3

It took her several moments to realize she wasn’t at home, in her apartment. The crushing memories of recent events slowly dawned on her.

Her eyes woke up first. The rest of her body was still recovering in the soft bed. Laying in the king size four-poster bed felt like napping in the fluffiest of clouds. She lazily gazed around the room.

Sunlight shone from under a pair of thick navy blue curtains on her right, dimly illuminating her surroundings. It was a spacious bedroom filled with dark, wooden furniture. The walls were striped with off-white and baby blue wallpaper.

Directly on the right side of the bed an elegant, antique, Carlton House desk stood waiting to be filled with her books. In the middle of the room her suitcases laid popped open, yet to be unpacked. The previous night she had just grabbed some toiletries and a pyjama and went to bed.

The opposite wall was filled with mahogany closets reaching to the ceiling, only interrupted by a closed door to the hallway and a door to the bathroom, which stood ajar. The wall on the left side of the bed was ornamented by a large mirror, finished by a wood worked frame, inlaid with gold leaf.

Marith stared at herself. At her rainbow coloured skin, the bags under her half open eyes and her messy hair. She felt worse than she looked, but she knew she couldn’t stay in bed. She had a jetlag to beat and a father to find.

With plausible reluctance she tossed her blankets aside and left the pillow filled heaven behind her. She immediately felt how cold the house had become overnight and rushed to the Victorian bathroom in an attempt to clean herself up.

A little while later Marith’s hand followed the soft, sanded banister joining the stairs to the ground floor. She was wearing an unflattering purple sweater, dark blue denims and some woolly slippers. Her wet hair was stuck up in a bun and, since she forgot her contact lenses, she was wearing her old glasses.

She felt like her appearance was depreciating towards the stately mansion, but she also felt like deep down the mansion didn’t really care. It was shining in its own fabulousness and Marith’s shabby looks couldn’t bring it down.

At the bottom of the stairs she realized the hallway in itself was as big as an entire family houses in the country she had just left and that she also had no clue were Nick was. In a dim past she had accompanied her father there once or twice, but the layout of the house had went over her head.

She peeked through the windows of some heavy sliding doors on her left. It was Nick’s study where several centuries met in a forced and wonder-stricken marriage. An old library with leather bound books, court chairs and mahogany stairs on wheels and a modern lab with flat-screens and all sorts of wireless gadgets sat there in the same space, awkwardly staring at each other.

“So, this is the command centre of Pine Industries?” Marith muttered to herself.

It was a fascinating room. However, Nick wasn’t there, so Marith left it behind. She roamed around the cool, marble floors of the impressive entrance hallway for a few more minutes, before she heard a familiar sound.

The ticking of nails surged, followed by a chubby Corgi, wagging her tail with untampered enthusiasm.

“Olive!” Marith laughed relieved. She had honestly forgotten about the dog. Nonetheless, finding out she was still alive, made her happy beyond reason.

She bent over to stroke Nick’s bustling, little pet when she was immediately hit by a dizzy spell. Complete recovery from the train crash was going to be a while, she noticed.

After lapping the hallway several times Olive spurted towards clanking sounds from the kitchen. Marith followed her under the balustrade, to the right. She passed a seating area with leather couches, some book carousels and a massive fireplace. Behind the glass fronts a phenomenal view unfolded.

The mansion didn’t really have a back yard. The garden was more like a park that flowed into the forest. In the distance the lake and the mountains became visible as she sauntered between the heavy furniture to towards the glass sliding doors.

The house was built on higher terrain and looked down on its surroundings in every conceivable way. Marith stood behind the tempered glass and gazed in amazement. Even the Dutch royals would be jealous of this view, she mused.

Still shrouded in patches of fog Sweet Lake slowly appeared from under its blanket. The sun broke through the clouds with excruciatingly perfect timing to shine its alleviating light on the scenery. The snow covered mountain peaks coloured every hue of orange, pink and purple. The trees stood tall against the azure blue skies, patiently awaiting to be blazed and burnished by the autumn sun. It promised to be a bright day.

She heard another sound and left for the kitchen, to find out that the seating area had just served as another hallway. As expected she stepped into a ginormous, residential kitchen. Nick sat at the end side of the kitchen bar, sipping coffee, reading from a tablet, wearing another impeccable white dress shirt.

“Hey,” Marith greeted him with unease.

She didn’t really know what to say or what to do. She was going to stay with him for the rest of her recovery. That much was for sure at that point. The previous night that declaration had not been met with much enthusiasm from his guest and now the atmosphere was uncomfortable at best.

“Good morning. Sit down!” Nick jumped from his bar stool and pulled back another one for her to sit on.

“I prefer to sit on something lower, if you don’t mind.” She pointed at her head. With the sudden bouts of dizziness that still occasionally took over she could imagine herself plummeting to the ground if she so much as turned her head too fast.

“Yes, of course.” Nick rushed to the dinner table and pulled back a Georgian dining chair for her.

“Thank you,” she spoke softly as she sat down. Nick perched across from her.

“So, how are you feeling? How is your whole facial… situation?” With his right hand he made a circular gesture around his own face.

Nick took a sip from his coffee and Marith took a deep breath.

She didn’t want to lie. On the other hand, telling the truth was going to be too dramatic.

“Fine, I guess. Same as yesterday I would say,” she muttered, her voice wandering off.

Was she allowed to get something to eat or to drink or was she supposed to wait until Nick would offer? That could be a long and hungry wait, she figured.

“You don’t talk much. I get it. Most girls I know won’t stop talking, so it’s a nice change.”

“No”, Marith smiled, which hurt her face more than it should, “people usually find me and start talking out of the blue.”

Nick grinned and nodded.

“That is probably one of the main reasons I attempted to study psychology.”

“Okay, sounds like you didn’t succeed. I always thought you were quite the nerd. No offense!” He added quickly.

Marith smiled weakly as if to say ‘none taken’. She had never been the girl who could sing or dance or act or do sports. She was the good student, the reader, the thinker, the dreamer. That was her identity, but her mental challenges had made it impossible to pursue a serious academic career.

“What happened?”

“People happened.”

“So, you’re kind of a hermit…”

“Often, I wish my brain would stop talking and sensible stuff would start to come out of my mouth, but no such luck.”

Nick chuckled, relieved that an actual person responded and that he wasn’t just talking to Olive and his kitchen cabinets.

“You take after your father, I notice.”

Marith nodded.

Nick understood the time had come to drop the subject of her failed academic endeavours and ambitions, so he darted off into another topic. Her mother.

If there was anything Marith would ever avoid talking about, it would have been that.

“So, why are you here and not with your mother and sister?”

“Why do you ask?” replied Marith, slightly piqued.

“Well…” Nick hesitated at her tone of voice, “geographically speaking Oregon is not the most logical decision.”

Most parents make a string of tiny, surmountable mistakes throughout their children’s youth. Not in the case of Marith’s mother. She had exposed her children to a palette of massive over-controlling, life-altering incidents.

Her mother had made a habit of creating an air of drama around herself – out of boredom, jealousy, scars from her own past, who knew? – and Marith didn’t like anything that affected her inner peace in a negative manner. She went to great extends to avoid it.

When it came to her own flesh and blood, however, her mother was harsh and blunt. It had always been clear to her daughters that they came in last and shouldn’t be expecting special treatment or extra attention, whatsoever.

When Marith had come home one day from school, sick to her stomach, her mother had just looked at her developing chest and scoffed: “What boobs?!”

She didn’t care or understand that the size of her daughters’ breasts was beside the point when it came to sexual harassment.

When she had been studying for a big test on Ovidius’ Metamorphosis for Latin class her mother had flushed her pet fishes through the toilet, because she had been one day late cleaning the tank. That Marith was a very conscientious kid and was just trying to excel in school didn’t matter to her mother.

When Marith had to decide where she would be going to university and what she wanted to study her mother had plainly told her that it didn’t matter what her majors or minors would be. As soon as she would get kids she would have to stay at home anyway. Women were not meant to be educated or independent. Apparently, both her daughters were supposed to marry rich, support their husbands and reproduce themselves. Just like she had done. Her daughters were surely not allowed to become independent or to surpass their mother in any way.

Not teaching your daughters how to take care of themselves is setting them up for failure. Teaching girls just to marry rich is setting them up for mental struggles. Marith was convinced that she would be a better working mom than her mother was at being a stay-at-home mom, but she wasn’t even going to start that discussion.

All in all, her mother had never been the warm, loving guardian most children needed, growing up. This also meant that Marith had been battling alone with her visions, and the personal issues and mental illness arising therefrom, from a young age on, which had been a long and lonely exercise.

When occasionally confronted with her unmotherly behaviour her mother would cry tearless cries of desperation. Halfway through her teenage years Marith didn’t bother anymore.

Instead of cutting ties completely she just started to distance herself as soon as she neared adulthood and they slowly grew apart. Which ultimately resulted in her mother taking her little sister with her to live with her new lover, the oilman, in Norway. Marith was considered old enough to fetch for herself, which she then did, by having occasional jobs as a cello instructor or a math tutor.

The apartment she had been living in had already been paid off with the alimony her dad had paid, before her mother had left for Norway. Marith used the extra money she made with her cello business to pay for her everyday expenses, like water, heating, electricity, groceries and insurances.

It wasn’t until she went to university to major in Psychology that Marith learnt that her mother was projecting her own flaws onto her children, especially on her eldest. What her mother didn’t like about herself, what she regretted about her own life, was taken out on Marith instead.

The abuse, big and small, had never been about Lieke or Marith misbehaving. Their mother craved having absolute control over every move they made, over their lives and their decisions, not allowing any form of privacy… and making sure that was very clear every step of the way. Marith spend most of her young adulthood recovering from her childhood and it hadn’t gone smoothly or successfully.

“We grew apart,” she answered flat.

“Because of her new husband?”

“They’re not married… yet.” She had hardly even met the guy her mother and sister were now living with and she could honestly not care less.

“It’s just that I’ve always had a better relationship with my father, so it was the logical decision for me.”

“I get it. I get it.”

He didn’t really get it, but that was okay by Marith.

Nick understood it was time to address the weirdness about Marith staying with him and not with her father. However, it was her father’s job to explain it and not his.

“I could give you a ride to his apartment later or you could take my car. Whichever you like. I have to go to town anyway.”

“Could I get a bite to eat first… maybe?” It was clear that Nick was used to living alone. He hadn’t offered her anything yet.

Not much later Nick was enthusiastically pointing at the cliff on the other side of the lake. On their right hand the magnificently large and sharp cut glistening through the autumn sky. There was a large wooden structure on top of it that Marith hadn’t noticed in the darkness the night before.

“What is it?”

“It’s going to be a church… that we’re building.”

“Oh.” Marith wasn’t particularly religious and she didn’t know whether Nick was or not. She did know that she was slightly surprised by his sudden charitable tendencies.

“It looks big.”

“It sure is!” Nick seemed excited.

They had taken a work truck from the company. Olive sat in the middle. Marith petted her while staring out the window.

“I hope it has a roof before the meteor party,” Nick continued.

“That’s this year?”

Once every decade or so more meteors would come by, burning through Earths’ atmosphere. The locals would celebrate the creation of Sweet Lake by gazing at the heavens and giving their livers a good scare.

“It sure is!”

The local economy was largely depending on Pine Industries, one of the largest logging and wood processing companies of the state. Due to a never to be brought up again traffic accident Nick and his brother, Nate, gained full possession off the company in their early twenties.

After Nate had disappeared Nick assumed his brother had gone insane. The state police and even private detectives couldn’t find him. Eventually Nick had to pick up his life again and had stopped searching. After the death of their grandparents Nick had been left alone to take care of the family company. He was not doing the best of all jobs in preventing it from going bankrupt, but no one could really blame him for that.

They pulled up to the building Marith’s father was supposedly living in. The complex looked somewhat gloomy and simultaneously quite neat on the outside, but the people who had come up with the name Bellevue should have been sued. Such a missed opportunity to not built that complex at the waterfront, she thought, while she walked towards it. Instead, the residents looked out over the forest and a parking lot and a gas station in the distance.

Marith snuck in when some elderly citizens with rollators shuffled out of the building. She passed a doorbell panel and a wall filled with mailboxes. After crossing a hallway with dark brown carpets and a rack in which the residents could place old books and magazines to be recycled and re-read she reached two elevators and a brown door to the stairs. The interior looked outdated, but at least it was all more or less clean.

There was an out of order note on one of the elevators. The other one had just gone up, so Marith took the stairs. Nick had said that Gene lived on the third floor and a glance at the doorbell panel had told her which apartment it should be.

An undefined and pervasive smell welcomed her there. She decided to ignore it and followed the numbers on the doors almost to the end of the hallway.

Marith noticed surprised she was actually a little nervous to see her father again. She knocked on the battered green door and smiled at the spyhole. She told herself her anxiousness had everything to do with the circumstances of their reunion and nothing with their personal relationship.

She heard some rumbling on the other side of the door before it swung open.

“Marith!” He seemed taken aback.

“Dad.”

“I hadn’t expected you.”

“No?” Marith asked confused.

“You should have called. I could have cleaned up a little bit.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, dad.”

“Well, welcome then,” Gene said with a grand arm wave, “to the lobby of the Lord.”

An elderly lady shambled by and looked up at them.

“Shhhj,” Marith hushed. She stepped into the little hallway of his apartment and hugged him.

“What’s with the smell?”

“Nothing! I don’t know?”

“In the hallway, I mean.” Marith frowned.

“Oh, birds,” he answered relieved. “The lady next door has a hobby that got out of hand after her husband died.”

“Okay,” Marith nodded and unbuttoned her coat.

Her father hesitated some more in the hallway that was getting too cramped for the two of them, so Marith opened the door to what she expected to be the living room.

She stood glued to the floor at the sight of the battlefield that laid before her. Another peculiar smell awaited her. This time she knew what it was.

“Marith, when you called, at the airport…” Marith heard a touch of panic in his voice. “I lied. I lied. I drank too much to drive. I am so so sorry.”

“You are saying you were drunk?”

Marith hadn’t realized he was drunk on the phone the other day, because she had never witnessed her father drunk. Her mother, sure, but her father hardly ever drank alcohol when she and Lieke had been young.

“Are you drunk now?”

He held his index finger and his thumb very close together and smiled sheepishly.

Marith marched to the middle of his apartment, turned around and stared. At the mess, at her father. She could not believe her eyes. What had happened here? The room was filled with empty bottles, an old carpet, topped off with old rugs, a single couch with stuffing coming out of the cushions and some cacti in the windowsill.

Her father stood with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his trousers. He was wearing a white t-shirt with stains on it. Marith couldn’t remember a time in which she had seen her father ever wear a t-shirt. He had always been dressed like, well, like the lawyer that he was.

“It was like this when I rented it,” he tried.

Marith made an incredulous face and shook her head.

When he tried to take a step towards her he stumbled and grabbed the top of a side table that looked sticky. Some empty bottles tumbled off it.

If a burglar would have ever broken into that apartment that person would have left without taking anything and even if he would take anything Gene would never notice. Who lives like this?

On top of the mess the place was hopelessly outdated, just like the rest of the building. Marith expected the kitchen to be orange and the bathroom to be green, but she didn’t intend on finding out. Instead, she fished her barely alive smart phone from her pocket and dialled Nick.

“What are you doing?”

“You need help, dad.” A tear rolled down her cheek. This was the last thing she expected, waking up earlier that same morning.

He looked at her defeated.

“No, I don’t. It’s all fine, just fine. I just need to clean it up a bit.”

You need to clean yourself up, Marith thought.

“I am NOT letting you live like this,” she insisted instead. She hated how her voice started to tremble.

“There is nothing wrong here,” he started to bargain. “You can even stay here if you want to…” Then his voice trailed off, because he knew it was a lie.

“Where, dad? Where?! On the couch or on this musty floor?”

“Please, Marith, don’t do this,” he begged. “I am working on it.”

“I believe you, dad, but you still need help. This cannot be a surprise for you…” She finished, while still eyeing the room.

She had never been really determined about anything in her life, but today she knew one thing for sure. Her father needed help. A sudden rush of resolution had seized her.

She looked at him, while she waited for Nick to pick up. Her father was pushing his free hand against his head in contemplation, as far as he could contemplate under influence.

“Nick?”

“Yes? Everything alright?”

“Ehm…” she didn’t really know what she should say with her father right there with her.

“Could you please come? Here?”

“Of course! What happened?”

“Please just come,” she practically cried.

“On my way. On my way!” She could hear how he started running, before he hung up.

Marith wondered what to do now. She didn’t dare to look her father in the eyes. She knew he wasn’t happy with her, so she bended over to pick up some bottles and other junk.

The dizziness that had seized her earlier washed over her. Colourful spots danced in between her and the dirty carpet, before her vision was completely taken away from her.

“You don’t have to do that,” she heard from behind her.

This spell was worse than what she had experienced that morning and she started to stagger.

A sensation as if someone was forcefully pushing her head down flowed over the back of her head. She knew it was just the concussion, but she couldn’t help herself from toppling over. On a conscious level she knew it was her concussion causing her stumbling. On an unconscious level she felt she wasn’t able to fight it.

“Marith!” Her father was at her side sooner than she had anticipated.

He tried to help her up, just the way Daan had done on the railroads in the train station a few days prior, but Marith was too far gone already and so was her father. They plummeted to the ground in an awkward father-daughter embrace.

Marith woke up within seconds and just laid there, in her father’s living room surrounded by sticky bottles and mouldy carpets, in a confused daze.

Gene rolled over and touched her cheek.

“Marith, sweetheart, are you okay?”

“Yes.” She sighed.

She stared at the stained ceiling and once more wondered how ceilings got stains when she felt something warm flowing over her skin.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you bleeding?”

“Oh, yeah,” he answered surprised, while holding a severely wounded arm up. Then he made a panicked sound at the sight of his lacerated skin.

Marith crawled up and went for the kitchen. Which was yellow with brown detail, as it turned out. The towels were so dirty she didn’t dare to use one to stop the bleeding. The roll of kitchen towels was naturally empty.

“Where is the bathroom?!” She almost yelled, marching back into the living area.

“What happened here?” Nick stood in the doorway, wide eyed, a pair of keys dangling in his left hand.

“He fell,” Marith shrieked, “and now he is beelding. We need towels or… or bandages.”

Her father had helped himself onto the couch and sat there rocking himself, while holding his arm. Blood trickled out at a disturbing rate. It was everywhere. On the carpets, on the couch, on the bottles, on Gene and on his daughter.

While Marith started to develop a theory in which half a litre of blood was five times the amount of half a litre of water she knew she couldn't finish that train of thought.

“If there is still glass in there we are going to need a doctor,” Nick decided calmly.

This time Gene didn’t protest a call for help.

Vanessa raced past branches and treetops of conifers and pines on the other side of the windows towards the elevators. She was carrying a heavy bag and held a stack of papers, of debatable quality, under her arm at an uncomfortable angle.

When she neared the corner where several hallways of the building came together she heard a familiar voice, followed by the boisterous owner, a prominent resident of Sweet Lake.

Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks. The sudden change of speed made the pile of paper slip from under her arm and scatter over the floor. She dove after them and started to rake them together on the dark brown carpet.

She hadn’t really spoken to Nick since he had walked in on her and Gene in the home office of the lake house, which had been a long time ago. She knew that Gene helped him with legal stuff every once in a while. Some months had passed, since her boyfriend had worked at all, so this was mildly surprising.

While Nick pushed the button for the one working elevator Vanessa heard quick footsteps, soft chattering and a distant squeaking sound coming her way. She stopped picking up the class assignments and crouched in the shadows of the dim hallway.

More footsteps and more voices, that she didn’t recognize, became audible. Vanessa frowned as she could distinguish some medical jargon and a peculiar, but mildly familiar accent.

Nick waved his arm in the opening of the elevator door to prevent it from closing again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and tried to make eye contact with one of the people coming around the corner.

The pony-tailed, young woman, however, had only eyes for the scruffy man in the hospital bed. Vanessa experienced a titillating sensation as this timid, brown haired, green eyed vision marched by. It was definitely her. Probably. It was probably definitely her. She could define it with a probability bordering on certainty.

One medic held up an infusion bag connected one of Gene’s hands, while pressing swathes and bandages on his other arm. The one behind the stretcher did his best to fight the one stubborn wheel that imbalanced the entire construction of the mobile bed and pushed it towards Nick. He threw in his weight to make the turn to enter the elevator.

Vanessa took it all in. She was rendered breathless by this turn of events.

Damn that Kyle. He had not shown her Gene’s condition would falter this fast and get this bad or that his daughter would already be here. She was taken off-guard. The one thing she truly hated.

A few hours later Marith sat at her father’s bedside on a stool with her hands deep in the pockets of the thick coat she hadn’t even taken off yet. She was anxiously turning half circles on her seat, while alternating her gaze from her unconscious father to the view in front of her. His room in the clinic looked out over Sweet Lake, just as his house had done.

They appeared to be in a whole new wing of the local medical centre. Marith had been there before in the past, usually to get her wild little sister stitched after she had cut herself on the rocks in the lake or sprained her ankle jumping off a bicycle at too high a speed, so she was pretty convinced this was a spick-and-span-new ward.

“He is sleeping it off,” a voice behind her clarified.

Marith made a full turn with the stool and looked at a blond, chubby nurse with an overly friendly face.

“We are going to get him through withdrawal safely and comfortably. Do not worry. We have done this before.”

Marith frowned. “Withdrawal? Of what?”

“The… eh… alcohol,” the nurse stuttered surprised.

“He was brought in because he cut his arm…” Marith’s voice trailed off.

Her eyes wandered from the pitiful face of the nurse to her father again. His arm was stitched and heavily wrapped in layers of sterile bandages and gauze. There was still an IV going from his hand to a standard with several infusion bags that Marith eyed suspiciously.

“During the standard medical examination we do when a patient is brought to the emergency room we found out your father has toxic levels of alcohol in his blood.” She was very formal now.

Marith felt every ounce of hope and energy leave her body. For the first time that day she took a good look at her father’s face. He was unshaved, unwashed and he had bags under his eyes the size of throw pillows. He had always been athletic, but he had lost the majority of his muscles and was now just plain skinny. The loose skin around his face uncovered wrinkles Marith couldn’t remember seeing before. He looked worse than she did.

She wiped away a tear and bit her trembling lip, before she spoke.

“Can he be visited… during that process?”

“Not at first, unfortunately, but we will contact you when he is ready for visitors.”

“Can I speak to a doctor about this?”

“Sure you can, sweetie. Just not today.”

“When…?”

“I will make an appointment for you. Walk with me.”

Marith took a last glance at the faded glory beside her. Although the look on his face was distorted Marith knew he was far gone and it could be a long time before he would be fully awake and functional. She tried to take comfort in the fact her father would have his beloved view on the lake back during his stay in the clinic and followed the nurse to the front desk.

While the nurse tried to convince Gene’s daughter that the first possibility so speak to a doctor or to visit her father again would be after the weekend Vanessa was prowling around the ward that misplaced guilt had built.

As soon as Marith turned her back to her completely and the nurse peeked at the computer screen again to put an appointment in the doctor’s overflowing agenda she snuck into what had to be Gene’s room. Recently, she had become quite good at stealth operations. An evil smile played around her lips as she softly closed the door behind her and tiptoed towards the bed.

In less than an three quarters of an hour she had to be back at the local primary school, so she didn’t have much time. Her fingers fondled with the cool, glass bottle in her leather bag. The bottle was empty, except for a single white feather she was given by Oracle a few months prior.

She uncorked the protective glasswork while sliding into the bed next to Gene. Unsurprisingly this didn’t wake him up. She had anticipated this and fished out the feather that had once belonged to one of the very first mute swans residing in Sound Lake.

She stroked it over his forehead and softly blew air across his face. No visible response on the outside, but Vanessa knew that internally Gene’s consciousness was working hard to regain contact with the physical world.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t allow him much time to get there on his own, so she repeated the little ritual. She witnessed how his fingers started to move slightly over the bedsheets. Rapid eye movements under his closed eyelids followed. His spirit had recognized his lover and was frantically trying to reach and hold on to Vanessa for dear life.

He woke up with a grasp and a grab. He grasped for air and grabbed Vanessa’s hand with painful force. He took in the vision of the fiery woman that had left him so suddenly, halfway through a fight, only a few nights prior. She could read the confusion in his bloodshot eyes.

“Gene.” She exhaled as she whispered his name.

Gene frowned and eyed his immaculate clean surroundings. Vanessa noticed he seemed to have aged at least a decade in the past few days.

“How are you here?” His voice was hoarse and vulnerable.

“I saw you on the stretcher earlier, with the medics.”

Gene swallowed as he recalled the previous events.

“After our fight… I thought it was over… for us. You left… you just left.”

“No,” Vanessa stammered, ridden with guilt. She had been called to the Corridors that night. She didn’t know how she could explain this all to him. She also didn’t know whether or not she should explain it all.

“Are we still… you and I?”

“Yes, of course,” she nodded and gave him a careful kiss.

“I came by your apartment, the next day after school, but you weren’t there…”

“I was busy, running errands,” Vanessa recalled.

This was no lie. Vanessa had spent the last few days running from school to Kyle to Brad to Gene to the Corridors and back to her own apartment to revise assignments and prepare classes for the next day.

“Is this misunderstanding the reason you drank to the point of being unable to pick up your own daughter from the airport or even stand up straight during the day?”

Gene shrugged. Vanessa needed to see no more than the look on his washed out face after that question. A wave of frustration and anger almost took over again.

When she had first found out he had claimed he had it under control, after which he had started to go to greater and greater lengths to hide it. Eventually, he had spun elaborate lies about his addiction. Vanessa had been trying to help him for months now, but she had been unable to make him quit his drinking. In fact, it had been the subject of their last fight and a recurring theme in the growing struggles that overshadowed their relationship.

After Marith had started to show up in Kyle’s visions she had decided to wait for her. Serious conversations tend to have more impact when brought up by your own offspring. However, it was never meant to get to this point in which Gene was hospitalized and possibly needed rehab.

“I am sorry about what happened, Gene, but this is for the best,” Vanessa decided eventually.

“I know,” he mumbled.

His tone betrayed that he didn’t really mean that. The clouds of alcohol were still very much lingering around him.

“Your daughter just left, by the way.” Vanessa attempted to change the subject.

“Did you meet?”

“Not yet… but soon,” she added as she stroked a stubbled cheek.

“Will you..?” He violently rubbed his eyes at a sudden surge of emotions.

“I will keep an eye on her. Probably more than that,” she comforted him.

Gene hugged her as tight as he could with one wounded arm and another one tied by an IV.

“Speaking of your oldest. I have been meaning to ask you something…”

She unfolded the cover of her tablet and unlocked it.

“Have you spoken to her about the accident?”

“Not since she called me from the hospital back in the Netherlands. Why?”

“I know you are not a native speaker, but I was wondering if you could translate something for me…” Her voice trailed off as she was searching for the footage.

“Now?” Gene sounded mildly agitated.

“Yes, now.”

“Did you wake me up for this?”

“Maybe,” Vanessa teased.

They both knew her visit was mostly prompted by worry and dismay of what she had seen that morning. Now that Gene was fully awake she figured he could help her out just as well.

“I had Brad look at the footage of the train station. It appears the station was deserted as well until their train came racing in,” she said, mostly to herself.

The details were important, because this was a positive affirmation about the person that likely had a hand in the events, but she kept that from her bed partner.

“I am telling you. Your curiosity often gets the best of you.”

“You know me too well.” Vanessa chuckled, slightly nervous.

It wasn’t her intention to drag Gene into this or to introduce him to her strange parallel world, especially not while he was confused and low. That is why she didn’t show him Brad’s findings. There was no good reason to make him watch his wounded daughter crawl from a train wreck and pass out.

Vanessa needed to know whether or not the witness gave Marith away to the press. That would make matters infinitely more complicated.

“Okay,” she shoved the tablet under his nose. “What is he saying?”

The European Chain would have to be alarmed if the boy would have spilled information too questionable not to raise eyebrows. If they weren’t aware of the cause of the accident already. A meeting would have to be held. Minds would have to be changed. Mountain Dew would have to be dosed and dispensed.

“I am not sure if I am up for this, right now.” Gene squinted his eyes as the boy that was getting interviewed against the background of debris, construction workers and barrier tape started talking.

“Sure you are. Just concentrate on what he says,” Vanessa urged.

“What would you like to know specifically?”

“Eh,” she hesitated and cleared her throat. “What he has to say about your daughter, I guess.”

Gene closed his eyes and translated as much as he could as the interview moved along.

“Could you describe what happened? The train didn’t slow down, even gained speed, as it neared the station. We panicked.”

“What else?” Vanessa pushed.

“So we ran to the last cart and held onto each other. Waiting for the impact. How did you know the train wasn’t going to stop?”

Gene opened his eyes and Vanessa stared at the screen with him. The beanie wearing young man hesitated.

“I don’t know. We could see the beginnings of the station, so we knew something was wrong. But how did you know a collision would follow?”

The boy turned red in the face and looked around in distress.

“Were you the only two people in the train? Where is the other passenger?” Gene translated the questions of the interviewers.

Two people that were likely to be his parents walked into the picture.

“That’s enough. He has a concussion,” Gene finished.

It had been Daan’s parents who had said it in Dutch, before they took their son away from the camera’s.

A deep sigh of relieve left Vanessa’s chest. “Thank you.”

Gene eyed her questioningly.

“All I wanted to know,” Vanessa clarified.

Recently, Gene had learned not to ask too many questions at his inquisitive girlfriend. She seemed to be under pressure and she had rarely given him honest answers to his inquiries. As the town’s lawyer he was aware Sweet Lake had another side to it and he had decided a long time ago he wanted to leave that side very much alone.

He played with her hair while she put the tablet back in her bag. He also noticed she sneaked a white feather into it as well. Feeling too tired to have to listen to another evasive answer he decided not to ask. That seemed about to be the best decision he had made all day.

After Vanessa had fluffed up his pillows and tucked him in he started to fade fast. She held him in her arms until his troubles had sunken far away into the dark pits of unconsciousness again, which didn’t take long. The painkillers they had given him for his arm were doing their job. Soon she was able to hurry back to school.

Tomorrow, she thought excited, she would make first contact. After all, that was what Vanessa was truly cut out to do.

Sitting in the middle of the cold bedroom floor Marith wondered why she felt this flat. Why couldn’t she be more enthusiastic and thankful towards Nick? Why couldn’t she feel more despair and compassion for her father? Was it because she had suffered one too many depressions? Was she sliding into another one? It always started like this, with the highs and the lows being taken away from her. In the end she would feel nothing. There would be nothing left, except an emotional flat line, like a heart that had stopped beating.

Right now she wasn’t depressed, but she sure as hell wasn’t happy. She just didn’t feel much. So much had happened, yet she felt so little. Did her father feel the same way? Is that why he had started his recently developed habit of heavy drinking? She didn’t have to agonize over this conundrum long, because she heard Nick coming up the stairs.

The door stood ajar. He pushed it open to a crack and glanced inside.

“Can I help?”

Marith looked at the mess around her and sighed. Her personal belongings were scattered all across the floor. She wasn’t really looking forward to Nick touching her underwear, or her books for that matter.

The situation had become painfully clear to everyone involved. Marith would be staying with Nick for the foreseeable future, so she had decided to unpack. She had hoped it would work like occupational therapy, but the chaos in front of her kept reminding her of the chaotic mess her life had become.

Nick took her hesitation as a positive affirmation and entered the room.

“Let me open these for you.”

He walked towards the massive closets and fumbled with the keys. The closets where made out of cherry wood. The mother of pearl inlay gracefully shaped into images of birds and flowers.

“They are gorgeous.”

The keys grinded in the key holes and the doors swung open with a creak. A musty smell filled the room. They both coughed and smiled awkwardly at each other.

“Marith,” he started as he sat down on the bed. “I am incredibly sorry about today. I knew Gene wasn’t doing too well, but I did not know he was that bad. I truly didn’t.”

His eyes were filled with genuine sorrow.

“I know, Nick. It’s okay.” She meant it.