SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
It's an hour and a half until Craig would typically be due to show, and I despise that I've begun to factor him into the measure of my days. He's not coming today, though, because I told him not to. Today is my mum's birthday. And my uncle Kye's, the second since we lost him.
Judy booked the day off work. Ashleigh delayed her weekend visit with her dad. Those duties of mine that aren't urgent or essential have been put on hold. Our family has always valued every occasion to celebrate, and this one deserves no less for being bittersweet.
We received a flood of cards in the post this morning; many from those given hope and a home with us over the years, others from the wide-reaching net of my uncle’s friends. Three flower deliveries also arrived at our door.
Upon Ashleigh’s return home from school, Judy splashed out on fish and chips for tea. Then we baked a lemon cake together while sharing memories before heading out to visit Kye at his grave. The long-honoured tradition of taking a walk through the park concluded a pleasant afternoon, stopping for ice cream and skipping stones across the brook, much to Dobby’s delight.
But for the first time in my lifetime, after swearing to me she’d show, Mum has failed to join us for any part of it, and she won’t answer her phone.
Despite Judy and Ashleigh's best efforts to cover her absence, I couldn't face returning straight to the farmhouse after our outing. I knew I'd only shut myself away in the snug to wallow, and that would be unfair on them to witness, given that they're quietly hurting too. So, instead, I've escaped to Uncle Kye’s favourite spot, wallowing like the selfish prick I surely am at the old oak where only my dog can see.
Thick clouds veil the view of Yoverton town, rolling in as though summoned by my mood. Mum's phone no longer rings. Now, my calls immediately divert to her voicemail, and a newly recorded message causes me more agitation than concern.
"Hi," her voice repeatedly fills my ear. "This is Theresa. I will be unavailable until this annual ordeal is over—"
"Hi," a voice that is most assuredly not my mum's startles me halfway off the log, jarring Dobby up from my feet and on instant guard.
The message tone sounds, and I hang up the call as my head whips around. "What the—"
"Didn't mean to scare you."
" Fuck?! " I finish anyway.
Dobby's tail thumps off my shin once before he settles himself back down against me, reassured we're under no threat when Craig moves around the tree into sight.
"Ashleigh texted me," he says. "About an hour ago. Asked for any clue of your whereabouts." Bouncing a shoulder, hands deep in his jacket pockets, he comes to a stop in front of me. "Didn’t know what to tell her, so figured I'd just come check in."
I frown up at him. "Why?"
"I had nothing better to do."
"No, I mean, why did Ash ask you that?"
His frown is a match for mine as he takes a somewhat hesitant seat on the log beside me. "She only told me that you'd disappeared," he shrugs again. "And she thought that, maybe, you would appreciate some company. I wasn't sure I'd even find this place again, but then I saw your truck. So… What's that?" The jut of his chin redirects my attention down to the small gift box cradled in my lap by the hand which isn’t clumsily tucking away my phone.
Ashleigh texted me earlier, too, and I replied, telling her I was fine. It's disconcerting that she anticipated Craig could hunt me down. Moreover, that he should. Drawing in a deep breath and huffing it out as a sigh, I tip my head against the thick trunk, turning from him to glower through the drooping branches at the leaden grey sky. "Did you know that the Oak represents wisdom and courage?"
"I, uh, can't say that I did."
"Yeah, and its acorns are a symbol of spiritual growth."
Craig leans his weight back, his shoulder coming to rest on the rough bark barely an inch from mine, his legs stretching out in front of him. A slow exhale of warm air ghosts across my cheek, and for a moment — the briefest moment — I think he might reach out, make contact, attempt some kind of comforting touch. But I don't turn to him, and his hands remain buried. I don't look down either, tilting the black box as my thumb lifts its lid on the thin leather cord and acorn pendant nestled inside.
"Oh, okay. Nice," he says, too close to my ear. "Now I'm with you. For your mum, right? You made it?"
"Carved from the wood of this very tree," I nod, concealing it again. The trinket isn't nearly as remarkable as anything my uncle would've created. "A talisman." Just a wishful piece of tat, really, I don't add. "Good energy, you know?"
"Better than a box of chocolates."
"Wow. Thanks,” sarcasm laces my tone. “Although, hey, at least I could be eating those right now."
"That's not," he starts to say, then pauses. There's a soft rustle as he shifts beside me, and the flashing light of a hidden plane overhead holds my focus away from his continuing stare. "Do you, uh, want to talk about it?"
"We are."
"Sure, but I mean… Would you prefer for me to go?"
It's not until he makes a move to stand that I finally cave to meeting his sidelong gaze. He stills, his brow pinched in a way that I don't at all like, and the dimple in his left cheek sneaks a reappearance with the sympathetic crook of his lips.
"Every year, Mum would insist on making this whole day about her," my voice hitches. "Worse than a kid. It should’ve driven my uncle mad, honestly. Yet, he always played along, joking that his sole purpose for existing was to bridge the canyon between her world and ours. But now we’re without him, and she’s cut herself off. And all I keep thinking is, like, what exactly did I hope to achieve here?"
At last, the sky has become more than foreboding. A fat raindrop steals through our cover to splatter on my forehead. Craig blinks as another one targets the tip of his nose, and I track its fall to his mouth.
“Even if Clark wasn’t the troll in the middle, we’re stranded on opposite sides of a rift that feels too vast.”
For an uncomfortable moment, my words hang on his pitying study before a soft sigh from him stirs the air. "You don't have to be on her side to be on her side, Bas," he says solemnly. "The space in between is irrelevant."
And I'm no less taken aback by my laugh than he is, an obtrusive guffaw that rouses Dobby's head from his paws to check on me. An instant twinge of guilt follows at the sharp downward cut of Craig’s eyes, and I could swear his ear becomes a shade pinker. It wasn't my intention to scoff, but—
"Okay, yep, I heard myself."
"Sounded better in your head, huh?"
"More fool you for getting all deep and analogical on me and expecting much else."
"This is very true."
Once again, I'm prickled by the dubious sense of an almost touch, swiftly quelled when he straightens up from the trunk. Withdrawing a hand from his pocket to swipe a sleeve over his face, he takes his turn now to stare off toward the murky horizon. It's a long while before he speaks again. Long enough that I begin to wonder if he might have taken some genuine insult.
"At least Uncle Kye finally got a birthday all to himself, anyway." I dart him a half-smile he doesn't see. "Free from any of the usual craziness."
Dobby squirms himself in beneath my legs with a disgruntled whine as more rain breaches the sheltering boughs. The air is all too suddenly thick with the scent of moist earth and the frenetic drum of an invading downpour, the heavens splitting asunder.
Then, "In one way or another," Craig breaks his silence. "I've managed to sabotage my own goddamn bridge between me and everybody who's ever meant anything." He's entirely unreactive to the worsening spit that flecks him, his voice carried alongside his gaze out across the deluged world beyond the ridge. "You should know, though, Bas, for whatever it's worth, that if not for you — and Judy and Ash — these past few weeks… no matter how insufferable I've been or how impossible I've made it… chances are, I’d have no place good left open to me."
“Yeah, well. Not knowing when to quit; that’s pretty much our family curse.”
“Your mum’s lucky she has you to count on.”
We're getting steadily drenched, but neither one of us is edging to leave. I drop an inadvertent glance at the tidy scar of my stitchwork across his jacket sleeve before closing my eyes, no longer ignorant to the far deeper wound running through him which can’t be so neatly patched. "Careful there, Craig.” The heat of his returned attention sweeps me, and one corner of my mum's gift digs into my palm as I tighten my hold. “I might almost be glad you've stuck around."