Bedful of Moonlight by Raven Held (audio ebook reader .txt) 📕

tell me what it is you’re worried about?”
A long while passed as I stared at him. He watched me back patiently, as though he had all the time in the world to let me sort out my thoughts. Absently, I decided that he was how I imagined those pleasant-sounding phone operators looked like.
“Kristen?” dad said, eyeing me. The muscles on his forearms were tensed.
“I just –” I muttered, aware of all the eyes on me.
Dr Tang took a sip of water. “Take your time, it’s no trouble.”
Caleb placed his napkin in front of me. He had folded it into what looked like a half-peeled banana. When I looked at him, he smiled.
“I just prefer sitting inside, that’s all,” I said, noticing my twiddling fingers. I placed my arms on the table and forced them to be still.
“Why would you prefer that?” Dr Tang leant back against his seat. “I thought a bit of fresh air and people-watching would make us all a bit more at ease.”
A bright orange sports car roared past with thumping hip-hop music blaring from it. I almost dropped my glass of water in fright.
“Loud noises affect me.” I shrugged.
“I see.” He sounded as though I just told him I preferred salmon to grouper. “I personally can’t stand loud noises either. They remind me of my childhood, when all my dad did was drill all day. He was a carpenter, you see.”
Caleb snorted. “Try living with a younger sister who wouldn’t shut up.”
I laughed. It sounded more like a bark. The noise was really getting to me. In a quiet estate like Wroughton where there weren’t many vehicles on the road (there weren’t even buses that came in here), every rumble and roar of an engine was amplified tenfold.
“So how do all of you enjoy your living arrangements so far?”
Caleb nodded with a shrug. “It’s cool.”
Dad agreed with a solemn nod. “It’s a good change.”
“Good change from what?” I demanded. “Our lives before?”
“Our lives after,” he said, “your mother left and Blake….” He regarded Dr Tang, “Being in a quiet estate like this is just what we need – what Kristen needs – after that horrible event.”
I stopped fiddling with the banana napkin. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t even remember how you were like after Blake died, do you,” dad said. “I don’t think distraught even covered what you were then; you were in another world.”
Our food arrived then. After we all got over the chore of tucking in, I tried to sneak a glance at Dr Tang and Caleb, but found that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my father.
He was not looking at me; he stared into his glass of water, lost in his own thoughts. “See, you’ve always been a recluse, unlike your mother. You tend to keep things to yourself, content to lead some kind of lone existence with only a handful of people in your life. We were alright with that, your mother and I, but we always worried about what might happen if any of us left – Blake, your mother, or me.”
I stiffened and pretended to pick the olives out of my ciabatta sandwich.
“You fall into a routine easily. And when that routine is broken, you fall apart too. Blake was your routine.” He looked up at me finally.
It surprised me how well my dad actually knew me. And all along I thought he was the most oblivious one around.
It might have been the lighting the diner, but right then I could see how worn my dad was. Stretched, like there wasn’t enough of him to go around, and it was only a matter of time before he really wore out and disappeared.
“You were afraid to leave the house, you called me repeatedly throughout the day to make sure I wasn’t run over by a truck or choking on a hotdog –”
“That’s not funny.”
He nodded sadly. “It isn’t. Remember that first night you had the nightmare? You woke up screaming and your door was locked, and all I could hear on the other side was you screaming, ‘No, no, no,’ over and over. I had to break the door down, and when I got to you, you were shaking all over, sweaty and cold, almost delirious.”
Caleb and Dr Tang were clinging on to every word of his. There was really no reason to go on and on. “Dad, let’s not talk about this.”
“All I’m saying, Kristen,” he said, reaching over to take my hand, “is that you have to accept that Blake’s never coming back. You’ll have to learn to restructure your life, your new life that doesn’t include him. And we’re all here to help you. You have to help us help you.”
I looked at Caleb, who was staring at me intently, and then at Dr Tang, who said, “I think your dad pretty much said it all. Listen, Kristen. I’m not here to bombard you with the Kubler-Ross grief cycle or tell you what your nightmares mean.”
I raised my brows.
“Your mother showed me your dream diary from therapy session. Not very fruitful, I must say.”
“Wait. She went through my stuff?”
“My point is,” he said calmly, “I’m not some quack shrink treating you as a textbook stereotype of grief. Personally, I don’t believe in dream journals. I heard from Caleb that you are working on a restoration project for the bookstore. Now, that has potential.”
“Potential for what?”
“Clearing your mind, at the very least.”
“You mean clearing out the memories?”
He did not miss a beat. “Clearing out the pain standing in your way.”
I mulled over that over my sandwich. Even with the tumult of uncertainties roiling in my mind, I had to proclaim, “This sandwich is amazing.”
“Ristrot’s the only reason why people come into Wroughton at all,” Caleb said.
“And that is the truth,” Dr Tang said, grinning.
Caleb speared a fry. “They call it the Celebration Restaurant, because everyone who wants to dine here has to have a reason to. It’s how they keep it exclusive.”
“Except that now, people come up with all sorts of outlandish reasons just so they can dine here.” Dr Tang chuckled.
“What reason did you give, then?”
“Welcoming the newcomers to the estate, of course.”
Caleb snickered. “I remember Jade once gave saving her pants from drowning as a reason. They let us in. I think these guys get a kick from hearing our excuses.”
I laughed along with them, but something still did not sit right.
“What are you going to do about mom?”
It was, I suppose, out of the blue. Drowning pants and flighty mothers were as related as ducks and cereal.
Dad looked up. I felt guilty for bringing the topic up when I saw his grin slip.
“We’ll work things out, Kristen. Don’t worry too much about that.”
Now was as good a time as ever to lay everything out before us. If dad was going to probe into my business, I was going to have a share in the adult business too. Besides, it was my mother we were talking about. “Do you really believe she’s here to stay – for good? It’ll seem premature to take her word for it. We both know what she’s like.”
“I think,” dad said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “that you’re being prematurely judgemental at the moment. I talked with the Burnsteads. They’re fine with your mother living with us until everything is resolved.”
Caleb nodded. “We have plenty of room, anyway, and more once mom and Gabriel take off to wherever they’re taking off to soon.”
Nobody said anything after that.
So it seemed, for the time being, that all we could do was wait on whatever wind that would sweep us into another mess of promises, tears and lies.

*

“So how’d it go?”
“Swimmingly, mom,” Caleb said as we waded through the piles of books to get to him. “We had a lovely lunch and played nice just like we were told to.”
Hyde simpered. “Bite me.”
My hands flew out to steady a precarious stack I had knocked into.
“So what was all that screaming about just now?”
“Screaming? What screaming?” Caleb said. I chose to busy myself with wiping some books in front of me.
Hyde snickered. “Come on, everyone’s heard about it – even those who weren’t present. I could hear you guys from up here. I never knew you both had such melodramatic streaks. You two definitely have some issues you need to sort through. We don’t want anything to distract us from the task at hand, after all.” He waved the book he was wiping. Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood. One of my personal favourites.
Caleb leaned against a stack next to him, surveying the dusty, messy storeroom for some other topic. “How’re things here?”
Hyde nodded in grim satisfaction, as though he had rid the area of adversarial pests. “I’ve thrown out a few boxes of old books – they’re over by the store cupboard.” He waved a stack of papers at us. “And I’m checking the list now, see which ones haven’t been rented or touched within the past year.”
“What about all these then?”
“Oh, these? I’m still deciding what to do with them.”
“Wait, wait, stop.” I edged past another pile of hard-covers to reach him. “You can’t just throw out old books, or books that people hardly read. There’s a reason why these books can’t be sold. People aren’t interested in them.”
Hyde frowned while Caleb said, “We’re listening.”
“So we can’t offer them just old or unpopular books. We’d have to throw in some new ones, or some bestsellers, so people won’t think the bookfair’s just some clearance sale for the junk we have.”
“Good point.” Caleb straightened up, headed over to the boxes Hyde had packed and undid all his work.
Hyde’s outraged spluttering was cut short by a phone call, though he did shoot me a dark look and he pulled his cellphone out.
Over by the store cupboard, Caleb rolled his eyes. “He gave her a personalised ring-tone?”
“Belle, is everything okay?”
And I knew from the cloud over his eyes that everything was far from okay.
“Have you called an ambulance?”
An ambulance? I exchanged a worried look with Caleb.
“Okay, just stay calm, Belle. We’ll be right over … Are you sure? Okay, see you there then.”
Caleb was with us by the time Hyde had hung up. “What’s wrong?”
“Your grandfather’s had a heart attack. The ambulance is on its way. Belle’s got the boys. She’ll meet us at the hospital.”
We dropped whatever books we were holding and bolted for Hyde’s Toyota. With a swift flick of his fingers, Hyde turned off the radio, which had been blaring Highway to Hell. I looked over at Caleb, who was staring out the window.
“He’s going to be okay, Caleb,” Hyde said. His voice was flat, and entirely too loud in the car.
It was not until Hyde pulled to a stop that it hit me where I actually was.
The ambulance was already there, and the paramedics were wheeling the stretcher into the hospital. On it laid an old man whom I supposed was Caleb’s grandfather.
Hyde burst out of the car and rushed over to Belle’s side. Her eyes were unfocused and red-rimmed, and she was staring wildly around. When Hyde got to her, she collapsed into his arms, taking deep breaths to stop herself from crying. She had Sawyer in one hand, wailing, and Oliver’s hand in another. Oliver was, for once, not restlessly squirming out of his mother’s grip.
I walked over to him. “Hey, Oliver.”
He stared up at me, eyes wide and lost, and