Chapter 11: The Boy Who Almost Lived

It is after sunrise and the world has just awoken. All is cool and silent. With her hand enclosed in my own, we journey down the road leading to Mother's cottage. I speak of Waterford. Fondly recalling the charming park and crescent lake by our bungalow. The miles and years between our past and present, insurmountable though they may be, now seem smaller than ever before. The sun paints her hair a brighter shade of gold. She tucks each wayward strand behind her ear, marking my every word with wonder and excitement.

"This feels almost like one of our morning walks," I lower my voice and pull her closer, examining her face. "My, how beautifully peculiar."

"What's peculiar?"

Tenderly, my fingertips caress her sweet visage. They know every feature by heart and yet, can sense the subtlest change. "You never set foot outside back home without your usual dusting of powder and blush. So, I never had the pleasure of seeing you in such direct sunlight without that thin veil. I never knew you had a freckle here. And here. What's peculiar is I never knew that I could love you more than I did mere minutes ago. But here I am, falling in love with you all over again."

"I am experiencing a similar sensation. Only that the more I can recall of you, the more my heart fills with love. Why did we ever part ways?"

"That was my doing," I confess. The moment is gone and we continue our trek, huddled closer than before. "I had a bit of a temper before you saved me. My only guess is that I was not fully saved. Or perhaps I forgot how much you mean to me, if only for an instant."

"So, we had a fight," Marigold nods. "I have no recollection of that. Couples argue. They are bound to at least once or twice. That is what happens when two people decide to spend their lives together. I do not hold it against you, William. Whatever it was."

Mother spies us from behind the fence and quickly abandons her trowel, running towards us with arms flung wide open.

"You must be the little yellow flower!" She gives Marigold a very tight and surprisingly a very welcome hug.

"I must be!"

"You're even lovelier than William described you to be! I am Harriet. Hattie to my dearest friends, which I already consider you to be!"

I rub my forehead. Of course, she was going to smother her. At the same time, however, I knew that they would love one another instantly, that they were kindred spirits.

"It is wonderful to meet you, Hattie! And my! What a charming garden you have!"

"It is coming together, bit by bit," she leads the way, without a moment to lose. We pass through the door and towards the hearth where an old brown kettle is just beginning to rumble and omit a faint whistle. As she pours the water, I notice that her hands are quivering more than usual.

"Let me help you with that, Mother," I offer.

"Oh, no you don't! You two sit down by the fire, I've always wanted to make tea for a guest! Dear Hortensia showed me how to do this while Julius was away, God rest his soul."

"Julius was my father," I say to Marigold, "you wouldn't have liked him very much."

"On the contrary, I believe she would have liked him just fine! Our William takes after him, much more than he does little old me! Now, a wee birdie told me that you are a fan of lavender, is that so?"

"It is my favorite! Well, if it is possible to have a favorite flower!"

"Lavender and rose, yes?" Mother crosses the room, cup and saucer clinking in her unsteady grip. She watches as Marigold breathes in the steam of her tea and grins excitedly. "Yes, yes, William has told me all about you! And lovely Waterford! You must miss it terribly!"

"I do. The more that I remember of it, the more my homesickness grows. Much of it remains a blur, however. There must be a reason for that. Just as there must be a reason why I am here now." As she looks on, her words grow softer. I dare to say that she has made the same discovery that I had, watching how Mother's hands weaken beneath the weight of her teacup.

"It sounds like you have made a name for yourself at The Bird Cage! When is the next event there? I would love to attend!"

"Well, opening night is two weeks from tomorrow. We do have a party for the cast and crew that is traditionally thrown before dressing the stage, it isn't far off at all. Families and friends are encouraged to attend."

We both watch as Mother glances into her tea. I wonder why. True, she rarely received personal invitations. Most events she attended on Father's arm. Perhaps grief alone is the explanation for her apprehension. "How lovely. I will try my best to be there. But you can count on me sitting in the front row opening night! I haven't seen William act in decades, it seems!"

"He is a heart snatcher, that's for sure! I assume he told you all about his audition?"

"Not at all!"

I brace myself, wagering that one can not stay long in a room with the pair of them without being asked to sing, dance, recite or all of the above! Mother is slower to the punch than usual. She listens, sinking deeper into her armchair, pulling in the edges of the shawl that she has draped over her fragile shoulders. The fire beside her may glow orange, it may paint her face with color and shadow. Still, I saw her before she sat down and I know that she is white as a ghost. "How are you feeling today?" I ask. Once Marigold has concluded her retelling.

"Tired from working in the garden, that is all. You bringing a friend for me has remedied that!"

We stay a while, casually discussing rehearsals, costuming and gardens. I collect our cups once they are drained and offer to find some light breakfast for the three of us. Neither seem too enthused, but that very well may be nothing more than a side effect of truly stimulating conversation. While I am in the kitchen, I hear them move from the fire to the cherished harpsichord across the room, one of the few remaining relics from my family's estate.

"1757? That is fascinating!" Marigold's joyful voice carries from where they are seated, "I had no idea this song was written so long ago! Only, the lyrics that I remember are quite different. The melody, however," slowly, her fingers decipher the music, transferring it from page to instrument with passable accuracy. "It hardly changed at all, in over two hundred years!"

"That doesn't surprise me. We Scots love tradition best of all! How do the lyrics sound in your century?"

"I barely remember. Although... when I play it, the words come back to me." As she sings, I feel a subtle shift within my heart. We were lost until this morning. Our time apart, from the hour she left the farmhouse with Giselle shocked me. Life without her hardly seemed real. Now that we are together, I am beginning to feel grounded once more. This simple, lovely song often graced my ears in Waterford. She would sing it in the shower or while washing dishes and I would listen closely to its lyrics, wondering where on earth I had heard it before. Now I know and will never forget for as long as I live.

Mother retires shortly after, refusing any offer to be helped upstairs. I know that Marigold can sense my concern. What I never could have anticipated is her bluntness with me.

"She hasn't eaten in days," she says, facing town. "I can tell."

"How can you tell? I believe you, Marigold. I just need to hear from you. How do you know this?"

Her eyes glaze over, pained with memory. She hasn't heard my question. Not one word of it. "Have you tried doing for her what you did for me?"

I look away, trying my best to recall how exactly I helped her. There were small gestures at first. All others were born from panic and confusion after I learned of her illness. In truth, she never received any direct help from me. Nothing great enough for her to recall, anyway. "Remind me."

"All that I truly remember is your patience and your persistence. How you encouraged me to write out my feelings instead of acting on them. How ever single day, you would learn a new recipe for us to bake together. And that mantra that you would repeat whenever I started to hate myself for making progress. Food is love. I started to believe it. Oh, William. I started to love you for it! Then you left. At least, that is what I think happened. Isn't it?"

Never has my heart sunken so low. I manage to smile and nod. If she caught a glimpse of my sorrow, it went unmentioned.

...

My blood is boiling as I storm down the staircase leading to Arthur's office. I know what he will do once I find him. The damned coward. He will skate in pretty circles around the truth, bury every answer deep within a tangle of irrelevant questions and continue breaking my heart over and over again until it caves in on itself. He will profess his innocence. He always does. Then he will return to smoking and smirking and watching my life collapse into ruins. Swiftly, I take on every bend and turn in the dark hallway before skidding to a stop when I see him.

He grins, unfazed by my openly combative stance. "What troubles you?"

"Shut up." Again, my words and presence have no effect on him at all. "Take one more drag and I will smack that damned cigarette out of your mouth."

He does not heed my warning. Instead, he turns and flicks a dusting of ash on the floor. "Walk with me." My right hand rolls into a fist and I swing without a second thought, narrowly missing the side of his face. He laughs at me, brown eyes glistening with amusement. "There he is! There's that rage that you were once so famous for! Amazing how it changes you, the love of a beautiful woman! She remembers you, can't that be enough?"

"Why are you so bloody smug all the time? You always act as if you know something that I do not." I pause, just long enough to get a better look at him. The smoldering rage in my gut cools and steams, making way for an intense wave of chills. "You know, don't you?"

"What are you talking about? No. Perhaps if you would care to enlighten me..."

"Oh! I won't give you the satisfaction!"

He looks me over, sees that I am trembling and offers me the warmest smile I've ever seen the demon wear. "She loves you. She told you so. Why do you doubt her?"

"It isn't me," I take a few, brisk steps in the direction that Arthur was heading. Perhaps movement will lessen the pain of this confession. It does not. "It isn't me who she remembers."

"What makes you say that?"

"I need you to be honest with me. No riddles, no diversions. I just need to know if it is possible to," every emotion inside of me bubbles to the surface. I fight against them and they fight back. "To my understanding, there was a time before we met. Right after Henry vanished from her life. There was this window of time where... dammit."

"Bordon," Arthur says knowingly.

"I have reason to believe that she loved him."

"Yes. She was trending in that direction. Nothing came of it."

A single tear rolls down my cheek. I swat it away like I would a parasite. "What if something were to come of it? If you could take her back to that time? Would there be hope for her then?"

"Come." He moves with purpose past the bank of offices, stopping only when he reaches the stage door. It creaks open and he enters. I follow him quietly into the unlit room. The stagnant hum of florescent bulbs and a swiveling fan harmonize, breaking the silence. Although we remain on a stage of sorts, every seat in the house has vanished and the walls are now draped with red and black curtains. At its center, a long table materializes along with four occupants, two men and two women. They range in years from middle age to early seventies and are huddled so closely that we cannot see their faces. "They can't see us, William. Can't hear us, either. Let's move closer."

The nearest woman stirs, sticking her pointed nose out of the huddle and towards us. Her beady eyes blink from behind a thick pair of bifocals. With a squint, she raises a clipboard from the table. She speaks. Her voice is alarmingly loud and clear, contradictory for such a mousy appearance and demeanor. "John Robert Bordon. Or excuse me, Robbie, is it? Robbie Bordon?"

At her call, a young man peeks his head around the corner. "Yes, hello," he says, his voice cracking. He clears his throat and speaks again. This time, with more volume and even more strain. "Yes, that's me. I'm Robbie. Hello."

"Come in, don't be shy," the woman coaxes and little Robbie follows her command. "We just got done looking at your transcript, it is very impressive."

"Thank you. And thank you for seeing me today," he stutters, brushing past Arthur and I and tentatively pointing to the empty seat intended for him. The row of elders nod simultaneously and he takes this as his cue to sit.

I understand immediately who he is. There is no denying from where he inherited that shock of golden waves, the redness in his cheeks and ears and at the tip of his button nose. Yes, he is hers. He is Marigold's. And not at all my own.

"Plenty of extra-circulars," the interviewer drones on. "I see you are interested in baking."

"Yes and I know that this program is extremely rigorous. I promise to push all of my distractions aside if accepted."

"You seem very ambitious," the youngest man at the table chimes in.

"Precocious," says the other, grinning softly when he sees Robbie's reaction to this statement. "Oh, but don't look so distraught, that is a good thing! You are our youngest applicant on record. Fifteen! May I ask what first sparked your interest in psychology?"

"I was afraid that you would ask me that," he confesses, looking at the strip of wooden floor between his neatly polished shoes.

"Oh?"

"Yes," Robbie replies, eyes unmoving, "Yes, mhm. At first I felt very conflicted by this. This fear, that is. That was until I realized that it serves as an answer on its own. Shameful as it seemed to me at first, I understand that it is an example of the complexity of the human mind. That is what fascinates me." He twiddles his chubby thumbs, looking up and then immediately turning away when he sees the line of stern faces in front of him. "So," he chuckles, nervously, "So, that's it."

"That's it?" Asks the other woman, calmly.

"Yes."

"An intelligent answer," they look at one another, nodding after several seconds of uncomfortable silence. "Avoidant, but intelligent," she says, more dismissively this time. "We'll be in touch."

Robbie waits, then slowly scans the room again with his wide, green eyes. "We're done?"

"We are, you may exit where you entered."

Shaken, but obedient, the boy stands upright. He walks towards me. I can see the fear in his eyes vanishing, making way for what appears to be strength, determination. He quickly turns on his heel, loudly declaring, "I can do better!" The panel is stunned. All but one gestures for him to return to his seat. Nerves return, causing his voice to quiver, but Robbie fights through it as best he can. "I'll tell you why I am here. Why I'm really here. Only it is hard to find the words because until now, I've never actually spoken about it out loud. My father," he stops, breathing in deeply, "my father loves to remind me of how alike my mother and I are. Sorry."

"Take your time."

"Sorry," he gives his blonde head a shake, smiling brightly this time. Laughing at himself. My heart, otherwise averse to his very existence feels a sudden pang of love.

"They must be very proud of you."

"Yes. He flew with me all the way from South Carolina. He is. My mother, Marigold, would be, I assume. I never knew her. She was five months pregnant with my little sister when," he stops momentarily before proceeding." Heart failure. She and the baby didn't survive, obviously. I was two years old. It killed him more than it killed me. They were absolutely inseparable. So of course, there was always this void between us for as long as I can remember. But also love, that is the amazing thing. I'm sure you hear sob stories from applicants all the time. But I am like her. More than I'll ever know, he says. I'll never know and I wish I could. What I do know is... I got help earlier than she did. And this is my way of giving back. To both of my parents, to make up for what they both lost."

"When you say that you are alike..."

"Yes. He explained it to me in detail when I started going to therapy. Hers started when she was as old as I am now. She was being fitted for a costume that was too small for her. The seamstress wrote down how many more inches were needed for the dress to fit and something just broke inside of her. I was twelve and got bullied on the school bus. My father recognized the signs right away. Food is love. That is what he always says. I felt so guilty hating the food that he made for me, from scratch, with his own hands. For a while there, I thought that guilt was weakness. But it was love. A matter of the heart. I saw his heart as clearly as anyone ever can. Break and mend through love before my diagnosis. Break and mend over and over, all throughout my recovery. It was like a dance, full of memory, fear, more intricacies than anyone could ever describe."

"And that is what you are fascinated by?"

"Yes," he mutters, biting back on his tears. "The heart, the mind. How we can feel so much inside. Enough to change us, kill us... save us."

They look to one another. The first interviewer pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Thank you. I know that wasn't easy for you." She shakes his hand, not letting go, holding him steadily in place until their eyes meet. "Welcome to Standford, Robbie Bordon."