Young Writers Society

Six

I’m gonna be an uncle, I’m gonna be an uncle, I’m gonna be an—”

“ZITTO!” bellows Ales.

“What?” I frown at her briefly as I drive. “You’re not the one with a sister who had to wait until her third pregnancy for it to even be a pregnancy.”

“Buon significato,” she says, almost sympathetically. “Mi auguro che questa gravidanza è successo.”

“I do too,” I agree. “Not just for my sake, but for Halli’s as well. We know what the first two pregnancies did to her; I don’t want to find out what will happen this is another ersatz.”

“I’m happy your mother is not in the car.”

My shoulders quiver as I attempt to suppress my giggles. Mom had decided to travel with my sister. “I can usually rely on you to put a smile on my face.”

“Solitamente?”

“Fine, always, you needy fool.” Ales giggles as she rests her head on my shoulder.

I take a detour that allows me to enjoy the tree-covered hills surrounding the place I called home. There are no single words that I could think of to describe Cedar Falls, Ohio. Unlike the day before, today a blanket of sunshine and even a gentle caress of a slightly heated breeze wipe away whatever memory there was of a miserable, yet oddly beautiful storm.

I even have my top down and I listen to the rustle of the late summer leaves that all but do to my ears what an embrace from my mother, sister, or even Ales do to my entire body. If I had the opportunity to focus on detail more than my driving, I know would find rhythm in the rays of sunshine that danced through the narrow crevices in the intertwining limps of the restless trees.

Ales’ hair tickles the back of my neck as it flaps in the wind. I stir a little.

“Oh, mi dispiace, Kieran,” she says, sitting up. “I miei capelli stupidi.”

“Hey!” I reprimand. “Your hair is not stupid; it’s meraviglioso!” I reach over and play with her hair a little. “See, look at those fiery locks of yours.”

“Devo un’anima?” she asks hopelessly.

“You know, the more you ask me that, the more I feel that you just love hearing my answer,” I laugh. “Of course, you have a soul!”

Ales kisses me on the cheek. “Tu mi ami!”

“You know I do,” I pucker my lips, sending her an invisible kiss.

“Ti amo anch’io,” she puts her arm around my shoulders.

We arrive at Ash Lake Bar & Grill and I see that Halli, Chad, and Mom have already arrived. I wonder if they already told Cristina the news. If they did, they would probably already be seated at a table; if not they were waiting for Ales and I so that we could be there when the news was spread.

“Dieci euro dice che sono già seduti,” says Ales as I park the car.

“Ales, we are not in the Mediterranean stopping in Corsica to go shopping,” I glance at her sideways as I turn off the car.

“Bene, dieci dollari,” she corrects herself through gritted teeth.

“You’re on,” I say and we hop out of the car.

We enter the building shoulder to shoulder.

“Ah, solo i due che ho aspettato per,” says Cristina cheerily, approaching us from seemingly nowhere.

“Hi, Cristina, where is my family?” I ask, glancing around.

“Proprio laggiù,” Ales’ mother replies. She points to a far table in the corner of the restaurant. Indeed, my mother, sister, and brother-in-law are seated and browsing through menus.

“Pagare,” Ales holding her beautiful hand under my chest.

I glare at her green eyes as I grab a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and slap it into her hand.

“Yay, soldi,” she says greedily.

“Oh, shut up,” I grumble as I begin walking over to the table my family is sitting at.

When I reach the table, my mother is shaking her head. “Sweetie, you and Alessandra are going to bet each other into bankruptcy.”

Ales and I exchange a glance. “Should I give him back his money, Frances?” asks Ales.

“I didn’t say you had to do that; you won the bet fair and square, right?” Mom gives her a quizzical sideways glance.

“I did,” she replies.

“Well then, your loss, Kier,” Mom returns to her menu and Ales backhands me in the chest playfully while letting out an all too hearty laugh. I take a seat next to Halli and Ales sits next to me.

“Huh,” I hear Chad exclaim.

“What’s the matter, babe?” asks Halli.

“Well, it’s just that I am looking through this menu and none of the dishes seem Italian.”

Ales, Halli, and I chuckle.

“Sweetheart, it is true that at least half of the staff at this resteraunt can speak Italian as a first or second language, but that doesn’t mean that it is an Italian resteraunt,” my sister explains.

“Now, if you do want something delicious, I would go with the cajun chicken pasta,” I say. Of course, I have tasted everything on the menu at least once and, while Cristina and her staff never once disappointed me, some dishes I liked better than others.

“Okay, then I’ll take your word for it.” He orders the pasta and the rest of us subsequently order our meals.

As we wait for our meals, we do a little catch up from our time apart from each other. The last time I saw my sister and her husband was their wedding day when I was her man of honor and I designed both her wedding gown and the dresses of her bridemaids—my mother, Ales, and her best friend from college, Demma, who I have not seen since.

I ask about how they are faring in their respective majors. Halli is majoring in education for special needs children and Chad is majoring in law on his way to becoming a defense attorney.

He doesn’t go into much detail about what he is studying or how he is faring, but I assume that he is doing quite well. Halli would tell me otherwise if her husband was struggling and she is always telling me how he is excelling in his class.

Halli, as part of an assignment actually had the opportunity to help teach a group of disabled children, all of whom were deaf. I take her word for it when she says that the most challenging part was not the sign language that she had been studying for three months, but remembering that she could not verbally grab their attention. Instead, she had to make sure that they always had their eyes on her and, if one was not paying attention, she would kindly tap them on the shoulder or have another child who was paying attention do so. I ask how it made her feel to teach deaf children.

“That, little brother, goes two ways,” Halli reponds as she takes a bite of one of Cristina’s esteemed stirfry mini-burritos. “On one side it feels wonderful to reach out to kids who can’t hear, and on the other side…” she lets out a long sigh. “It takes a lot of emotional strength knowing that there are people who are so young who have to live without all five of their senses.” I know my sister better than anyone and I do see a trace of sadness in her eyes. I grasp her hand affectionately and she squeezes back.

“Some of them probably never even knew what it was like to hear,” Chad says comfortingly. “Besides, your brother’s art is a living example that not all beauty is in what you hear.” He winks at me.

Halli’s face turns lethal. “What about me?”

Chad swallows hard as his eyes widen. “I think I don’t think you are beautiful?”

“I really wonder sometimes.” The table turns dead quiet as my sister and brother-in-law stare each other down. Halli breaks into a giggle and kisses her husband.

Over the next hour, I think that everyone completely forgets about my mother’s cancer that has gone away and—hopefully—will never come back. Halli asks me several questions about Norway, as this is the first time I’ve seen her since leaving for that country. Where to begin on that subject? There were several things that I shared via email, but I may not have told them everything.

My American nationality while I was there definitely had a number of effects. Some were fascinated by my accent, others made fun of my initial awkwardness, the latter of which was made less difficult by my quick friendship with the daughter of my host family, Kirsten. I learned how to pronounce her name before I knew how to spell it. “Shirsten” as it is pronounced, not to mention with the accent so one doesn’t sound like a stupid American tourist. Ales always seemed very careful about how she chose her words for her emails to show how jealous she was of my new friend.

Kirsten lives about twenty minutes away from Trosmø in northern Norway, well into the Arctic circle.

I had the chance to see the midnight sun before I left in the beginning of July. The sight of that, along with the northern lights that I saw on numerous occasions, were beyond words. I expressed their beauty in the best way I knew how—paint.

The entire time I was there, the temperature never got high above freezing point. It took a couple of weeks for my body to adapt to the point where I was not bundled to the teeth twenty-four/seven, but there was always something to do and see outside. I never ran out of things to do or places to go in between my studies.

“Can you say something for us in Norwegian?” asks Chad.

Oh, no, I say to myself. I should have known that sooner or later that request would come out in one form or another. I take a deep breath.

“Der år så mange vidunderlig ting jeg kunne dele med dere alle. Du reiser til Norge kunne ha blitt ut av det blå, unntatt jeg lærte så masse. Ikke minst de venner jeg laget.” I end my little display of multilingual skills with a little shrug. I explain that basically all I said was that I had a wonderful time in Norway and that, even though it was sort of a whimsical decision, I learned quite a bit. Not to mention the friends I made.

My sister chuckles. “Impressive.”

Ales scoffs. “The Vikings have poisoned him with their not-so-graceful tongues.”

“Someone’s a little biased,” says Mom, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No, she’s just jealous because Kirsten succeeded in talking me into ice skating and going on rollercoasters,” I say, which probably wasn’t an altogether good idea. “Ow!” I exclaim as a spoon lands in my face. Not long after, we all start laughing again. I remind her that if she chips my glasses that she is replacing them, but it might as well be an empty warning since I can’t keep a straight face.

As the table continues its train of gossip, I gaze around. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. Usually, I look at someone and I get so absorbed by their body language and facial expressions, that I find myself empathizing with them which oddly helps when I am painting, sketching, or drawing. Not today. Hearing that my mother is in remission kindled a flame in my heart that is still consuming my skin. That is until I see the most recent person who steps inside the restaurant.

It’s Pauline Marek. For someone else, one might not be aware that she just went through a traumatic experience based on the exceptably happy vibe that I see in her eyes. It’s probably because of my awareness of the situation, but I can tell that it is no more than a façade.

I feel so bad for her. I don’t know whether that was her first time last night or not, but either way, no woman should have to go through that kind of crap. Why do some guys resort to rape? Do they just want to make women suffer? Is it some sort of scenario where in the heat of passion and ecstacy, they lose their self-control to the point that they set aside all sense of morality and kindness? Are they so fraught for sex that they don’t take the girl’s consent into consideration? Probably all of the above.

Her eyes find mine and they catch me off-guard, bringing me back from my brainstorm. Those brown doe eyes fill me with guilt. I touched her and I cannot take it back, though heaven knows I wish I could. My eyes begin to glitter with tears and I run. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I run from the table. From my guilt. From another mistake.