Like Father, Like Son | Phantom of the Opera

xxxii. We Welcome An Angel

MAY 1922

GUSTAVE

It was getting late into the night as I made my way over. I knew he might be asleep, but it was the only place I could realistically go.

"What are you doing here? Without your wife, at that?" my father asked when he opened his front door. I couldn't decide if he was more annoyed or concerned about my showing up at his doorstep. However, contrary to what I had previously thought, he was still properly dressed and wide awake; I thought I had even seen Uncle Nadir inside.

I hung my head in shame before replying: "Lara kicked me out."

"What? Your wife, who is nine months pregnant, kicked you out?" He looked almost nervous, though I couldn't tell if it was out of concern for me or Lara. "She can barely walk, Gustave."

"Yes, but she can hit me with a hairbrush," I explained as I rubbed the back of my head where a bruise had undoubtedly begun to form.

"She hit you with a hairbrush? As in, a light tap? On the arm?" Clearly, he did not understand the power of my wife's backhanded swing.

"More of a smack on the back of the head with the handle."

He let out a small chuckle at the mental image he was probably seeing before asking a question that would inevitably give him an even more entertaining answer: "What on earth did you do?"

"Apparently, I breathe too loud."

"You...you what? Do you mean you snore too loud?" His confusion matched my own but I heard a laugh from inside that confirmed that Uncle Nadir was, in fact, visiting and probably already had thought of a list of ways to make fun of me.

"You'd think, but no." I was too tired to even try and put things delicately. "I was just laying on the couch, existing, and the next thing I knew, I had a lump developing on the back of my head."

"Right. Well, you can wait here until you deem it safe to come back home," he said. He tried to stifle a laugh, that much I knew, but he let me in and tried to hide it with his look of confusion.

"So you finally hit the point where your breathing is too loud, hm?" Uncle Nadir finally piped up once I entered the sitting room. "Are you officially sleeping on the couch at this point?"

I flexed my back and heard about half a dozen cracking sounds. "My spinal cord answers that question for me," I said.

"Ah, I see. Why did she kick you out of bed? Was it the breathing, or were you stealing the blankets?" Uncle asked.

"I think you mean that I was using a singular blanket so I didn't freeze," I shot back.

"Oh, so she revoked the blanket privileges and refused to sleep close to you because you breathe too loud and you make her overheat. I recall that point." Somehow, he knew exactly what had happened without ever having set foot through my front door.

Papa had been watching our exchange and seemed to be developing more questions than answers. He finally put his hands up in surrender and said, "I'm just going to let you do the parenting at this moment because I have no idea how any of this is supposed to make sense."

"It doesn't, really. Hormonal, pregnant women don't make much sense, but God help the poor soul who tells her such a thing." Uncle Nadir looked at me with warning in his eyes, telling me exactly what I should never do. "So yes, Erik, just let me play the father here and keep your opinions to yourself before Gustave listens to you and goes home to get Lara more upset."