"You can click on- this. Can you see it? The button over here? This is the play button."
"Ah, I've got it, I've got it," muttered Michael, squinting through his spectacles.
"Once you press that, you'll be able to view the live streaming of our wedding. You can increase the volume by pressing this. Oh, yeah, that's the button for increasing brightness of the screen."
Twelve years of jail time. Michael's sentence had been capped at twelve because of mitigating factors.
The short end of a video recording had shown him running up to the door, trying to wrench it open with his hands, albeit too late.
"Open the door now!" Michael shouted, seizing Richard by the collar. "What the hell have you done?"
The wisps of grey streaks in his hair had taken over the chief part of Michael's head.
Now almost perpetually resting on his nose were the metal-rimmed spectacles he used to put on only for reading.
Time-paved wrinkles were added to around the corner of his eyes, on the surface of his skin.
It was still something I could not grasp- that Michael had aged.
It was likely to be something no child could fully internalize of her parent.
The tip of my nose tingled, and the back of my eyes grew warm.
Michael in orange. This was a sight I hadn't managed to internalize for the past twelve years too.
"Time's up, Mr. Horan." Glancing at his watch, the middle-aged officer on duty stood, gathering his clipboard and pen.
Getting to his feet, Michael smiled slightly. "It's time for me to go."
"Dad. You know, you can be there with me, right? Even your lawyer said there's high chance you'll be granted a brief visit outside."
"I stood a little too long not doing anything outside that door, honey. And the funny thing was, I was thinking to myself that I was onto exposing a crime, doing the right thing.
"That even if something happened to those women, it wasn't my doing but- his."
My throat burned and pricked. "Dad."
"And even if those women didn't end up like that- in the first place, I made a bargain. Exchanged information about the politician's case, with covering up the exploitation of those innocent women."
At the end of the last word, a crack seeped into Michael's voice.
"No one has the right to weigh whose life is more important than another."
I got up, facing Michael. Had his height changed too?
It'd always felt like Michael- dad- was someone I always looked up to.
Now, somewhat he felt and looked smaller.
"Dad. When I told Elliot to make that phone call- I half hoped you wouldn't care. You wouldn't care that I knew. That you'd cover up everything till the end, and go on living like nothing happened."
"No father would be able to do that-" Michael paused, and cocking his head with a wince, added, "With a few...exceptions. Anyway, happy wedding. I'll see you through the livestream. I love you."
"And see you too, dad. I love you."
~ * ~
"No. I don't know in how many languages I'm supposed to say 'no' for you to understand what 'no' means."
A cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Landon emphasized, flipping through a damp car magazine.
"I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics are prone to falling down."
Scooting his chair closer to Landon, Elliot continued, grinning.
"Stop using alcoholism as reason for everything, it's getting over-worked a little, don't you think? The last time you stopped drinking was ten years ago, Landon."
The miasma of booze- usually beer- that pierced the nostrils of anyone who came within one meter radius of Landon, was long gone. Now, he smelled like shampoo and detergent.
"Shh. Let me read."
"And when are you going to quit smoking too? Are you sure you can smoke here?"
"I bought a bar and not a nursery precisely so that I can smoke in peace. There's a 'Smoking is allowed' sign outside, damn it."
"Why're you even here if you're just going to sit and smoke? Your employees are busy on their feet. Not helping?"
"Exactly, Mr. Elliot!" shouted red-headed waitress Kayla Nilsson, as she jostled past them and brisk-walked toward the kitchen, four empty beer cups in her hands.
Elliot raised an eyebrow, watching Kayla Nilsson disappear through the curtains of the kitchen, and Landon quietly pulling the cigarette out of his mouth.
"Ah."
Wearing a much offended look, Landon flicked ash off his shoulders. "What is that suggestive utterance supposed to mean?"
"Extremely bold. Red-headed. And clever. Ms. Nilsson seems to have the combination of all three traits you like in a woman."
Elliot couldn't help a snicker. "So you're not just sitting here to smoke, you're-"
The back of the bar had but a single overhead light. But it wasn't hard making out the slight flush of Landon's ears.
"Get lost."
"Not getting out until you say yes to my request."
"I don't know if you forgot, but let me remind you again. I hated you extremely intensely and beat you up for quite a few years."
"I haven't forgotten," Elliot shrugged.
"Have you put together a plan to take revenge on me? That why you keep visiting this damn place and ask me to do something like that?" Landon demanded, arms akimbo.
"To be precise, you only beat me about once or twice a month. The days you returned from visiting Mrs. Lock-" The old habit wouldn't die. Elliot cleared his throat. "- her."
"I saw the footage, I told you. I saw how your mum died. My mum pushed her down the stairs. Yeah, don't tell me it was an accident.
"Accident no shit, but she didn't call the ambulance. That's the only important thing. Why're you making me repeat this?" Not meeting his eyes, Landon flipped through the magazine again.
'Mum'. It was like a foreign word, still.
The kind of a word he knew how to pronounce, knew what it meant, but wasn't fully internalized in him.
Sophia Chase, his mum. Brown hair like his, except maybe a shade darker. A big smile, and crescent-shaped, smiling eyes.
Her face, he could never quite clearly remember.
Her room had always smelled like her- men's perfume, and pizza.
On the rare five or six days a year she brought him back from the orphanage, she'd microwaved frozen pizza from the supermarket.
The pepperoni pizza had been his meal for almost all meals he was at her home.
On some of the days he was back home, he'd heard a man's voice and her laughter from her room.
In hindsight, Elliot wondered if it was Richard's voice- or another man's.
But one thing he did remember was that it was hard hearing her laughter when it was just the two of them, with the man gone.
They didn't talk much. Maybe that was why he could hardly recall her voice, or anything they talked about.
Leaked reports. (There were always 'leaked reports'.)
They'd described how Sophia Chase had died. While in the heat of an argument with Isabella Lockwood, Sophia Chase had lost her footing at the top of a staircase, and she fell.
Her head was cracked open, and there was a lot of blood.
Her body and the scene of her death were both 'cleaned up' by men hired by Richard Lockwood.
The incident had been confessed by Isabella herself in a video recording.
Tabloid writers dug up more details than were revealed by the actual investigation.
They called Sophia Chase the woman who 'could live without her child, but could never live without a man'.
The public was eager to take in as many details as possible about the woman who 'seduced Richard Lockwood'.
With a photograph of her they'd somehow obtained, they pointed out the resemblance between her, and Elliot.
Elliot didn't look at her photograph.
Pulling the cigarette out of Landon's fingers and tossing it into the trash, Elliot said quietly, "You're just you, Landon. I don't know how many times you're making me repeat this."
For a few seconds, Landon lifted his eyes and stared hard at Elliot.
Then, pushing back his longish hair, he mumbled under his breath as he flipped through the magazine, "I guess I'll have to cut my hair, damn it."
Grinning, Elliot elbowed Landon. "Landon. I love y-"
A grimace-like scowl paved lines down Landon's forehead. "I'm getting serious goosebumps here. By the way, have you decided yet? There's something called RSVP you have to do."
"On what?"
"Whether you're attending- her wedding. Heard she's getting married. In Italy."
Landon glanced at Elliot askance, with a curious look. "It's been a couple of years already, but I still can't get used to you being- like this. Still more accustomed to you with a freakishly perpetually smiling face and never saying 'no' to anyone."
"I'm still thinking about it." Distractedly opening the canned coffee he'd been holding between his palms, Elliot looked down at the carpeted floor.
"What's...your wife saying?"
"Last week, she told me not to go. Now, she's telling me to go." The coffee warmed his throat. "That it's good to maintain relationships with- people."
"Wow. She's very different from-" Landon stopped short at Elliot's look. "I mean, you know- okay, whatever. You do you. Or whatever your wife tells you to do, you moron."
~ * ~
One week later
"Is he coming to the wedding?" Ester asked off-handedly.
This was one of the things I liked about Ester.
She never gingerly treaded around any topic, in turn making me feel obliged to put on a facade of indifference, or forcefully put up a cheery smile and say something perfunctory like 'I'm all right'.
In her way of very unceremoniously and coolly bringing up any topic, she made anything really feel like it was no big deal.
"No, he's not. Emphasized through the RSVP," I chuckled slightly.
"Ah. Well, understandable," Ester nodded, taking a seat. "You look nice."
Fortunately, she was never one to gush and yelp out compliments, and I was glad of that.
Sitting in my changing room in a wedding dress already felt bizarre enough.
Being showered by exclamations and in turn having to conjure not so hackneyed responses of thank-you, would drain me of the energy I needed to walk down the aisle in a few minutes' time.
I smiled.
Her single word compliment of 'nice' had more weight and warmth than long, specific compliments on my hair, make-up, skin, hair and dress.
"Thanks. By the way, how's your first official solo case going? What did your dad say?"
"Oh, it's quite a complicated murder case. Probably shouldn't talk about its details on your wedding day."
Casually taking a picture of me with her phone, Ester continued, "My dad's a firm practitioner of reverse discrimination. Got me to be assigned to a hard case from the start, because I'm his daughter. I love him for that, but I also hate for him that. You know what I mean."
"I always know what you mean, darling." Bianca entered the room, her growing baby bump more visible through her flowing crimson dress.
"Jeez, you really look like a bride, Horan." After handing out glasses of champagne to Ester and myself, Noah gave me a thumbs-up with his sunny beam.
"And you really look like a pastor in training," I smirked, taking a sip. "But why're you even more tanned than the last time I saw you? Do you always pray outdoors?"
Between starting out as an intern at his mother's Best Vision Capital Ventures and going to a bible college to follow in the path of his pastor father, he'd chosen the latter.
Noah winked, "I pray indoors but I play outdoors. Our church pastors happen to be the basketball players in town."
"Unlikely combinations really run in your family, Hall," Ester chuckled, putting down her glass. "Your mother a venture capital firm head, your dad a pastor.
"And here we have a pastor-in-training- and his activist and political campaigner on vacation."
"I'm itching to quickly give birth and quickly get involved in the next cycle of campaign," groaned Bianca. "Sitting around listening to Mozart and knitting- so not my thing."
Pulling an arm around Bianca's waist, Noah kissed her hair, laughing.
"You didn't go beyond knitting the first line and switched from Mozart to EDM music, sweet, but it's okay. Our baby doesn't have to be born patient and musical. She'll be perfect just like you anyway. Ah- I hear your husband's car, Clare."
Wriggling his eyebrows at the two words, Noah grinned. "I'm positive he'll swoon seeing you in the dress."