Aliens on Aventine Hill

Joseph [Part 6]

Joseph watched Roman from the kitchen doorway.

The television was on, but there was nothing but static on the screen. And yet, Roman was watching it as attentively as if his favorite program were on. The little boy's eyes tracked patterns in the static snow, unnervingly absorbed in the white noise.

Trying to shake the cold gathering in his gut, Joseph knelt beside him and tried to see what Roman saw, to hear what Roman heard. White and black became a storm of colors, but Joseph could see nothing before he felt his retinas begin to roast.

Shaking his head, he switched off the television set and met the accusatory glare with a grin.

"Let's go get ice cream," Joseph decided, pushing himself up from the carpet and tousling Roman's hair. His eyes wandered to the wall clock. Gray's shift was long over by now.

"And then we'll go see the new Planet of the Apes movie," he suggested. "You like those, don't you? I remember the four of us went to see the first one together. Did your brother take you to see the second one?"

Roman bobbed his head.

"OK. Well, does that sound like a good plan to you?"

The little boy nodded more enthusiastically, and Joseph smiled, reaching for the back door. Roman stood, stuffed animal clutched in his arms. Joseph stared at it for a moment, "Is the wolf coming too?"

Roman's grip tightened on the animal. Stupid question.

Joseph beckoned the little boy out the door, fumbling with his key ring as he tried to remember which belonged to this particular door.

Gray had given him the house key a long time ago, partly because he'd had no one else to give it to. Joseph had only used it once, and then now, as he locked the door behind them.

He'd never felt welcome in this house, Joseph thought, staring up at it. In fact, it seemed Gray only ever seemed to invite him inside while under duress. It felt a little to Joseph like some sort of heretical shrine which his presence desecrated.

That was the only way Joseph could think to explain it. Before Joseph's departure, the two of them had practically lived at Arnold's house. More often than not, it had seemed, Gray had slept over there, with Roman in Julia's bedroom and himself in the guest room—or on the couch if Joseph was staying over too.

On the few occasions Arnold hadn't been able to entertain them, Gray had preferred the chaos of the D'Angelo residence over the haunting silence of his own. It had always seemed to Joseph like the Victorian was a place his friend was desperate to escape. Joseph had never blamed him; he himself was unable to put out of his head the fact Gray had found his mother's body not a hundred feet from the back door...

And yet he clung to it as tightly as Roman clung to the stuffed wolf.

Joseph unlocked the pick-up and slipped inside, happy to be leaving it behind.

* * *

It was just him and her on the beach towel now. Alice tucked a stray hair behind her ear, looking happily at Jimmy from the corners of her eyes. He smiled at her, still dripping with river water.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something that glittered in the fading afternoon sun: a little gold locket. The clasp had fused shut; there was no way to see what was hidden inside. She let the chain coil in the palm of her hand as he gave it to her.

"Found that at the bottom of the river too."

"It's beautiful," she shook her head.

"Do you want it?"

She stopped short, hesitating for reasons she couldn't explain. Surely, someone was out there missing it. But if it had lain in the riverbed for this long, it wasn't that important. She turned it over in her hands, looking for some mark of identification. A little bouquet of etched flowers and a small, crested bird marked the front, all but worn off by the water.

"You don't?"

He shrugged. What would I do with it? Alice nodded, handing it back to him so Jimmy could hang it around her neck. He smiled at her, fingering the pendant, "Beautiful."

"Thanks."

He kissed her again.