Happy Birthday, Olivia
Peter sat on the steps in front of their house, his size and shape aggrandized by his black overcoat. He'd positioned himself dead-center with his shoulders forward, legs set apart and elbows on his knees, taking up as much space as he could. His head was down, but his eyes glowered out at the street. There was barely enough room for Olivia to sit down next to him; she had to push one of his knees out of the way. He was focused, but not on her. He was concentrating hard on projecting a terrible energy out into the dark.
"You going to stay out here all night?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, quietly and immediately. She nodded and settled into the step beside him. They sat together for minutes, and to his credit none of his warning anger seeped toward her. He didn't let it. He was a nuclear reactor, well contained.
Pumpkins had started appearing on the steps of neighboring houses, with nylon spiderwebs and fake tombstones from the holiday devotees. The leaves were as bright as they were ever going to be, and half of them were already in piles on the ground. Peter almost wished for a rake to occupy himself over the coming hours, but he wouldn't want to risk dilution of his purpose. A raking man would not be nearly as clear in his message as one who was sitting and waiting.
Olivia wanted to tell him he didn't have to do this, but she knew he knew that already. He was here because it was significant to him somehow, or because this action was meant to speak directly to her. She couldn't pin down exactly what it was meant to say, in part because there was something so strong and deep in his determination that the ideas it gave her were ideas she would have ordinarily dismissed.
She wanted to tell him that her stepfather didn't bother her anymore, that it was a part of her past that was ugly and irritating but that didn't wound her as deeply now as it once had. It would be a flat lie, and he would know immediately, so she didn't say that either. She knew, too, that it did bother her, and that Peter sitting out here on the porch was making her proud to know him. Proud to mean whatever it was she meant to him that had him sitting out here, making sure that no spiteful envelopes would make it near her tonight. She stayed silent, but Peter knew there were words she was stifling.
"Just say it," he said. Olivia looked up at the sky, squinting with indecision.
"You don't have to do this," she said. Inane or not, it was better than a lie. She wasn't quite brave enough or sure enough of her position in his life to say 'thank you.'
Peter kept staring inscrutably straight ahead. He was mulling, parsing, dissecting her words. He wanted to find assurance that she wasn't asking him to go inside and leave the whole thing alone.
"Is there any small part of you that wants to get that card?" he asked finally. "For whatever reason."
She looked hard at him. "Like what? The possibility for more revenge?" She twisted her hands together. "The beauty of a nine-year-old shooting her abusive stepfather is that no one blames the nine-year-old. I had my chance. I missed."
"As I remember, you hit him twice," he said.
"He lived: I missed," she said. Peter felt a little chill run down his spine. She was talking like some of the colder-blooded associates he'd ever known, and he wasn't sure if it unsettled him or turned him on.
"You know if he ever gets near you-"
"I can't prosecute a man for sending a birthday card," she interrupted tersely. "And I'm sure I can't shoot him for showing up."
"I was going to say I know some guys," Peter said with a quiet smile. Olivia relaxed a little.
They watched the empty street together. The streetlights weren't strong enough to show the colors of the trees or the details of anything beyond their small spotlights, so everything was a series of gray shadows from the ground to the indigo sky. It was murky and crisp at the same time, and the smell of illegally burning leaves was a haunting, faint pleasure. Wind swirl the leaves and Olivia tried imagining that her stepfather was parked a block away, that he was watching her now. She imagined he might see Peter, might underestimate Peter, and she could only hope he'd get close enough to be corrected.
"No," she said. "I don't want that card."
Peter nodded. "Then go inside," he said, firmly but not pejoratively. "Get some sleep." Olivia stood and stretched into the air, pulling for a last taste of leaf smoke before she turned and walked inside. Peter resumed his stance, shifting his leg into the spot she'd vacated. A dog barked a few blocks away, and he knew it wasn't because her stepfather was stalking up the sidewalk but he couldn't help that it put him on alert.
A minute later the door opened again and then there was a plate being lowered in front of him with a slice of Olivia's birthday cake and a fork stuck into it. It was a big slice, probably half of what was left: the 'Oli' of her name was scrawled in shiny red icing. He took the plate from her hands and was about to turn around and thank her but something touched the back of his head, something light and soft and he froze because he couldn't tell if it was fingertips or lips that were pressing into his hair.
Whatever it had been, it was gone the next moment, and Olivia obscured its memory by ruffling his hair. Then she was gone again, and the door closed behind her, and for a while after that Peter couldn't quite feel as intimidating as he wanted to.
Olivia woke up and came downstairs and Peter was gone: not on the porch, not in the kitchen. Walter was bumbling around the coffeemaker, testing the usual three-to-one odds that he would produce the equivalent of crude oil instead of a drinkable liquid. He didn't seem particularly troubled, which meant he knew where Peter was, but he didn't immediately offer that information, which meant that Peter had probably instructed him not to.
"Walter?" she said, and he didn't turn around. He was scooping heaping tablespoons of grounds, of which he didn't seem to be keeping count, into a filter. At least he'd remembered the filter. "Where's Peter?"
There was a pause as Walter tried to remember what Peter had told him to say instead of the truth, although it was questionable that Peter had told him the truth at all. And that was all right. Really, she didn't even know why she was asking, because she knew where he'd gone. The key to her old apartment was missing from its hook.
"He's bringing donuts," Walter said.
As if on cue the door opened and Peter backed in with a big waxed pastry bag in the crook of his elbow. He had his other hand in his pocket, ready to draw out her key to replace on its hook, but when he saw her standing there he pulled his hand out empty. It would wait.
"Donuts!" he said brightly, as if Walter weren't already taking the bag from him and putting his whole face into the opening to scuba dive for his strawberry-frosted. Olivia watched Peter over Walter's ducked head and he met her eyes frankly. She almost asked. She almost needed to know if he'd found a letter. If he'd thrown it in the dumpster behind her building. If she were to go back there, if she might find it. He waited for her to ask, not going to say a word about it if she didn't. It was her choice, and his face gave her no clue either way. It seemed like a long time that they stood there, looking, and he stayed patiently opaque. Finally Walter emerged from the bag, sniffing headily.
"I've always found that the scent of fresh donuts reminds me of formaldehyde," he exulted. Olivia expected a quick flash of sarcasm from Peter, but he held her gaze steadily, still waiting. Walter looked between the two of them, vaguely aware of some meta-discussion to which he wasn't privy. Olivia didn't want to let the moment pass away. She knew if she didn't ask Peter now, he wouldn't tell her later. He would take her acceptance of his silence to mean that she didn't want to know, and he would gently craft the truth she wanted to hear at any and all points forward.
She almost asked out of a simple need to be in control of the facts, but she stopped herself. Maybe for once, for this one year out of many, she could allow herself to imagine that there was no card, that she was not a person who received cards like that, and that she was part of a family who signed their cards and put them next to a birthday cake instead of under her door.
"Olivia?" Walter said tentatively. "Can I have half of your cruller?" It was a French Cruller, technically, and Olivia wasn't surprised that Peter seemed to always make sure there was more than one of them in every round of donuts he ever brought home. And no, she didn't mind if Walter hacked it up for sampling, but she'd have to answer him out loud, and that would break the spell, so to speak.
She took a deep breath and decided it was okay to do something nice for herself.
"Yeah Walter, go for it," she said. She gave Peter one last look and he gave her a serious smile, and then he was on his way to the coffeemaker to fix Walter's mess.
"I'm with you about the formaldehyde, Walter," he said over his shoulder as Walter plucked a dark one from the bag, "but I love my donuts and if you eat the sprinkles off my chocolate-frosteds again, there will be consequences."