Nora slid her sleeve back down, the slight chill in the air biting at her exposed skin. “Thanks.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“I always thought my dad would have been a good doctor,” Nora said.
“Oh no, not Martin.” Richard laughed again. “He was a sweet boy with many talents, but the sight of blood turned his stomach. There aren’t many patients whose ailments would be improved by watching their doctor be sick all over his own shoes.”
“Oh,” said Nora. She never knew that about her father. There was so much about him she didn’t know. It was something that always sat there at the back of her mind but had never really felt the need to come forward until now. “Well then, I guess it was good he went into architecture instead. Buildings don’t really mind what comes out of you. You can even add extra bathrooms if it’s a big enough concern.”
“That you can. So he was happy, then? Your father? He found a job that made him happy?”
“I think so. Yes. It made me want to get into architecture too, actually, though for different reasons.”
“And what are those reasons?”
“Well.” Nora lowered her legs and swung her feet. She felt like a child talking about what she wanted to be when she grew up. “Architects can design buildings to be safe. People live in buildings, and work in them, and shop in them, and spend their whole lives surrounded by walls. And those walls should feel like…like a sanctuary, I guess. No matter what you’re doing within them.”
“I understand exactly where you’re coming from. Did you know my father founded this town? He landed here some eighty years ago, on this little forgotten patch of land with nothing and no one in it. He had been looking for a place to lay down roots and raise his young family away from all the stress and the chaos of the world after Mother died. A sanctuary, as you call it. Over time, the odd outsider would find us and stick around, but for themost part it’s just been us. But tell me, why didn’t you end up pursuing architecture in the end?”
The answer to that question was the same as the answers to most questions in Nora’s life. Because it would have been a risk. She had watched her father try and fail to land a job in the field for over a year, forcing her mother to work longer hours and bringing a tension into the house that hadn’t been there before. Nora needed to provide for herself, and that required stability. When S.C.Y.T.H.E. had reached out to her less than six months after her graduation, promising her a decent salary, benefits, and the ability to learn more about death (and, by extension, how to avoid it), she’d jumped at the opportunity. Of course, now, miles from home and with an entire brother’s life to babysit, Nora couldn’t help but wonder if her risk assessment skills had been off. But it was too late to change things now.
“What did Ruby do before she came here?” Nora asked in place of giving her answer.
“Ruby?” Richard ran a finger under his nose and looked out at the sea again. “She worked in…transportation.”
“Like, truck driving?” Nora asked, trying to picture the tiny woman in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler.
“Mm. Now, what say you and I go back inside for some hot cocoa? Then we can talk sleeping arrangements and figure out what you kids will be needing for your stay.”
Nora gave one final look at the foreboding ocean, the deep blue concealing a myriad of things with too many legs or teeth or, somewhere very far below, likely too many eyes as well. She gave it a nod of recognition, and in response a small wave broke into foam on the shore. Nora turned and scurried after Richard and the little red house just beyond.
12
Dinner was a stark contrast to the meal that preceded it. Instead of every Bird in town reaching over one another in the packed dining room, only the immediate family and the twins sat around the table. Patty insisted that despite appearances, they didn’t spend every meal together—even a close family had its limits—but this was a special occasion. Ruby and Charles whipped up some salmon with roasted potatoes and the rest of Patty’s mostly untouched salad from lunch, and the six familial strangers sat down to eat in the last winks of sunlight.
After dinner, they stayed around the table and talked about nothing in particular, which Nora found both infuriating and a relief. She could feel the million and one questions she had about her father, about this place, about the family she never knew existed pressing hard against her throat, fighting to get out. But at the same time, the ease with which this meaningless, carefree conversation rolled reminded her of coming home from some after-school program or other to a table full of hearty foods that were mindlessly devoured while Dad cracked a joke or Mom told a story about something especially nonsensical that happened atwork that day. There was something comforting about conversations without an agenda, which seemed to be the only genre of conversation she ever had at work, where each person involved had an end goal. This was just talk for the sake of lingering a little longer in each other’s company. The only agenda here was simply to be.
After a while, Charles got up and started to clear the table.
“Let me help.” Nora rose from her seat and grabbed Charlie’s plate, making sure to keep the knife pointing outward and as far away from her as possible as she stacked the dishes on top of her own. She’d once had a case involving a steak knife, a post-meal cleanup, and a man’s unsuspecting abdomen that she’d never forgotten.
Charles, unlike his namesake nephew, was only too happy to take on the role of dishwasher, tossing a blue gingham towel to Nora for drying. They found a rhythm and carried on in silence for a while before Nora decided to take a stab at small talk.
“It seems nice out here,” she tried. And while it was true, it was also all she could think of to say. This man who shared her smile and knew her father’s deepest secrets was a stranger to her. For all she knew, the most they had in common was genetics.
“I’m partial to it,” Charles said, flashing Nora’s smile back at her. “Might be a bit too slow-paced for you kids though.”
“I like slow-paced,” said Nora. “It’s safer that way.”
“Oh, if safe is what you’re after, you can’t get much safer than Virgo Bay.”
The words slipped through Nora like a warm sip of tea, and for that moment she gave herself permission to agree with them. It seemed true enough in a way. S.C.Y.T.H.E. would certainly struggle to find the twins all the way out here, which made forone less thing to worry about. Now most of Nora’s boundless worry could be comfortably concentrated on keeping her brother alive. In its own strange way, that came as something of a relief.
“Safe is good,” she said.
“Your dad would argue with that,” Charles replied on a chuckle. “That kid was always a little daredevil. Fearless.”
“Just like Charlie,” said Nora, trying to keep the hint of resentment from her voice. She’d always longed to see her parents reflected back in her, but from what little she’d known of them, they simply weren’t—not in the way they lived on in her brother. Sure, she’d once dreamed of being an architect like Martin Bird, but her reasons for it couldn’t have been more different, her character less similar, even her stature and the way she carried herself so far removed from the people who’d created her.
