To Best the Boys(69)
I simply swallow and move the letter so the two of them can be closer. Except Mum grasps my hand and pulls me in. She grips my chin and lifts herself enough to lean forward until our noses are near touching—then whispers, “You take this world and make it what it should be. And don’t let the beliefs of a backward system define you. You are the one who has to live with the future, baby girl. So you live it. You understand?”
She stares hard in my eyes for a moment longer, until I nod and inhale the feeling of her fingers cupping my skin as firmly as I wish I could hold on to her. I kiss her forehead. “I love you, Mum.”
When I get up, Da squeezes my shoulder, and then he’s got one hand on Mum’s cheek and the other in her hair, and he’s smiling down at her. And suddenly he looks frailer than I’ve ever seen. Sitting there holding her face to his. This woman who isn’t just his wife, but also his closest friend.
Whoever said the female is the weaker of a species never tested that theory against the draw of a woman’s love.
I give up whatever I was going to say and place a kiss on Mum’s arm, then turn to go downstairs to the lab.
As I leave I hear Da singing a soft song just between the two of them.
It’s their wedding song.
I head to the shelves in the basement and take down the last sixteen months’ worth of blood and disease experiments. And begin to examine them.
24
The celebration party for the Holm scholarship recipient is, traditionally, hosted by the recipient’s parents exactly ten days after winning the Labyrinth contest. The entire Port knows it’s usually attended by the winner’s social circle and is as elaborate as the family can afford. Which means it’s normally an extravagant affair bordering on a circus that neither Da nor I is interested in hosting.
In fact, neither one of us brings it up—him, because I doubt he remembered, and me, because my mind is on Da and Mum, and my experiments, and Stemwick’s entrance exam that’s in four days. Which is what I tell Seleni when she asks.
“That’s why Mum and I have decided to do it for you,” she chirps.
“Sel, please.” I keep my gaze on the test tube I’m working with and shake my head. “This isn’t the time.”
She tips her head and waits for me to look at her. “You’ve been down here for days, Rhen. I know you’re trying to study for the exam and eager with a new idea for your mum. But you’ve got to breathe sometime.”
I stare at her and don’t tell her that I haven’t done any studying for the exam. That I’ve spent every waking minute the last three days re–breaking down the compositions of the lung-fluid illness, the cure I’d come closest to creating for it, and the cow disease Vincent had been studying. And identifying key markers. And starting the beginnings of a new type of cure, just in case I’m right.
I simply say, “Good luck convincing Da.”
“Oh, my father will do that. And what of Lute? I assume you’d like me to invite him.”
When my only response is to nod and clear my throat, she eyes me with understanding. “Still haven’t heard from him, then.”
I shake my head and turn back to my petri dish, ignoring the fears that that admission brings.
She disappears up the stairs, and I get back to running my tests.
The next day Aunt Sara appears with a full basket of rich-smelling meats and vegetables—and broaches the celebration suggestion to Mum and Da. When Da politely refuses, Uncle Nicholae himself strides down to personally insist—and to say that Da is permanently welcome in their home from now on.
“It should’ve happened a long time ago.” Uncle Nicholae sticks out his hand and nods toward Seleni and me. “I hope we can leave the past in the past and move forward as a family.”
Da decks Uncle Nicholae a solid punch right in the jaw and sends him backward onto the wood kitchen floor.
I lift a brow and bite back a smile as Seleni gasps. “He deserved that,” she murmurs.
“Fair enough.” Uncle Nicholae stands and wipes his cheek with the back of his sleeve, then reoffers his hand.
And that is how the party that neither Da nor I really wants to attend—but Mum does—gets planned for the evening of the university’s entrance exams.
The exams arrive like sea foam rushing in—too fast—and too soon Da and I find ourselves the morning of sitting over a bazillion notes on the floor of their room with our cups of hot tea, as the sun rises and my leg is jittering something fierce.
“You’ll do wonderful,” Mum says softly. “Don’t forget the smart women stock you come from. Your poor da never could keep up.”
Da swerves his gaze to her and laughs, and it takes me a second before the sound sinks in. It’s the first honest humor I’ve heard from him all week, and I swear it’s like a ray of light slanted through the window and splayed itself out across his and Mum’s bed. I smile and they both grin, and in that moment we are okay. We are all okay. Which, I think, is enough of a promise for today.
I get up to pour them more tea as Da gives Mum a second dose of the treatment he’s been developing—and I notice Da’s still got on the same clothes from two days ago. So has Mum. I wrinkle my brow and study them both. Is that what it will mean if I pass this exam? He’ll be here alone to care for Mum—or worse—left without either of us?