Part Two
It was the time of day that Lucy loved best. Her boys all safely home from school or sport, all that jostling and jocking and joking about that happened when they bumped shoulders in each other's space again had settled down, and now her sons were pursuing whatever they loved best. Alan was showing the kittens how to race cars, much to the kittys' delight. Virgil was on the piano – she could hear the notes of Greig muffled through the floorboards, and knew her dark-eyed boy was alright. She worried if it was Stockhausen.
John was out in the barn. He'd rigged up a set of weights and parallel bars that he used for an hour each night in order to build some muscle on his naturally lean frame. She saw how he eyed Virgil's and Scott's incipient bulk. Her heart ached a little for her second eldest; so lost in the stars, but so earth-bound by the demand of getting amongst them. He wanted NASA but was deeply unsure if NASA wanted him. Lucy had few fears of him making the grade one day. Her fears were far more fundamental.
She paused on her way down to the basement, to look out of the quirky little window beside the pantry and see Scott working on the car his father had bought him as a very early pre-graduation gift. It didn't work yet, and frankly Lucy would wonder if it ever would if it was anyone but Scott in charge of its destiny. He researched, and practiced and researched some more until he understood the computerised mechanics of it, and then he laboured to put what he'd learnt into his beauty. He'd figure it out.
Parents shouldn't have favourites, she knew that, and she could honestly say she didn't. But it was also true that children tended to gravitate towards one parent or another, in her experience. Jeff had John and Scott, and having Scott he also had Alan. It was flying and space, certainly, that they shared as an interest; but more intrinsically, it was their sense of determination, their ability to focus so single-mindedly that all else fell away.
But her middle son – ah, Virgil. He found himself pulled between competing demands on his soul in ways his other brothers would never know. Virgil was hers. He would sit on the old desk in the craft room and chat with her as she painted, or help her in the garden. Virgil was her one-man fifth column. When he chose to – and he only did when he thought it strictly necessary, childhood code of honor demanded no less - he could bring her up to date on what each of her sons was thinking, and he did it with a kind of insight that broke her heart a little because it meant he studied them as hard as he studied everything else. When the family broke apart as her boys found their own paths in life, he was going to find all his careful study couldn't keep them near him, and she hurt for the Virgil of the future.
And her fourth child, her funny little Gordon. The one who somehow managed to be always in a hurry but laid-back about it. He was hers, too.
Today she'd seen it again, that moment when her boys welcomed home their father, and the little family circus went through its tricks once more as their ringmaster arrived.
No; that was harsh. Jeff didn't set those boys to performing – but the truth was, they all did, each in their own way. And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, except for that look on Gordon's face, right before Jeff turned to him and said, "Alright, lay it on me, Gordon: what's the joke of the day?"
She'd seen it so many times before; a little lift in his mouth, a little spark in his eyes, a tentative kind of breath, and all of it frozen in place as his father asked him to brighten his day.
Gordon was hoping for something else, and he never got it.
She remembered calling Jeff on it, back when the phone calls home were rushed past Gordon.
"Did I, Luce? I'm sorry. I'll remember next time to get Gordon on the phone first."
And sometimes he did, but everyone knew their roles too well, and before long it was Scott going first and explaining what had happened through the day, John explaining what had happened in the news, and Virgil providing the exegesis of both and what that meant for each of his sons.
Even when Gordon did get first turn, it seemed so much as though he only ever asked bright generalities – how's your work, how's the food there, yeah I'm fine, here, have Virgil – that she wondered whether he really wanted to talk to his father that dearly after all. And yet, she saw it, in the way he carefully watched his brother natter so freely. Something dark, and hungry, and wistful.
It was her fourth born that had her heading down into the basement. He often disappeared down here, and try as she might, she'd never quite managed to discover what he did.
In the basement the light was still off, and once again she was faced with an empty room. Only this time, she stood quietly and let her eyes become accustomed to the darkness; and gradually she noticed a faint limning of light around the edges of the door in the old wardrobe at the back, stuck behind a series of boxes that remained unpacked since their last move.
She went over to it, carefully, took in a breath, and then knocked softly on the door.
"Gordon? You in there, hon?"
She would have said the basement was quiet before, but now its silence took on a held-breath quality.
"Gordon, it's just me, Mom. Are you okay?"
Nothing from in the wardrobe. After a minute, she nodded to herself.
"Alright. I'm going now. But if you ever want to tell me what's going on in there, you know I am good at keeping secrets."
She waited a little longer, and was rewarded. Suddenly, the door creaked open, and a small blond head peered around it.
"Mom?"
"Hello, sweetheart. You okay down here?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"Just – sitting in the wardrobe, huh? Good to have a secret place."
Gordon looked at her, his amber eyes huge in the darkness. There was something about him that suggested a moment of decision, a question in the balance. Lucy was good at waiting for men to make up their mind, but she wasn't above giving them a push.
"Did you want me to go, or - ?"
"You can stay."
"Thank you, sir. Can I ask what you're doing in there?"
"You can ask."
"Ha ha."
"No, you can – if you want to, you can look in here."
"Really? Now I'm intrigued."
Gordon grinned. "Hey, you're only human."
"And you're only eight and shouldn't be cheeky." But she was grinning right back. "So – how do I climb in?"
"Oh, here." Gordon hopped out and opened the door wider. "You need to use the glow-stick to see."
Lucy accepted it with building amusement. What had her funny little boy got going in the wardrobe? It did cross her mind that he was playing some kind of practical joke, and would lock her in once she'd committed herself.
Inside, in the ghastly green light, she found something that made her gasp.
On every inch of surface, thumb-tacked and sticky-taped, were small five by four cards, and on each was an intricate picture of a tiny house.
Every one of them was unique. There were connecting tubes between the houses, and what looked like gardens, and in each one was a picture of a small person, green skinned, with hair of chestnut or black or ginger or blond. Four different small people, repeated throughout, and one larger, a dark haired man clearly designated as a king with a golden crown.
"Oh." Lucy sat herself down with her knees pulled up to her chin, staring rapt at one small house after another. It took her several minutes before she realised Gordon hadn't come in behind her. She pushed open the door and saw him waiting, jiggling on the spot.
"Do you need the bathroom?"
"No." Impatient with her motherly concern, he jiggled again. "What do you think?"
"Of your pictures? It's wonderful!"
At that Gordon tumbled into the wardrobe to sit half on top of her, reaching up to touch the roof.
"Can you see that it's a real thing?"
"A real world? Yes, of course." Lucy kept her voice solemn. Her Gordon wasn't prone to gravity, but she knew all too well that he had depths in his heart she had yet to plumb. With a kind of overwhelmed thrill, she suspected she was about to explore one.
No one needed to point out the precious moments to Lucy Tracy.
"It's special, right?"
"It is a special place, Grody." She knew he liked it when she used her own nickname for him.
"Special like something that… that..."
"That Scott or Virgil or John would think was special, yes. Very much so. You've created a whole world here."
Gordon nodded, satisfied as any world creator on the seventh day.
"Yeah, it's so cool."
Lucy touched one card that showed a tower, with a blond boy sitting atop it. Instinctively, she knew that the small blond boy was Alan. She wondered what it meant that he hadn't drawn himself.
"Does it have a name?"
"Yeah. John helped. Aqualucia. It means clear water."
Lucy smiled softly. "And my name, too."
"Yeah. Kinda." Gordon stopped, thinking. "I mean, yeah."
"Aqualucia! I see Aqualucia has a king – does it have a queen, too?"
Gordon sighed, acknowledging his limitations.
"Not yet. I can't draw girls. They look like bubbles, and that's confusing."
"Hmm." Lucy hesitated. "I don't want to intrude, so you have to tell me no if that's what you feel. But would it be okay if I drew the queen?"
Gordon bounced, unwittingly kneeing his mother in the shin.
"Yeah! Yeah, that would be – oh, that would be very cool. Only, don't mix up the colours. The royal colour is yellow and blue."
"Got it."
"And you can only draw the queen where the king is."
Lucy frowned. "What if the queen wants to go out exploring by herself?"
"Well…" Gordon paused, thinking. "I guess that's okay. Sure."
"Good. Then she definitely wants to go off by herself sometimes."
"And be with the king other times?"
"Lots."
"Yeah." Gordon got excited. "Yeah, she could run the botanical gardens. See, look, here is the whole zoological side. They've got all mega animals, mega sharks, mega jellyfish, mega sheep."
The sheep bit had her almost choking, but she managed to cover it by coughing into her fist.
"Why do they have mega sheep?"
"Well, they need to eat them, and I can draw them."
"I see."
"The sheep poo into the water here, and the fish eat that, and then the sharks eat the fish. And the sheep bones."
"They all look awesome. I am sure the queen is going to love looking after them."
"It's all about being environmentally susceptible."
"Sustainable?"
"Yeah, oh." Gordon smacked himself on the forehead, comically. "I gotta get them down. But look, see, it's all interconnected. That's what makes it sustainable."
"I see that."
"But you gotta be careful, because if one part falls, everything goes to hell in a hand basket."
That was his grandmother's phrase, sounding so unlikely in her son's mouth. Lucy put her hands on his waist, gave him a little shake that made him squirm. "Nothing's going to fall. Everyone in Aqualucia is going to work together."
"I don't know…" Gordon looked up. "Look how far away the roof king is. How does he even know what's happening down here?"
"He knows because he wants to know. They've got channels of communication. Look – tubes and connections everywhere. They know."
Gordon sighed again, then wriggled about so he could sit on Lucy's lap, once she lowered her legs for him. "I hope so. 'S a long way."
"It is, but look, they want to stay in contact. They're all in Aqualucia together." Lucy hugged him. "The king can see everyone. I bet he even sees you when you come and visit."
Gordon gazed up, mesmerised by his own creation. "Really?"
"Really. The king loves all his subjects."
Gordon squirmed about so he could face his mother. "You're not going to tell anyone about Aqualucia, are you?"
"No. It's our secret, just you and me. For as long as you like."
They sat long enough for Lucy's legs to go to sleep, so she had to endure pins and needles as the blood returned when she tried to climb back out. But she went back upstairs brimming with the bright happiness that comes from a secret joyfully kept, and even Jeff noticed as she danced past him, mysterious and happy and forever just out of his reach.
The End
Notes:Just a quick note about birth order, in case anyone was wondering about the stranger's comments above; no, it has no bearing on personality. Had Gordon been born first, he would still be easy going, determined and fun-seeking. Had Scott been born last, he would still be protective, single-minded and reckless. I keep seeing poorly researched magazine articles about this kind of thing - gah.
The only thing that has a very (statistically the merest bump) slight impact on personality in regard to birth order is higher self-assessment of intellectual capacity and knowledge in the earlier born siblings as compared with a lower self-assessment of intellectual capacity and knowledge in the younger. This makes sense; older brothers grow up explaining the world to younger ones so are frequently in the position of knowing more than the person they're talking to, which in turn inflates their own sense of omniscience. So, Scott might think he is right just a little more often than perhaps he should... as Virgil would no doubt explain to him.
Series this work belongs to:Part 1 of the The Bittersweet Symphony series