Chapter 28 - The Langdale Family

“So, how do you play?” He pulls a chair over from the desk and Brody explains the rules.

“No mind reading,” I warn him.

“I don’t read minds,” he says. “I read emotions and memories. And you two seem exhausted.” Both of us shake our heads slowly – I believe he might be right on that one.

“Everything okay Brody?”

“I’m about to play cards with two Langdales,” he says as if that explains everything. “And since when do you call me Brody?”

“Since you started preferring that to ‘Boy’.” I collect all the cards together and shuffle them. “Go on, ask,” he tells me. He reminds me of mother – except he doesn’t actually know what’s on my mind.

“How did you end up here? How did they catch you?”

“They didn’t. I came of my own free will.” I look up at him, meeting his eye for the first time today.

“You left your family behind voluntarily?” I can’t imagine what I would have done if Hale had left for good rather than just a quick stop in Australia.

“I thought I was leaving one family for another. When that didn’t work out I went here, there wasn’t really anywhere else I could go,” he pauses and studies the cards I’m laying on the bedspread. “How much has Pam told you about her mother?” That she drinks too much and never visits.

“Not much.”

“She was quite a beauty when she was young. I met her at a party – I used to be a lawyer, I was representing an old colleague of her’s and we won the settlement. I thought it was love, I thought it was everything, to be honest. Of course, she didn’t have any abilities, so my father, your grandfather, didn’t approve of the match. I ran away to New York to be with her, and only then did I find out about Pam. I was used to children – Langdales are notorious for breeding like rabbits,” he adds for Brody’s sake. “And Pam was a quiet child, she was easy to love and care for. It turned out her mother was much less so in the long run. It only took a year or so before I was sitting at home, watching Pam, and her mother was out partying. When Pam first showed her ability her mother freaked out. I tried to explain to her, to calm her down. Soon I was spending half the day in Pam’s room, trying to convince the crying child her mother still loved her, that she was just in chock; and the other half trying to convince Mandy that Pam wasn’t a devil child. I couldn’t reason with Mandy, so I left and took Pam with me. This seemed like the best place to go.” I pick up a set and show it to him before placing it on the bed in front of him.

“Hold on,” Brody interjects. “How come the Sensers didn’t pick up on Pam before her mother? She’s a Nature, normal people can easily explain away the first signs of her power.”

“I called in a favor from a cousin, he cloaked me and the apartment.”

“You lived in New York for two years…”

“We have people trained in that stuff in the family, we call them Permanenters.” Brody looks at him like that’s the strangest thing he’s ever heard. An English football is round, and Americans play football with their hands. Professor Holt smiles and nods to himself. I don’t get it, how is that not mind reading?

“What did your mother say about me?” he asks without looking up from the cards. ‘He drew attention to himself,’ I hear mother say. ‘And we had to find somewhere else to live.’

“Just that ‘they’ found you, and there was nothing the family could do.”

“I figured. My father never was one for scandal – a Langdale falling in love, much less marrying, an outsider, it was unheard of, and it most certainly couldn’t be accepted.”

“That might be why so many of us are still single,” I comment.

“How is the old man?” he asks. Lying in a coffin next to Grandma Elisabeth. “I see,” he says. “What got him in the end?”

“Heart attack.”

“When?”

“About nine years ago.”

“My mother always said I would give him a heart attack. I guess it simply took a little longer to set in.” Despite the joke spoken there is no joke in his tone.

“You didn’t… I don’t think…” I don’t know what to say to make him feel better, but I do feel certain he had nothing to do with Grandpa’s death.

“Thanks, Lizzy. It’s not easy when you’re cut off,” he admits. “But I want you to know, it is possible to enjoy it here.”

“Do you ever regret it? Leaving?”

“I don’t know what would have happened to Pam if I had stayed home,” he contemplates. “I still miss it though.”

“How did they get you, Lizzy?” Brody asks.

“By betrayal.”

“You can’t hold a grudge forever,” the professor warns me. Uncle Howards warns me. Whichever he is.

“Maybe not, but we haven’t reached ‘forever’ yet.”

“Careful, it hurts you just as much as it hurts her.”

“That’s too bad, I wanted her to know what it felt like being abandoned.”

“What happened?” Brody buds in again.

“She pretended to be my friend. In reality, she just wanted to destroy my family.”

“In reality, she just wanted to put her own family back together.” The professor corrects. “I’m not saying her methods were good, or even acceptable, I’m just saying her reason was understandable,” he defends himself quickly.

“She found out about you and sold you out?” Brody sums up.

“She had a theory about me, and she kept poking until I cracked. She sent a car at me.”

“She didn’t,” the professor says.

“She might as well have – it happened because of her, and it happened for her.”

“I don’t think she actually knew how far they were willing to take it, and she feels really bad about it Lizzy.”

“Should have thought of that before.”

“You don’t forgive easily, do you?” Brody says mostly to himself.

“I forgave Andy for setting Marie’s dress on fire,” I defend myself.

“But that wasn’t even your dress.”

“No, but it was my work going up in flames. Hand sown, squinted, and puff-sleeved.” He has no idea what that means. “Time-consuming,” I sum up for him. “I spend more time preparing for her ballet recital than she did.”

“You might find that you need friends now more than ever,” the professor argues.

“Maybe, but I prefer real friends. When’s Pam coming back?” I change the subject.

“I don’t know, she’s still pretty frustrated. It might take a while.”

“Has anyone been to see her?”

“I stopped by last weekend; she seemed to have a handle on it. She’s a strong girl, she’ll make it through this, I have no doubt.” But his voice is too far from his normal soft but firm to support that statement.

“What are you not telling us?” I demand. He looks up at me with half a smile.

“Who’s the mind reader now?”

“I grew up with a mind reader, you have to learn to adapt.”

“Pam only really grew into herself after she found her gift, I don’t know how she’ll fare without it and back with her mother.” He stops and looks down at the cards. “We can only hope she’ll find her way, none of us can help from here.”

“We could possibly help from somewhere else,” I suggest.

“You two aren’t allowed to leave this place, and I’m not allowed in New York according to Mandy. Pam can handle herself, as long as she believes in her own strength, and if she needs us she can always come back here, she knows we’re waiting for her.”