Chapter 12 Chapter 11: The Note
I felt a connection too.
My place, Thursday night, 5 o’clock sharp.
Bring dinner.
For a second, my brain refused to process it. Then, the meaning crashed over me in a wave of pure, undiluted euphoria. My heart didn't just leap; it soared, a frantic, joyful bird escaping its cage. A laugh, half-sob, escaped my lips, startling an old Polli dozing a few seats away. She felt it too. She was giving me a chance. A real, concrete chance. I read the words again, and again, committing their stark, beautiful order to memory.
I was still riding that impossible high as I finally walked up the familiar flagstone path to my parents’ house, the night air cool on my skin. The world seemed sharper, brighter, infused with a new potential. It was then I noticed it; strange. The lights in the front room were still blazing, a warm, yellow glow spilling onto the lawn. A knot of unease tightened in my stomach, briefly tempering my joy. I pulled out my com, the screen glaringly bright in the darkness: 23:30. They were always in bed by now.
My hand went to my pocket, fingers closing around my keys, ready to slip inside as quietly as possible and preserve this fragile, newfound hope a little while longer.
But I never got the chance. The heavy front door swung inward before I could even touch the lock. Framed in the doorway was my father, still dressed in his work clothes, his face etched with a grim expression I knew all too well. It was his "serious talk" face. The warmth from the house felt like a warning.
“Nanda,” he said, his voice low and devoid of its usual warmth. He didn't step aside to let me in. He stood there, a barrier. “We need to talk. Me and your mother.”
I followed my father into the living room, my shoes feeling leaden on the plush carpet. The air in the room was thick and still, heavy with a conversation that had clearly been rehearsed in my absence. As we entered, my mother, who was perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa, set her knitting aside with a deliberate, final motion. The needles clacked together like a judge’s gavel.
“You’re, home,” she said. The words weren’t a greeting; they were an accusation.
“Yes, Mum. Sorry it’s so late.” My voice sounded small, defensive, even to my own ears. The joyful high from Silver’s note was rapidly curdling under their twin gazes.
“I… We have been worried about you,” she continued, her hands twisting in her lap, betraying the calm of her tone.
“I know, Mum. Sorry.” The apology was automatic, a feeble shield.
“SORRY?” My father’s voice exploded in the quiet room, making me flinch. He turned from the fireplace, his face flushed. “You come in on a Monday night reeking of alcohol and all you have to say is sorry?” The word ‘reeking’ was laced with utter contempt.
“Dad, it’s not what you think,” I pleaded, the stench of spilled mack suddenly feeling like a brand. “I haven’t been drinking… well, one drink, that’s all. Someone spilt a drink on me.” The truth sounded pathetic, a transparent lie even as I told it.
“Yeah, right,” my father huffed, a sound of pure disbelief. He waved a hand, ceding the floor to my mother with a look of disgust, leaving her to take up the slack in their well-orchestrated intervention.
She leaned forward, her voice dropping into a tone of pained, reasonable disappointment that was far worse than his anger. “Your dieball trainer says you haven’t met up with the team in weeks. You live here rent-free. You come in at all hours, you don’t go to school, you have a…” she paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t be too cruel, “…a dead-end job. Nanda, things have got to change. You have got to change. We… me, your father, your siblings… we can’t keep living like this, watching you drift.”
My father couldn’t stay silent. He interrupted, his voice cutting through her measured speech like a knife. “This is about your Trembling… isn’t it?” He said the word like it was a dirty secret, the root of all my failings.
“Dad… I know what I’m doing,” I insisted, a spark of defiance igniting. “I have been to see Doctor Norton. He’s helping me.”
“That Clam?” The word was a sneer, a dismissal of everything Norton represented. It wasn’t just a label; it was an ideology my father clearly despised.
My mother spoke up, her voice strained, trying to be the peacemaker. “Geo, please…” She turned her pleading eyes back to me. “Now, Nanda, I have spoken to a good friend. She’s told me about someone who can really help you. A specialist.”
A cold dread washed over me. “No, Mum… please, no help. Not like that.”
“You will listen to your mother,” my father commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. He wasn’t asking. He was decreeing. “Professor Liza is coming here at ten o’clock Friday morning. And you will be here. And you will listen to her.”
The ultimatum hung in the air, final and absolute. I looked from his set, furious jaw to my mother’s worried, imploring face. The fragile hope Silver had given me was now trapped, scheduled to be dissected by a stranger on Friday morning. I had no way to stop this. The walls of their expectations were closing in. A profound resignation settled over me, heavy and cold. Things must be as things must be.