Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

15: Smoke

Mimosa

I had obviously chosen a bad day for my visit to the Capital. Sure, it had been a cloudy day in Dale, but apparently Breasinghae was flooding. The rain came down like in father's shower, in heavy curtains and with pressure.

But then again, as a working woman, I couldn't have really come the day before. And on Sundays I went swimming with mum. So, if I wanted to visit my brother, then Saturdays were my only option.

I sighed and supported my head against the bus seat. Despite having taken an umbrella, my jeans felt cold against my thighs. I was starting to understand why Timothy insisted on having a big umbrella. I made a mental note to not to tease him about it anymore, but instead ask where my brother had ordered that tent of his.

Our childhood home, where Timothy still lived, was downhill from the bus stop. The street bore some resemblance to a river. At least the cars parked by it got a good washing. Though there weren't any by the street just then.

Despite the weather, I slowed my steps as I approached our old home. I had heard from mother that the potential buyer had really purchased the place. I felt a bit odd about it. Up until now I had been able to come to the house visiting my brother whenever I pleased. It probably wouldn't be that simple for very long anymore.

Maybe it was nostalgia that had brought me here just today. As a pretext I had Timothy's gloves in my backpack. I didn't know if he even owned another pair. Sometimes Timothy was thoughtless in that sense: He forgot he was human, and forgot about the simple things. It was like him to lose his gloves and get a cold because he didn't have a spare pair.

I stepped just shy of the yard, watching the houses. Watching our house. I could have come to the back yard, but I felt like using the front porch. Like when we had been kids. We had only had keys for the main door.

I supposed Timothy had now also the key to the backyard's glass door. And wondered if it was in his keychain, instead of on top of the hall's small wood table.

Truth be told, I was sometimes worried for my brother. Why had he stayed in our parents' house? I knew he didn't get along well with mother. So wouldn't Timothy have been eager to move out of the house she owned? Yet he had stayed. As if it hadn't occurred to him people would wonder why he stayed. He was a bit old to stay at home by all counts, anyway.

I also wasn't sure how he lived. Back when I had lived with him, it had crossed my mind he could have been to drugs, disappearing and appearing as he did. And Timothy had had an oddly haunted, almost scary look to him back then. And when I had moved, finally, out on my own, he had simply disappeared for a period.

Even the laid-back dad had gotten anxious.

We had just been about to call the police once for a missing person, when after a month of no returned calls, Timothy had suddenly called me.

I still remembered the call.

"Mimosa?"

I remembered his voice. It hadn't sounded like him. And he had called in the middle of the night. Around one o'clock in the morning.

And what he had said next had frightened me out of my senses:

"I love you. I am sorry for the trouble."

He had weathered my frightened shouting. And I had told him exactly what I thought of him just then. And that opinion hadn't been high. Still, he hadn't apologized a second time. He hadn't called our parents, just me.

"I hear your lungs are well. How are you?"

I had hung up the call.

I was still standing outside in the downpour, under the umbrella. All by myself. There weren't even cars on this part of the street. Or the always present dog walkers. Everything seemed abandoned. There was just the river of a street and the rain.