Sunday's Child(6)
She didn’t know what she would do without Elise. The college kid looked after her son for the few hours after his bus dropped him off and Claire got home from work. Tattooed, pierced and impressively tall in a pair of heeled combat boots, the girl possessed endless patience and a sixth sense for knowing how to deal with an autistic child. Claire considered her a blessing for Jake and herself.
After Elise left for the evening, Claire sat down next to Jake and finished off the remainder of the lukewarm pasta and pesto. Jake pushed his half-eaten portion aside and turned his full attention to his video. He made odd noises, some Claire could translate, others she couldn’t; high-pitched yips combined with snatches of songs and the odd line or two from other movies. They almost never made sense in context, but the words he uttered were clear and well-articulated. Claire tried to think of those noises as progress. Two years ago, Jake was completely silent.
After their dinner, she tucked him into his favorite corner of the couch and sat next to him, sharing a blanket. Except for the TV’s low volume and Jake’s movie on his tablet, the house was quiet.
Most every evening was like this, even the weekend. Claire didn’t mind the lack of a social life too much. She’d always been introverted. Even when she was in school, single and Jake not even a gleam in her eye, she’d found nothing appealing about hanging out in bars and pubs packed with people and virtually bulging the walls with a cacophony of too-loud music and couples shouting at each other to be heard over the din. Sometimes though, she missed a night out with friends, talking over dinner or spending an hour at the local coffee shop.
Andor Hjalmarson’s handsome features rose in her mind’s eye. Claire didn’t try to suppress the image. Dee was right. One brief meeting, and he’d made her a convert to liking blonds. He’d been a perfect gentleman during their introduction, but Claire still felt the residual tingle in her arm from when he’d shaken her hand and the heaviness of his gaze on her back when she’d left the loading dock. And she still couldn’t shake the strange sense that he was somehow connected to the hazy childhood memory of shimmering light and a beguiling voice.
“What do you see?”
Jake suddenly leaned to the side and pressed his lips to her arm, startling Claire out of her reverie. She smiled, hugged him to her and kissed his forehead. “Thanks for the kiss, buddy. Time for a bath, and since Elise gave you pesto, I’ll probably have to boil your teeth instead of just brushing them tonight.” She patted him on the knee. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Once she had Jake in bed and his backpack ready for school the next day, Claire finished her own bedtime preparations. She slid under the covers, set her alarm and stared wide-eyed into the darkness. The holidays were bearing down her like a train. She and Jake didn’t go anywhere or do much for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, but the museum was in high gear with two Christmas exhibits and the upcoming benefit dinner dance and charity auction. She had a lot of long hours ahead of her.
She smiled. At least she and Dee had something more to admire than miles of garland and forests of decorated Christmas trees. As Dee said, Andor was primo eye candy, and while Claire might be divorced, overworked, and socially clueless when it came to dating, she wasn’t blind. She’d just have to be a little more circumspect in her admiration of the new preparator.
“I can do calm, cool and suave,” she said aloud, trying to convince herself. She snorted. Yeah right. She turned on her side and closed her eyes, happy to fall asleep to the memory of deep-ocean eyes.
4
The gangly Sunday’s Child with straggly hair and a missing tooth was gone. Claire Summerlad had grown into a woman of elegance with fine, somber features and guarded eyes. Their very first meeting, when she’d seen through his glamour and entranced him with the discovery that Sunday’s Children were still in the world, had also been the last between them.
Nicholas’s magic was different from ljósálfar magic, bestowed by a divine force unrelated to the Ljósálfheimr realm and resistant to Claire’s deep Sight. The saint could visit the girl’s house each year unseen if he wished. Andor couldn’t, and Nicholas had been adamant that the elf avoid any children like Claire, no matter how rare, at all costs.
“This is a century that ridicules magic, Andor. Claire’s Sight isn’t a gift. Because she’s a child, people will think her just highly imaginative and indulge her. As she grows older, that indulgence will become concern and suspicion. Claire herself will question the soundness of her mind if she sees and hears things no one else does. It’s better that she let her Sight fade and her memory of you become the dream of a childhood she’ll set aside.”
For some odd reason, that last part had turned Andor’s stomach, but he did as Nicholas counseled and never saw Claire again, until their meeting on the Carmichael’s loading docks. She had stared at him with a weary gaze that no longer saw wonder or the ljósálfar elf whose pointed ears she once complimented. He hadn’t missed the puzzled flicker of recognition in her eyes—as if the shadow of that distant Christmas Eve teased her memory—or her embarrassed blush at being caught staring at him with very womanly admiration.
Andor watched her surreptitiously this morning as he and another preparator opened boxes and filled out condition reports on one of the long tables in the conservation lab. Claire, Dee and one of the conservators unpacked boxes at another table. Their nitrile-gloved hands looked like doves as they checked each illuminated manuscript sent from the Matenadaran for damage and cataloged their contents.