32. Olly
THIRTY-TWO
OLLY
“Okay, but if I’m getting out of this toasty bed to see some strange work of triangles and circles again, I’m entitled to tickle you mercilessly.” He chuckled.
“It’s not anything like that, honestly. Not my usual style, but my muse spoke to me or some other esoteric bullshit.
” He climbed out of his side of the bed and walked around to help me up.
I swear, every hour I felt heavier. I took Shepard’s hand, and he led me down the hall to the second bedroom, which was now his studio.
And there, on a huge canvas, was my undoing.
Those cries I choked down before wrenched forth, and I approached the piece, my face wet with tears and my body shaking from the strength of the sobs coming out of me.
“I call it, Family Portrait,” he said, walking over and rubbing my back in large, comforting circles.
What was looking back at me was a picture of myself, Clark, Shepard, and Thomas, with three little girls in front of us, all smiling and at first glance, holding hands.
There was Maya, Rosie, and in the middle stood Bea.
The girls all looked to be around eight-ish years old, and I couldn’t help but stare at Maya and ache for what I had lost, and revel in what had been found, because even though she wasn’t visually a part of our daily waking life—her powers were far too weak for that, and I didn’t give her much of a boost, it seemed—she was still there, with us, just as present as the other girls in a way, and she popped in whenever she could.
In a strange detail, I noted that Bea wasn’t actually holding Rosie’s hand, because tucked under that arm was a large, old-looking book—with a silver cover.
No one else was carrying props of any kind, and I had that feeling of someone walking over my grave.
We were on a hill, and there were sunflowers behind us, and wild roses with their dramatic pink in the foreground.
It was beyond beautiful, but I had just one question.
“Shepard, what is that book Bea is holding?”
“You know, I had no idea until early this morning when a fellow named Barkhouse dropped off a banker’s box for you, and told me to look inside and confirm what was in there.
He had an itemized list, which is in the box.
There were a bunch of coloured folders of drawings, some off-white thick folders, and a soft, cloth grey bag.
Inside the bag was that book. The book I’d already painted three days ago.
I gotta tell you, Olly, I almost shit my pants. ”
After twelve years, Shepard didn’t really believe in psychic abilities.
Or rather, he didn’t, until I ripped that duct tape off and showed him he had been manipulated for the past four months.
Before then, I was, in his mind, either suffering from a mental illness, or, goddess forbid, was one of those flat-earthers and those who thought the moon landing was faked in a Hollywood sound stage.
“Shepard, how did you know what Maya and Rosie looked like? I mean, I get having some...connection...with our little Bumblebee, but you’ve never even heard of Rose, and I’d barely spoken about Maya.
” I felt goosebumps rise on my arms, a twitching in my lower back, and the start of a headache in my temple.
He seemed ready for that, because he said, “I was hoping you could tell me. Fill in the blanks. Who are they, exactly? Him, too,” he said, pointing at Thomas. “It might sound a bit weird, but I dream about him sometimes.”
I let out a large puff of air, knowing I was about to enter Bigfoot territory in his mind.
“Maya, the girl who looks a little bit like Wednesday Addams, with the dark hair in braids? I’ve seen her in my dreams a few times.
She’s very shy. She never had a shot at life, except what she absorbed through my tummy when I carried her, and that was just seven months in junior high, poor lamb.
You know I was knocked up as a teenager, but you never asked what happened, and I was grateful, because I wasn’t ready to talk.
But now, now I want to photograph your portrait on my phone so I can carry her with me everywhere.
It was in my seventh month when her heart stopped beating.
I held her for hours, wrapped up in a blanket.
Refused to let them move her. Eventually I nodded off, and then she was taken from me.
“Maya is actually how I wound up with the Parks, because as soon as I came ‘home’ to my foster family, they had packed up my things and arranged for a social worker to meet me to drag me away from pillar to post as usual. It was to the Parks, where they took me. They knew what happened, and you know what? Mother Park just looked at my face, both of our eyes filled with tears, and she held me for as long as I needed. There was no judgement, no anger, no slut shaming. Just an invitation that if I ever wanted to talk about it, they would be there for me. They are ecstatic over this baby though, even though they don’t fully understand why we don’t just get married.
There’s a bit of tension there, between us, because I explained about Clark, but... families, you know?”
“Yeah, I read you loud and clear on that.” He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Okay, the girl on the other end?” I gave him the condensed version about Rosie, because I didn’t feel like she was fully mine to share with people, even if it was just Shepard.
“And of course, the last two are mine, too. Her, in the middle, that’s Beatrice Rose. She’s this one,” I said, picking up Shepard’s hand and placing it on my bump. She gave a firm, hard kick, and Shepard pulled his hand back quickly, saying,
“Whoa, that’s—"
“Kinda weird?” I asked, with a grin.
“Miraculous.” He put his arms back around me, and we just stood there for a solid chunk of time just looking at our daughter, the one he didn’t want, and the one I had thought I was going to give up, but now would kill anyone who tried to separate us.
“I need to go look at what Robert brought over,” I said with determination, because I didn’t just want to know what was in that book. I had to know.
“Oh, not so fast,” Shepard said, pointing at Thomas. “Who’s he? I dream about him, Olly. And fuck, it’s messed up because...” He trailed off. I thought carefully, and then it hit me like a sledgehammer.
“You care about him,” I said, trying to keep the wonder out of my voice. “Look, if it makes you feel better, he was eighteen when he died, and—”
“He’s dead?” Shepard asked, looking aghast at this revelation. I reached out and took Shepard’s hand in mine again.
“Oh Shep, I’m sorry. I thought you knew, somehow.
He died what, fuck, eighteen years ago, and so I guess he’s thirty-six now.
Except he doesn’t change quite like we do, when it comes to aging?
He still looks like my big brother at maybe twenty-one by now, but faster than that he’s gained knowledge, wisdom.
But not as much as if he had been alive this whole time, instead of spending his, well, afterlife I guess we’d have to call it, at East River Beach, waiting to visit someone, or be visited in dreams. He usually has a book or two with him, and I’m not sure if he manifests them, or if he actually goes all ghost on a bookshop or library and borrows them.
But my point is, he loves learning, even though he’s gone. ”
“That’s actually really sad, Olly. I’m sorry. Your brother, holy fuck. And he’s visiting me? Why?”
“Maybe Thomas likes you,” I said, matter-of-factly. “He was gay, you know. When he was alive. Maybe he just feels comfortable with you, or it’s because you’re Bea’s bio father and that’s his niece and he’s curious. I don’t know.”
Shepard let out a huge breath and let go of me. “I feel like a major creeper for having a slight crush on the guy in my dreams that I thought I invented.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and just looked at me. “You’re not fucking with me about any of this, are you?”
“Believe it or not, it’s not my idea of fun to turn my best friend into knots by revealing that his crush was...
is?...my dead big brother. But I have a few photos of our family before the car accident, and I have ways you know, with your full consent of course, of giving you absolute proof that all of this is real and not some hallucination because you took some bad shrooms.”
We were just standing there, staring at the portrait and contemplating the possibilities when the frantic knocking started.
“Shepard?” I could hear Clark’s voice echo down the hall to the studio. He must have used my spare key. “Is Olly still here? I don’t know if you realize that neither of you have answered your phones for the last like, four hours. I’ve been trying since seven this morning to reach you.”
“Aw hell, I shut them down last night so we wouldn’t be disturbed and could get some good sleep, and forgot to turn them on this morning.
Come in, come in. What’s going on?” Shepard sounded legitimately guilty, which was pretty rare for him.
He had that whole Dancing Through Life attitude a lot of the time, though I noticed a new maturity to him after these six months apart.
“What’s going on is that I couldn’t get in touch with my girlfriend and our baby,” he shot out, and I widened my eyes and started to move toward the front door, staying out of sight for just a few more moments.
“Excuse me, your baby?” Shepard’s voice had an edge of anger in it that was generally foreign to him.