Chapter 282

IT was Gaddiel’s idea, which meant it didn't come as a subtle suggestion they had agreed on. He announced it at breakfast on a Saturday, three weeks after the hospital.

“We should go somewhere,” he spoke up immediately. “All of us. Like a trip?"

Amelia looked up from her food and stared at her son. “Where did you have in mind?”

“The nature park.” He said it like it was obvious. “With the birds and the walking trails and the place where we had the picnic that one time.”

“The one where you dropped your sandwich and blamed Gabriel?” Amelia asked with a small smile tugging at her lips.

“I didn’t blame him,” Gaddiel said. “I just said he was nearby.”

“I was in the car,” Gabriel corrected his twin.

“You were near... by the car.” Gaddiel didn’t even pause.

Amelia looked between them, her suspicious heckles rising. “Who else is coming on this trip?”

“You,” Gaddiel said. “Me. Gabriel. Hazel.” He paused and lowered his voice. “And Dad.”

She put her cup down. This was the fifth time this month. Two months had already gone from Ifeanyi's death where he was laid to rest in peace, and her children had constantly suggested that she needed more time outdoors than indoors. And every outdoor trip or fun they had always included Adrian. Amelia knew the third time wasn't a coincidence.

"Gaddiel.” she placed her hands on the table and called his name firmly.

“What? He likes birds too.” He didn't even bat an eye.

“You have never once heard your father mention birds.”

“He mentioned that one time—”

“You are making that up.”

“Mom.” Gabriel’s voice was calmer than his brother. The way he got when he’d practiced what he was going to say. “We just want to go somewhere together. All of us. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s just a trip.”

Amelia stared at him. This was exactly how they had been able to manipulate her into saying yes. Even when she wanted to say no, they would tell her that it didn't really mean much.

“Did Hazel tell you to say it like that?” Amelia asked as her eyes darted to her daughter.

Gabriel said nothing. She looked at Hazel, who was looking at her phone with the kind of focus that meant she was absolutely listening.

“Hazel.”

“Hm?” Hazel didn’t look up.

“Did you plan this?”

“I suggested a family outing.” She was still on the phone. “Where, when and how were entirely theirs.”

“Did you call your father?”

There was a pause at the table before she finally answered. “I may have mentioned it to him in passing.”

“Mentioned it how?”

Hazel put the phone down and finally looked up. “I said we were thinking of going to the nature park and he might enjoy coming. He said he would only come if you invited him. I told him I couldn’t control what you did.” She shrugged. “And then I told these two to bring it up at breakfast.”

Amelia didn’t say anything.

“You needed something good, Mom.” Hazel’s voice was steady. “We all needed something good. It’s a trip to a park. It’s not a declaration of anything. Let’s just go.”

Well, haven't they all in the past four outings?

The park was fine. That was the thing about the park— it just was. Trees, paths, the kind of light that made everything look softer but didn’t ask anything of you.

They walked in a loose group. Gabriel ended up next to Adrian, asking about the trees. Gaddiel ran ahead, then back, then ahead again, reporting on sticks and birds and one time a bug that he said was “very interesting, Mom, you should see it.” Hazel floated between them, sometimes with the boys, sometimes falling back to walk next to Amelia, sometimes up ahead taking pictures of things with her phone.

Amelia walked next to Adrian for a while and neither of them said much. At lunch they sat at the wooden tables near the water. The boys shared a sandwich. Hazel took pictures of them without asking. Later, the boys were down at the water’s edge. Hazel was sitting on a rock nearby, watching them. Amelia and Adrian sat on the hill above, in the grass.

“Thanks for coming,” she said after a while, as both of them sat shoulder to shoulder while keeping an eye on the twins.

“Thanks for the invitation.” Adrian replied in a genuinely thankful tone.

She looked at him.

“You know they planned this.”

“I know.”

“And you were in on it?"

He didn't say anything to that, instead, he changed the subject immediately.

“I brought the picnic blanket. Which I knew we would need because Gaddiel always ends up lying on the ground at some point.”

She looked at him, trying to hide the smile that almost forced itself to come out. This was how he acted when he was caught. He was looking at her when the smile came, and she immediately hid her face.

“Adrian?"

“Yeah.”

She watched the kids for a moment. Gaddiel was on the ground now. Of course. Gabriel was pointing at something in the water. Hazel was just sitting there, arms folded, watching them.

“I have been thinking,” Amelia said. “About what comes next. I know what all of these is about, and I wouldn't pretend that I don't know what you and the kids have been doing." She looked at him. “I don’t know what is on the other side of any of this. I’m not making promises. I’m not pretending six years of things didn’t happen the way they happened.”

“I know. I don’t need you to.” he said quietly in anticipation, and his heart was racing faster than it did when they first met.

She paused. “But.”

He waited.

“I would have dinner with you.” She held his eyes. “If you asked. And if you meant it as what it actually is. Not like something to earn or recover.” She paused again. “Just dinner. To see...” she breathed out. "To see how things would work out in the end. For the kids, especially. They want this."

"I don't want this just for the kids, Amelia." He said her name for the first time in a while which made her look up at him. He continued. "If you are doing this for the kids, then we are already good at co-parenting without making them feel less loved. If you want to do this, and I mean I want to do this too, you would have to do it for yourself and not anyone else. Put yourself first in this case."

He didn’t say anything for a moment and waited for her response to come. The boys’ voices carried up from the water. Somewhere behind them, a bird.

Amelia nodded, smiling more to herself than to him.

"Okay then. I will do it for myself. But it will be nothing outrageous. The moment I feel uncomfortable, I will walk out."

“Just dinner,” Adrian said. "Nothing outrageous."

“Just dinner.” Amelia nodded.

“Next Saturday?”

She thought about it. “Next Saturday.”

From down the hill: “MOM! THERE IS A VERY BIG BIRD!”

She turned and answered Gaddiel.

“Is it bothering you?”

“NO! I JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW!”

She looked at Adrian, and he stared back at her before they both burst out in laughter.

Hazel watched them from the rock before pulling out her phone to text her best friend.

I have decided something she typed to Amaka.

What?

She looked back at the hill. Her parents were still sitting there. Her brothers were throwing rocks into the water.

She typed:

I'm not going back to boarding. I’m staying home. For real this time.

She slipped her phone in her pocket, stood up and brushed off her jeans and went down to the water to make sure Gaddiel didn’t actually throw anything bigger than his fist.

The End.