Chapter 31
31
ADAM
W hile Belle’s in my shower ( in my shower… no, stop it, you monster. You have no right. ), I take a walk over to the east wing.
I expect to find the children still at their game in the playroom, but Lily-Iris informs me she thought they’d had too much screen time and she sent them to their rooms to read or study. I approve of this choice. It also makes what I have to do easier.
I rap on Mal’s door and wait for the, “Come in,” before I enter. He’s sitting on his bed with a notebook on his knees, sketching or writing. He looks up as the door shuts behind me and his eyes fly wide with panic. He goes completely still.
“Hello Malakai.”
His little chest heaves with terror as he whispers, “Hi,” or something like it.
I hold my hands out in front of me. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He swallows. His fist tightens around his pencil. Better cut to the chase. I withdraw the cigarette case from my pocket. Mal’s gaze shoots to it and he wriggles backwards up the bed, until his back hits one of the colorful new pillows that’s against the headboard. He’s ready to bolt.
“Hold on, I just want to talk to you.”
When Mal first arrived here, I remember finding the contrast between his black hair and pale skin so stark as to be alarming. I only realize now, as the blood drains from his face, how healthy he’s started to look in the time he’s been in Belle’s care.
“Mal,” I say, putting extra effort into keeping my voice gentle. I’m not usually very good at that, but now it’s more important than ever. “Stealing is wrong. And you know that, don’t you?”
He nods. His mouth moves but he doesn’t manage to produce a sound.
“And we’re going to talk to your therapist about this. We’re going to address this. But…” I hold out the case to him. “I’d like you to have this.”
His eyes dart to the silver case, then back to me. He’s sensing a trap but he’s not sure what it is.
With a sigh, I place the case on his bedside table and sit at the foot of his bed. “I never told you kids about my childhood, did I? I don’t think I’ve told you much about myself at all.”
Mal is still all bunched up, as far as he can physically get away from me without pressing right through the wall.
“I’m not the type of person who likes to make excuses. I believe that we may not be able to choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we react to them. That’s how I’ve gotten as far as I have in life. But I’m starting to realize that maybe our circumstances sometimes do determine how we react to things. Am I making any sense to you?”
I look to him for an answer. Is he even listening? Or is he too terrified by my proximity?
“I think so,” he says. Soon his voice will break, but now it’s still small and sweet.
“My father was a hard man. He had very little control in life, so he exerted what control he had at home. He would find excuses to be angry with us. Nothing we did could ever satisfy him. His favorite saying whenever one of us was sad or upset? ‘Take a spoonful of cement and harden the f… harden the hell up.’ So I did. I got as hard as I could. And when the neighborhood kids picked on me for being a foreigner, for being different, I showed them just how hard I was. Their parents wanted to charge me for assault. But my father? He was proud of me for the first time ever. Because I’d finally demonstrated a talent in something. And that’s how I started boxing. And that’s how we paid our rent. And if I lost? If I got hurt? I just wasn’t hard enough, or intimidating enough, was I?”
I look at Mal again. He’s listening. A little less bunched up now.
“I was a meal ticket and I was hard. And even when I managed to escape from that situation, when I got signed onto a promotion for the first time and I left my family behind, I remained hard and I believed the only worth I had was the worth that my family had seen in me: the ability to turn violence into cash.”
I pick up the little cigarette case and turn it in my fingers. “I know what your circumstances were like before. Maybe not all of it, but I know enough. I know how your father wasn’t around, and how your mother was too drugged up to take proper care of you. I know how often you went without. And I know about the Petersens and how they turned their backs on you.”
Mal flinches at the name. “They didn’t— they were really nice. I… well, Belle probably told you.”
There’s a note of resentment there. I hope Belle won’t be too upset that I’m having this conversation.
“Here’s the thing, Mal. It’s a thing that my therapist told me. When you’re small and your great authority is your parents and your concept of right and wrong revolves around them, when they don’t take good care of you and they tell you that you’re not good enough or worthy enough, you don’t resent them. You take all that on board. Because it’s either that or admit that you’re completely on your own. What I’m trying to say is that you’re wrong. The Petersens were not nice. Because nice people would not do what they did. Nice people, who held up their promise of caring for you, would have asked why you were acting out and would have helped you find a solution. They might have considered how different and strange their way of doing things was for you and given you more time to adjust. They would have, perhaps, thought about how your circumstances might have led to you wanting to keep mementoes of good moments, hold on to those moments as tight as you could, because you had no faith that they would last.”
I hold out the cigarette case to him again. “Lloyd would have wanted you to have this. He would have said you had good taste in mementos.”
Mal slowly, tentatively, reaches out and takes the cigarette case. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Oh, I was. I didn’t much like you sneaking into my space and taking something of mine from me. You can understand that, can’t you?”
He nods again, squeezing the case tightly.
“But Mal, I don’t want you to be frightened of me. You’re safe here. And I need you to know it’s safe to admit when you’ve done wrong. I’m not my father. I may be large and grumpy, but I will never hurt you.”
I walk back into my bedroom to find Belle standing, drowning in the forest-green pajamas that I laid out for him, beside the dusty rolls of wallpaper. He’s unwound a sheet, which he is examining with what can only be called awe.
The green of the paper matches his PJs. I’d forgotten how intricate the floral design was.
“This is Blackthorn,” he says.
“You know the name of my wallpaper?”
He runs his fingers over it, reverently. “Designed by John Dearle in the early 1890s. Often mistaken for William Morris’s work, but...” he turns, dropping the paper and clasping his hands in front of his chest, eyes downcast. “Sorry, I… I got curious.”
I smile. “I’m glad at least someone appreciates it. It cost a fair penny.”
“You never thought of…” his eyes dart around my face and he blinks quickly. I guess I’m too far away for him to see my expression without his specs.
I move closer, “finishing his work?”
Belle nods. “But I guess it’s all Lloyd’s aesthetic, not yours.”
“I don’t have an… aesthetic.”
“Of course you do. Ocean blues and stormy greens. Cornwall on a misty day. The smell of the earth after the...” He blushes bright pink.
I reach past him to trace one of the swirling branches on the wallpaper. Belle smells like my shampoo. Like mine. I try to focus on the wallpaper. “I always loved Lloyd’s vision for this place. Never knew how to start making it real. Always felt like I’d do it a disservice.”
“Another road trip you didn’t want to drive solo?”
I hum agreement. Is Belle also aware of how close we’re standing? Only inches separate us. “You feeling okay? Need anything?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
He’s staring up at me and I have the sudden urge to kiss him. It’s not the first time I’ve felt that, but this time it’s almost all consuming, the magnetic pull in my stomach. How soft would his lips feel against mine? Would he melt into my arms? Would he see it as comfort? Of course not. I terrified him. Whatever trust I’d earned before today, I need to earn again. Whatever Ray saw— the man’s head over heels for you —it’s probably gone now.
I clear my throat and take a step back. “I, uh, spoke to Mal.”
His face falls. “You did?”
“Yes. It went well, I think. We’ll tell the social worker and the therapist and that should be that.”
“He won’t face consequences once he’s, you know, back in the system?”
My stomach drops. “No. The, uh, the children are in their rooms. It should be safe to go back to that side of the house.”
His face falls. “Oh. Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean… you don’t have to leave now.”
He smiles, but it’s forced. “You’ve been more than accommodating. I have a good book waiting for me.”
I call after him as he leaves. He turns in the doorway, squinting towards me. Even as I open my mouth, I have no idea how I’m going to say what I need to. What comes out is, “I wouldn’t have hurt you.”
He blinks and I’m not sure if it’s his shortsightedness or that he doesn’t believe me.
“I know I was angry, and loud, and threatening. I know it’s going to take time for you to trust me again. But please believe, I wouldn’t have hurt you.” It feels like an echo of the conversation I had with Mal. “You’re safe here. With me.”
His face softens and once again it’s all I can do to stop myself from crossing the space and wrapping him in my arms.