Chapter Nineteen #2
Meredith only gave David a long, unfathomable look at that, at which point he hastily took his hand away and finished off his own glass of wine.
“Let’s not talk about them anymore,” said Meredith. “You’ve got a sister, haven’t you? What’s she like?”
David recognized the deliberate change in topic, abrupt as it was. “She—well, we don’t see each other all that much anymore. Her name’s Ruth, she’s a pharmacist. Er, divorced, lives in Cardiff—”
“No, no, not like that,” said Meredith. “That’s just a list of facts. I mean, what’s she like as a person?”
Such a simple question, yet difficult to answer. “Well, you see, that’s just it. She went off to university when I was still in primary school, and then we moved, and we’ve not ever spent much time together,” David explained. “She’s nice enough, I suppose.”
Meredith did not appear satisfied with this answer, nibbling bits of bread and looking at David in expectation.
“She likes animals,” he offered. “Cats in particular. She used to have a brown tabby called…” His brow knit with the effort of recollection. “It was called Leticia.”
Meredith gave a solemn nod, buttering the remainder of his bread slice. “Cats is good.”
Slowly, David found further details coaxed from him: His father, a chemistry professor, a kind but undemonstrative man.
His mother, a journalist and avid gardener who’d always kept a vase of daffodils in the house when they were in season.
A move from one ocean to the other, with weekend trips to the beach remaining constant before and after.
David found that the longer he talked, however haltingly, the more Meredith seemed to brighten up and to show more enthusiasm toward the food, taking a bit of cheese here, a sliced radish there, so he kept at it in spite of how awkward it felt.
In truth, there was nothing all that interesting about his own life, yet Meredith acted as though it were the most fascinating subject in the world.
David spoke of traveling at holidays as various relatives rotated hosting each year; of his parents’ mild surprise and easy acceptance when he’d come out at sixteen; of playing rugby at university until his comparatively minor injury had laid him up for a few weeks and led to the decision to focus on his studies.
He admitted to having chosen accounting as he often felt more at home with numbers than with people, though the latter had come more easily over the years.
He told at last, stumbling over his words a bit, of his mother’s late cancer diagnosis in his final year of university, of her death a few months before graduation—the first time he’d spoken of it in years.
It had not been a deliberate choice, but there was only so much he could bear of Harriet’s sincere sympathy, of his father’s quiet grief, of the way his boyfriend at the time had turned away uncomfortably upon seeing David shed tears.
When he and said boyfriend had broken up just as David was sitting his CPA exams—
“Was it very awful?” Meredith broke in sympathetically.
“No, no,” David reassured him. “It was quite amicable. Simply a case of realizing we weren’t compatible long-term.”
“Well, I’m glad of that, at least.” Meredith took a sip of his drink. “Wouldn’t like to think of anyone being horrible to you that way.”
“Who, Charles?” David couldn’t suppress a laugh at that. If Meredith had ever met him, he’d certainly know better. “He was as harmless as a kitten. I think the worst thing he ever managed to say to me was that I was entirely unremarkable.”
“But that’s awful!”
“Is it?” asked David in surprise. “I don’t see what’s all that bad about being ordinary.
” It had been meant as an insult, yes, but as insults went, it was rather mild, and his feelings had not been hurt particularly.
(Perhaps it had gotten to him just a bit, though, if it had stuck with him all these years since.) Still, he recognized the distraught quaver in Meredith’s voice and patted his hand.
“Come now, it’s all right. I’m all right, I promise you. ”
Meredith didn’t look convinced. In an effort to distract him, David hastened to resume his tale:
After the breakup, he’d found himself at a loss, and followed his father’s advice to seek a change of scenery.
It had seemed as good a time as any to take up Harriet’s oft-repeated invitation to visit.
His intended stay of a few days stretched into a few weeks, and soon enough he’d accepted a position at the Corner Store.
After a few months in a cheap sublease in town, he’d moved into Midnight Cottage, and from there, of course, Meredith knew the rest.
David was unaccustomed to talking about such things, and to the intensity of receiving Meredith’s full attention without the usual distractions and interruptions.
It left him feeling strange and exposed, as though his previous understanding of himself had been peeled back to reveal something soft and fragile underneath, like the petals of a new-blossomed flower.
By that time, they’d finished the bottle between them and set out for home beneath the darkened sky.
It was only early evening, but the gathering storm clouds hung low and heavy, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
David could no longer ignore the twinges in his left ankle and gave up trying to conceal how he favored it as they walked along.
“So that’s why you were so gloomy when you moved in,” said Meredith.
“I suppose I was, wasn’t I?” admitted David.
A cool wind swept past, turning up the pale undersides of the leaves on the trees lining the road, and the first drops of rain dotted the pavement. Meredith gave a little shiver, and David had to resist the urge to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
“If you’d ever said—I mean, I’d just lost someone, too, back then.”
“Your grandfather.”
“Yeah.”
David was tempted to ask for further details, but though it seemed a safer topic, he didn’t quite dare.
Meredith, however, leaned down to pick a ragged daisy from the roadside and took up the subject unprompted.
“Me and Florian never got along, so I was off by myself in the woods more often than not—s’pose that shows, don’t it?
” he interrupted himself with a rueful laugh.
He plucked one petal, then another. “By myself, or else they’d send me to him—Grandpa, I mean.
Being that I was the difficult one, not Florian. ”
Another pause, another two petals gone. “Our grandmother died when we were quite young, and he never remarried, so it was just him on his own. He’d have me read aloud to him, poetry and such.
Probably where it comes from—the remembering, like you said.
” Two more petals were discarded in the breeze.
“He caught me trying on one of my grandma’s dresses once. ”
David tensed. Perhaps this wasn’t a safe topic after all. “And what did he say?”
“White don’t suit you.” Meredith broke into a grin, and David huffed out a soft laugh of relief.
Still plucking petals from his now worse-for-wear daisy, Meredith continued, “It was him who taught me how to make May wine. And bought me my first set of proper drawing pens. Never gave me a hard time when I dropped out of college, either. Only, you see, I was offered an apprenticeship, and I figured, well, I am a bit stupid anyway, so—” He broke off with a shrug.
“You’re not,” said David. They had neared the top of the hill now, and Midnight Cottage was in sight. Todd’s space in the driveway had been vacated—it was well past time for him to be at work.
“Kinley was telling me I ought to go back, but I don’t see much—oh!”
“Oh?”
Meredith held up the daisy, now with only one petal remaining. “I won,” he said in wonderment.
At that moment, the storm broke in earnest, and they both took off at a sprint toward the front door as the rain came pouring down. Meredith caught David by the wrist and pulled him along and stumbled against him breathless and giggling as they ducked beneath the eaves.
“Told you it was going to rain,” muttered David as he fumbled with his keys, but he couldn’t bring himself to complain, not when Meredith was finally smiling again without a trace of broken glass.
Not when he was standing so close, skin shimmering with rainwater, chest heaving, eyes bright with exhilaration.
“Yeah, but you were right,” said Meredith, stepping out from beneath the overhang and turning his face upward. “I do love storms.”