~ Episode Twenty-Four ~

Intimate Crossfire:

The Secrets That Keep a Family Whole

Eri awoke with a start. She was no longer in the woods. No longer surrounded by familiar strangers in a medieval age. No longer a prize to be claimed by a porcelain-faced man and a clover-skinned woman.

With wakefulness came an immediate flood of forgetfulness. All that remained was a cold and drafty farmhouse draped in total darkness. The ticking of a nearby grandfather clock. The shadows of a family of three, painted in oils.

With these things, also, was a sickness in Eri’s heart to match the soreness that flared across her tender chest, the muscle aches and pains that weighed her body to Shinji’s couch.

But there was also a weight against her soul, too.

Of loss and regret for a home she didn’t know.

A home she’d never really known, but ached for.

Somewhere, a phone started to ring. Beside her, Shinji breathed to life on a sharp inhale. His hand drew away from Eri’s knuckles as he rocketed off the couch and into the kitchen to answer the call.

It was then that a flood of nervous realization roused Eri.

They were holding hands.

“Um – umm – I’m g-gonna use the bathroom,” she announced.

Shinji nodded, snatching the handset off its wall cradle by the fridge.

“Izuma residence,” he uttered, almost slurring. Eri pushed off the couch and headed into the foyer with his voice in her ears. She looked over-shoulder at him, face hot with flustered thoughts. Shinji’s back was to her in the portal. He murmured away into the mouthpiece, unintelligible.

We were holding hands.

Snatching up the Hello Kitty backpack from beside her converse sneakers at the door, Eri searched for solace in a powder room built into the side of the main floor stairway.

She settled down onto the toilet with a sigh and tried to mash the sleep-stars that sparkled in her brain. She made a face, scrounging around inside her knapsack for a fresh tampon, careful not to be too noisy about it. She unwrapped the crinkly package with the discretion of an FBI stealth operative and took her time to swap sanitary plugs in begrudging silence, doing what needed to be done, fumbling through the recall of technique Macks had taught her.

She grimaced through discomfort until everything got settled into place. Then, when finished up, balled up that morning’s used tampon into a giant wad of toilet paper that went straight into her bag’s side pocket, with the applicator back in its wrapper, for later at-home disposal.

Eri leaned forward on her thighs, exhaling embarrassment like her cheeks were a fireplace bellows. Outside the door, it sounded like Shinji was wrapping up his conversation over the phone.

He wanted to hold hands after all…

She caressed a hot cheek while chewing on the realization. The earlier excitement to be here, alone with him, had now fleeted into guilt for lying to her family about where she was today.

“...I should go home.”

When Eri exited the powder room, she spotted Shinji puttering around in the kitchen from the portal that saw out into the foyer. He briefly met her gaze, glanced away with what looked like scarlet shame in his face, and vanished unto sounds of clinking mugs and running tap water.

Eri hedged towards the glow of the kitchen, caressing an arm. “Hey, umm – thanks for lunch and everything. I, uh, I should probably get—”

The phone rang to life again. “Hang on—Izuma residence.”

There was a pause.

“Oh, hey. Yeah, she’s here.” The words were javelins of ice through Eri’s chest. She slunk backwards on anxious steps, dreading the worst – her parents. “Okay – hang on.”

Shinji appeared in the doorway again. He ushered the receiver towards Eri, the cord taut to its limit in his extended grip.

“Your friend – Thompson.”

“Mackenzie?” Eri furrowed her brow, confused, and took the phone into her hands. “Hello?”

“Eddi-chan?!” Mackenzie’s voice was a screeching fowl in her ear. “What are you still doing over there?!”

“Ow! Uh – we fell asleep, and—”

“You – you what?! N-never mind that! You need to get over here, pronto!”

Eri blinked. “What? Why, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“No! Your stupid brother called, freaking out, wondering where the hell you were! You had me worried, too! I was scared, thinking you guys got attacked by Monsters again!”

“Ugh … no.” Eri caressed her forehead, eyes clenched shut. “Nothing like that. We just fell asleep studying Monster stuff, that’s all. I’m really sorry for worrying you.”

There was a long silence on the other line.

Eri shivered at the lack of a response. “So, um … what’d you tell him?”

An angry huff sounded in her ear. “Only what he wants to hear: that you’re over here, with me, studying. Now, move it! He’s on his way to pick you up from my place right now!”

~

The whisper of the cool evening danced across Noah Seruma’s cheek as he crossed Simcoe Road from where the family Ford Explorer sat against the curb with its engine idle. He eyed four red-bricked townhouses across the street with a bitter taste on his tongue.

The golden number 68 glinted from the crumbling stoop of one of the middle-sandwiched homes. Beneath the number hung a pair of beat-up wood clogs, a forgotten relic to years of oscillated weather.

Noah jogged up the steps and rapped knuckles on the front door. He stepped back and waited, fists jammed into his jeans pockets.

Just up the street was the Four Corners, Shorebrooke’s affectionately-named main intersection. There, he spied a handful of patrons and dancers milling about outside the local watering hole, sharing cigarette smoke and small-town gossip.

Somewhere, a dog barked.

The old parts of town, parts like here on Simcoe Road, were rough and dirty. Crossing into these woods never failed to make Noah feel grody all over afterwards. He swung a glance back to the car, wondering if he should grab the keys and lock up. The houses here all looked decades out-of-date and falling apart, in need of a landlord who actually cared. Living here at the rough end of town explained Mackenzie Thompson’s personality – why Eri wasn’t allowed to have her over at the house.

“You can do better than a friend like that, dear,” he once overheard their mother say. “Someone … nice. You know.”

Noah agreed that his baby sister could do better in her choice of friends. But it always confused him why Helen never forbade Eri from coming here, to Mackenzie's house, instead of arranging all dates at their own home to keep an eye on things.

Regardless, whatever it was his little sister saw in Mackenzie Thompson, Noah had no idea.

As far as he was concerned, Mackenzie was bad news: an eighth-grade chain smoker with the mouth of a sailor – and who knew what else. He was willing to bet she was responsible for Eri’s little star-lit adventure the other night with the guy he suspected gave her the flame-shaped necklace.

Just the thought of that note on Eri’s door, Do Not Disturb, only to catch his baby sister returning mid-way through her bedroom window made his blood boil.

He knocked again, harder. “C’mon…”

Eri was just a kid. A good kid.

The fact that she’d vanished after Mass this morning, failed to mention spending the day on any school projects, except for a quick goodbye out the door…

That wasn’t like Eri.

This recent deceptive behavior – it wasn’t like her, at all.

The whole thing made Noah queasy with a dread that only left him angrier at the kind of influence now over his sister. Eri was a nice girl. But she was also naïve, and a people-pleaser – sheltered from the storms of the world, to a fault.

He thought of the two boys waiting with Mackenzie Thompson in the park when he’d dropped Eri off the other night. The four of them, together. Working on a school project together. At the coffee shop across the street.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Right.

A probable much-needed talk hadn’t happened when he had picked Eri up that night. She was drowsy, had fallen asleep on the drive home. But it was a talk that should have happened. Noah regretted not having it. But he had been drowsy, too. For different reasons. Post-coital reasons. Not in the mood to talk. To even think.

The faces of those two boys in the park flashed in his memory. Two boys, staring at his baby sister as she trekked the hill to meet them. Two boys Noah didn’t know. But Eri seemed to. And the thought of that made him feel even worse.

He assumed one of them had to have been the gift-giver of the new necklace she always wore now in place of her old crucifix. The new necklace she refused to take off, even to bed.

The dread in his guts stirred faster.

Noah had known nice girls like Eri in high school. Good, sweet, kids who’d gotten mixed up in the wrong crowds: country bumpkin delinquents comprised of wanna-be skaters, potheads, skids, grunge kids, and punk rockers.

He saw first-hand what the meat-grinder of Podunk Life did to a budding teenage girl desperate for approval and affection.

He knew girls like Mackenzie Thompson, too. Broken girls in denial of their personal problems, chasing all the boys in a five-mile-radius because daddy was no longer in the picture. Only to get pregnant and drop out, anchored by the ankles to their home town, ready to serve a life sentence at the local Tim Hortons or McDonalds, or worse.

Oh, how he knew.

The fact that Eri dared to get mixed up with such a girl made his skin crawl, let alone any gift-giving, cherry-picking, boys. He feared for the inevitable mistakes that could very well ruin the goodness of his baby sister. The thought of it, the possibility of Eri getting mixed up in the wrong crowd – his crowd – scared Noah like nothing else.

He banged on the door a third time, even harder.

She was just a kid. A good kid. Barely a teenager yet. Just a little girl.

A little girl who, to this day, was too scared to get her ears pierced and had an obsession with Hello Kitty. A little girl who was the family pride, a school track star. A little girl who took after her big brother’s love for video games. A little girl he used to teach playing the drums. A little girl who prayed the Hail Mary before bed every night, who dutifully took the Body of Christ on her tongue every Sunday. A little girl who never talked back, who always did her chores, who rarely ever needed to be asked twice.

A little girl – an infant, covered in blood that wasn’t hers. Wailing for a mother who didn’t exist. An infant with eyes the color of candied apples, who he’d discovered beneath the shade of a glimmering old oak tree, thirteen years prior.

September, 1986.

The sound of locks clicking came from the other side of the door. It swung inward to reveal a sickly and disheveled lady with dark bags under her eyes that sagged with all the world’s woes. The distinct smell of marijuana and Vertigo cigarettes strangled Noah from off her very presence. She grimaced at the sight of him – or maybe it was a smile. He couldn’t tell the difference.

“Uh, hi.” He offered a half wave. “I’m here to pick up Eri.”

A little girl who didn’t know she was adopted.

The woman, presumably Mrs. Thompson, eyed Noah with wariness.

“She just got here.”

“What?” Noah stared at her, dumbly. The dread in his guts flared hotter.

Mrs. Thompson didn’t elaborate. She shuffled aside, grunting and wincing on a quad-footed cane to let Noah into a foyer-kitchen combo. He blinked away the equivalent of a sensory punch to the face left by the obvious smell of cat urine.

“What do you mean she just—”

“Mackenzie!” The near-skeletal woman leaned on her cane to gurgle out a rasp of a yell. “Your friend’s gotta go!”

Noah frowned at her, took a nosy peek around the filth-ridden eating area that comprised the townhouse’s foyer, and noticed a flowery odor from an Everest-high collection of dirty dishes in the kitchen’s dual sinks across the way. What should have been a table beside him instead resembled a monument to a pantheon of fast food deities, with four busted chairs worshipping around it.

“Mackenzie Anne-Barbara Thompson! Now!!”

In an instant, two sets of thumping heels descended the stairs at the rear of the kitchen. A little black cat that looked about ready for death’s door followed Mackenzie and Eri on riser-wary paws.

“Hey!” Eri sprouted a nervous smile at Noah. Her face looked flushed, sweat-dotted, with exertion. From running, no doubt.

He frowned, offered a curt and silent wave hello.

“Where are you going? I’m not done with you!” Mackenzie snatched Eri by the wrist when she rushed past to get her stuff on. Giggling, Eri eagerly leaned down to slip into her friend’s comically-short embrace. They held each other for ages.

Mackenzie murmured something in Eri’s ear, standing on tippy toes. Noah didn’t catch the sentiment, but thought he saw her flick a furtive glance at him over his sister’s shoulder.

“You too,” Eri whispered. “Thank you for being there. Thank you for thinking of me.”

“Mm.” Mackenzie cooed with a smile, eyes closed, and grazed an affectionate cheek across Eri’s shoulder. “We take care of each other, Eddi-chan. That’s what people who love each other do.”

“Yeah.” Eri squeezed her tight, then broke from the hug to meet Noah by the door. “See ya tomorrow!”

“See you.” Mackenzie backed away on hesitant heels to meet her mother by the living room, arms folded tight. Silent worry quavered in the girl’s yellow-amber eyes. Noah studied her, disgusted by the smell of menthol Vertigos she left on his sister’s clothes.

Eri said the last of her farewells and headed out onto the stoop. Noah was on her heels, closing the door behind him without so much as a hospitable thanks to the Thompsons.

“You have a good time?” he asked on their way back to the car.

“Yeah, I guess.” Eri waited for him at the idling Explorer’s passenger side with an aloof interest in the grass-roots smoke-n’-gossip between tavern dancers and patrons, up the street. Noah shuffled along, fists balled tight in his jeans pockets. He let the pain that came from it attempt to soothe his nerves.

Eri dared to spy him, her apple-colored eyes almost glowing in the evening sun. She was never good at hiding her emotions; a realized tremble of ‘I’m in deep shit’ radiated off of her semi-averted attention, like emergency lights.

And now that she was on the rag, things would only get worse.

The image of two staring boys in the park flashed in Noah’s memory again.

A talk that should have happened.

He squeezed tighter into his palms. Tight enough to draw blood.

Tonight would be different.

“It’s unlocked.” With a click of his tongue, he popped open the driver’s side and ducked inside.

Hesitation followed. Then the passenger door swung open on creaky hinges. Eri took her time to slip into her seat. A green mile walk.

“Pretty late visit, huh?”

“Um, yeah.” She placed her Hello Kitty knapsack at her feet and clicked her seatbelt into place. “Sorry I didn’t call. Lost track of time.”

“Uh huh.” Noah cleared his throat and pulled away from the curb. “You remember my friend, Heather? Who came over the other day for dinner?”

Eri perked immediately. “Y-yeah?”

“I was talking to her tonight. Seems she’s taken a real shining to you. Can’t say I blame her. Anyway, she wanted to say hi. So, hi – from Heather.”

The nervousness in Eri’s features softened into a rosy smile. “Cool.”

Noah continued, “I think you can learn a lot from Heather, actually. She’s a pretty cool broad. Smart, really good at everything she does. A bit on the liberal side, but I guess we’ll see where it goes. Anyway – a real role model. Can’t say the same for your little white trash friend, though.”

Eri’s smile vanished. “…What?”

“Seriously. I know an unhealthy environment when I see one. That house was disgusting, and so is your friend and her mother. I don’t want you spending time in an environment like that. It’s a bad scene and they’re a bad influence on you.”

“Bad … influence? Noah, what the heck? What are you talking about? Macks’ room is like the cleanest place ever! You don’t even know her!”

“I don’t have to, and neither should you.” He wheeled the Explorer through a three-point-turn in the middle of Simcoe Road and headed towards the Four Corners. “So, uh, lemme ask you, Gingersnap – where’d you really go today?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

A long silence came from the passenger seat.

Noah dared a glance Eri’s way, found her gazing out the window with hands busy preening at her fingernails. She didn’t reply, but instead slipped a hand under her shirt collar to massage a shoulder – what appeared to be totally bare flesh.

She wasn’t even wearing a training bra, yet. What was she doing sneaking around with boys?

“Eriya. I asked you a question.”

“I was—”

“Huh?”

“—I was at Mackenzie’s all day,” she mumbled, almost inaudible over the sound of the engine. “I told you guys I was going.”

“Cut the crap already!” The anger in Noah’s blood boiled over with a sharp tone that made Eri flinch in her seat. But Noah set his eyes back on the road and went on, frustrated. “You leave right after Mass today – no notice, no nothing, just a quick goodbye. Then you don’t come back and leave us all worried sick?! Eri, come on, dude.”

“…I … I’m sorry. It…”

“So – no, wait a second. If you were with Mackenzie all day, why did Mackenzie sound so confused when I called to see where you were tonight? Oh yeah, and what was that she was whispering in your ear about taking care of each other?”

Eri turned a look at him, confused. “Wha…?”

“Don’t lie to me. You were with a boy today, weren’t you. That kid who stopped by for a visit the other night? He the guy who gave you that necklace?”

Confusion shattered into guilty fright. “What?!”

“I know it’s him, Eriya. I heard you guys mumbling the other night before I caught you sneaking back into the house. You were with him today, weren’t you.”

“I – I—”

“I’m not stupid, kid. I was thirteen once, too, you know. Oh, not to mention Mom’s trellis starts in the garden just beside my window. Or did you forget that? I saw you both coming and going clear as mud the other night while I was drumming. So, who is it?”

Eri stared at him in slack-jawed silence.

Noah glowered for a moment as darker thoughts clouded his assumptions. “Eri, are you having—No, don’t answer that. Forget it, I don’t want to know. But I am telling Mom and Dad about this as soon as they get home.”

“I – we – we—” Eri’s voice quavered at him, on the brink of a tearful breakdown. “I just – we were studying! I promise – I swear! That’s all it was!”

“Oh, so you were out with a boy today. Thanks for being so honest.”

“Please! You can’t! Please, I’m telling the truth! Don’t tell Dad, please, please, don’t tell Mom and Dad!”

“Just watch me. I don’t know who the girl is sitting next to me, but it’s not you.”

“Noah!!”

The steering wheel suddenly jerked out of his hands, setting his palms ablaze with peeled skin. The Explorer swerved a hard right, barreled up over the curb, towards those who lingered outside the tavern.

Noah swore, clamped a grip over the wheel, and yanked the car back into the empty left-hand lane. He made a clean recovery in time to drift a sharp curve around the intersection on a red light. He tore across Holland Street West with the screech and smell of burning rubber behind them.