Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (27 page)

“No, Dad.  Read
Cole’s teacup...”

: : : : : : : :
: :

They were heading
out for the first meeting with Frank and Nina.  Ava drove the truck as they
wove along the road that wrapped the coast like a ribbon, Cole in the seat
beside her.  He took her hand, pulling it over toward him.  He'd been quiet for
the last half hour, his jaw set. 

“You okay?” she
asked, peering over at him.

Cole's smile
didn’t make it to his eyes.

“I will be.”

He flicked on
the radio, ending any further conversation; for a time, the coastal highway
moved past in a flicker of bright Spring colours.  Ava knew what Cole was
feeling.  He’d worried about the meeting for weeks, tension building until he’d
begun waking at night, lack of sleep leaving him irritable during the day. 
Cole had spent the sleepless hours writing thoughts and ideas as they came to him,
sometimes staying up until dawn. 

Ava knew this
because Cole had been sharing her apartment ever since they’d gotten back from
Martinique. 

Things had
shifted between them, permanency coming with a new level of intimacy.  They
found comfort in their own connection as things around them began to unravel. 
Frank and Nina, Ava had reminded him, were not their issue.  They were strong. 
The meeting with them was to provide necessary closure for Cole, something that
would close that chapter of his life, and let him start the next.

That was why Ava
had agreed to attend the counselling session, too.

  : : : : : : :
: : :

They sat in
Marta’s office, chairs in their usual inward-facing positions.  Frank and Nina
had arrived early and as Cole and Ava walked into the room, they stood up
nervously from their recliners.  Without pause, Cole went over to his father
and hugged him.  Tears prickled Ava’s eyes at the gesture. 

‘He’s trying...’

Frank muttered
something to Cole and both men smiled.  Seeing it, the first bit of tension
eased from Ava’s chest.  Father and son stepped away from each other, talking
about unimportant things: the weather, plans for the house, the end of
university, graduation and applications for grad school.  There was an unspoken
agreement to talk about things that were safe.  

While they
chatted, Ava took surreptitious glances at Nina.  She had changed since Ava had
last seen her, her skin waxy, smile tight and anxious.  She was watching her
husband and stepson, hands clasped tightly before her.  It was the speech
posture that Ava knew so well. 

Stepping toward
her, Ava reached out for Nina, pulling the woman into a warm hug.  Despite her
frustrations with the note and the havoc it had unleashed, Ava actually liked
Nina.  That hadn’t changed.  She just wished she understood her motivations.

“Good to see
you, Ava,” Nina said as they stepped away from one another.  “I’m glad you came
today.” Her lower lip quivered, eyes growing bright.  “I’ve missed having you
coming to visit…”  Her gaze flickered to Cole and then back.  “Both of you.”

“Thanks.”

Ava wasn’t sure
what else to say, but she was saved by the arrival of Dr. Langden.  Marta
carried two industrial chairs from her waiting rooms, making the space seem
tinier than it actually was.  Dr. Langden offered to sit in one of them and
Cole went to take the other, but Ava stopped him.  Instead, she dragged him
over to one of the large recliners, urging him to sit down.  Cole sat and she
perched on his lap, the two of them sinking into the deep cushions, his arms
circling her waist.  Marta smirked, but said nothing, and the session began.

After a few
minutes of small talk, Dr. Langden launched into the plan for their
discussion.  Cole was the one who’d requested the meeting, so he would start by
explaining his concerns.  She turned to Frank and Nina.

“You will
certainly have a chance to explain your side of the story. That’s why we’re
here, after all.  But it’s important that we let Cole share his thoughts
without interruption.” 

She waited until
Cole’s father looked up at her. 

“Frank, we’ve
spent the last couple weeks working on your reactions.  I need you to focus on
your breathing today.  All right?”

He nodded,
reaching up to squeeze the bridge of his nose as if staving off a headache.  Across
from him, Marta smiled sympathetically before turning to Cole.

“Alright, Cole. 
You told me that you’d made some notes.” 

Ava could feel
Cole tense as his hands tightened against the spine of the black notebook,
flipping through the pages, one after the other.  Ava turned her head, putting
her mouth near his ear, dropping her voice.

“It’s okay,” she
whispered.  “You can do this.”

He held her
eyes.  There was determination there, something Cole had fought hard to
discover over the last months.  He wasn’t running anymore; he was ready to
stay.  Ava smiled, trying to will resolve into him.  Giving him strength to do
this.

Taking a harsh
breath, he began.

“When Dad and I
met last time, we talked about the affair that he and Nina had before Hanna
died.  I knew that Mom suspected it, though Dad had always denied it...” 

Frank Thomas was
staring down at the carpet as his son talked, his face a mask of pain.  It
struck Ava how sensitive he was about any mention of his ex-wife.  It seemed
odd.   She wondered what else lay under the surface.

“...I kind of
figured, at that point, that I knew why Mom became so depressed over the
years.   It was her fear and anger... and then, of course, Hanna’s death... all
coming together at the same time.  It was just too much for her.”

Cole’s words
disappeared.

“Go on, Cole,”
Marta prompted.  “We’re all listening.”

“Hanna had told
me some stuff when we were teens.  Things that Hanna thought had happened,
though I never knew if this was just her take on it, or if she really knew something
for sure.”  Cole’s voice wavered.  “The last time we met with Marta, Dad
admitted that he’d had an affair with Nina while he and Mom were still living
together.  And...”  Cole's voice broke.  “and it felt good to me, to know how
it had happened back then.  To finally know what Mom had been going through... 
I felt... settled... somehow... but I don’t have that feeling anymore.”

Cole stopped,
closing his eyes, breathing raggedly.  The uncomfortable silence stretched out,
the calm before the storm.  Nina’s face was white, her hand clasped tightly in
Frank’s.  Frank’s face had changed.  He watched his son struggling, expression
grave.  Ava was surprised by the lack of reaction so far... she knew he’d had
two weeks to get to this point, but Frank Thomas’s volatility had always
worried her. 

Cole cleared his
throat, ready to continue.

“Before we left
for Martinique, Nina lent Ava a couple books to read.” 

Cole’s eyes
jumped to his stepmother as he talked, and Ava saw a bright flash of anger.  It
was almost like a bolt of lightning, the way it came so quickly.  Nina shifted
nervously in her chair and Frank’s eyebrows pulled together in annoyance.

‘Careful…
careful…’
a voice inside Ava chanted.

“In one of the
books,” Cole continued, “Nina had left Ava a note.  It said that the affair was
just one part.  That there was more to the story.  Nina,” Cole said, focusing
on her again, his voice dropping into a growl.  “I want YOU to be the one to
explain how—”

“Cole, I
can’t!”  Nina interrupted, her eyes wide and anxious.  “Frank knew, he could—”

“I want to
know!” Cole snapped, his temper flaring abruptly.

“I’m so sorry,”
she yelped.  “I just don’t know if I can—”

“NO!” Cole
bellowed, his voice echoing through the room, silencing her.  “YOU brought this
up and I want to know the rest of it and I want to know it NOW!”

“Cole!  Stop
it!” Frank commanded.  He leaned forward, positioning himself to shield Nina. 
Defensive and angry.

Cole gasped,
closing his eyes and trying to pull himself into some semblance of control. 
Ava pulled the notebook out of his grip, setting it between the cushion and the
side of the recliner.  Cole felt her wrap her fingers tightly around his,
squeezing three times like he’d done so often with her. 

‘I… love… you…’

Cole focused on
that warm point of connection. Feeling the balance tipping back in his favour,
he let out a sigh, opening his eyes.

“We are all
going to keep our voices down,” Marta warned.  “All of us.”   She had a calm
voice, but there was a backbone of steel in every word.  

“Cole is going
to finish saying what he wants,” she continued.  “And then you two may respond
to him... appropriately.”  She turned to Nina, dark eyes flashing.  “Please do
not interrupt again, Nina. You’ll have your own chance to speak.”

There was a
murmur of assent and Cole began again.

“Nina,” Cole
said.  “You were the one who gave the note to Ava.  So I want you to tell the
story.  The whole story...” he paused, his face sharp with anger and pain, “...
please.”

Her gaze
dropped, guilt and shame and something else flickering over her features.  He
felt almost bad for doing this... but he knew his father could hardly speak of
his ex-wife without an explosion.  Frank Thomas wasn’t going to be much help. 

Nina took a
wheezing breath, her free hand coming up to rest on her throat.

“Your father and
I met years before he was divorced...” she said, voice wobbling.  “We were
friends at first, but we grew close over time.”  Her chin lifted, voice growing
stronger.  “Sometimes you can’t stop things like that from happening.  Things
just clicked with us.”

Cole’s arms
tightened around Ava sitting in his arms.  He understood that part of Nina’s
story... because that’s exactly how he felt about Ava.

“The two of us
just had this bond,” she continued.  “Like we just knew each other somehow… 
understood things that no one else did.”

She paused,
looking over at Frank, eyes shining.  Cole could see how much she cared for his
father.  There was love and genuine respect in how she looked at him. Feeling
like he was intruding on a private moment, he stared instead at Ava’s fingers,
noticing how well they fit together with his own.

‘She was wearing
my ring…’ a voice inside him whispered, but he couldn’t remember why.

“It... uh...
things with us...the affair, I mean,” she stumbled uncomfortably over the word,
“it had been going on for some time when Hanna found out.  I don’t know if she
just suspected, or what, but she came to my apartment and confronted me.  And
for a while, I left the city.”

Cole’s head
bobbed up in shock.

“What?”

“I had to make
some choices,” Nina explained.  “I went to France for a time, and when I came
back, I kept my distance.  Things with Frank and me just sort of... stopped for
a while.” 

Next to Nina,
her husband was watching her sombrely.  There were sorrow and understanding in
his eyes.  Nina nodded to Cole, continuing. 

“I think you
were in Junior High then, Cole, and Hanna had just finished high school.”  Her
voice was wistful.  “Hanna was so determined to follow in her father’s
footsteps.”

Next to her, the
Sergeant Major laughed bitterly.

“Headstrong,
foolish little girl.”

Cole blanched. 
He’d never heard his father say anything like this before.  Not about Hanna:
the golden child.  It unnerved him.

“Later that
year,” Nina continued, “when Hanna died—”

“Wait.”

Everyone's  eyes
jumped back over to Frank.  Marta had opened her mouth, ready to chide him
about interrupting, but there was something almost visible about the unspoken
communication between Frank and Nina.  Dr. Langden waited for him to continue.

“There’s more,”
Frank said grudgingly.

Nina smiled,
weary.

“You don’t have
to do this,” she said.  “It isn’t really part of Angela’s story.”

Frank shook his
head, gesturing to Cole.

“No, I do.  Cole
said he wanted to know it all.”  He winced.  “So he should.”

 “Yes, Dad, I
do,” Cole answered in a strangled voice.

Frank sighed.

“Well, your
sister suspected the affair.  She came to me... accused me of it.” Frank’s
voice was aching and sad.  “And I... I lied to Hanna. I...”  He coughed.  “I
told her it was all in her head, and that she was...”  Frank ran a trembling
hand over his face.  “She was just taking your mother’s side, the way she
always had when we used to fight.” 

Frank’s voice
broke and Cole could see him swallowing again and again, trying to pull himself
together.  Fighting down tears.

“Breathe,” Marta
said quietly.

After a few long
seconds, he continued.