She let her attention wander to the upright piano on the far wall. The pictures of him growing up through the frames never failed to amuse her. Infant Ainsley, his tiny green face screwed up in a yowl, wrapped in what looked like a receiving blanket. Ris already knew that upon closer inspection, the blanket revealed itself to be a work cloth bearing the insignia of a motorcycle club.
A gummy, smiling baby Ainsley in the arms of an orc with thick tusks and a mirror of the bright, brilliant smile she knew so well. He looked like his father, she’d thought with a sad smile, inspecting the photos that first visit. His dad had died just a few months after the photo had been taken, his mom had confided, on Ris's second visit to the apartment. She knew Ainsley didn't remember his father at all, a fact that made her inexorably sad for him. She was close with her own parents, couldn’t imagine not having them in her life for support. She and her own mother would probably still be thrifting for designer handbags togetherwell after Ainsely was gone, another thought that seemed to make her chest cave in on itself, trapping her heart at the center.
There was preschool-aged Ainsley waving from the back of a pony, Ainsley on a bicycle, Ainsley with his first guitar. He and his mom posing beside an Egyptian sarcophagus, on the beach, and in front of this very same piano.
She loved the collection of pictures, loved the vibrancy and laughter she could almost feel radiating out of them. Such a small vial of sand, but so much life contained therein. When his mom died, he would inherit all this, she realized.And when he dies, they’ll be yours. If you’re still together at that point.The thought made her stomach twist and her eyes burn, and she forced her concentration back to the conversation taking place around her.
“. . . And then they didn’t even honor it! I waswroth. And mind you, this is still Wednesday. There’s still a lot of week to go.”
“Ris, tell me how you’ve been. You need to just jump in and take your shot, because he’ll not take a breath otherwise.”
She turned away from the piano, laughing. "Oh, don't I know it. The other night, I got up for a bathroom break, grabbed a little snack on my way back, he was still in the middle of the same story. I don't even think he'd noticed that I left."
"Isthatwhere the popcorn came from?!"
Both women laughed as Ris crossed the room to take a seat across from the sofa. "I am doing well. Can't complain. About anything other than work," she chuckled. "I'm dealing with the same sort of frustration. People not listening when you tell them exactly what the problem is and then expecting you to clean it up after they make the mess that you warned them about. I had a meeting this week with the director from another department whose work product directly affects my team and our workload and it was like talking to a brick wall."
She had learned over the last six months or so that it was gratifying to complain to his mother about work or local governments, or anyone else in a position of authority. Unlike her own parents, who may have attempted to offer solutions, Shu'la was more than happy to rail alongside her, illustrating precisely where Ainsley got it from.
"Hey, you didn't tell me about that meeting."
"I tried!" She laughed. "That was the day I had to leave early to help you with your little problem, remember?" She turned to his mother. "Did he happen to mention his foray into Araneaen culture?"
Ainsley leaned forward, putting his head between his mother and Ris’s line of sight. "To. My.Mother?"
By then, she was laughing so hard she thought she was going to start gagging. "In my defense, you tell your mom a lot of stuff she probably doesn't need to hear."
His mom threw up her hands. "If he thinks it's not something I ought to hear, I know it's gotta be really terrible. Because you're right. I've had to listen to all manner of stories no mother should know about her son."
Ainsley pushed off the sofa, stomping back to the kitchen. Ris and his mother continued to laugh as he grumbled under his breath, pulling several small plates out of a cupboard, swiping two potholders off the edge of the counter aggressively. "You know, I can't help but feel that I am being unfairly ganged up on here."
"If you tell me you're being attacked one more time, a real life Roman battalion is probably going to appear in this room."
He scowled from across the apartment, disappearing briefly as he bent to retrieve the two loaves of bread from the oven. Ris loved their tradition. He and his mother practiced the ancient ritual of bread and salt, sharing a small, crusty, squishy-soft loafof black wheat bread, sweetened with honey with anyone who visited.
"Suffice to say, this is not a safe for work story," he huffed, crossing the room with a tray. Three small plates, the two small loaves of bread, a cellar of herbed salt, and a dish of long ribbons of scraped, salted butter.
His father had emigrated from a clan in Eastern Europe, bringing the tradition with him when he met Ainsley's mother, before she'd left her own clan and the two of them struck out alone. There was something so simple and warm about sharing a delicious, comforting piece of bread with the person sitting across from you. She was very glad he and his mother had continued the tradition, introducing it to her.You should start doing this at home. Carry on the tradition with him.
"Shu'la, did you know that Araneaens go into breeding heats? Yeah, neither did we. Lesson learned. The end."
Ris dropped back against the chair in which she was sitting, her shoulders shaking, nearly dropping the piece of bread she just cut from the loaf. His mother cocked her head, considering.
"You know, now you say that, I don't think I know anything about Araneaens."
Ainsley raised his hands, as if he was vindicated by the admission. "See? They aremysterious. How was I supposed to know I wasn't supposed to swallow a dropper of their aphrodisiac jizz?"
His mother almost choked.
"It's venom, actually," Ris wheezed out. "And you are supposed to know not to swallow a dropper full because the bottle had very easy to follow instructions. That you didn't bother reading. That's how you were supposed to know."
"Suffice to say," he cut in loudly, talking over both women's laughter in a stern voice. "Lessons were learned. Blue pill effect to the max. Like, that was ten minotaur's worth of action.Shu'la, you should just be happy we figured it out, otherwise you would've had to come to the hospital to hold my hand while I was needle dicked."
Her head was thrown back, the silver and copper bands wrapped around her tusks shining in the light from the windows as she shook in laughter.
"Absolutely not, baby boy. That's what you have a girlfriend for. The day you turned 30, I was officially absolved of all awareness of the goings-on of what happens in your pants. He's never been very good at slowing down enough to read directions for anything," she added to Ris, whose laughter at this point had transcended sound and was now just a silent huff of air from her throat, seizing her lungs.
"Yeah, well, the girlfriend in question came through. Gold-medal. But honestly, now I want to learn all about these spider people. What are they evendoingthat requires that much potency?"
