Chapter 70

I beat Mark to his house only by a couple of hours, and let myself in with one of the keys he'd given me, made myself at home and just waited. I felt really empty, shaky, didn't really know what to do so sat down in his living room and waited, and thought about things. Just everything, about how I couldn't account for much of the specific time that had passed because it all seemed to bleed into one generic memory, about how the things I did remember stuck out so clearly in my head. I went from one nervous habit to the next, putting little braids in my hair and then taking them out, cracking my knuckles, cleaning out my fingernails and then biting them off. Chewing on my lip, pulling the chapped skin away, tracing the lines of scars on my arm, all the grooves that the burns made.

When he walked in he just smiled at me, then came in and sat down, left his bag on the floor and tended to me first thing. I stood to greet him, we shared a lasting hug that I needed before we reseated on the couch.

"You okay?" he asked me. I played with fraying strings on my shirtsleeve.

"How do you get so much time off? Does Vince just love you?" I asked him, instead of answering.

"I've got a lot of leeway cause I've been around for a while, you know?"

I shrugged. "I dunno, he just seems like…overly nice with you. Do you spellbind him?"

Mark looked away, his smile fading. "Yeah," he admitted, and tried to laugh. I laughed a little.

"I hate when you do that."

"I know."

"How do you do it, anyway?"

"What? Spellbind?"

"Yeah, how do you do it?" I asked. I turned to him. Mark looked up at me and gave me a strange look, cocking his eyebrow up.

"Well…shit, I don't know. You can't really control it," he made a little gesture with his hand, raising a fist, letting his fingers uncoil in the air, "it just kind of…happens. You want to happen, and then it does. There's not much more to it than that."

"So why doesn't everything that you want to happen just happen?"

"Because…" he sighed. "Kane, I'm nearly forty years old. I've learned to control it, you know? When you have a power like this, you can't let it take control of you or it'll ruin your life."

"Oh," I paused. Neither of us said anything for a moment.

"You hungry?" he asked. I nodded, he stood up, gestured for me to come with him into the kitchen. "I probably don't have much here, but we could go out if you want…"

We stepped into the kitchen, he turned the light on and started rummaging through the cabinets. I pulled the refrigerator open. Beer, a loaf of bread, more beer, salad dressing… I laughed and closed it, Mark groaned from the other side of the room as he pulled out a few cans of non perishable food. He tossed me a can of spinach.

"I don't suppose you want a meal comprised of nothing but canned vegetables?" he laughed and I shook my head. Mark sighed, pulled the pony tail out of his hair and shook it loose. "Eh, alright. Let's go out."

We went out to dinner, a little restaurant near his house where everyone treated him like a god. He'd brought me and Amber there once, I remember. They asked us to sign autographs and they were hanging on the wall. Two framed pictures, lined up next to each other in the lobby. One was of Mark, "THE UNDERTAKER" scribbled over his chest. The other picture was a studio picture of me and Amber, her grinning, me solemn beneath the mask, my arms around her protectively. I almost cried when I saw it, the blocky, childish letters I used to sign autographs, her rounded perfect cursive. Mark patted my shoulder, made me come into the dining room and made me stop staring at the picture.

As we were eating he was trying to just bullshit, keep my mind off of everything. "What do you want to do tomorrow?" he asked.

"I don't know…"

"While I'm in town I wanna run a couple errands, you wanna come?"

"Sure…"

He sighed and put his fork down. I had mashed everything on my plate into a little pile, after seeing the picture too nauseated to want to eat, just playing with everything. "Kane…?"

I looked up at him. "What?"

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" I chuckled. "You really need to ask?"

He leaned his elbow on the table, hand reaching up into his hair. "Well, yeah because of Amber. But come clean with me now, what's…specifically bothering you?"

"The picture," I mumbled. I looked down at the mess I'd made on the plate, my hand shaking for a moment before the fork clattered down onto the table. I covered my face with my hands. My head was throbbing. "It's not fair."

"I know it's not."

My hands parted so that I could look at him. "Is that all you can say?"

He shrugged, took a sip of his drink. "What do you want me to say, then?"

My lip started to quiver. Oh God, not now, I was saying, not too excited by the idea of breaking down in public. "Just…make it all better, Mark…isn't that what you're supposed to do?" Earlier when I'd asked him about spellbinding he said it just…happened. I'd been spellbound by him before, usually didn't enjoy it, this time I didn't mind. His eyes focused on mine, expression saddened. He reached across the table and took my hand, squeezed it, and I felt everything fade. Things lasted this way for a few hours, after we'd gone back to his house. He gave me a beer and we sat back down in the living room.

"Do you have photo albums?" I asked him. I don't know what made me think of it, I was just wondering. He gave me a strange look.

"Why?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, drank down some of the beer. "Just curious. I mean…I know Mom had a bunch, I guess they burned with the house, right?" he nodded. "But I just…I don't have any pictures of her. Do you have any?"

He stared at me, trying to read me or something. Finally he said, "Yeah, I do."

For some reason I'd expected him to say no, and nearly choked on the drink. "You do? How?"

Mark nodded. "I uhh…" his eyebrows came together, he looked really pained. "I grabbed a couple things, before what happened. I never told you cause I knew you'd be angry with me."

True, true. But this was too important for me to get pissed over. "Well?"

"What?"

"Let me see them!"

"Oh," he gave me a weak smile and stood, walking out of the room for a minute. I was going to wait for him but became impatient, and finally just stood up and went after him. The hallway was dark, the light came from his bedroom. I went in there and sat on his bed, watched him look through his closet. From the top shelf he pulled down some shoe boxes, some random wrestling gear and stuff. Way in the back he finally took out a small metal box, which he held for a moment, staring at it, before turning around. He sat down next to me, stared at the box some more, and finally did the little combination on the front to open it.

There were several photographs, and a piece of a brick or something, and a few envelopes. I reached to take some of the things out and Mark pulled back defensively.

"Hey!" I snapped. I looked up to glare at him and saw that his eyes were glassy.

"Wait," he said. "I want to explain," he said. I softened, nodded, leaned back. He put the box down, pointed at the envelopes. "I don't like to umm…touch any of it," he said. I cocked my eyebrow. "I get these really strong vibes from them, and it hurts…"

I took the envelopes out. He explained. "Those are uhh…one of them is this birthday card that Mom gave you, I took it with me…" it sounded like there was more that he wanted to say, but didn't. I saw the one of the top, really elegant writing that said "Kane" on it. It had this airiness to it, loopy and tilted and tight. My heart was in my throat as I opened it, pulled the card out. She'd made it, it was a folded piece of thick paper, drawn on with colored pencils or something. It was a picture of a boy wearing a party hat, with a balloon…I laughed a little, through the tears that were forming in my eyes. I opened it, saw the same pretty handwriting that said "To the greatest son in the world- Happy Fourth Birthday!"

All I could say was "Had I been able to read that young?"

Mark smiled. "Yeah… I guess you forgot all that shit once the fire happened, when we were with Paul…"

I put that one away. Mark explained the one in the middle. "That one is a thing you wrote me once, you probably don't remember, but we got in a fight, and-"

"Mom made us write sorry notes to each other," I finished for him. It was true, I had forgotten all about it, but now I saw it in my hand and it all made sense, I remembered it clearly. "Oh my God, Mark," I said to him. "This is crazy…why didn't you ever tell me that you had this?" I was too shocked and kind of happy to have these things to get mad at him, but I knew that I would get pissed if I was given enough time.

"Because," he said, and scratched his chin. "I didn't know how to just…come out and say it. I mean how do you just strike up a conversation and say 'Hey! I have a box full of shit from when we were kids that I've been hiding from you!'? You can't. I guess…when we were both out of Paul's reach it had been so long…I didn't know how to make the bridge, you know? And the longer it got, the harder it was for me to tell you. But then…you asked. So…I'm showing you now."

"Has this bothered you?"

He smiled. "Yeah…I think about it all the time."

I couldn't help but to laugh. "Did you spellbind me? Is that why I asked?"

"Probably," he was laughing, too. We laughed for a moment, then I looked back down at the envelope. MARK was scratched into it, childish, pointy handwriting. I laughed again as I opened it, pulled out the stale piece of loose-leaf. The same childish handwriting covered the page, me writing to him about how I was sorry I called him ugly, and that he isn't actually ugly, and he's my brother and I love him. At the bottom it said "Love, your brother Kane". After reading it I started to laugh hysterically.

"It's not that funny," he mumbled. But I couldn't stop. And it wasn't sarcastic laughing as I'd laughed with Mike. I meant it, it was funny. And I felt happy, thinking of back then when nothing was wrong, the same why I could be happy for a moment when I thought of the good times with Amber.

"Mark- you're ugly!" I shouted, and pointed at him, falling back on the bed in hysterics and holding my stomach. It was so funny! Just showed the kind of woman our mother was, who made her sons write apology notes to each other when they argued, when one of them called the other one ugly. That's some funny shit, let me tell you.

Of all fucking things to be upset over. I'd called him ugly.

Jesus Christ it even makes me laugh a little now.

Eventually Mark started laughing too, though was a little distracted. I knew it was really painful for him…it was for me, too, but I guess…well everything is painful for me, isn't it? Mark isn't as used to that.

"The last one is just umm…" he paused for a moment, his face got hard. My heart pounded, almost afraid to read it. I looked at it before he could tell me, saw in his handwriting the name "Kane" on the front. I started to turn it over and open it when he took it from me.

"What the hell?"

Mark's hands were shaking. I'd never seen him this way, it made me nervous, not sure if I wanted to know what was inside the envelope. At the same time I was curious. He looked like his was in physical pain when he held it, I remembered what he said about getting vibes. It must've been really hurting him because it fell out of his hand a moment later.

"What is it?"

"I uhh…" he covered his face in his hands. "After I left Paul I sat down and wrote you this letter, apologizing for everything, and trying to explain it to you…but…"

"I never got it," I mumbled.

He sighed. "I know you didn't. I never had the balls to give it to you."

"And you still don't?"

For a moment he didn't answer. Finally he said: "No, I don't. In time, Kane. Not now. Anyway…I also have this brick-" I wasn't amused that he changed the subject, but didn't say anything "-is from the house, I took it a couple weeks after the fire," he told me, and pointed. If the envelope would've hurt him I didn't want to know what the brick would've made him feel. And I didn't want to touch it, either. Relics from childhood were one thing but that was drawing the line. I reached into the box and took out the pictures, which he didn't need to explain to me.

The first one was of our father.

Neither of us were ever really close with him. I've probably made that quite clear because I talk mainly about my mother when our parents come up. It wasn't that I didn't love my father or anything, by default kids that age are supposed to. But…he was just really distant, spent a lot of time working, dabbled in dark magic and experimented with it all the time…maybe that was why Mark had his power or something.

In the picture he was leaning against a column in the front of the house, the part that was open to public, the funeral parlour. The color had that watered down color that photos from that time have, kind of subdued. He was wearing black pants, a buttoned up white shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows. I didn't remember him as specifically as Mother, but now I saw the striking resemblance that Mark had with him. In the picture his arms were crossed over each other, and he was looking down at the ground, so that I couldn't see his eyes. I don't know if he knew the picture was being taken or not, I couldn't tell. His hair was short, not buzzed down or anything, the strands each three or four inches at most. Curly, like mine, darker than mine though, kind of Mark's color, all of it falling out of place around his face. A cigarette hung out of the corner of his mouth, just by the appearance of his limbs I could tell he was tall.

"You look like him," I said. I took another glance before flipping to the next picture.

My mother.

She looked like Venus, that's the only thing I could describe her to. Botticelli's Venus, only…younger, happier. Long curly red hair, bright eyes. Her eyes looked blue in the pictures, and again I was hit with memories. Her eyes had been gray, kind of. Gray, absorbing colours really easily. Sometimes they were more blue, sometimes more green. Every now and then gold. Often, though, they were green like Mark's. 

I saw Claudette in her, the same shape of their smiles. I flipped to the next picture to save myself from breaking down, but just saw something even worse.

It was me. In Mom's lap.

The tears rushed me, I dropped the pictures down on the bed and jumped back like they were some plague, standing up and stumbling, falling down on the floor. Mark didn't move to help me, and didn't look surprised, just soft, sad, looking at me with a regard of empathy. I couldn't get the image out of my head, me when I was little, unscarred, laughing, happy. And Claudette looked just like I had, the same face almost. I started to sob, for Claudette, for Amber, for my mother, for my face…

Mark stood up to help me, before he got to me I got up and stormed out of the room, into the room I used whenever I was there, slamming the door behind me. I collapsed on the bed, hopeless. I hated him. I fucking hated him for setting the house on fire, if he hadn't done that none of this would've happened. Or he could've done it right and finished the job, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about it.

My suitcase was in the living room but I didn't want to leave the room and have to face Mark. I looked at the digital alarm clock, it was only eight. My body stung, a lot of shit had happened that day. I'd gone to their graves, taken a plane there, hung out with Mark, went out to dinner…and now this.

There was a stereo in the room, I walked over to it curiously to see if any CD's were in it, maybe one that I'd forgotten to take after I'd stayed with Mark from when I got out of the hospital or something. I tapped the button to open the disc tray, made it revolve to see if any of the slots were filled.

One in six.

Nine Inch Nails. The Fragile. Left.

I smiled and pushed play. I went back to the bed and lied down, knowing that it was some fate, that this was the one piece of plastic that had the perfect fifty five minutes to cater my masochism.