Chapter 4: More Family
"I can't believe we actually found your cousin," Jack says as the five of them cut through Central Park on the way home. The group had said goodbye to Holly, Carl, and a sleeping Thomas before they drove back to SoHo. Molly and Ruth took the Brown's chauffeured car back to the house, where Ruth would stay until morning and then return to her own apartment by the New York harbour. The late evening breeze rustles the nearby trees and creaks the branches as the group makes their way towards their neighbourhood, all of them are very tired from all the excitement and ready to get to bed.
"He's grown so much, the last time I saw him, he was barely thirteen, skinny and had shaggy hair," Emma says, still trying to process it herself. She can't stop smiling, how happy.
"What was he like as a kid?" Peter asks, wanting to know his wife's cousin a bit better.
"Mischievous, always willing to pull pranks on me or my mother or my father. One of the best ones he did was putting a frog in the sugar bowl. Watching it hop out of the white powder onto the table and seeing my mother drop it on the floor like it was on fire, it was like the weirdest magic trick I'd ever seen and he earned a few whips from the belt for that one," Emma chuckles as she passes Peter the sleeping toddler. She pauses for a moment as the smile fades a little bit. "But he was also sad…"
"How come?" Rose asks, leaning a bit on Jack due to her lack of energy.
"He wasn't treated very well by his parents; my aunt and uncle. I knew he tried to hide it behind his practical jokes and smiles, but I could tell even then. He didn't get the love and attention I did. In fact, I think he never wanted to leave our home because he was treated like an actual member of the family and we loved him unconditionally. From what I've heard, in the Carlyle family, you have to earn love and respect."
"That's horrible," Rose says.
Emma nods. "And clearly Phillip still thinks of them this way, if he hasn't talked to them in years."
"They're that bad huh?" Jack asks.
"Oh yes. Basically, picture Cal and the old Ruth, but with the sticks even further up their asses and not homicidally motivated," the young Carson woman explains.
The group snickers at her metaphor but all of them understood just how snobby the Carlyle family truly was. Rose could understand completely of how high-class society neglected their children, forcing them to be seen, but not heard. While her own father always had time for his little girl, Rose never saw her parents as often as she would have liked to. Love was not a concept in the upper-crust society; her being forced into an arranged marriage with Cal being the prime example. The redhead is so glad that she's left that world behind her and even her mother had adapted to a simpler and happier lifestyle. Additionally, she was never going to treat the child in her womb with anything less than the best love and devotion a parent could give.
"So how are the Carlyles related to you?" Peter asks.
The group walk up the stairs of the home they shared, just until Jack saved up a bit more money to buy a home in the neighbourhood, preferably the one next to Carson's home.
"My Aunt Gwendolyn is my father's eldest sister," Emma explains as she takes a sleeping Sybil from her husband's arms to get her upstairs. The rest of the family is not too far behind, ready to call it a night. "She was out of the house and married before my father even turned ten."
"How come you've never mentioned them before if you were so close to Phillip?" Peter asks as he follows Emma to Sybil's nursery. He can't help but feel a little bit hurt that his wife had never shared more about her family with him. Then again; their romance and engagement were derailed due to the death of Emma's mother and father, and then the Titanic tragedy and all the chaos that ensued after that, it left little time to arrange a family reunion.
The sister lays the sleeping baby down and removes her little dress, shoes, and stockings. The tiny toddler rolls around sleepily, not pleased with being moved during her slumber. Her fists raise upwards and Emma sees something shiny in Sybbie's hand. She manages to pry it from the toddler's tiny fingers. She realizes that it's a gold button from Phillip's ringmaster costume.
"She just couldn't let go of him, could she?" Emma smirks, holding the button between her fingers before giving it to Peter to hold. The elder sister then begins changing a diaper and dressing the little one for bed. As she does, she gets back to Peter's question.
"To be honest… I think they cut us out of their lives. Since we're a middle-class family obviously lived by our own liberal and open-minded values and Aunt Gwendolyn and Uncle Daniel are high standing members of society, the two don't mix. So once they left our lives, I was still pretty young, so the memories kind of fade over time."
"So, if they didn't want to associate with you, how do you still know Phillip so well?"
"Rich people logic, they would only acknowledge our presence in private and that would only be to dump Phillip and Duncan off at our place in the summer so they could go on some rich asshole's vacation in Europe every year."
"And who is Duncan?"
"Phillip's younger brother, he's almost fourteen now I think. I remember when he was just a tiny baby."
"So why did Phillip and Duncan stop coming to your home by the lake?"
"Phillip went off to finishing school and I guess since Aunt Gwendolyn and Uncle Daniel saw how much we influenced Phillip, they tried to keep Duncan from our influence as well…" Emma sighs heavily, wishing that Duncan could have gotten more attention from her parents and maybe he would turn out more like Phillip.
She scoops up her sister in her arms and cradles her close. "Honestly I wish they'd just left Phillip and Duncan with us. They never loved either of them. The only reason they had children was for someone to inherit the money. They consider their own children burdens after that, accessories meant for display and to eventually be proud of after they do something that brings success. It would be nice to have had more family around after what happened…"
She wipes a few tears from her eyes before laying Sybil in her crib. Peter comes up from behind and wraps his arms around her. She turns and fully embraces him. He rocks with her gently, rubbing her back.
"Don't get me wrong," she says, her voice slightly muffled by his shoulder. "I love the family we have now. You, Sybil, Jack, Rose, the new baby soon, Ruth, Molly, Holly, Carl, Thomas, Wendy, Tommy, Mr. Calvert… We're such a mismatched group of people and yet we're so close. It's just hard to lose someone you've known for so long…"
"Well, you've found him again and we can add Anne and W.D. to the family now too," Peter murmurs.
"I'm so happy for them," Emma smiles as the two rock back and forth next to Sybil's crib.
Once they break from their embrace, Peter hands the golden button back to his wife.
"Here, make an excuse to go see him. Tell him you'll sew it back on yourself."
Emma smiles and kisses Peter with all her might.
Eventually, they turn off the lights and go towards their own room, Jack and Rose have already turned in for the night.
The couple climb into bed and Peter wraps his arm around Emma tightly. "We have an amazing family now," he says. "And something tells me it's going to get even bigger. One big circus of a family."
Emma smiles as she closes her eyes, falling into a happy sleep.
…
The next day Emma goes into the attic, looking for something important. Most of the things in the attic of the house were belongings and keepsakes from the place in Canada before her father moved his business to New York. The eldest Carson daughter had yet to really look through the mess of objects considering it was still painful to think about her past life with her parents no longer alive. Amongst the piles of dusty boxes and jackets of important files, she finds a large old hat box wrapped lovingly in a purple ribbon.
On the lid it reads:
Emma, Phillip, and Duncan
She removes the ribbon, trying to fight back the tears. Inside are pieces of her past… their past.
There's a mason jar filled with sand and shells collected from the beach. An old sailor's hat that her father had Phillip wear every single time they went out in the boat; he was the second mate, considering she was the first. An old pocket watch that Phillip had found at an antique shop, bought with his own money and then tried to fix. One of her hair ribbons that her mother would lovingly wind into her hair. A small bouquet of dried flowers that could not be touched otherwise they would crumble from age. The broken sugar bowl that her cousin had tried to fix to allow his aunt to forgive him. One of Duncan's old toy rattles was in there as well as a wooden car that Phillip had handed down to his brother. There is one of her old ballet slippers, her sunhat, and a teddy bear wearing a top hat, something that belonged to both the Carlyle brothers. There were also stacks of papers in there, filled with her drawings, and Phillip's writings that included poems and short stories. She reaches in and reads one of them. Most probably don't make sense any longer and the paper has yellowed with age, but the markings are still visible. Tucked on the side of the box is a black and white photograph. One of her, Phillip, and Duncan sitting on the beach. It is slightly blurry considering it was difficult to have young children stand still for so long.
Emma lets the tears fall from her eyes as she gazes at the picture, unable to believe how much time has passed and how much has changed. Gone were the happy carefree days of walking along the shore and chasing each other through the grassy dunes. She hadn't realized until now how much she missed these cousins, whom she should consider her brothers. She loved them so much that she just wants to hug them again.
She lets out a sigh and then returns everything to the box. She leaves the attic with the objects and goes to the telephone.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Mr. Calvert?" Emma asks.
"Why hello Emma Carson, how may I help you?"
"I need you to find some people for me."
A/N: Sorry it took so long to update. Special thanks to the Guest for the review.