Reunion

Part IV

Calsh, of course, did not immediately seek out food. He suspected that his excursion might take a while, and if he'd promised his sister better food, it was much more logical to wait until he was ready to return to purchase it. Heacha would have said so herself if she'd been physically capable of accompanying him for the distance he intended to walk.

He allowed his mind to wander, and as it often did, it stumbled back to his early adolescence. At the time, he was just beginning to recognize his place in the world; having parents who were simple shopkeepers didn't afford one much social status. But despite this recognition, Calsh was still reasonably happy; his parents had recently started trusting him to do much more than simply help them tend the shop. He'd discovered his enjoyment of taking delivery trips for the shop around the noisy, ever-moving city of Gnomeregan, often stopping to marvel at the mechanical structures that gnomes much smarter than him had constructed. Half of the time he had no idea what the machines were intended to accomplish, and he suspected that many of them weren't intended to do anything other than look fancy, but he supposed that was why he was just a simple courier and not some world-renowned engineer. Still, his parents were proud of him for being able to be so useful, and his little brother and sister, not so much younger than him that he didn't still enjoy playing with them, looked up at him with awe for being old enough to travel around the city alone. Yes, he was happy, and he could handle the mild ridicule of his peers who seemed to think that associating with a shopkeeper's son was below them, despite the curious fact that they seemed much less satisfied with their own lives than Calsh was with his.

As all good things tend to do, however, his satisfaction with his situation didn't last forever. The decline had started out small; Rissh and Heacha seemed to be leaving more and more food on their plates, claiming they weren't hungry. He could sense that his parents were a little worried at first, but they weren't quite ready to go see a doctor for something as trivial as loss of appetite, particularly when the twins, although on the slender side, weren't anywhere close to wasting away. They weren't wealthy, and although they certainly wouldn't have been refused treatment had they sought it, the amount within their means that they would have been expected to pay would have been a very significant financial strain. The twins' loss of appetite continued over several weeks, though, to the point where the two of them were beginning to visibly lose weight, and both were beginning to tire much more quickly than children their age should. Calsh could tell that his parents were in an uncomfortable situation; they were starting to become more certain that something was wrong, but the symptoms were still mild enough that their limited income was a major consideration in whether to seek treatment. Calsh tried to help the make the choice easier for his mom and dad by staying out a little longer to earn some extra money with a few more supplementary deliveries.

And then, one night, the decision was made for them.

It had been a usual late dinner for them, with his whole family sitting around the kitchen table in their home on the second story of the shop's building. Heacha and Rissh had, of course, barely eaten any of what had been given to them, and were mostly pushing food around their plate when Heacha broke into a coughing fit. Even at her age, she'd been taught enough manners to cover her mouth with her tiny palm, and soon enough, the coughing subsided, although not without a concerned glance between a scared mother and father. Heacha lowered her hand, though, and flashed a tight-lipped smile at them to let them know that she was alright — and the smile instantly faded as she looked down at the palm of her hand. Calsh saw her eyes widen, and he leaned over from his seat next to her to see what had surprised her so.

His little sister's hand was coated with a splattering of blood.

Since she was in too much in shock to do so herself, Calsh gently turned Heacha's hand around so that it was visible to their parents. The previously quiet family dinner erupted into commotion. Both parents instantly stood up, Nimi running over to her daughter as she yelled at Bixen to go find the doctor, only realizing after she said it that her shaken husband was already halfway to the door. Calsh leapt out of the way to allow his mother unhindered access to Heacha, but then got back as close to his sister as he could while being reasonably certain that he wasn't in the way. Rissh hadn't seen what had happened to cause the hubbub, but he clearly wasn't comfortable with everyone being so tense and retreated to the solitude of the kids' bedroom. The only person not moving was the scared little girl who'd managed to get everybody riled up; her wide blue eyes couldn't focus on anything other than her bloody hand as the face that framed them showed an odd mix of interest and revulsion.

Calsh saw the opportunity to be helpful and went to fetch a wet towel to clean Heacha just as she was snatched up by her mother and carried to her bedroom. "Rissh, in bed, now," Nimi directed to the boy cowering in the corner as she lowered his twin sister into the next bed over. When Calsh arrived with the towel, his own perfectly-made bed was the only one not occupied, and he flopped down onto it after handing the damp towel to his mother, situating himself so he could watch her wash off his sister's hand.

"Why am I in bed, mom?" asked Rissh.

His mother didn't answer, but got a pained expression on her face that only Rissh would have been unable to see. Calsh knew what was going through his mother's head as he'd had the same thought only moments before: up until the bloody cough, Heacha and Rissh had both had nearly identical symptoms; it was probably only a matter of time before the new symptom manifested itself in Rissh as well.

"Don't worry about it, Rissh," Calsh answered, saving his mother from having to do the same as she tended to her daughter. "We just need to you rest and try to calm down."

Rissh obviously wasn't calm, though, and there was a twinge of fear in his voice as he asked, "What's wrong with Heacha?"

"She's just feeling a little sick, that's all," understated Calsh, not liking to hold things back from his brother, but not wanting to put him into a panic either. "Dad went to get the doctor, though, and I'm sure the doctor will make her feel all better, isn't that right, mom?"

Nimi didn't answer.

Damn it, mom, Calsh thought. Act optimistic for the two of them, you're scaring them by saying nothing.

Optimism apparently wasn't in Nimi's plans tonight, though. In the dingy yellow light provided by the single lamp in the corner of the room and its reflection off of the various exposed metal panels that made up the walls and ceiling, Calsh could see his mother's face begin to contort. She turned away from the three of them and trotted back out of the bedroom.

Heacha was alternating between staring at her now-clean hand and using it to gently poke at her lips, apparently still surprised by what had happened. Rissh had pulled his covers up to his chin and was now staring intently at Calsh, apparently waiting to see his reaction to their mother's sudden departure.

Calsh was frustrated. His mother was obviously frightened by her daughter's bloody cough and the potential that it would happen to her younger son as well, but she needed to be strong for them. Instead, she'd delegated the responsibility to her oldest son, who desperately wanted to worry about the welfare of his brother and sister, but knew that he couldn't let them see that he was scared, not after his mother's hasty escape.

He tried his best to put his concerns out of his mind and walked over to his brother's bed, sitting down next to Rissh and gently patting his shoulder. Rissh leaned over into Calsh as the two of them watched their sister, Rissh with a resigned frown and Calsh with an optimistic smile that he managed to force in spite of his own emotions. Heacha ignored the two of them for the most part, still fascinated by her hand.

Rissh began to cough.

Dad had arrived home not too much later, an elderly gnome with very little hair remaining, but all that was there bright pink, in tow. The doctor entered the bedroom, and Bixen shooed his oldest son out of the room so that the doctor could examine the other two in peace. Calsh navigated a path through the furniture and occasional toys scattered throughout the main room of the cramped home, arriving at the kitchen to find his mother sitting at the table, her arms folded in front of her with her forehead leaning on them. Calsh pulled up a chair next to her and leaned into her; she removed one of her arms from in front of her and wrapped it around her son's shoulder, pulling him in for a warm, sideways hug.

Bixen and the doctor emerged from the room sometime later; the doctor talked to Calsh's parents as Calsh finally allowed himself to succumb to his worry. As such, he didn't hear the entire conversation clearly, but he was able to pick up the important tidbits. The doctor couldn't do much for them, he'd said frankly, and either their condition would go away on its own or Heacha and Rissh would end up going to the grave. The doctor tried to sound optimistic, but Calsh could sense that the doctor didn't believe their chances were as high as he said they were. Whatever was wrong with them — Calsh couldn't remember what it was called, but he was sure Heacha would remember now if he asked her — was not contagious, though, and his parents didn't have to worry about coming down with it themselves or having their oldest son catch it. Calsh remembered vaguely wondering how they'd both come down with it at the same time if it wasn't contagious, but the doctor proved to be right, as nobody else in contact with them fell ill.

Calsh and his parents could do nothing, then, but hope that the two of them recovered on their own, and try to keep them comfortable until they did.

Bixen Pushsprocket took to the task quickly, and Calsh eagerly helped his father take care of them, even as they became more and more ill. The two of them seemed to be in agreement that it was much easier to keep their unpleasant worries at bay when they were busy, and so the two of them alternated between caring for Heacha and Rissh and doing extra shop work and deliveries to earn back some of the money the doctor's visit had set their family back. Every waking moment of their time was occupied by doing something productive.

While the men of the family kept themselves sane by overworking themselves, though, Nimi took the opposite approach. The illness of her twin children caused her to all but stop working; she spent most of her days sitting at her seat at the table with her head in her arms. She would move if Calsh or her husband asked her to help with something, but she performed every task so poorly that it was hardly worth it to ask for her assistance as fixing the mess she made generally took longer than the task itself should have taken in the first place. The increasingly inevitable loss of her children was tearing her apart.

And then, one day, Rissh started eating again.

His energy was still low, and he still spent the vast majority of his time in his now much-too-familiar bed, but he ate ravenously when food was offered to him, and it didn't take long before his family began to notice some meat on his bones again. He became very talkative, and Calsh and his father spent as much time as they could chatting with Rissh, trying to keep him from becoming bored while he was still too weak to get out of bed and play like a kid his age should.

Rissh's road to recovery, though, served to highlight exactly how much his sister wasn't improving. Her body was a shell of what it used to be; her skin had lost nearly all of its color, and it barely did its job of hiding her bones. Calsh was reminded of an odd mix between a ghost and a skeleton, both of which were foreboding images that he wasn't particularly comfortable thinking about given her current condition.

His mother had seemed to brighten up slightly with the recovery of her son; she'd started to leave her spot at the table and actually began helping out around the shop again, although it was still obvious that she wasn't quite at full capacity. Heacha's illness was obviously still getting to Nimi, and yet, as worried as she was, she absolutely refused to look at the bedroom door that hid her ghastly daughter from her view. She insisted that Calsh and Rissh temporarily move into their bedroom; her husband reluctantly agreed and took a mat on the floor with Calsh to allow his still-recovering son to share the bed with Nimi.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, his mother's refusal to spend time with her dying daughter, Calsh spent any moment that he wasn't sleeping or working in the presence of his sister, trying to keep her comfortable, and hoping against all hope that she'd recover like Rissh was now doing. This went on for a few days before Nimi called Calsh over to the kitchen. Calsh's father was out on an errand, negotiating a deal with a new supplier for the shop, and his siblings were both sleeping in different bedrooms, leaving Calsh and Nimi as the only two people awake in the house.

"Calsh," she said, "I'm getting worried about you."

Calsh continued to stand in the low doorway, looking across the well-dented table at his mother. "Worried?"

She stepped around the table and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking him in the eye. Calsh looked up slightly to meet her gaze — she was still taller than him, though not by much — and her calm but weary expression gave him a premonition of dread that he couldn't quite explain. "I think you're spending too much time with your sister for your own good."

He found himself immediately incensed, and made no effort to suppress the tone of voice that would normally get him in serious trouble. "My own good? What about Heacha's own good? Just because you can't bear to face her doesn't mean that I should abandon her!"

Nimi raised her voice to match him; still not loud enough that she risked waking up the others, but loud enough for Calsh to understand how serious she was. "Calsh, you're old enough to realize that she's not going to make it. You're only going to make it harder on yourself when it does happen by spending all this time with her now!"

It was the shortest argument of his life, but Calsh was stunned. He'd suspected it for a while, but to actually have his mother admit that she'd given up hope for her daughter, for his sister, was so revolting that he couldn't even bear to be in her presence any more. He wrenched himself out from under her hand and immediately turned and ran to Heacha's bedroom, shutting the door behind him and jumping up onto the bed that he hadn't slept in for the better part of a week, and gazed upon the evenly-breathing lump under the covers of the bed next to him.

How in the hell could his mother feel that way about his sister? This was exactly the time that the little gnomish girl needed her mommy the most, and her mother was instead detaching herself from her daughter. For what? The chance at a little less pain when Heacha did actually pass away?

If she passes away, Calsh corrected himself. After all, Rissh was getting better now, why couldn't Heacha? In his heart he knew that her recovery wasn't likely, but it wasn't impossible, and he'd be damned if he was going to just leave her for dead like their own mom was apparently perfectly willing to do. No matter how much she detached herself, a death in the family would still be painful, and Calsh intended to make the most of what was probably very little time left with his sister.

If his mother wasn't going to risk giving any more love to Heacha, he was going to love her for the both of them.

And so, for the next few weeks, he spent nearly every moment of his time with his sister, changing and washing her sheets and increasingly-red-tinted pillowcases, talking to her when she was awake, helping her drink and eat what little she could stomach and assisting her with the subsequent rituals that would probably be much more appropriate for his mother to help with had she not so callously set her daughter aside for the dead. Heacha didn't talk much now, and when she did talk it was barely above a whisper, but when she did speak she made it very clear to Calsh that she couldn't thank him enough for his help and she wasn't willing to give up if he wasn't.

His mother, of course, continued to complain at him and forbade him from spending time with her; she was powerless to prevent him from doing so, however, especially without the backing of her husband in the matter. Mr. Pushsprocket was considerably more supportive of Calsh's ambition, and spent most of his time after the shop was closed alternating between spending time with Rissh and Heacha. The family needed the money, though, so he was perfectly willing to let Calsh volunteer to be the primary caregiver for his daughter, even against the blustery objections of his wife, who was all words and no action and had no idea what to do when her oldest son and husband simply chose to ignore her commands.

And in spite of her mother's lack of faith that she would do so, Heacha began to recover.

She'd come much closer to death than her twin brother, making her recovery that much more incredible. Within a few days of her first signs of appetite, her skin tone began to return, she was visibly regaining weight, and for the most part she was more cognizant and conversational.

Like her twin, she still became exhausted after very minimal amounts of physical activity, and spent most of her time laying in her bed or leaning back in any chair she found available. Neither of the younger children were quite healthy enough yet to run around and play like a normal child their age should — Heacha couldn't even stand for a few minutes without having to sit back down, and her brother, despite his quicker recovery, seemed to have even less stamina — but they were no longer in immediate danger of death, and the mood in the household improved considerably. Other than the lack of scampering around the house that the twins' games usually resulted in, everything seemed to be reasonably back to normal.

Even Mrs. Pushsprocket seemed willing to forget the whole incident. Her anger at her husband's and Calsh's defiance completely evaporated, and she began spending time with all three of her children again. Despite the fact that she'd given up on her daughter, nothing was wrong now.

Calsh hated her for it. He was the one who'd been there for his sister when she was at her worst, and now his mother had swept back in as if nothing had happened and allowed herself to care for Heacha again. Fortunately for his mother, his sister had an optimistic disposition, and was willing to forgive her mother's moment of weakness, even if it was obvious to Calsh that Heacha was still a bit resentful.

Calsh never forgave his mother.

He had the sense to avoid making his opinion public for the sake of his family; after all, Rissh never really knew what had happened with his mother, sister, and brother, and Calsh intended to spare him from the unpleasant details. But Heacha knew his true feelings, and while she'd always gently suggested that he let it go, she never pushed the issue — after all, he had been the one who'd been there for her when it was Nimi's responsibility to do so, and he had a right to be angry.

And now that his parents were both dead, he found himself unsure of what to think. His reaction to his father's death was easy if not particularly pleasant; the two of them had always had a good relationship, and even though Calsh had gotten used to not seeing him for months or even years at a time, the notion that he'd never see his father again weighed heavily on him. His feelings about his mother's death were more complicated. Although he was still mad at her after all these years for how she'd treated Heacha, he certainly wasn't glad to see her dead. She was his mother, after all, and despite that one wrong, she'd done so much for him, and he did love her.

The problem was the finality of death. It had been okay for him to stay mad at mom, since they both had years and years of life ahead of them in which he could eventually let her know he considered her absolved of her actions, but now there was no way he could ever apologize, and that realization drove him to feel a strong sense of guilt in addition to his grief. And yet, even if he'd known that his mother would die before he returned from his most recent journey, he was certain that he wouldn't have forgiven her. He simply was not ready; what she'd done to his sister was rotten, and no amount of guilt was enough to convince him otherwise.

Calsh noticed an ornate stone sign advertising Stonebrow's Clothier. He paused for a moment, watching the ever-shifting orange illumination provided by the Great Forge dancing over the edges of the etchings of the placard, and decided he'd been out long enough. As much as he wanted to continue to remain selfishly alone with his thoughts, Rissh and Heacha needed new clothes and better food, and this was as good a place as any to purchase the former.

((Posted 12 March 2008))