"Helena... Helena, what is this?"
Myka turned to look at the girl and could tell that she was unsure if she had made the right decision. Helena handed her the sheaves of paper and promptly backed away.
"I think you should read it, Myka."
She looked down at the collection of pages. They numbered the hundreds, certainly. The thousands, possibly. Each piece of paper was in varying degrees of disrepair. It was obvious that a number of them had been crumpled up in frustration, only to have been forgiven for whatever misdeed they had committed and put back into the pile.
"I've organized it the best I could."
Myka ran her fingers over the script on the first page. It had been typed on a typewriter and each of the letters stood on edge, ready to escape.
Blue Willow Sky by Warren Bering.
Notes littered even the first page in red pen, some precise, others scrawled in a fury.
"There are... a number of versions. He's written it over and over. I'm not sure, but I've tried to glean the order in which he wrote it, based on the quality." Helena hesitated.
Myka leafed through the bundle. "Where did you find this?"
"They were all in the bottom drawer of that bureau. I was looking for a place to store some of my things and found..."
Myka's voice was laced with a building agitation. "How long ago?"
Helena was quick to clarify, crossing to sit next to her love, "Only a few weeks ago. I was curious at first. Then, as I read, I just wanted to make sure before I showed you."
"Make sure of what?" Myka had put the manuscript down and was watching it as if she were expecting it to explode from her touch alone. A time bomb delivered in the most innocent of packages, the written word.
"I just think you should read it."
Without thinking, Myka threw open the door and sped down the hall, covering the ground in seconds.
"Myka, what are you doing?" Helena grasped her by the arm, pulling her away from the stairs.
"I'm going to ask my mom if she knows what this is."
"Please, Myka," she was begging the girl - the emphatic tone, the grip on her arm, and just that flash of sadness in her eyes again, "just read it, at least some of it, before you say anything?"
Myka bit at her lower lip, considering her options. Yes. Yes of course, she was curious. Just look at Helena, at her reaction. What could he possibly have to say that would warrant that sadness in Helena's eyes?
It didn't matter, because more that curious, she was scared. The idea of reading... that... made her feel like she was invading a privacy that was very pointedly being kept from her.
But Helena had read it. And for some reason here to unknown to Myka, she needed her to read it too.
"I don't know if I should, it's a huge breach of privacy, Helena."
Helena just looked back at her, out of arguments, out of words.
Myka sighed, "Will you at least tell me what it's about?"
Helena's panic softened, "You, Myka, it's about you."
Myka didn't eat dinner with them that night. She also begged her mother to let her have the next day off, though she wouldn't elaborate on the why. Her dad was going to be at a convention for the day, so he couldn't protest and, "Mom, if you really need me, I'll only be upstairs."
When Helena made her midnight journey that was now their nightly ritual, Myka was sitting on her bed, cross-legged, having gotten through more of the manuscript than should have been possible.
"Darling, don't you think it's time to sleep?"
She shook her head. "I can't Helena, every answer I've ever asked for, begged for, he put in here."
"I know, but it's a lot to try to process in one night."
Myka murmured her response, barely audible when in competition with the rain that had been slamming against the windows all night. "The only way I can stop being angry with him is to keep going."
"All right," Helena easily relented, "well, scoot over." Myka moved closer to the wall so that Helena could climb in. When the girl was settled back against the pillows, Myka put her head in Helena's lap. Helena ran her fingers through her hair like it was water instead of tumbleweed; somehow, she had long ago found the spots where she could achieve the impossible.
Myka read until the sound of the rain petered off. She read until Helena's fingers slowed to a Palestrinian pace and stilled completely. She read until the words blurred into one mass, trying to make sense of the non-linear images and sounds. She read, not making sense of the words, until she was yanked into slumber, lacking the drive to fight anymore.
Well, the whole website was a bloody mess and was going to have to be completely overhauled, that was all. She didn't understand how Mr. Bering had run a business for so long with such gross underutilization of the internet. She could do it on her own, but it would be quicker to call Claudia and then she could get back to the margins Dr. Frederic sent yesterday...
"Helena?"
Mrs. Bering was standing in the doorway - presumably this was not the first time she had said her name. This was always happening with her and Myka, getting caught up in their thoughts - the product of thinking too much and too loudly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." She smiled at Helena. She smiled a lot. A looking-glass of a life she did not lead. Even though she saw through it, Helena returned the smile.
"What's up?"
Jean nodded her head upwards, "What is it that Myka's doing up there?"
….
Let's see… weighing the options… If I tell her the truth, she's liable to storm up there and take the book away before Myka is finished. However, if I lie, she'll probably know that's what I'm doing.
Helena was a good liar.
Jean was a mother.
Maybe a bent truth then.
"She had some reading to catch up on."
Jean's face conceded nothing. "Did she at least get some sleep last night?"
"I couldn't say."
Helena was a good liar.
But Jean was still a mother.
"Helena..."
Helena looked back at her screen, carefully nonchalant. "She was asleep when I woke up at least."
"Dear, you don't have to be so guarded, I don't have a problem with it. Though I do have a problem with you lying about it."
Even through her chastisement, Jean's face expressed an openness that Helena didn't see in many - one she hadn't seen from her own mother since before her dad's accident. It was an easiness that Pete had, and Myka too, when she wasn't worrying over something. A desire to love unceasingly. It felt odd to have it turned on her anymore, save from Myka, and even that had taken time.
"I'm sorry." Helena detested being uncomfortable.
Jean shook her hands in front of her, "No, no, I didn't say that so you would apologize..." And now Jean was uncomfortable. She took a deep breath before continuing, "I was just trying to say… I like what I see in her when she's with you."
Her smile waned, ever so slightly and she took a moment to think about how to proceed, leaving Helena in the awkward position of wondering whether to respond or to wait for whatever it was Mrs. Bering wanted to share. "She was... a very focused child. Determined. But not very happy." Jean let the smile again replace the concern that had crossed her complexion, like the habit that Helena was sure it had become. "She seems happy now." She laughed nervously and shook her head, "Well, she doesn't talk to me about it, so I can only guess."
"This seems to be a common theme around here. Talking, not talking. Communicating, not communicating." Helena chuckled, hoping the cloud of awkwardness would dissipate.
"A motif." Mrs. Bering added with a nod and a true grin, putting an end to the topic.
At least Mrs. Bering could make fun of the family's often unnecessary confluence of feeling and intellect that Helena saw them get caught up in nearly every day. They were a heady bunch, that was for certain. Over the passing months, dinner was the one place they all met each evening and Helena had studied their behavior with rapt attention. There were times when they would all share some inside joke or challenge one another with ideas that made reference to books. Sometimes books so obscure that even Helena herself hadn't read them, which initially alarmed her, but she kept up just fine, generally preferring to stay out of the middle of the action and only contributing when she was needed.
Her fascination with their customs remained, though - the four of them passive-aggressively arguing through the words of fictional characters and then pretending they hadn't been arguing at all. And when those conversations were over, Myka and Warren each going back to eating, Warren with his attention fixed squarely on his food and Myka darting her eyes between her meal and Helena. Neither felt the need to contribute further. If they were not speaking through someone else's words, they were not speaking. At least not to one another. If it weren't for Tracy, a deipnosophist who could probably talk at a wall and still come up with something inventive to say, they'd likely eat in mostly-comfortable silence.
Helena had wondered more than once if she could turn her observations of the Berings into actual research. There was a clinical psychology component to her human cognition class in the fall… Would that be stepping over the line? Studying the behavior and traits of your significant other and her family and then writing about it with the hope that the research was good enough to publish?
Yes, that sounded like it was over the line. But they were so much more interesting than what remained of Helena's family.
She really should call them. Avoiding them hadn't made her stop thinking about everything, though she had gotten good at pretending it did. She hadn't checked on her mother in a couple of weeks, but Charles sent updates via e-mail so Helena knew she was all right…
"Helena?"
She had stopped paying attention again.
"Anyway," Jean didn't bother wasting time, now that she had the girl's attention again. "You don't have to keep secrets from me. I'm not here to judge you."
This all seemed to be getting to a point of some sort... Helena cocked her head to the side, quizzically, "I'm sorry, what are we talking about exactly?"
A pause. "Helena... what is it that Myka's doing up there?"
I hope you didn't stay up too late. I'll check on you at lunchtime if you haven't come out of your cave yet. H.G.
The post-it was adhesed to the top of the manuscript, which had been moved to the desk while Myka slept. She couldn't remember falling asleep, but she did remember where she left off in her father's writing. She was into the fourth version of the book, the one that finally referenced her sister Tracy's existence. It was jarring to read a story that was obviously about her family without it making mention of her younger sister at all. Myka wasn't sure why he had foregone Tracy's presence the first three times through. Did he start writing it before she was even born and subsequently just decided she wasn't important or too difficult to fit into the narrative? That seemed like a pretty jerky thing to do. But, he'd done worse. And, to be fair, they probably weren't ever supposed to find this.
She picked up a small packet once again and attempted to dive back into the story. Yes, the story. She was choosing to see this as a tale, completely fabricated, and not a reflection of her actual life.
Which was, well... hard.
When her dad reflected on his life as a young man, before she had been born, Myka could see this boy, this Warner, as a character. He could have tried a little harder on the name, but beside that, he was just one of a long line of fictional young men searching for a place in the world. Holden Caulfield, Pip, and Warner.
It was when he wrote about his eldest daughter, the beginning and the end of his story, that she wasn't capable of an outside point-of-view. She could remember living it. She could remember the neighbors, too chipper, the homework, too easy, the childhood tears, too hot, the hugs from her father, too cold. And all of it felt too, too real.
She reached a particular scene for the second time and stopped herself, dropping her head and making a gutteral sound into her chest, rattling her own ribs. It was an encounter that she remembered so vividly from her own life, an encounter that she still felt in her limbs. She began flipping through the last version she had read, trying to find the former telling of the scene. Why did he write about this? Why would he do this? She couldn't help asking herself the question.
Myka was sixteen and he was angrier at her than usual. Over nothing. It was always over nothing. And he had raised his hand. Simple as that. It was the one and only time he had ever done it. She raised her own in response and grabbed his arm, not sure if he actually intended to hit her or if he was just trying to scare her. She had done it out of fear, but even moreso out of instinct.
By sixteen, she was almost as tall as him and, while he could still overpower her, she could hold her own, arms newly strong from fencing lessons and training for the track team. She remembered looking into his eyes, seeing shock and embarrassment. She couldn't tell if it was embarrassment over losing control or over not having clear dominance anymore. He yanked his arm back and stormed out of the room.
Neither of them had mentioned it a single time since.
The moment was a startling example of the fact that she was only going to get older and smarter and more independant. Less controllable. Less of a shadow that he could kick around when he felt like it.
Those weren't things Myka felt. She had only felt surprise and fear. But her father certainly had felt them, based on his writing.
Here it was, in his own words. Myka held the scenes next to one another. The second version played out longer, more of a self-flagellation, more pleads for forgiveness and mea culpas. In the first, he offered excuses. In the second, just his own regrets.
Myka let go of the pages and they dropped with a thud to the bedspread. Helena hadn't thought this through, showing this to her. What was she supposed to do with it? Was she supposed to pity him? Pity that he regretted the way he treated her? Pity herself for having lost so many years with him?
No, no, start over Myka. Who hates pity more than anyone you know? Helena. Helena does. It's not about pity… think it through.
Knock, knock, knock.
She didn't want to take a break, but maybe Helena was keeping good on checking on her.
"Come in," she continued to speak without looking up. "Helena, how much of this did you think was true and how much did you think was storytelling?"
"Sorry to disappoint." the softer, much more American, voice responded.
Myka shifted her eyes sideways as she tried to pull a blanket up over the manuscript, now in complete disarray. "Oh, hi, Mom. Do you need me downstairs?"
She saw her mom visibly deflate at the fake enthusiasm in her voice. She walked, shoulders lowered, over to the bed and lightly pulled the blanket back. Myka felt her nails start to dig into her palm and she bit at her lower lip. She couldn't let her energy burst out, she had to control the rush of feeling that she needed to explain herself and to yell, to just finally yell at her mom and to yell at this house and to yell at this life that refused to give an inch.
"What do you think so far?"
Myka's body reacted first. Her fists unclenched, the tightness relaxed, her body no longer a rubber band being pulled back and aimed for release. Then her brain caught up.
"Wait, what do you mean? How did… ? … Helena."
Her mother sat on the edge of the bed, "To be fair, I asked, and I wasn't taking her avoidance of the question as an answer. Now," she scooted back so she was a little more comfortable, pulling her right leg up onto the bed, almost like they were just two young friends gossiping over this note some boy in their class had written, "what do you think of it?"
Myka remained silent, so her mother continued.
"I'm still not sure he's captured the essence of you girls. There's a lot more lightness in the two of you than he seems to know how to write. He's still trying though."
Myka perked up, "Wait, he's… he's still writing?"
"He hadn't been for a while. Since you left. The night you came home, though? The night he talked about his father?" Myka nodded her head at the presumed question of whether or not she remembered, "He started up again. These are old versions. He started writing it the first time when you were a baby. I was sick for a while after you were born, and you were so collicky, so he'd stay up with you all night and almost every morning, he'd tell me new things he thought about writing, or share the notes he'd scribbled while holding you." Her eyes were shining, tears not completely formed.
"So… what? Does that make me his muse or something?" Myka kind of laughed at the thought, but the laugh cracked against a solid weight that landed in her chest.
"I suppose it does." She took Myka's hand, "He loves you very much, you know."
"He loves the idea of me, but not me."
Jean squeezed her daughter's hand. She knew where Myka's hurt feelings came from. She knew it more acutely than anyone else. "Sometimes you just have to love people through their flaws, sweetie."
She left Myka to finish reading. Which Myka did. Helena came in to check on her only once, leaving a sandwich and some apple slices, a tender kiss on her lips and a whispered "I love you." She was otherwise undisturbed.
When she finished the very final page of what Helena had collected, she was left with her father's parting words, new to this version. A visceral image of how he must see himself, unashamedly honest.
"I built a shield, out of skin and bones and I used my blood to make it stick. I tied ligaments around it to hold it firm. And when I looked down, I had nothing else left."
She gathered the pages neatly and she finally let herself cry.