All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(82)

‘We’ll see,’ I said.

‘As I mentioned, the clinic won’t reopen until the summer, and I’m not sure it’s the best thing for any of you if Leo appears to be switching jobs too often or has too long a period of unemployment. Nothing that bad has happened to Leo at the Pool, right?’

‘Aside from the punch, and it seems that was mainly his fault, not that I know of.’

‘So, perhaps we should leave well enough alone for the time being. Leo stays on at the Pool until the clinic reopens in June.’

After I hung up the phone, I went down the hall to my brother’s room to tell him the good news.

I knocked on Leo’s door. He was lying on his bed, staring out the window. Though his eye was much improved, he seemed preoccupied and listless. I asked him a series of questions about his day to which I received a series of one-word replies.

‘You seem tired, Leo,’ I said finally.

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

‘Is it your head?’

‘I’m fine, Annie! Stop fussing at me.’

‘Well, I have good news for you,’ I said brightly. ‘I was on the phone with Mr Kipling. He said the clinic will be reopening in the summer!’

Leo smiled for the first time in weeks. ‘Oh, that’s so great!’

‘Do you think you’d like to work there again?’ I asked him.

Leo thought for a moment, and then he said, ‘I don’t think I can.’

I asked him why not.

‘They need me at the Pool, Annie.’

‘They need you at the clinic, too. What about the animals, Leo?’

Leo pulled his mouth into an obstinate line and shook his head.

I wanted to yell, Why do they need you? A million guys can get the sandwiches but only one guy can be Natty’s and my guardian. It isn’t safe there, Leo! Look at your eye! And if I’m to even consider the possibility of going to Teen Crime Scene Enrichment Summer, I’d like to know you’re not going to get yourself shot! But I didn’t. Yelling was never an effective tactic with my brother. Besides, Leo’s cheeks were already starting to flush and his lips had moved from a line to being pursed up like a pink carnation. I could tell he was on the verge of tears, so I decided to take another approach.

‘Leo,’ I said. ‘I need your help.’

‘Help?’ Leo said. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Annie.’

‘I’ve been thinking about maybe going away for the summer. It’s this silly little teen programme for kids who are contemplating careers in forensic science. Do you think you’d be able to manage without me? Imogen could make your meals and Mr Kipling would take care of the financial arrangements. And I’d make sure that you were able to call me whenever you wanted if you needed anything at—’

‘I’m not a child, Annie. I’m a grown man.’

‘I know that, Leo. Of course, I know that. I just wanted to make sure you knew that everything was taken care of. For the next two years, you’re Natty’s and my guardian. You’re very important now.’

‘Yes, I’m very important,’ he said in a tone that could almost be described as sarcastic. ‘I’m Anya Balanchine’s very important older brother. I’m very, very important, and I need to sleep. Would you mind turning off the lights when you leave, Annie?’ Something about this little speech did not sit well with me, and yet I did not press. I decided it was as he said: he was tired, nothing more.

Leo rolled away from me. I kissed him on the side of the head, on the raised scar from where they’d had to slice into his head. He was not that much younger than Yuji Ono, and if not for that scar, he could even be Yuji Ono. Someone like him, I mean.

I kissed Leo a second time. ‘Goodnight, sweet prince,’ I said.

‘Mommy used to say that,’ Leo said.

‘Really?’

Leo nodded sleepily.

I didn’t know what made me think of it or use it that night. Later, I’d learn it came from Hamlet, that some character had said it after Hamlet had died, and I’d wonder what Mom had been thinking, bidding her only son goodnight with such ominous words. About many things, though, I wondered what my mother had been thinking.

She died when I was six years old, so, in a way, she was like a fictional character to me, and a poorly drawn one at that. I knew she was a crime scene investigator, that she fell in love with my father, that she gave up her career for him, and that she died. I remembered that she was pretty (though what mother isn’t to a little girl?), and that she smelt of a particular lavender hand lotion. I wouldn’t recognize the sound of her voice if you played me a recording, nor could I recall a single conversation I ever had with her. Though I missed the idea of her, the idea of having a mother, I barely missed her at all. How could you miss someone you didn’t know? Whereas Daddy . . . My brain was filled with Daddy, but you already know that about me.

So, it was strange for me to have any memory of my mother, even something as small as remembering what words she had used to bid Leo goodnight.

‘Do you miss her?’ I asked, sitting back down on his bed.

‘Sometimes,’ Leo said. ‘My brain . . . I forgot a lot.’ Then he smiled at me. ‘But you look like her. This, I know. You’re beautiful just like her.’ He touched my cheek with the back of his hand. Then he smoothed out the furrow between my brows. Then he wiped away the tear that must have fallen from my eye. ‘Go to camp, Annie. You don’t have to worry about me any more, I swear.’