A Shame
“Neil?”
Cornelius flailed backwards, shouting unintelligible nonsense.
After gaining his immediate bearings (on his bedroom floor curled up with Fawcett’s journal) he blinked at Esther kneeling beside him.
Unbound black ringlets framed her stubborn jaw, and her hand hovered over his shoulder.
He looked between her, the darkness outside his window, and his bedroom.
Fawcett's journal was spread bare, revealing the birds and insects of Bolivia that Fawcett was most enamored by. Butterflies. Ah, yes. Cornelius had fallen asleep to Fawcett waxing poetic about the butterflies. There had been a method to Cornelius’ madness, simultaneously reading and jotting down all pertinent details on a blank sheet of paper, until setting it aside and starting another one. And another one.
And another one.
Cornelius couldn’t help but think everything was important, even the butterflies on a trip that took place seven years prior to his disappearance.
But now the formerly neat piles had toppled this way and that, creating a swath of papers arcing out around him, threatening to merge.
Cornelius scrubbed at his eyes, then shook off the dustings of sleep and began to straighten up his mess.
Most of the work was rewritten and edited by Brian Fawcett’s hand, but some of the pages were original maps or journal entries.
He found the dozen year old letter from Watt and discreetly shoved it out of sight.
“What time is it?” He asked, throat raw.
Oh God, had he been snoring? He inconspicuously checked the papers for drool, thankfully finding none.
It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep while working, but usually it was in a much more comfortable position.
Even in sleep he had been careful of the journal, not daring to roll onto it or wrinkle a single page.
Esther sighed heavily. “Midnight. What’re you doing down here?”
“What’re you doing here?”
Esther’s dark eyes narrowed, and her tone flared in that way it did when she thought a person was being condescending. “Giovanni called earlier, he’s worried about you. I wasn’t able to sleep, so I figured I’d come and see what you’re up to.”
His friend looked around his bedroom with a barely veiled grimace.
His bed was unmade, the blankets tucked around his back like a makeshift shawl.
Cigarette and reefer ashes had long since overfilled the tray on the dresser, and several cups of cold tea sat untouched on the small table beside his bed.
Every hour he’d spent here since Mrs. Fawcett’s visit was plainly obvious, the air rank with sweat and old smoke.
A sudden desperation to open the window yawned in his gut.
The blinders had been removed from his eyes, and he saw his state from Esther’s point of view. From Giovanni’s, too.
Giovanni, who Cornelius had hardly given more than a handful of words to. Giovanni, who had been leaving meals for Cornelius, who in turn hadn’t thanked him or bothered to take care of his dishes, which were stacked haphazardly here and there.
Guilt squeezed Cornelius’ heart and he straightened out the wrinkles on the front of his nightshirt, deciding how much to say.
Talking to Esther was like talking to mountains.
There was something endless about her soul, and her heart was one of the most steadfast Cornelius had ever known.
She wasn’t Sara, no one ever could be, but Esther had patched together the hole that the loss of Cornelius’ mentor had left behind.
Besides his family, those at Ur during the Incident, and Giovanni, she was the only person that knew Cornelius was a self-made man.
But there was one thing that Esther knew that the rest of his confidantes didn’t.
At least, none of his local confidantes.
Dimitri and Gabriel knew about Watt, but they weren’t here.
Once upon a time, Cornelius had drank too much and revealed a secret to Esther.
That he'd been madly in love with a boy, a boy who had been his best friend, his everything.
A boy that turned his back on him. And even though the boy shunned him for being who he was, Cornelius still cared.
Cornelius hated himself for it more than he hated Watt, really.
Cornelius told her everything, from the confrontation at the bar to the mysterious meeting and all it entailed.
When Cornelius mentioned Watt’s appearance at the bar and how he’d greeted Cornelius with an old name, Esther frowned in understanding and anger.
But she said nothing, always letting Cornelius finish instead of interrupting the crashing stream of words that always escaped when he was stressed.
Her eyes widened when Cornelius told her about the meeting with Watt and Nina, but again she remained quiet.
After ensuring he was finished, Esther haltingly asked, “So … he recognized you, but didn’t know that it was you? Or he did know, and didn’t care?”
“I don’t know,” Cornelius said, rubbing at the headache blooming in his temple. He dislodged his glasses, which had been smudged during sleep.
“I mean … that’s why you two stopped talking, right?”
Cornelius went still, fingertips pressed hard against his skin.
Cornelius always assumed that Watt knew, that he remembered their discussion.
But if he didn’t, surely Watt’s father would have told him.
After all, Cornelius’ new name, his new existence, was the reason Watt stopped talking to him in the first place.
His father had certainly made it clear to Papa that was the case, that he and his family wouldn’t tolerate an abomination like Cornelius.
False rain doused Cornelius. He shivered against the memory of thunder, against the rage in Callum Johnson’s eyes, against the creak and slip of bones beneath an angry man’s hand.
Callum had found Cornelius, dressed in men's clothes for the first time and hair freshly cut, laying in bed beside his convalescing son, telling him stories and truth in an intimate matter.
Watt had been awake, but unable to do anything to stop his father from throwing Cornelius out into the rain, dislocating his shoulder for good measure. Oh, Papa had been so angry. Jimmy, too.
Cornelius’ oldest brother had been friends with Watt, and in addition to feeling betrayed he’d been furious with Callum for hurting Cornelius.
But instead of wallowing in anger and grief, Jimmy had comforted Cornelius.
Most importantly, he’d taught Cornelius how to be a man.
At least, in all the small and juvenile ways that someone like Papa didn’t get.
How to spit and curse, walk with swagger and keep his chin up when faced with danger.
But only a few short months after Watt left, Jimmy crossed the border and volunteered in Canada for the war effort and left too.
That was it for Cornelius, who left soon after to study in France and stay with relatives.
He’d told his parents it was to start over, make a new life for himself, and while that was true it wasn’t the whole reason he left home.
He'd left because home felt like the God damned loneliest place on earth.
The rest of his siblings had stayed in Harbor Springs with their parents, except for him and Jimmy.
Jimmy became an air force pilot, and after the war he married a nurse he met overseas.
Rebecca Goldman, a nice girl whose family lived in the Catskills, and so she and Jimmy did too.
Jimmy was now a pilot at the new airport in Albany, while she worked at the local hospital.
Cornelius liked Rebecca, even if the most time he’d spent with her was at their wedding.
It was a beautiful Jewish affair, with so many people that it made Cornelius’ head spin.
Their entire life was beautiful, to be fair. The progressive American dream.
Esther cleared her throat and Cornelius startled, pulling out of childhood memories.
“I … don’t know,” Cornelius whispered, and began to tremble as if he were twelve years old all over again.
Esther sighed and pinched the sweeping beautiful curve of her nose, then carefully cleared some papers from beside Cornelius and sat down properly, pulling the blankets around both of them. “I met him today. Him and Mrs. Fawcett came to take a tour of the University.”
Cornelius groaned. “I’d heard they were going to do that. How did it go?”
Esther shrugged. “Fine. He was polite, quieter than I expected. He was kind of …” She hummed. “I don’t know. Preoccupied.”
Cornelius snorted. “I bet.”
Esther studied him for a moment, her hazel eyes peeling him apart layer by layer. Finally, she asked, “Well. What are you going to do?”
Cornelius shook his head, angry at the question—no, at himself. Hell, how long had it been since he felt this pathetic?
Tone hot, he said, “I’ve been asked to find Percy Fawcett. That’s what matters, isn’t it? Watt is … he’s extraneous.” Cornelius waved a hand, frustrated. “Dyott’s findings have never made sense, and for some reason or another Mrs. Fawcett thinks I stand a chance where others haven’t.”
A playful smile teased the corner of Esther’s lips. “Sounds like you’ve decided to go then?”
“No … I don’t know. I feel that at the very least I owe it to the family to read this in its entirety before I make a decision.
But it’s so …” Cornelius waved a hand. “Edited. And the pages that are in Fawcett’s hand are so difficult to read, his script is so tiny and he writes in what I think is code.
I only have until Wednesday to get through it, and then …
well, it’ll be out of my hands. I’ll be fine, go home and get some rest.”
“But why take notes if you’re not going?
” Esther bumped her shoulder against his, and Cornelius rolled his eyes.
She smiled. “It’ll go quicker with the two of us.
We’ll stay in tomorrow, get up early, and have breakfast while looking for clues.
Breakfast that you’ll make, and serve to dear Giovanni in bed before the poor man has a heart attack. ”
“You make it sound like an adventure,” Cornelius said, chuckling. He looked at her, feeling oddly light. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you, Neil. And call Chief in the morning, will you? Damn man kept sniffing around all day, wondering if I’d heard from you.”
Cornelius laughed, genuine and whole. “What, does everyone know now?”
Esther lifted a shoulder. “I haven’t heard anyone talking about your meeting except for Mason, but everyone else is chattering up a storm about your Watt Johnson. If you ask me, he’s the one that told Watt where you were.”
Cornelius stilled. Mason wasn’t part of the team at Ur, but he knew that Cornelius had fled for ‘personal reasons.’ He’d never asked Cornelius about it, and Cornelius assumed the man didn’t care for gossip.
But maybe he didn’t ask what happened, because he already knew.
He knew who Cornelius had been, and had told Watt. Watt, who’d been looking for Annie.
No, that was reaching. That was paranoia talking. Right?