She shrugged, picking at the lint on the bedding. “I thought you wanted to start over. There are things I don’t know, and it bothers me.”
I nodded, taking a seat next to her. “Sometimes you have to be comfortable with the idea of never being able to know it all.”
“Don’t get philosophical.” She pinched my arm. “I meant about you.”
“I’m an enigma; what can I say?”
“Silas.”
I tipped my head to look at her. She didn’t look well, if I were being honest, but I wouldn’t tell her that. The loss of color in her skin made her eyes look a bit pink around the edges, feverish. It reminded me of how she used to look: frail and unwell.
“Why do you avoid talking about your father?”
“I don’t know what you mean; I already told you about him.”
“Yes, you’ve given me a surname and not a detail more.” She waved her hand dismissively. “You couldn’t help me back then because there was something you weren’t telling me. Even with your excuses, I feel like I was missing something about why it had to bemespecifically that had to suffer.”
“I didn’t think it was important.” I took a deep breath, glaring ahead at the fire as if I could will it to burn brighter.
“My father,” she began, clasping her hands in her lap, “my father was not a bad man nor good, but he was respectable and true, which is all you can really ask for. An indifferent parent creates strong-willed children with an iron-clad sense of self.” She shook her head and laughed. “That’s what he used to say, at least. He wasn’t much different with his students, though I argue he spent more time with them than me.”
“He was a professor, you said.”
“A great mentor, just not to a daughter.” She shrugged.
“Then why did you cry for him when you killed him?”
“Because there was still hope that he would look at me the way he looked at Isaac.” She picked at the skin around her nails, and I reached out to hold them, to comfort, but she pulled away. “No amount of wit and institutional accomplishment would have outshone the fact that I killed my mother at birth, and how cruel it was that I am her spitting image.”
There was a long pause, though I assumed it was because she was about to cry. I could smell the scent of tears building.
I stretched my legs out as I leaned back on my hands, “I’m the only son of a man who thinks the world dances in his palm,” I chuckled, “and as a child, I believed it too. I thought it would dance in mine next.”
She gave me a look, like I was humoring her. “Don’t we all think what’s theirs will be ours?”
I shook my head. “The difference is realizing that not all things inherited belong to us.”
“What do you mean?”
“You asked why I couldn’t help you before.” I tilted my head at her. “I was stuck in a sort of stalemate with my father for a long time. Everything he built has a foundation of bones. He wanted me to continue, but I couldn’t do it. And I was outnumbered. If he allowed them, they would tear me apart.”
“And then my poison?—”
“I don’t think you realize that what you did was historically thought to be impossible,” I told her sternly. “We are virtually made of poison. The fact that you could permanently maim one of us with no ability to heal was something we never saw before.”
“It was an accident?—”
“Don’t lie,” I laughed. “It evened the playing field. About time someone did something about us.”
“What did you disagree with your father on?”
“I’m tired of losing people when the only explanation is ‘it’s just the way things are.’ I’ve been taught it’s selfish to have everything, that there must be sacrifices. To pursue exactly what you want inlife or to change what they tell you your purpose is, is to betray yourself and your duty to your family.”
“Is that what this is?” she asked quietly, our hands next to one another on the bed. She reached her pinky out, brushing it against mine. “Are you betraying yourself now, Silas?”
“I don’t...” The tingle of her finger skating across my hand sent such electricity through me. “I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”
“What epiphany brought you to that conclusion?” she teased.
