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Chapter Thirty-Nine
Aspen
BEWARE THE BREW
Tali opens the door, stifling a cavernous yawn and ushering me out of the snow. She takes my coat, shoving it inside a closet and indicating the living space in the opposite direction. The house isn’t what I expected for a male college student, but I recall her saying something about Ryan living with his grandmother or inheriting her house, so that makes more sense. Floral-patterned wallpaper in bold, oversized graphics decorate the hallway and living room. There are hooks where photographs might have once hung, the faint outline of unfaded paper visible surrounding each hook. The furniture is semi-modern and feminine; couches in pale tones are offset by occasional chairs in rich, textured fabric.
I take up a position on the couch, next to an indent where she’s been waiting for me to arrive; a tea set and a plate full of little sandwiches and dainty cakes are laid out. It’s an odd spot for an older woman to live alone. The house is on a dead-end road with no immediate neighbors. More than once I had to double check the address as I walked here, my boots sinking into knee-deep snow the plows hadn’t reached yet. If I were Ryan, I’d be worried sick about a relative out here and isolated. I guess that’s where granddaughters differ from grandsons with care and empathy, unless she’s a stubborn old thing who still holds a driver’s license and shovels her own walkway.
“Fuck, Asp. It’s been so long since we’ve caught up. I’ve been dying to see you, but now I’m so freaking tired. It must be the course load and the change of scenery. How are you? What have I missed? You have to fill me in with everything you’re doing, and everyone!”
Her hands tremble as she brings the spout of the teapot to the rim of the delicate cup. It makes a clang, clang, clang sound as the spout makes contact.
“Do you want me to do that? You’re shaking, Tali. Maybe you just need to lie down, or you might be getting sick? Do you feel hot? A fever?”
She fills the cup, placing the teapot back on the warmer, and her relief is palpable. Her shoulders slump at the realization she’s fading fast.
“I won’t stay long. Here, drink your tea, hopefully that will warm you up a bit, and you can go lie down.” She smiles graciously, accepting the cup, and settles back into the chintz.
The air in this room is oppressive. Yes, the furnace is on and the room is warm, but there is something more cloying, making every swallow a thick one requiring effort rather than automation. There is not one masculine item here, I note, looking at the kicked off boots and shoes in the hallway and the water bottle resting on the dining table. No sports bag or heavy flannel coat. No hint of smoky cologne with sandalwood and citrus. Ryan must move around this space like a specter.
The Wyldan house, although tidy, offered a blend of masculine and feminine subtleties. Each man’s scent is unique, plus my soaps and perfumes add a slightly sweeter, richer floral layer. My tiny boots get lost among a copse of huge, heavy ones. Something isn’t quite right. I slurp down half my tea and try to relax. Old ladies can be eccentric. Perhaps Tali is used to the house and its many oddities, or perhaps she and Ryan spend little time outside of the bedroom they share. Her cheeks are nicely pinked under all her glorious freckles. Perhaps she spends her time getting fucked? Now her exhaustion is more plausible.
Relax, Aspen, drink your tea, eat something and stop overanalyzing everything. Elijah Wyldan has made you paranoid. What did Dad say about the way he approached every new project? Assume nothing, Aspen; be guided by the possibility of discovery. If you go into anything thinking you already know the answer, how do you know what questions to pose? Science is about all the angles, all mass. Up, down, and all around, inside, outside and the periphery. Check and recheck your facts, your actions and reactions, and do it again and again until you arrive at something constant. Only then do you disclose what you know to be true.
I drain my tea. Thinking about my father has made the grief settle heavy across my chest like a weighted blanket, swallowing my locket and attempts to breathe.
“Crazy news about Foxglove Muir… hey,” she says, stifling another yawn. “Never in a million years would I have thought…” Her eyes shutter closed.
Fox? He’s the only one who knows I’m here, unless he texted Luk to join him on the walk out here to collect me later. My phone is in the coat pocket; the one Tali stashed away earlier.
“What news?” My brain computes a series of unknown scenarios, every fresh thought more sinister than the last. “Tali?”
Her head slumps forward, chin resting on her chest. The empty cup slips free of her fingers and rolls across the couch before landing on the carpet.
“Tali!”
“He wahs surrested…” she slurs.
I shake her. Her eyes open only for the lids to slump shut again. This is beyond exhaustion. “Tali, did you take something?”
I look from the empty teacups to the plates of crumbs, the heavy feeling in my own limbs a sluggish reminder that I, too, could benefit from a nap.
“Tali,” I shout again, only the words dribble out like water from a kinked hose. They’re there, ready to be set free, only they’re trapped behind the kink. The sound of heels clacking over boards from somewhere down the hall makes me turn from the prone woman to the approaching one. If this is Ryan’s grandmother, then she had Ryan’s parents when she was like… five? She’s not some eccentric old lady; she’s pretty.
“Hello, Aspen.”
“Amber Donnelyn,” I say back, each syllable harder to pronounce than the last.
She opens the drawer in the hall cabinet and begins hanging the picture frames back on the wall where the unfaded paper indicates they’ve been for a long time. One of her accepting her college diploma, another of what must be her family. The last frame takes longer to erect. She stands before it, straightening it for so long, my lids are losing the battle, too. When she’s content that the frame is level and perfect, she steps aside, smiling. My heart sinks like one of the giant sequoias crashing to the earth below; the earth that once sustained its life, now the resting place for it in death.
“Jackson?” It ekes out with the pace of a sloth.
“Yes. Dr. Bonner and I. That candid photo was one from my phone, taken on the deck out back. We’d fucked for hours the night before, so this morning-after photograph captures so many wonderful memories of both ache and affection. Don’t you think so?”
“Noooo.”
She chuckles, stepping into the living room and coaxing Tali into a lying position with her head on the armrest, her chin allowing unrestricted breathing. “Don’t want her to suffocate now, do we?”
