To Be Obscure

| CH. 07

Early Thursday morning, I had dialed the number she gave me, only to reach a generic voicemail. By that evening, the number was no longer in service. Frustration, fueled by the entries Charlotte left in my journal, barreled me into a Friday I had no recollection of. Nathan said he found me on the roof of the apartment complex, yelling at the sky. There were no words in my yells. Just pain. Agony.

By Saturday, there was no news and no change.

I sniffed at the smell of alcohol that filled the living room. It was not from a drink, though I rather it'd been. The smell came from the swabs Nathan used to disinfect my arm. The two vials of blood he had earlier in the week were sent off to a friend in Chicago; he needed two more for a friend in New York. He'd assured me it was all for Science, but I didn't care how many tiny bottles he took.

I needed to find Rosie.

"Did you finally read it all?" Nathan asked as he propped his glasses on top of his curls. He wrapped a strap around my arm and tapped his fingers against my skin, in search of a vein.

I looked down at it, tightening my hand into a fist. "I did."

"And?" The needle pressed into my arm smoothly. After years of injecting into and drawing from my veins, Nathan was nearly a pro at it. I'd also grown numb to the initial poke. It was the strange pulling sensation after I'd never get used to.

"And what?" I tried not to think about it. My liquor cabinet was empty because of Charlotte's memories. A bag sat on the coffee table with newly purchased bottles—thanks to Nathan—but I wasn't allowed to touch it until he received two more samples. Ones without any amounts of alcohol.

"Don't get blood on the rug, Nate."

He snorted but ignored the comment. "What did it say?" Nathan placed a bandage between his teeth as he removed the needle and covered the small wound with a cotton ball. "Can you tell me what it said?"

I took in a deep breath as my puncture wound was bandaged, and I moved my arm to rid it of its soreness. "What can I say about it?" I said as I looked at him. "It doesn't tell me everything."

It was true. It didn't.

The entries stopped before Rosie was three, but there were enough to leave only a few empty pages at the end. Nathan's persistent eyes told me he didn't want to hear excuses, and I almost laughed, because it'd lead to an argument I'd never win. "I'll start, only if I'm allowed to open the rum."

"You fucking drunk," he sighed as he placed the vials in a tiny container and closed it tight. "Drink it, whatever. It's yours anyway."

Perfect.

I grabbed a bottle before he said another word. The smell overpowered that of iodine and bandages. With a full swig and a hard swallow, I wondered where I'd start. I could start at Rosie's birth and her time at the hospital—Charlotte wrote it so beautifully that I cried. Or, I could tell him about her first year, her first words; how she learned to walk at seven months.

Though, I knew that wasn't what he wanted to hear. He wanted to know the bigger picture, or what I could sum up from what was written. Why had Rosie sought me out after all this time?

"Charlotte found 'Christ' when Rosie was two," I said, staring at the white carpet beneath my bare feet. "There were pamphlets around New York, welcoming the new, the young or the old—followers of the true faith."

"Catholic or Christian?" Nathan asked as he wiped his hands with a wet napkin.

"Neither," I said as I took another drink and hummed as the rum burned down my chest. "They called themselves Evergreens. They were believers in the Angels of Christ in Heaven."