Sincerely, Red

Chapter Four

"Laney's uncle?" I asked.

"Yeah," Tim said, scratching his neck. "Laney was..."

"She knows who she was," David practically snarled. "We're handling it."

I looked up at him, noticing the crease between his eyebrows as he got angrier. Fists clenched into balls and chin jutted out, he looked like he was ready for a fight. I could even see a vein pulsing on his wrist, where the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing had been pushed up above his elbows.

"Come on, Liv," David said, tugging on my sleeve.

He pulled me all the way to the kitchen and slammed the door shut.

"What about Claire?" I asked stupidly.

"Claire can do what she wants," he muttered. "She's practically blind when it comes to that man anyway."

I stayed silent and took a seat, as he leaned against the kitchen counter. Every so often, he would fiddle with tea cups or cutlery, making little jangling noises as the objects touched. The noises attracted the attention of a robin outside the window, which came to perch on a branch directly perpendicular to where David was standing.

They both stood for a moment, watching each other.

David held no interest, with a blank look on his face. He clutched a wooden goose figurine in his hand. He then twisted the beak continuously and put it back in its place, turning his attention to the whirring sounds as it began to move. His mouth turned up at the sides slightly, indicating the ghost of a smile and he looked back up at the robin, as though he was silently challenging it.

I didn't know what for.

The robin watched with mild interest, twisting its head and eventually flapping away. Some of the leaves from the branch it had stood on fell to the ground. They settled on the grass blades and laid at rest until the wind pushed them somewhere further along.

"You know," David began, much calmer now. "I did an entire collection of paintings revolving around the linked force in nature and humans, once. That's a prime example."

"It is?" I probed.

"Yeah, it is," he said, drifting off. "The robin is a part of nature... watching as the seasons change, though we mostly see it at winter.  It becomes intertwined with time until the day it dies. But until then, it's taking everything in and there's a certain force about that. It contains time and if it were to ever have a power it would draw it from the memories that time creates."

"That's deep," I said. "It sounds really nice."

"It does. Doesn't it?" he said, in agreement. "But with those memories, there comes the force of pressure. There's a pressure to keep those memories, remember them, sustain them until you absolutely have to let them go."

"Why?" I asked my voice cracking. "What happens if you don't remember them?"

"Those memories define you up to a point, Liv," David said, sadly. "They act as part of the connection between you and your friends, your family and even your enemies. They give you a large part of your identity and when they're gone..."

"And when they're gone? What happens?"

"You make some more," he said, his voice firmer now. "You turn your life around and make new, wonderful memories. You create the connections all over again. You take life and you use it to make a new identity. You mould yourself until you're happy. Not anybody else, Liv, just you. I want you to make yourself happy."

"I thought we were talking about nature," I whispered.

"Nature and humans, sweetheart," he said, laughing. "We were talking about the connection between the two and I think you'll figure it out just fine in time."