Chapter 3 – Meet The (Grand)Parents

"What a joke of a city," thought Elya as she got off the bus that had taken her right into the heart of the suburbs of Arcadia. She looked at the note in her hand, that read in her own scribbled handwriting '2320 Euclid Avenue'. She fished a strand of her straight, shoulder length brown hair out of her face that a gust of wind had just blown there.

Looking up, she scanned the street numbers on the cozy, little houses with the neat front porches, gardens and flower beds. Is this what they call "mundane"? she thought as she walked down the street to find the house with the number 2320.

The cell phone in her jeans pocket vibrated and she took it out to press the 'Silence' button when she read the caller's identity. "Not now, Dad," she muttered more to herself than anyone else. Because who should she talk to, there was not a soul in sight in this much too ordinary looking part of town. For a second she was painfully aware how worried her dad must be, what with her just taking off like that after the fight they'd had, but she would deal with that later. After all, she was on a mission.

An unpleasant knot of anticipation formed in her stomach as she stopped opposite number 2320. She took a second to take in the house's exterior. Same ordinary build, ordinary front porch, ordinary path framed by neatly trimmed lawn as all the other houses. She didn't know if she should take comfort in the normalcy or if she should be annoyed by it.

Drawing in a breath, she walked up the path to the porch and stood in front of the door, hesitating a second before she rang the doorbell. A two-tone gong was immediately audible and Elya held her breath to listen for approaching footsteps.

There were noises on the other side all right, but not footsteps. Elya's forehead wrinkled in confusion for a second, and then she almost jumped a step back when the door suddenly opened. Her gaze went down a notch to study the person in the wheelchair that greeted her. Short, brown hair, maybe in his late thirties by her best estimate.

"Anything I can help you with?" the wheelchair guy asked.

For a minute she wasn't sure what to say. This sure wasn't what she had expected. This couldn't be her grandfather. "Oh, I—" she stammered. "I, uhm ..."

A grin spread over the person's face as he said, "Lost your thread?"

"Yeah, no, I ... Who are you?" she finally blurted out.

"Kevin Girardi," said the wheelchair guy. "And you are ...?"

Girardi? This was family? Elya wasn't sure how to respond. Should she reveal her true identity? Cautiously, she said, "Elya."

Kevin's eyes narrowed as if he was assessing her. Did he know who she was? "Elya who?" he finally asked. Okay, obviously he was clueless.

"Elya Rove," she then said. Oh boy, too late to turn back now.

"Rove?" Kevin said, astonished. "As in Adam Rove?"

"Uh, yeah. That's my dad."

"Your dad?" Kevin looked surprised for a second. "Wow, I didn't know he had a kid," Kevin said off handedly. Obviously, the implications hadn't yet fully registered. But then they did. "Wait a sec. You're not ... Joan isn't ... your mother, is she?"

Elya nodded, then verbally confirmed, "Yes, she's my mom. Or at least that's what they tell me."

Kevin was slack-jawed. "Wow, I ... I don't know what to say." Then, after the initial shock had dissipated, he asked her, "Look, why don't you come in?"

"Okay," Elya said and stepped into the hallway. As she followed Kevin into the living area and then the kitchen, she took a look at the surroundings. The mostly wooden furniture was in darker tones, but it didn't seem depressing. Tasteful decorations and rugs gave the house a cozy look.

She imagined her mother having grown up here and suddenly felt a stab of envy in her stomach. This seemed like a perfect, little home to grow up in, all secure and protected and loving. Why had she never had a home like this? It just seemed unfair. It wasn't that her father didn't love her, but sometimes she just missed her mother—a mother she never really knew.

Kevin gestured for her to sit down at the rectangle kitchen table. "You want anything to eat or drink?"

Elya shook her head. "Naw, I'm good, thanks."

Kevin joined her at the table at the one vacant place that didn't have a chair in front. "So, what brings you here?" he asked Elya.

"I ..." Elya was back to stammering. "I wanted to meet my grandparents, actually."

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Kevin replied, sounding confused. "My sister is your mother and Adam Rove is your father. And you're how old? Thirteen? Fourteen? And neither Adam nor Joan thought it might be in order to inform the family that they had a daughter? Do you have any more siblings that we should know about?"

"No, there's just me," Elya stated. "And I'm fourteen." She studied Kevin closer. So, this was her uncle? This her father hadn't told her when he had talked about her mother the other night.

"How about you, do you have any more siblings?" Elya asked back.

Kevin looked disconcerted for a second. "Uhm ... yeah. I have a younger brother, Luke. Your parents didn't tell you?"

No, her parents didn't tell her. Why would her father tell her? It seemed like he had kept pretty much everything that involved her mother from her. What was that gonna accomplish, she thought with an angry bitterness rising up her throat. Why would her father ever think she'd be better off not knowing?

"No, they didn't tell me," she said with an acrid edge to her tone. "Dad never tells me anything about my mom. It's like he pretends she doesn't exist."

Kevin looked at her, his eyes widening just a little. If in surprise or contempt, she couldn't tell. His voice serious, he asked, "Does your father know you're here?"

Elya looked down at the lavender colored tablemat, fumbling with the edge of it with one hand. "No," she meekly admitted. Then, more forcefully, she added, "No, and why should he? He doesn't care about anything that involves your family. Hell, I didn't even know I had two uncles until today!" she spat out forcefully.

Kevin studied her, his face carefully neutral. Trying to sound placating, he told Elya, "Look, I'm sure he had his reasons not to tell you."

"Reasons?" Elya repeated, "Yeah, you grown-ups always have reasons for everything." She snorted an angry breath out through her nose.

Kevin lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. "Hey, I'm just saying that I think he'd be worrying where you are. I'm guessing you didn't tell him you were leaving either, did you?"

Damn, this guy really had the ability to look through her. Was she really that predictable? Kevin left the table and went into the living room, coming back with a phone. He held it out to Elya. "Wanna give him a call?"

Elya shook her head. Defiantly, she told Kevin. "No. He doesn't tell me all the important things either, why should I?"

Sighing, Kevin said, "Then I'm afraid I'll have to."

Elya's eyes widened. "You wouldn't do that," she said, staring at Kevin. She didn't care that she had just met him. She just wanted her father to smolder in uncertainty a little while longer. He deserved that.

Little did she know that, about thirty miles away, Adam Rove was pacing up and down the kitchen, sick with worry. He had called all of Elya's friends, spoken to their parents, her teachers. No one had seen her or heard a word from her since yesterday. It was the only thing he took comfort in that he found 100 missing from the secret cash stash that he hadn't thought Elya knew about, figuring she might have taken the money and gone somewhere on her own account instead of having been kidnapped.

"Elya," Kevin said, using her name for the first time. His voice was stern. "If you were my daughter and I'd have found you gone without a word, I'd be going insane with worry. I'd at least wanna know you're okay."

"Fine, call him, if you need to," Elya told Kevin. "But don't tell him to pick me up, I can take care of myself." She tried to sound confident, maybe a little rebellious. She wasn't a baby anymore, why would her father still treat her like one all the time?

She watched as Kevin got a little notebook out of a drawer and then dialed a number from it. She couldn't hear her father's voice, but studying Kevin's face told her enough as she watched him converse with her father. She heard him tell Adam that his daughter was with him and that she was okay but that she didn't want him to pick her up.

She also wanted to clap her hands over her ears because her bad conscience was suddenly starting to nag at her. She didn't want to picture her father worrying about where she was. But deep down, she knew he was.

"Okay, I'll take her," Kevin finished the conversation before hanging up the phone. Kevin looked at her, saying, "Come on, I'll drive you home."

"What, I don't even get to meet my grandparents?" Elya asked.

Kevin sighed, then told her, "It's ... Look, okay, I'll take you to them."

"Wait a minute," Elya said, her gaze lingering on Kevin's wheelchair. "You ... can drive a car?"

Kevin had to laugh despite himself. "Never heard of hand controls?"

"Well, I have now. Cool. I didn't know people like you could do that."

"People like me?" Kevin flashed a challenging grin at her. "You mean, gimps like me?"

Elya actually looked uncomfortable for the first time. "No, I ... I didn't..."

But Kevin quickly reassured her. "Hey, don't worry, it's okay." He lightly slapped one wheel of his chair. "I've been living with this thing and this particularly useless pair of legs for about 20 years now. I'm used to it." He wheeled out into the hallway. "Come on, let's go."

Elya cautiously followed him out of the house. She lingered by the passenger door before getting in, not sure if Kevin maybe needed help getting into the car or getting his wheelchair loaded up. Kevin noticed and assured her, "You can get in, I can do this myself."

"Okay," she said hesitantly. From inside the car, she watched as Kevin hoisted himself from the wheelchair onto the passenger seat with a few, practiced movements and then folded the chair up and put it onto the backseat. Elya was amazed: The whole process didn't take longer than a minute.

And she had to admit that it filled with a certain kind of pride that she had an uncle as cool as this.

As soon as Kevin had backed the car out of the driveway, he quickly looked at Elya before gazing back at the street in front of him and said, "So, let me get this straight. You're Joan and Adam's daughter, but you don't know anything about your mother's family. What exactly do you know?"

Unaware that he hit on an even more touchy subject than suspected, Elya answered, "I don't know anything. That's the problem. Dad never talks about Mom. The other day, we sat down and he told me a few things from how they got to know each other and when I was a kid, but he wouldn't even show me pictures. I mean, I know it's kinda painful for him, but he could at least let me talk to her when they speak on the phone."

Kevin had to keep from gaping at her. "You don't even speak to your mother? Wow, that's ... Why?" he then asked.

Elya snorted a disdainful breath out through her nose. "Yeah, that's what I'd like to know as well." She looked at Kevin. "I don't know why they won't let me talk to her. I'd really like to meet her, get to know her. Do you know where she is?"

Kevin looked thoughtful for a moment. "No, I ... The last time I saw her was years ago. Six, maybe seven. I mean, she calls, like twice a year, but she never says much about what she's doing or where she is. She's always been like that, going off on her little projects without explanation. As if she's on some kind of secret mission. No one really understood why, not at the time and not now. I don't even think your father knew what kept her going."

Kevin briefly wondered if Elya knew about her parents' history. They had found each other back in High School, but things hadn't exactly been going according to plan then. He had often wondered why his sister would have gotten back together with Adam, after things had fallen apart the year before graduation. But love sometimes worked in mysterious ways, he sure knew about that.

Elya's gaze was now fixed on something straight ahead, not focused on anything in particular. Thoughtfully, she said, "I know there's something special about her, but Dad won't talk about that either. Says that it's not his place to tell me. That's bullshit. I wanna know what's going on, I deserve to know what's going on!" Her voice was becoming bitter and angry again. She turned her head to look at Kevin again. "Do you know what's going on?"

Kevin shook his head. "Not really. All I know is that at one point she just up and left. Didn't give any of us an explanation other than that it was very important. Just like that. Believe me, we tried, but no one could get anything out of her. Luke came up with some wild CIA or Secret Service theory, but I don't think that was it. None of us knew she had a daughter, though. That makes everything so much more complicated. You must have been ... how old when she left? Four? Five?"

"Four," Elya explained.

"That's tough," Kevin just said. He was even more confused about Joan leaving now than he had been then. What would prompt a loving mother to leave her four-year-old child with her father, not even seeing or speaking to her again?

He hadn't exactly been a big fan of Adam back in the day, and he didn't think of him as a friend now, but he could only imagine how hard it must have been on him. He hadn't seen Adam since Joan had become Mrs. Rove and they had announced they were gonna move out of Arcadia to the next town over. It was like Joan had severed ties with her family from that point on, at least to a certain extent. Family get-togethers hadn't exactly been on the agenda anymore after that.

"We're almost there," Kevin announced, turning the car to the right to maneuver it into a vacant parking spot. Getting out of the car was as quick an affair as getting out for Kevin. Elya stood next to him as she used the car's remote control to lock it, looking around. The concrete wall she was standing in front of was only interrupted by a metal gate, next to which there was a brass plaque that read 'Penfield Cemetery – admittance between 8 AM and 8 PM only'.

She looked at Kevin questioningly. "A cemetery? My grandparents are dead?"

Kevin slowly nodded. "Sadly, yes."

He started wheeling towards the entrance and Elya followed him in silence. She didn't know what to say. This was surely not how she had expected things to be.

Kevin stopped in front of a row of headstones and when Elya read the names, she realized that these must be the graves of her grandparents. The two headstones read 'William Giorgio Girardi' and 'Helen Nicole Girardi' and as she studied them closer, she took in that her grandfather had died not a year after her own birth. Her grandmother died six years ago. Elya guessed that her funeral had been the occasion where Kevin had last met his sister in person.

"How did they die?" Elya asked Kevin.

"Dad had an MI." Kevin's voice had taken on a slightly sad edge. When Elya looked at him with a furrowed brow, he explained. "Heart attack. It all happened very fast, no one saw it coming."

"Mom was in a car crash. Some guy in an SUV just plowed into her. She didn't have a chance, died on the scene. We were all pretty shocked, especially after we had already lost Dad." He verified Elya's assumption when he pointed at Will's headstone and said, "Mom's funeral, that was the last time I saw your mother."

There was a pause and then Kevin looked up at Elya. "Do you ... want some time alone, to say goodbye?"

Elya thought for a second, then shook her head. "No, it's okay. I mean ... I didn't even know them. But I wish I had." Her voice was sad, full of regret for chances having been missed, chances that would never return.

"They were great parents." Kevin smiled slightly. "The best. It wasn't always easy, especially after my accident, but we all got our act together and got through it. I don't think I could have wished for a better childhood."

Another stab of envy shot through Elya's stomach. She wished for a better childhood. A childhood that included an actual mother. And a mother's family.

Kevin's voice pulled her from her reverie. "Let's get you home."

Elya only reluctantly followed him back to the car.