Chapter 39: Alexander
Sunlight poured through my windows; I must have forgotten to close the drapes last night, I thought blearily. But no—when my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I could make out my sister's petite frame silhouetted through the open curtains, her red hair set ablaze by the mid-morning sun.
"Oh, good morning, Alex!" she chirped, turning towards me as though it was perfectly normal for her to suddenly appear in my room at such an hour, uninvited and unannounced. "My, but you are a late riser. What time did you get to bed last night, ten instead of your usual eight pm?"
"I'm only two years older than you, Abs," I protested as my joints unhinged and I got out of bed, stepping into slippers, and padding over to the window to yank the curtains shut with a clatter of metal rings against the curtain rod. "I don't go to bed at eight PM, whatever you may think of me in my old age."
She shrugged, leaning against the door jamb. "You could've fooled me. Anyways, I wanted to talk to you..." Looking nervous all of a sudden, she lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down on her thumbnail without realizing it. "Oh, crap! I thought I broke this habit...but I see I'm just breaking my nails and will have to get them redone for the wedding."
"It's a little under two months away, Abs. I don't think they would have lasted two months, anyways." I sat down on my chair, crossing my legs and waiting for her to get to the point.
A frown furrowed her brows. "You're being nice this morning. Darting around the subject with me instead of telling me to stop beating around the bush. And you haven't even asked me why I'm in your room."
"I decided to save my breath," I replied. "I imagine you're close to telling me, aren't you?"
She shuffled over to the side of the room that I was situated in instead of answering me, blue sleep shorts swishing as she moved to survey the contents of my desk. "Why do you have a copy of the Bible in your room, Alex?"
"I've been…perusing the book." My stores of patience had remained fairly level until now, but they frankly decreased greatly with her less-than-welcome and far too intense scrutiny. "It's on loan from a friend."
"Did Katerina give it to you?" she raised an eyebrow at me, setting down the book. Its faded, worn-out brown leather cover and muted gilt edging were nothing special, perhaps, but the words inside it…they felt special to me. Life-changing, even. And if nothing else…it was a good story. The story of something impossible, of a God that kept His promises to a group of people that had done nothing to deserve it.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" I suggested.
She flipped open the front cover instead and read aloud the inscription. "To my child…blah, blah…Pierre Devereaux. Well, that answers that."
"Why are you here, Abigail?" I asked, trying to leach the tension and annoyance from my voice with no small amount of difficulty.
My younger sister smirked. "You finally gave in. And it only took..." she checked her watch, a pearl-pink affair that looked too dainty to hold any machinery to properly constitute a timepiece's inner workings. "Twenty-one minutes and thirty-four seconds of pestering. I'm here, because..."
I saw her cheerfulness, her falsely happy facade disappear and deflate as she slumped over. "I came to apologize for my comments the other day. I was wrong. You're not a cheater, and it was awful of me to even imply that you are. I guess I just…there's so much change happening lately. The world is moving too quickly for me to follow, and it just left me so frustrated. So angry. And I took that out on you. So, I hope you would be so kind as to accept my apology, dear brother?" Her voice pitched higher at the end of her little speech, as though in desperation.
"I forgive you," I said automatically, though my mind, my heart would take perhaps a few days to catch up. "I forgive you."
She flung herself into my arms with a speed that startled me. We hadn't hugged in a long time and so I awkwardly patted her on the back.
"So," she said, none too casually. "The wedding's pretty soon, huh?"
"Yes, it is," I replied evenly, trying to pry myself away from her very strong grip and escape to my room door. Or perhaps even out the window and down fifty storeys. I wasn't picky, as long as it meant avoiding the discussion of matters like flower bouquets and centrepieces for the tables.
"Stop trying to inch out the door, darling brother, I can see you." For a girl who only stood at five-foot-five, she was very intimidating when she wanted to be. I supposed it ran in the family.
"Stop trying to perform surveillance on my movements, dear sister, and I wouldn't have to sneak out the door." I tried to respond with as witty a comeback as I could, but I supposed that compared to her I was less practiced in that area, more used to shutting people up with cold glares and icier statements rather than being funny.
"Surveillance? I love my brother and want to spend time with him. What's so bad about that?" she batted her eyes as though it was proof of her innocence. I placed a hand on the doorknob, freedom perilously close.
"It was lovely talking to you, Abigail. Now, I'm afraid I have things to do…people to see…you know how it is in the life of a businessman." I quickly pushed the door open and began walking at a pace that would have left behind a marathon runner.
"Alexander, it's ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. Even the busiest of businessmen should be very unoccupied right now!" she called, running briskly out after me.
"I'm occupied," I blurted out, telling her the first thing that came to my mind. "I'm going to church today."
+
My outburst had reached the ears of more than simply my sister. I noticed the staff giving me strange looks as I scarfed down my breakfast in preparation to leave with my father and Katerina that morning to church, and the driver gazed in confusion at me before his face smoothed back into a mask of bland congeniality. Katerina as well looked at me with something that was a blend of hope, surprise, and joy, a combination that warmed my cold heart. Father gave a satisfied nod before sliding into the passenger seat, leaving my fiancée and me to sit in the back.
"So, are you happy you decided to come today?" she asked me, her voice light—not with feigned cheer but with real consideration and eagerness to hear my answer.
"Well, considering my father made me… but, no I wanted to. I wanted to learn about God, and I wanted to…I suppose I wanted a change in my life, a change for the better for once. I’d hesitate to sound too enthusiastic, though. Does that satiate your curiosity?"
"Very much so," she said, and I thought I heard a hint of dryness in her tone, but it was gone before I could catch it. "Your father never struck me as the church-going type. None of your family if I'm being honest."
"You've been nothing but honest," I said. "But…we were, back in the day when our lives resembled some Norman Rockwell painting. Now, I guess…we're finding our way back to God. All roads, as they say, lead to Rome. Some roads just take a little longer."
"Aren't you philosophical this morning?" she mused, before seeing the view outside the window and jolting to attention. "We're here."
Those two words gave me more nerves than any public presentation or high dive off a fifty-foot cliff could. I got out of the car anyway and went into the building.