Hugo #2
To their credit, nobody asks for any particulars on the recent developments.
Dad simply raises his eyebrows. Mum presses her lips together and sits forward in the chair.
Alfie says, “Well done you!” and reaches across the table for a fist bump.
Then, sensing the mood, he slowly pulls his arm back again.
“Margaret wanted me to have the tickets,” Hugo continues, deciding to leave out the part about how they might be worthless to him. “And I’d like to go.”
“With who?” Mum asks in a way that seems maybe a little too calm.
Hugo avoids looking at any of his siblings. “By myself.”
“That’s a big trip to do on your own,” Dad says, keeping his face neutral. “You’ve never even gone to London by yourself, much less to another country.”
“I’m eighteen now,” Hugo points out. “And if we didn’t—if we weren’t—well, I could just as easily be going off to uni a lot farther away. I don’t see how this is any different.”
“Honestly, it’s different because you can’t make it half a mile without losing your keys or your wallet,” Mum says, sounding both apologetic and exasperated. “I love you, Hugo, and you’re brilliant in a lot of ways, but you’ve also got your head in the clouds more often than not.”
Hugo opens his mouth to protest, but he knows she’s not wrong. When he was little, she used to call him Paddington because he was always getting lost from the rest of the group.
“I’m close to pinning a note to your jumper,” she’d say, her face still white with worry after finding him under a clothes rack at Marks it’s a stroke of good luck.
A chance to keep moving through the world as they always have: as a unit.
Hugo shakes his head. “Not at all. It’s just…
I can’t be the only one who’s wondered what it would be like to…
” He doesn’t finish the thought, though he knows they understand what he’s saying.
They always do. But if they agree with him—if they’re even the slightest bit sympathetic—none of them shows it.
They all watch him impassively, the looks on their faces ranging from hurt to miffed to annoyed.
Hugo swallows hard, feeling like he’s flailing. But then he thinks of what Alfie said earlier, about pulling a Hugo, and fights his way forward.
“The thing is, I can’t imagine being anywhere without you all,” he says, which is true, the truest thing he can think to say. “But that’s why it feels like I have to try it. Even if it’s only for a week.”
They’re all quiet for a moment, even Alfie, until—finally—Dad nods. “Then you have to go,” he says simply, and at the other end of the table, Mum lets out a sigh.
“Just don’t lose your passport,” she says. “All things being equal, we’d prefer to get you back at the end.”