There's a distinct change in John when he returns to the table. His jaw clenches and his eyes sharpen as he shakes his head in response to my questioning look.
Charlie continues speaking. He commands Victor's attention while I try to pick apart everything about him. Traces of the pudgy kid that I recognize from the pictures Victor hides in an old shoebox still lingers in Charlie's wide, animated eyes that flash from word to word. Would I have been able to recognize him on the street? Pick this face out of a crowd? He has the look of someone who belongs on stage, and I can almost picture him as the frontman of the band Darcy mentioned with long, dark hair curling behind his ears.
Now, his button down shirt and buzzcut makes him look more like a politician. He talks like one too, like he's trying to sell us something. He gives speeches and tells stories while Victor or Annie ask the occasional question, but carefully skirts around talking about anything relevant. I think he's afraid of what happens when he stops talking.
Will threw him off and he's still trying to recover. That's clear enough. It's like Will's appearance was off script and Charlie was forced to improvise. He's no longer relaxes in his chair, but sits straight as his eyes dart between Victor and Lizzie. Charlie holds her hand under the table. I think he's been working his way up to catching John's eye as he occasionally throws a glance that way, but then immediately directs his attention back to Victor. My Dad offers nothing but blank affection and a warm smile in response.
We're all aware there are ghosts at the table, but Charlie seems determined to drown them out.
Will was happy to oblige, like they're both in on some secret. His green eyes were neutral over the deep-set bags as he extended a hand to Charlie, appearing more relaxed than I've seen him all summer. Will gave no indication that he'd been struggling to breathe less than an hour ago. Instead, he offered Victor an easier story without any hesitation. I thought John would have challenged Will's omission, but he didn't really need to. From the way Dad was looking at Will, it's clear to me that not even Victor Slate can be so blind. Yet, Victor said nothing—did nothing. After only a few moments, he turned his attention back to Charlie.
Now, the look on John's face tells me that Will won't be rejoining the tea party.
I'm angry all over again: at Victor, at Will and Charlie, at myself. It feels like I've unwittingly substituted one brother for another and now we're eating cake like this is normal. Annie even pours me more peppermint tea and asks, "What happened to your hand?" The fact she's the only one to notice the layer of red blistering somehow makes everything worse.
I meet Annie's chocolate brown gaze. "I called a girl at school a cunt today," I reply and pull the crumpled conduct report out of my back pocket. I flatten it on the table in front of Victor.
My declaration is loud enough to stop Charlie mid-sentence. Victor sighs, picks up the paper, and holds it at an arm's length as he struggles to read without glasses. "Why?" He gruffly asks, scratching at his beard with the back of his knuckles.
Because the entire school knows I hooked up with somebody else's boyfriend.
I shrug. "I guess she deserved it."
Victor places the paper back down onto the table. "So what would you like me to do about it?"
I give him a sickly sweet smile. "Absolutely nothing."
John seems to take this as some sort of cue. He places his hands on the back of my chair and leans his weight against his forearms. "Why are you here?" He addresses Charlie for the first time directly. "You keep talking in circles."
"John, please, let the boy settle in," Victor responds. "He's only just got here. There'll be enough time for all that later."
"I'd say seven years is enough time," I weigh in.
"You're right, Athena," John says. His voice becomes a dangerous mix of contempt and energy. "When he left, he was, what? Seventeen? The same age as the twins are now." His eyes latch onto Victor's. "Why is he a boy now, all of the sudden? Athena and Will aren't even kids anymore."
Victor reclines and cooly stares at the two of us. The image of Will leaving the counselor's office today is stuck in my head, and from the bite in John's words, I can only assume he's seeing the same thing. It's a skewed sense of justice attacking Victor like this now, but the apologetic look that Victor now shoots Charlie is making Will's absence increasingly loud in my ears, like an annoying fly that won't die. Does he not hear it?
"All three of you were aware that your brother was coming to visit in advance," Victor replies. "It isn't fair to him, or Lizzie here, that this is how you welcome them. I would expect more from you, John."
"Don't patronize me."
Neither budge. John's hand curls into a fist near the base of my neck, and I don't have to turn around to know that a vein streaks its way down the centre of his forehead.
"I was in rehab," Charlie announces, and the distinct lack of bullshit in his quivering voice turns all our heads. He focuses on Lizzie, who stares back at him with shining eyes and a firm grip on his hand. "Party drugs were becoming a Tuesday morning kind of thing, and then the alcohol..." He gulps. "It got really scary for a while. One night, I passed out and choked on my own vomit, and I should have been dead."
At the words, Victor visibly flinches, and Annie is instantly at his side. She places her hand on the back of his neck to steady him.
"And that's the pretty version," Charlie tries for a small smile, but it comes up empty. "I got lucky, really lucky, and I checked myself into a clinic. I'm four years sober earlier this month, Dad."
"That— that's good." Victor struggles to speak. "You're doing better? You're going to be okay?" He sounds like a little kid.
"Yeah," Charlie says softly. "I think I'll be okay now."
Victor reaches for Annie's hand, and the look he's giving Charlie isn't something I've ever seen before. He doesn't cry, but there's a quiet joy in his expression—a coherence. Like he's watching something broken made whole again.
My heart painfully squeezes. The emotion mixes with a lurking sense of wrongness. I don't know what to think. Things can't be put back together when there's still pieces missing. In this house, the blank spaces make up so much of the bigger picture. Missing Mothers, missing memories, entire years, and childhoods that are gone beyond any hope of recovery—no matter how much time we spend smiling at each other now. It's still a little difficult to compute that this is Charlie sitting across from me. I feel simultaneously like we've allowed a stranger in off the street and like he never left in the first place. How long do you have to be gone for a home to stop being a home? How many years of silence does it take to make us not family anymore? The basic concept of him being here as something that just is—not as a ghost of what was—feels like a math equation I can't fully grasp.
"Why now?" I blurt out, deciding that I won't let Victor distract me from the massive fucking question mark of a person across from me. "You've been sober for four years. You could have shown up anytime since."
"That's exactly it," Lizzie speaks up. Her voice carries the raspiness of too many cigarettes accumulated over too many years. "Four years," she repeats, as if this explains anything.
Charlie nods, and grey eyes that match my own gently stare back at me. "One of the exercises they have patients do back at the clinic is letter writing. You know, listing how our addictions have hurt the people around us. I couldn't bring myself to write one, much less send it back here." He steals another look at John. "I had a lot of anger for a really long time, mostly directed towards you, Dad."
Victor doesn't react. He continues to watch his son as if he's afraid to look away. Usually, my Dad is afraid to look at all.
"I felt like you owed me something, and I wanted to make you hurt," Charlie says, "I think it was my way of trying to feel like I had some control over my life."
"But it's not Victor you hurt the most, is it?" John doesn't miss a beat, and I can practically feel the waves of dark disdain rolling off him.
For the first time, Charlie scrambles over his words, "I—I would like to talk to Will, if he'll let me." He looks more openly at John, hungrily scanning his appearance. I think about my conversation with Darcy this morning and think about how different John must seem to Charlie.
Charlie's response is flimsy avoidance, and yet, before John can pick it apart, I speak up. "Why now?" I repeat, wondering if it'll always take this long to get a straight answer.
"Because it's taken me this long to feel like I can face you guys again, and not, like, blow up or something," he explains. "I finally feel like I'm myself again."
"How can you not be yourself?" I ask, unsure if he's trying to shirk some sense of responsibility.
"Well, obviously, I am me, but I used to think of myself as a kind of black hole, and I acted like one, too. I've caused a lot of damage. When you're living like that," he shakes his head, "I didn't think for a second that I had a future, so it didn't seem like there was any point in looking back at the past. I really wanted this place to mean nothing to me," Charlie frowns. "There's a kind of fake freedom in it, as fucked up as that sounds. I never wanted to kill myself, but I was trying to die, and I made it so there was nobody left to tell me no."
"And you never did take no for an answer," John echoes.
"It's true," Charlie concedes. "I am an addict, and I am always going to be an addict. I understand that now. When I decided to get clean, I had to think about things that I tried very hard to bury for a very long time, and I knew that I would have to come back here sooner or later. With Lizzie's help, and the clinic, and Mom, I finally felt secure enough, so we figured to mark four years we'd make the trip. Plus, I really wanted you guys to meet Lizzie," he places a hand on the back of her chair. "To answer your question, Athena, I didn't mean for it to take four years, but I needed the time."
I barely register half of what he's said. My brain latches onto one thing and blurs out all the rest. I sit forward in my chair, forearms planting on the table. "You've seen Mom?"
Victor stiffens. I think of Ella's words to me earlier: Some things people can't really speak about.
"Yeah," Charlie nods. "She looked me up about two years ago. We were in the same city and didn't even realize it. I brought a picture, actually." He shifts in his seat, pulling his wallet out the back pocket of his jeans.
"She looked you up?" I repeat unconsciously. She's been palling around with Charlie for fucking years and I can't even remember the sound of her voice. Why Charlie? What about me or Will or John is so repulsive to her? Two years for Charlie and she can't even wish me a happy fucking birthday for at least one of the seven she's missed?
As if hearing my thoughts, John places a hand on my shoulder.
Charlie produces the photo and slides it across the table. Carefully, I unfold it, and I can feel John leaning over my chair to look.
The photo was taken on a sunny day outside a house I don't recognize, and my Mother's hands are wrapped around a shaggy haired dog as she wears a broad smile. It's her— just older, and slightly wrinkled. A white dress adorns her tall, lanky frame, and long dark hair cascades down to her waist in a complicated braid. I wonder if she now has to dye it to hide greys. The glasses are new, but the green of the eyes they frame are the exact same as Will's. There's a time stamp in the bottom corner dated two months ago.
Two months. What was I doing two months ago?
"Can I keep this?" The question exits my mouth before I'm even aware of the desire. A raw tenderness that I can't really explain or justify spreads through my chest like melted butter.
Charlie nods with a slight smile on his lips. "She asked me to give it to you." He leans forward, placing his elbows on the table. "She wrote her number on the back in case any of you want to call."
I flip the picture over. My fingers trace over the pen marks that have etched out the digits in curled font. "What's this area code?" I ask, squinting at the unfamiliar number.
"Calgary," Charlie says. "That's where I live now, too. It's her home city."
"I didn't know that."
"Yeah. She's in an assisted living facility near where I work. Sometimes I'll visit her on my lunch hour," he explains. "Mom's been there for a few years now. She's doing well with the routine, even been able to get a part time job. It's a good environment."
"Like an institution?"
He shakes his head. "No, not quite, but she's able to get the care she needs."
I eye the number. "If we were to call her, it wouldn't, like, throw her off or anything like that?"
"No, she's very stable. Things haven't been as severe as they were when we were all together in a long time." He points to the dog in the picture. "That's Burt, he's her service animal. Personally, I think he's a little stupid for it, but she seems to love him, so I guess that's good enough."
"Who names a dog Burt?"
"I don't know," Charlie shrugs. "Why'd you end up being Athena when the rest of us have boring ass names?"
Without hesitation, I smile at him.
Victor remains rigid. He hasn't acknowledged the photograph, and keeps his gaze directed strictly forward. Not for the first time, nor the last, I wonder what the fuck goes on inside that head. It's a passing thought that carries no real weight. I'm way beyond waiting for Victor, and some part of me doesn't entirely care to have an answer.
I hold up the picture to John, but when he shakes his head at me, I feel slightly relieved, like this photo is mine before it's ours.
Charlie catches this, and his smile freezes slightly. "I think I might have some other pictures of her on my phone, John, if you want to see."
"No," John replies, "not really. I have no interest in playing catchup with you, I really don't."
"John—" Victor begins, sounding almost eager at the topic change.
"No, it's okay," Charlie cuts him off with a strange combination of authority and humility in his voice. He looks up at John like he awaits the worst. "You were always the first one to call me out when I was doing dumb shit, and I don't expect you to be quiet now."
John purses his lips and nods slightly. "I think you're old enough to see things for yourself, Charlie. I just don't really appreciate the sideshow here, pictures of Mom? Really?" His tone is carefully measured. "Maybe the time was right for you to come back, but did you consider that we didn't want you to?"
"I called Dad." Charlie's eyes dart to Victor. "He said-"
"Some things change, Victor doesn't," John interrupts, speaking as if the man himself isn't seated at the head of the table. "You should know that better than anyone." It takes John's words for me to realize how often Charlie's been saying Dad, as if the title is a new toy he's been allowed to play with. "Listen, it's a nice idea. Dinner table, tea, touching reunion, you know? I'm not looking to start anything with you. It's good you're not dead," John bluntly offers, "and it's nice to meet you, Lizzie."
"You too?" Lizzie responds, uncertain.
"Yeah," John says, "I think that's all I can say in this tone of voice, so I'm going to stop now."
The ice is unnatural in John. For every word he speaks, it's clear there's ten more that lurk beneath the surface. If some things truly don't change, then John is doomed to always care more than may be good for him. I can see that, even now. What does Charlie see? Fuck, it's good you're not dead is colder than anything even I could come up with, and it creates a tangible uneasiness around the table. How do you respond to something like that?
Charlie doesn't try. Instead, he silently folds his hands together. He looks almost disappointed, like he'd rather John scream at him, and I don't disagree. If it's Victor's feelings that John is trying to protect, it's wasted energy. The idea itself makes me feel stifled because it's a cop out to what we've always done, and I'm fucking sick of all of it. There's so many layers of bullshit and performance going on here that it's become difficult to keep track of what's being said and what I'm supposed to just know, probably through some magical, intuitive osmosis.
I'm scrambling around in the dark, which is the opposite of what Charlie coming back should be. A ray of fucking sunshine should be beaming down on this house because here's another piece of the puzzle, and there's nothing ghost-like about him.
Charlie Slate is alive, he's sober, he's home, and he might be the key to this whole goddamn thing. So why is it so difficult to actually say any of this? Even a simple fuck you feels monumental, like trying to carve out a mountain with a toothpick. What combination of words could make up for any of it? I'm sorry doesn't heal Will's skin, I tried won't make up for Charlie leaving in the first place, and I care can't reshape a relationship that's been so willfully fractured—not between family who've failed to protect each other.
So, no one says anything. Seven years, and still the kitchen table falls silent.
It's Annie who breaks the quiet by clearing her throat. "Athena, come help me change the sheets on your bed."
My forehead dips in confusion. "What? Why?"
"Family doesn't stay in motels," Victor proclaims with some sense of lofty morality. "You can sleep on the couch for a few nights so Charlie and Lizzie can have your room."
"What? When did I agree to this?"
"It's okay," Lizzie speaks up. "Charlie and I can find—"
"No, don't worry about it," Victor cuts her off while still giving her and Charlie a wrinkled smile. "It'll be nice to have everybody under one roof again."
John walks up to Victor and places a hand on the table before him. "Since you didn't ask, Will won't be home for the night." He grabs his jacket off the back of my chair, car keys jangling in the pocket, and leaves through the front door without sparing a glance behind him.
"Athena," Annie repeats, gesturing for me to follow.
Groaning, I get up from the chair and trail her down the hallway. We work together: I hide any dirty clothing at the back of my closet while she strips the sheets. As we hold opposite ends of the clean linen we're fitting to the mattress, Annie speaks up, bent over to fold the sheet underneath. "Where'd Will go?"
"I don't know," I match her motions on my side of the bed. "Damien's, probably? Not like he has any other friends."
"I tried to get your father to talk to him about Charlie, but—"
"Well, maybe don't meddle in shit," I respond, sending her a smile as we straighten out the duvet.
Annie doesn't even blink at me as she grapples with a pillowcase. "Are you going to call your Mother?"
This makes me pause, and by the time I answer she's already finished with the second pillow. "I don't know," I say.
Annie bundles the laundry into my arms and takes half for herself. When we emerge from my room, I almost knock into Charlie, who stands in the middle of the hallway with his hands pressed to either side of a framed picture. The hallway is lit by light peeping out from the open bathroom door, and despite the shadows across his face, I can see there are tears swimming in his eyes. I adjust the bundle on my hip. He's staring at a photo of Will, which was taken a few years ago when Annie forced us all into a photography studio. Young Will wears a wide, gangly smile that doesn't quite fit his face.
"His neck..." Charlie whispers, his voice strained.
I look closer, and realize the collar Will wears in the picture doesn't fully hide the scarring. I never noticed before.
"I—I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know what it would look like." His eyes are wide.
"What—?"
"I could have disfigured his face." His voice is barely audible. "This whole time, I thought—I never knew for sure. It could have been his face."
My stomach is turning, and it's the same feeling I see reflected back at me in Annie's horrified expression. For the second time today, there's nothing I can say.