again, and he remembers Olga in the pictures and keeps his mouth carefully shut.
"I heard about Miriam," he says slowly and she nods carefully, mouth tightening as she stares silently at her own shoes. He remembers hearing about the cancer a few years before, remembers the sharp need to call Helga, to contact her somehow, to go by her job and just… say something. (Touch her hand and nod along with the lie when she insisted that she didn't care, and be there later when the lie inevitably came apart beneath the strain.) And he remembers that he hadn't, that he'd stayed quiet for a week, a month, and that the ugly shame in him had just festered as the time kept slipping by. "I didn't know about Olga, when— when did she—?"
Her mother and then her sister, and he hadn't even known about Olga.
Gerald had to have known, and he hadn't said anything, and Arnold isn't stupid enough to be angry.
"She, ah—" Something awkward and uncomfortable darkens Phoebe's voice, her face. "Last year."
She says nothing else and something wavers inside him, uncertainty causing him to glance over the last drawer, study it for long seconds as he tries not to process Phoebe's unease. He half wants to ask "why me?" but asking that, he knows, would be too blind even for him, even now. Instead:
"What is it?"
Phoebe only stares at him, expression purposely vague, and he presses his palms against his face for a moment, then pushes himself up to wobble two steps and drop back down in front of the drawers.
Fingers hovering over the plastic, unwilling to touch: "I wish she'd hated me."
An awful moment of silence, Phoebe's voice unforgiving if not cruel: "So do I."
He treasures the memories of Helga's joy.
He remembers the rougher moments perfectly, had memorized them through the years because they are moments with Helga, but there are a handful of memories that shine brighter than any others, that are tucked close to his heart even years later as he grieves for a life unlived in a boarding house he is becoming too terrified to even leave to go shopping.
She had looked almost her age those moments, weightless and fully alive all at once, not afraid or angry to a degree that, in hindsight, no child should be.
And he remembers all of them, every single one, from the first day he'd seen her to the last, too brief periods that were bright enough to outshine even her awful struggle of a childhood. Kindergarten, surrounded by blocks that she'd managed to grab before anybody else could get them and once she'd frightened away the rest of the kids, she'd played without shame in her own little corner, and he remembers watching her silently, unable to look away. And third grade, when she and Phoebe would be playing alone for a few minutes by themselves reading in their own little corner, Helga's laughter escaping after Phoebe would whisper something with large eyes and an overly innocent expression as she pointed down at the book open between them.
Arnold remembers her in the pool in the dress he'd liked (he remembers the exact shade of light brown and she'd felt warm and strong and fearless in his arms and he wishes he could restart his life from his childhood, be as brave as she was and do it all again, do everything right even though there is no right), her hair flattened to her skull as she'd peered up at him in the moment before she'd dragged him so easily down with her. He remembers her laughter when his head had broken the surface, the delight in it as she'd splashed at him shamelessly, nothing seemingly lurking behind her eyes as she'd laughed not at him but because she'd been enjoying herself.
And, god, the joy it caused in him, Helga happy for just a few minutes, really happy.
And he remembers the laughter that had bubbled up inside himself for just a moment, the instinct he'd fought down to lunge at her and splash her right back, to make her little bit of laughter grow, hit that pitch he was always waiting to hear, hoping to hear, never heard enough.
And the moment had been ruined a heartbeat later, Helga shrieking and exploding away from him, and he remembers the way his heart had trembled a little in his chest before he'd realized she'd been more surprised than anything else, and then he'd been mad at himself, privately embarrassed.
And he'd hated that turtle, god, he'd hated that turtle for ending the moment even if Helga herself would have crushed it all just a second or two later all on her own, devastated him with a look, a word, her face closing off and her eyes hardening and in hindsight, god—
In hindsight, god, Helga had taught him so well.
Helga's life fills the little drawer unit, and it's too much life to be held in just these small things.
Letters and hard-covered journals, small boxes that shake with trinkets that she could not throw away and notebooks so old they were threatening to fall right off the old spiral bindings.
The letters had been carefully laid out and pressed flat to make as much room as possible, their matching envelopes tucked next to them, each addressed to Helga from Inga. The pages are filled with easy things and heavy things, advice on how to keep the fabric from tightening and assurances that things will not always be this painful, promises that Helga had been forced to keep if she ever wanted Inga's permission to visit her when she came of age. Plane tickets are a promise that Inga had kept hers and Arnold is achingly grateful, notes that the last letter had arrived only a month or so before.
The letters are on top, a shield between her most private life and the world outside the drawers and Arnold is stupid, yeah, but he's not that kind of stupid, not unless he's trying to be.
"We'll have to contact her," he manages as he touches a palm to the letters, but Phoebe simply shakes her head and reaches past him to thumb an old journal, impossibly ancient but still kept safe.
"She threw out a bunch of them over the years," she says quietly, and he cannot touch the journals, is too afraid to, knows too well what all is contained within them and cannot survive Helga's heart.
Even gone she is too much for him, burns too brightly for him to touch without her reducing him to ash.
"—are the ones she couldn't let go of."
Arnold moves past them, unable to cope, and instead peeks into one of the small containers. An old keychain, the pocketknife he recognizes immediately as the one she'd bought as a kid, a couple of plastic rings and an old shoelace and he understands only the pocketknife, and sets the box aside.
More journals and a pile of fabric that Phoebe laughs at quietly, stretches out for him to see.
"Her first scarf," she explains as she pulls it close, cradles it to her heart. "She was making it for my birthday but then she refused to give it to me," and if he weren't aching so, he'd be laughing.
There's holes in the scarf, and really awful tassels and knots on the sides and—
And he would have worn it, wouldn't have let her steal it back even if she were embarrassed.
There's a pile of pictures in one corner, and he flips through them carefully, recognizing immediately their age but taking a minute longer to recognize Miriam in the young blonde woman with the giant hair and the bright smile on her face. Miriam as a little girl, Miriam at her sixteenth birthday party, Miriam in her graduation gown and looking almost the same age in the next snapshot as she stands proud and visibly pregnant and impossibly horribly young with someone that he recognizes instantly as Bob.
It's his only appearance in Helga's carefully hidden life so far, and he doubts Bob will appear again.
A high school yearbook that must be Miriam's as well, and then her obituary tucked between the pages ("survived by a loving husband and devoted daughters") and he closes the book immediately a moment later, rattled when he glimpses the corner of the picture hidden in the back pages. "Right," he breathes and Phoebe doesn't seem bothered, sad but not bothered.
"She had to sneak to get the picture behind Bob's back," she explains, and he somehow has no doubt who it was that helped Helga orchestrate that particular little mission.
"I didn't get a picture of my grandparents in their caskets," he feels the need to say aloud and she just stares at him flatly, expression bland and fearless, one eyebrow lifted just slightly.
"It was important to Helga," is all she finally says, and his hands remember the feel of the box that Helga is now locked inside, and he will not forget the feel of it if he lives another hundred years.
His parents live with him now, had moved in and refused to leave him since they had come back the final time from their obsessive trips away from the States, and he hates them more.
His father finds him with his brushes and his paints the night before he goes to see Dr. King, hovers in the doorway for too long while Arnold works slow and careful, his blindingly bright lamps highlighting the streaks of color.
After too many minutes of awkward silence: "Do you need anything?"
"Nothing from you," and it's the first honest response Arnold has let himself express in years.
Because he had waited and then he had searched and he had found them and for a little while they had been happy with him— until they'd felt that urge to go exploring again, and he'd been stupid enough to rip up his entire life to follow them, to stay with them for years and he had lost everything—
His eyes hurt, his neck aches, but he's got the image burned into his mind and he can't sleep anyway, has tossed and turned until he's worked himself up even more the couple of times he's tried.
"Your mom's worried about you."
Arnold is only shifting upwards from his work, unable to hide his irritation as he tilts his head up to face his father, to meet the older man's gaze heatedly. "You're stealing my light," he forces himself to explain as calmly as possible, and feels nothing but an awful relief at the pain in his father's face.
Because Arnold wants him to suffer and he can admit it now, there's no reason not to, there's nothing in his life that he's avoiding anymore, he has lost everything, has torn it all to shreds because all of his bated breaths had been for nothing in the end, they were as human as everyone else—
His father says, voice heavy with sadness, eyes dark with emotion: "I'm so sorry, son."
And he is, Arnold sees it in the deep lines of his face, hears it in his voice.
But it doesn't matter, not anymore, and things feel… uneven and dangerous right now, and he cannot think of how to avoid the feeling, of how to escape the pain he's feeling, he can only drown in it.
"It doesn't matter," he assures his father as he turns back to his work, and he can taste salt but it doesn't matter either, all that matters is the mixing of the colors, the lines and curves in front of him.
After a long time, he hears footsteps fade away and he does not think again about his father.
"Did I make her happy?" he asks, as Helga's life lies scattered around them like the wreckage of a ship tossed apart upon the rocks. Down in the bottom of the drawers, deep down beneath everything else he has found the four pictures she had kept of him and he does not recognize the boy she'd loved.
Phoebe's laugh is short and sad, a little bitter, as she cradles the mess of a scarf to her chest.
"You're the only one who did."
an: one reviewer suggested that everything will be explained in time. this is correct. next update is done but will not be posted for a few days while i work on the next few chapters after that. pretty quickly i know a few of you will at least figure out the basic concept. go ahead, come up with some ideas. the next update will, uh, explain at least a couple of things.