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“Stop looking so sullen, young man,” Aunt Carol said in that ceaselessly condescending way of hers.
Edgar grunted in the backseat. He’d never particularly liked his blond father’s sister, and he was particularly resentful of her now that she was bringing him back home, the last place he wanted to be. More so than even that, though, he was pissed at his father. If he’d been angry before about that coward leaving, he was positively flaming now. Didn’t even have the guts to drive his own son home. Had to call his stupid sister. Edgar rolled his eyes.
Carol caught the movement in her mirror and misunderstood its motivation. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, now. You shouldn’t have been off on your own, going through god know what kinds of neighborhoods! You’re fifteen years old, for goodness sakes! What were you thinking?”
Edgar scowled. He couldn’t tell her what he’d been thinking, she was just some blotchy-faced OCD relative who actually thought he cared if she was mad at him. Did she honestly believe that if she yelled at him, he’d “learn the error of his ways?” He didn’t give a rat’s a** what she thought of him. She was on his side, the side of that weak scum he called father; Edgar couldn’t have liked her no matter what she did as long as that was true.
“Answer me!”
Edgar shrugged. He hadn’t meant to piss her off by not answering, but he now found that it worked rather well, and felt a mean sort of satisfaction. She wouldn’t get a word out of him.
Aunt Carol sighed in a I’m-disappointed-in-you way and stopped the car in front of his big, wooden home. “We’re here.”
Edgar reached for his seat belt.
“Wait a moment.”
He paused and glanced at his Aunt indifferently.
Carol turned around in her face to seat him. “Come on, Edgar,” she said, as if speaking in confidential tones. “You won’t get in trouble. Won’t you tell me why you were looking for your dad?”
Edgar watched her for a moment, debating whether or not to answer at all. I don’t have a dad, was the thought echoing around in his mind, going around and around and around, driving him crazy every second, every minute, every hour of the past day…
He held back. There was no way he was telling that to Aunt Carol. A mutter of “teenage melodrama” and a sigh was about the only response he’d probably get. If the woman was expecting some sort of lame, “I missed him” or something, she wasn’t going to get it from him.
Aunt Carol watched him.
He sighed but held her gaze.
She sighed, too, finally, and let out a little tsk under her breath as she turned to get out. “Alright, then.”
Edgar got out and followed her up the steps of his big, oaken house. It was an old place, been around nearly a hundred years, and it creaked at night. His grandmother had raised his mother here, he thought, and frowned. Maybe the house was the reason they were so damn screwed up. Maybe it had bad vibes or something.
He shook the hair out of his face. He wasn’t the type to believe in vibes or ghosts and things, and he decided he wasn’t going to start now.
Aunt Carol rang the doorbell, and Edgar waited. He’d probably get a smack and a hug from Ada, an indifferent sort of glance from Alice, probably from her bedroom doorway, and a whap across the head from his grandmother. From his mother…god only knows. Aunt Carol rang again. There was still no answer. Fifteen or so seconds later, his Aunt rang the doorbell once more.
“Shut up, I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” was the muffled yell from inside the house, and Isabella Lutte opened the door.
If she’d looked grumpy before (as that had seemed to be her permanent expression since her fifties or so), she looked positively disgusted when she caught sight of Carol Keegan. “Oh,” his grandmother said. “It’s you.”
Though Edgar’s grandmother made no move to let Carol (who looked no more pleased to see his grandmother than Isabella had been to see his Aunt) into the house, Alice had appeared at the door just then, and opened it door curiously, allowing Edgar and his escort to step in.
Alice stared for a moment at the sight of her brother. “You’re home,” She said quietly, and Edgar was surprised to hear what he thought was a hint of relief in her voice.
Carol drew herself up. “Yes, he showed up at our house an hour or so ago and-”
“The girl was talkin’ to her brother, not you,” my grandmother cut in, and looked at Carol in irritation.
Aunt Carol’s nostrils flared. “Well, pardon me for wishing to explain where the boy you lost track of has been this whole time.”
Isabella started to say something but was interrupted by a high-pitched yelp from upstairs.
Josephine Keegan was running down the stairs to hug her son (Alice barely got out of the way in time), and as she enveloped him she let out another yelp, which Edgar recognized as a sort of tense sob. To his surprise, he felt his own arms wrap around her, the familiar smell of baby oil calming him, just for a moment, as if he were a small boy again.
“Hey, Mom,” he said softly.
“My boy, my boy, my Edgar…oh, Edgar…” She held him close, and when she pulled apart she took him by the shoulders. “Where have you been?”
Before Edgar could answer, his Aunt Carol stepped in. “As I was saying, he showed up at my house an hour or so ago.”
Josephine stared at Carol Keegan as though she’d never looked at her before in her life, and was not particularly happy to be doing so now. “Carol,” she said.
“He was asking for his father. Atticus called me home from the grocery store and asked me to bring the boy home for him, since he had work to do-”
“Work!” Edgar snorted. He felt quite sick of his Aunt at the moment, and wished her blotchy red face was far away, in the next town, perhaps. “Bull crap. Why don’t you just say it? Because he was afraid to take me home. To come back here.”
Isabella, who until now had been uncharacteristically silent, laughed loudly. “You tell ‘er, boy.”
Carol’s face reddened beyond its normal shade, and her nose seemed to grow rather pointy in anger. “I suggest you keep your rude thoughts to yourself, the both of you.”
Edgar’s grandmother let out a wheezing sort of chuckle. “Darlin’, I haven’t kept my thoughts to myself since the damned Great Depression, and that was only cause I was too hungry to talk!”
Aunt Carol’s nostrils flared once more, and she turned icy. “Well,” she said patronizingly, “perhaps they ought to starve you here, too, then.”
“Ha!” Isabella let out an angry yelp. “You and your no-good weakling of a brother oughta go roast with Satan! Who d’you think you are, hm, bringin’ my grandson here, when he’s doin’ what only he’s got the damned sense to do?”
Carol gasped at the first comment, and snorted angrily at the second. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that my a*****e son-in-law deserves to have to face what he’s too wimpy to handle!”
“How dare you! Atticus is a hard-working-”
“I’ll tell you what he is-”
“Don’t interrupt me-”
“-he’s a worthless, stick-up-his-a** piece of Irish Catholic s**t, that’s what he is! And I’m stinkin’ glad he’s outta this house!”
Carol Keegan let in a sharp, strange-sounding inhalation and stared at Isabella with an intensity that surprised even Edgar. “Why,” Carol said softly, “you bitter, bitter old woman.”
Edgar’s grandmother had never once been deterred by an insult, and simply rolled her eyes, a smug smile spreading across her face. “Well, then.” She laughed again, a sort of heh-heh sound way back in her throat. “If I’m a bitter old woman, you’re well on your way to becoming something much worse.” She waved her hand dismissively and mumbled something about that being the best Carol could come up with.
Carol glared at her rival for a moment and then spoke. Her words seemed to come thickly, like molasses being forced through a very small opening. “You can take care of your lunatic daughter and her wild kids yourself, then. I don’t have time for this nonsense anyhow. I just thought you might like to have your spoiled little boy back-” and here she put quotes around her words- “safe.” She grabbed her purse, lifted her head and walked out the door.
“Oh well…” a voice said from the bottom of the steps, and Edgar turned to see Ada standing there, shaking her head. “…I’ve never liked her much anyway.”