14. Deerly Beloved
Chef Bartolomeo was allowed to leave early that day on account of the guests wanting to cook Avi’s accidental kill themselves. Mr. MacKinnon’s pleas to wait had fallen upon deaf ears. His argument as a seasoned hunter, was that the venison would be far more tender and tasty if they let the carcass hang for at least a few days. Had Avi not wanted to be rid of the decaying reminder of her theriocide, she would have voted to wait. Either way, it wouldn’t have mattered. Their collective impatience won out just as the rigor mortis set in. In the name of democracy, Mr. MacKinnon hauled the carcass out of sight and out of mind of the women, strung up the buck, drained it, disemboweled it, and skinned it before butchering it in preparation for the evening meal.
With no electricity to run the freezer, he set aside twenty-two venison steaks, bagged and submerged the rest of the meat in the stream, and tied the bag off to the branch of a nearby tree. The cool brook wouldn’t preserve the meat forever, but it would at least stay good at those temperatures until Tuesday, when he and the other guests would leave Hawthorne Hall and the electricity to the freezers would be restored.
As they sat around their makeshift fire pit on the back patio, Avi watched, nearly in tears, as the muscled flesh sizzled over the open flames. She needed more reassurance that the dead deer in front of her was not the same one she’d seen with fawn earlier in the day.
“And you’re sure, it’s…”
“...Aye. Ah’m sure. ‘Tis a buck, nae a doe. Ah wis sure o’ it whin ye asked me th’ first time, ‘n’ I’ll be sure o’ it whin ye ask me again in five minutes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well…th’ antlers fur one, bit ah have one more piece o’ evidence aging down in the stream if ye need more proof.”
“You mean the…”
“Th’ pizzle? Aye.”
“The pizzle?” Kelly asked between gags. “You kept that?”
“Aye. Waste nothin’ ah always say.”
“Tae eat?” Bonnie asked.
“Ye know…they’re highly sought efter in some parts o’ th’ world.”
“Eww, mate. What bloody for?” asked Jack.
“Juist depends…in parts o’ Asia they’re considered an aphrodisiac…”
“Well, I bet they’re not awful,” interrupted Jada. “If anyone wants some, I can run down to the river real quick. Thomas…you good? Jennifer…Kate…maybe you…or Thomas…not sure if I asked you already…”
Thomas shook his head.
“N’ ‘tis also used…ah think…as an anti-aging cream whin blended into a paste.”
“Hmm…” Mick said with coveting eyes. “Well, if no one else wants it - Dane, may I please have first dibs on your pizzle?”
Mr. MacKinnon, seemingly taken aback by Mick’s choice of words asked, “Would ye mind rewording that question?”
“...Whatever for?” Mick inquired with confused innocence.
“...Nevermind.”
“How about we never use that word again,” said Kelly, still looking rather greenish gray.
“But you’re certain it was in fact a…a…?” Avi asked once more still concerned for the doe and her fawn.
“Aye! Now…efter all that questionable chatter…who’s ready tae eat?”
“Well, I was starving. I’m now feeling a bit peckish. Eh, but I’ve eaten my way through worse. Dish me up!” exclaimed Thomas.
“They’re medium rare. Ye a’right with that?”
Thomas nodded as Mr. Mackinnon stabbed into a slab of venison with his fork and shook it off onto Thomas’ plate.
“Ah fur one dinnae think any o’ us should be eatin’ that,” Bonnie haughtily announced.
“Why? ”Cause it”ll be a wee gristly? Ah tried warning ye, but...”
“Na. Because ‘tis a crime! Ye know she kin’t hunt a deer withoot a proper license.”
“She didnae hunt it. ‘Twas a accident.”
“Still…”
“Whitcha want me tae dae, Bonnie? Leave th’ carcass in th’ forest…have it die fur nothing?”
“Aye…food fur all th’ other woodland creatures would nae have been fur nothing.”
“Is it really against the law?” Avi asked.
“Na.”
“Aye!”
“Fur goodness sake…‘tis a wee fine…a few days o’ jail time at most, ‘n’ that’s only if one o’ us goes blabbin’ tae th’ authorities. Sae dinnae blab ‘n’ we’ve nothin’ tae worry aboot. Aye?”
The rest of them, including a resistant Bonnie, nodded in agreement, but Avi still felt horrible. She’d never even knowingly killed a bug. Even when she was little, she practiced catch and release with potentially venomous arachnids, risking a bite to take them outside rather than enduring the culpability of squashing one. Not only had her jealous rage caused her to needlessly kill something far more magnificent than the common house spider, but it had also given her a small taste of criminality’s hard-knock life, and it was tougher to chew than Thomas’s venison.
However, even at those depths of guilt, Avi found comfort in being a part of the peculiar family dynamic that had developed amongst friends who only days earlier were strangers. They had shared so much in so few hours. They’d navigated a breakup and survived a death. They’d shared stories, embarrassing experiences, and loads of laughter as bridges of commonality began to span the gaps between them. Even her feelings for Bonnie, though heated at times, stemmed from the underlying root of amiability. Had she not at least somewhat cared for Bonnie, she wouldn”t be going through so much just to spare Bonnie”s feelings.
As the sun set and the only light left emanated from their fire and the candlelit rooms glowing from Hawthorne Hall’s windows, Avi made an effort to take everyone in exactly as they were. She studied their faces and features…their expressions and voices. She knew that before she knew it, this amazing experience with these incredible people would feel like little more than a dream. The scenes and scattered pictures she could replay in her mind needed to be crisp and clear. She wanted to be able to recall every wrinkle, every hue, and every hair and replay with exactness the various timbres with which they chuckled and spoke.
Still, it was he who received the overwhelming majority of her cerebral absorption. He was the only man she’d ever met who made her prefer the present over some semi-forgotten, over-romanticized past.
“Oh! But what is the purpose of the present? What good is an instant!? Come Tuesday, this now will merely be my new preferred past, and I’ll be left living and dying as I always have; dwelling on some better yesterday made bitter by today.”
She tried to force herself to stop and focus on the moment at hand, but it was too late. Her eyes had already said everything she was thinking, and she had noticed Mr. MacKinnon’s noticing. Though it seemed as if he could not for the life of him figure out why she looked so sad.
Over the next few hours, Avi and her guests raced the dying fire with games and various songs sung around its wavering flames. Once Josh and his family got back from their day trip, they, Gracie, and the Lewises brought out everything they’d need to roast marshmallows and make s’mores. Only the Jane Gang and Avi understood the anachronistic nature of such a treat, but they were literary buffs…not insane. Who in their right mind would deny themselves the splendor of s’mores over some historical technicality? They kept their mouths shut until it was time to fill them with golden brown mallow.
“He’s staring at you,” Corey whispered so that no one else could hear them over the sounds of charades that had started only moments earlier.
“That’s because I’m staring at him.”
“Well, if I didn’t think you already had him, I’d tell you to play a little hard to get. Seeing as he can’t manage a moment without taking his eyes off you, I’d say it’s safe to go even bolder.”
“How so?”
“Invite him to join us tomorrow.”
“Join us for what?”
“Gracie didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“She made tomorrow another free day for the guests, so we could have some family time; playing games…catching up…all that jazz.”
“But, Corey, he’s not family. And even if we made an exception for him, what excuse could we come up with to have him join us that wouldn’t alienate the other guests or make Bonnie suspicious?”
“I don’t know…I’ll have to think about it.”
“Well, don’t hurt yourself. If I have to go a day without him, at least it will help me prepare for the rest of my life without him.”
“Stop.”
“Do you think I’d find joy in being a lonely old cat lady?”
“Seriously, stop.”
“How much do you think it costs to own and take care of enough cats before the neighbors start referring to me as the cat lady? A few hundred thousand should do the trick, right? Remind me to send Ken and Mel thank you notes for at least leaving me enough to do that.”
“Get up!”
Corey looked infuriated.
“Oh stop. I was only half serious.”
“Now!”
Avi was somewhat embarrassed before realizing that no one else had noticed her sister’s patronizing demand. They were too distracted trying to discern what Mick’s complicated and overacted gestures had to do with the topic of common household items. After having stood, Corey marched Avi far enough away from the fire pit that she could lay into her big sister at the precise volume she desired.
“Do I really need to be with you every waking moment of the day…drilling into that thick skull of yours how beautiful, incredible, and deserving you are? Do you honestly need me reminding you every five minutes that you can make this work with him if you really want it to work?”
“Probably.”
“You know what I think?”
“What do you think, Corey?”
“I think you’re afraid.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right. You’re afraid that the best that could happen between you two has already happened. You’re afraid that if it all worked out with him and you finally got the happily ever you’ve spent your entire life running from, he’d inevitably discover the real you and reject you outright. Why do you always run from who you are and what you deserve?”
“Who I am…Corey, do you have any clue what it’s like to have tragedy shape your identity into some…lonely, miserable shell of detestability? You lost Mom and Dad before you even had time to make your first memory. I remember their voices. I remember their scents. When I lost them, I lost me. When they died, the best parts of me died with them.”
“See…what you just said right there…if you had told me that any other day over the last two decades, I would have wholeheartedly believed you. But not today. Avi, I’ve seen more of the real you today than I have in all the days of my entire life combined. This is you…the confident, sexy, playful, energetic, passionate, snorting beauty that has entirely entranced one Dane MacKinnon. When Mom and Dad died, the real you didn’t die with them, you just locked those best parts of you away to spare yourself the pain of being reminded of them every time you looked in the mirror.”
Avi bit down hard to keep her lip from quivering and looked away to hide the liquid pain gathering atop her bottom eyelid.
“Avi, when I first echoed what Grandma said…‘You need this, Avi Hawthorne,’ I thought you needed millions of dollars, an English mansion, and the adventure of a lifetime to make you happy. What I see you needed all along was to get back to being Avi Hawthorne…the sister that tragedy stole away and hid captive from me all those years. And if he frees her…if he frees you…and reopens the door to happiness that you’ve so desperately tried to weld shut, then you go ahead and lose the mansion. You go ahead and lose the money and the adventure because once those things are gone…if you can come away from all this with him, then you’ll come away from all this with you.”
Avi tried to shake her head in disagreement, but she suddenly felt too glued to Corey’s eyes to make a move.
“Please, Avi. I see it, Dane sees it, and I know that you…”
“That was all very lovely,” Avi interrupted. “I appreciate everything you said. I really do. I only wish I believed it as much as you.”
“Avi…”
“Corey, if I can’t even tell who I am, how can you? I don’t know if the last week has brought out the real me or the me I thought he wanted…I don’t even know if it was him, the wealth, the house, or this country that brought that person out! If neither of us knows those things, how can either of us claim to know under what conditions that person will last or for how long?”
“You’re just running again.”
“Of course, I’m running…if that’s what it takes to spare both he and I the pain of disappointment…”
“Oh look, everyone…Aviva Hawthorne will now be playing the part of the noble coward! I know she’s excellent in that role, but one must wonder how she manages to play that character so often without exhausting herself.”
“Goodnight,” Avi said as she walked back up to the empty and dimly lit house.
“You sure?” her sister asked. “I hear Mick’s looking for some acting tips if you wanna…no? Alright. Goodnight.”