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

never been forced to bear.
It was even worse when you had to look your unofficial psychiatrist in the eye and tell him there was nothing you were hiding from him.
After visiting Caleb’s granddad (who, though still tired out, was able to keep up with everyone present), Dr Tang gave me a call and asked for a private lunch, just the two of us. It was not at Ristrot’s this time, but a quiet little café near his office.
“I thought I’d like to hear your side of the story, without anyone else here to judge or interrupt,” he said, adding half a packet of sugar to his tea.
“My side?” Was there even a side to any of this? Death was a universally-understood concept.
He shrugged. “Well, you must have something to say about all that has happened.”
Where do I start, I thought wryly.
“You could begin,” he said, keeping a shrewd eye on me as he sipped his tea, “from anywhere you choose. We don’t even have to talk about anything before you came here. How’s living with a bunch of strangers been?”
“Good.” I forked a piece of salmon into my mouth. “Good.”
“Hey, you should really try this,” he suddenly said, chomping down on his Philly cheese-steak sandwich. “It’s really good. I never get tired of it.” He cut out a bite-sized portion of it and laid it on my plate.
I looked down at it. “Is this laced with truth-telling powder so your job would be easier?”
He laughed. “I wish I had some of that, sometimes. But that wouldn’t be right, somehow. Now try it.” He nodded at my plate.
I was surprised to find myself smiling as I thought of how addicted Caleb was to the Philly cheese-steak sandwich from here too.
Dr Tang smiled. “What’s the joke?”
Shrugging, I said, “It’s just – Caleb loves the Philly cheese-steak sandwich from here as well. It’s like he lives just for it.”
He smiled mildly. “Really.”
“Did you know,” I went on, not understanding why I was about to tell him this, seeing as how he hadn’t even asked (could this be the reverse psychology that everyone kept talking about?), “when I first got here, I couldn’t look Caleb properly in the eye.”
“Why’s that?”
I looked down at my salmon. “There was just something in his face that reminded me of … you know.”
“Ah.”
I looked up.
“I see. But you must have gotten over that. You seemed fine in his presence last week over lunch. More at ease, I would even venture to say.”
“And it’s not just that. He likes Hemingway too, and …” I struggled to shrink everything into a sentence, and then wondered why the hell I was even bothering to do so, when Dr Tang was not even probing. “He just reminds me of everything I thought I’d left behind for good.”
“Left behind for good? Do you think that’s possible?”
What was that Hyde had said that day at Miss Macy’s? Escaping the past does no one any good?
“If Caleb can do it, I don’t see why I can’t.”
“Caleb? How did this become about him too?”
Maybe it was high time for me to shut my mouth.
“Kristen?”
“Just something I heard. It’s not important.”
“Well, of course, we’re here to talk about you, not Caleb. But I trust you’re referring to that incident a while back involving his father.”
Gasping, I looked up at him. But of course, he would know. There were no secrets in Wroughton.
“What exactly happened?”
He levelled an appraising look at me before saying, “Like I said, we’re here to talk about you….”
“Yes, but this is important.”
“But you just said it isn’t,” he said. “What made you change your mind?”
This was possibly the most frustrating conversation I had ever had. “I’m just curious, alright? Caleb never talks about his dad, and I think his overwhelming desire to solve my family problems may be due to whatever it is he’s unwilling to share.”
“Maybe it would be better if you reconsidered what this is really about. Your trying to make this about Caleb is evident of how avoidant you are of your unresolved issues –”
“I’m not the avoidant one. It’s Caleb who –”
“You had two people you dearly loved leave you in a short period of time,” he said in that infuriatingly calm tone. “I understand if you wish to delay talking about it, but you don’t have to be ashamed of your feelings.”
“Why don’t you ask him what he’s ashamed about?”
“Because, Kristen, he isn’t the one who had witnessed a horrible death of someone he loved, nor is he the one whose parent left him. Plus,” he said, over my protests, “he doesn’t sleepwalk or hallucinate and cause accidents while doing so.”
“But his father left him before.” My face burned – with heat or shame, I did not know – and the words tumbled out of my mouth. “And now he’s back, and Caleb’s at his beck and call, even though the man doesn’t seem to care about him at all. Isn’t there something wrong with that?”
In the silence that followed, his brows were raised, and then he frowned, either unsure what to make of what I had blabbed, or just plain confused.
“I’m done. We should get going,” I said, and wiped my mouth with my napkin.
He was still staring at me strangely. “You do know that anything we talk about stays strictly between us, don’t you?”
I nodded, starting to sweat.
“You can tell me anything, if you want to.”
I nodded again.
“Well,” he said, calling for the bill. “This has been pleasant. You have my number, Kristen. Call me for meeting if you feel like a chat.”
I felt drained after we had parted ways. Therapy session with Dr Oliveiro was a walk in the park compared to this.
“Hello, Kristen.”
As I turned around, gasping after my scream, I saw his amused expression.
“You – how did –”
“I don’t think I’ve formally introduced myself to you.” He smiled. It was a tight one that involved only the stretching of his lips. “I’m Gareth, Caleb’s father.”
“I –”
“Oh, there’s no need to look so frightened. I’m not going to kidnap you or anything.” He glanced around and took my arm. “I do need to take this elsewhere, though.”
How did he find me? Could he have bumped into me again? That was unlikely, seeing as how he was not even supposed to come out of the shack at all. But then, he didn’t care about that, did he?
“If you make me take another step further, I’ll scream.” We had already rounded a corner into a relatively empty street.
“You won’t,” he said with an easy confidence. “If you wanted to expose me, you would have just told the shrink about me just now.”
He was right. I was not planning on really screaming at all. So I settled for asking, “You were eavesdropping?”
“I wouldn’t call it that, really. I was just in the vicinity, and I heard two people talking about my son – and eventually, me – so I thought I should listen in on the conversation.”
“That’s eavesdropping.”
What exactly did he want? He had obviously come looking for me.
“I know it was you last night, Kristen.”
I felt my breath catch. He knew. How could he have? Maybe he was just guessing.
“Last night?”
He shook his head, as though indulging an unrepentant child. “Let’s skip the bullshit, shall we? I know it was you last night at the shack. You followed Caleb there. And you know about us, don’t you?”
“I – I only know you’re his father.”
“Come now, Kristen.” He chuckled, but my heart still thudded heavily. “I’m not going to do anything to you to keep your mouth shut. You’ll do so on your own, anyway –”
“What makes you so sure?”
His eyes widened. It seemed I had gotten him properly worried. He bent down slightly and said in a voice so low it was almost a growl, “Listen, little girl. You have no business getting involved here. This concerns only me and my son, you understand me?”
“By involved, do you mean getting him in trouble?”
“No,” another voice said from behind me. I whirled around. “By involved, he means helping because he’s my father.” Caleb shifted the stack of magazines he was carrying to another arm, staring levelly at me.
“Caleb, I….” Why was everyone sneaking up on everyone now?
“There, see?” Gareth said, clapping his hands once, as though everything was settled.
“Isn’t he wanted by the police?” Since they both already knew it was me outside the shack last night, might as well get everything out in the open.
“Why do you think he’s got me holed up in that shack?” Gareth said, jerking his thumb at Caleb as he rolled his eyes. “Bored out of my skull, too, might I add?”
“He can’t hide you forever!”
“Will you two stop talking about me as if I’m not here?”
I turned to Caleb. “So you’re just going to keep hiding him there and bring him food everyday?”
“And crossword puzzles,” Gareth muttered.
“What if he gets caught one day?”
“No, he won’t,” Caleb said.
“Because we’re all going to make damn sure that’s not going to happen,” Gareth added. “And that, now, includes you as well.”
“Does it?”
Gareth shot an irate look at Caleb. I turned to look at Caleb too, and waited for what he had to say.
Under the pressure of our gazes, he ran his fingers through his hair and said, “Look, just give me some time to figure this out, okay?”
“Caleb, what is there to figure out?” Gareth asked, laughing as though the idea was absurd. “I’m your father, you help me not go back to jail – simple as that. What does she” – he pointed at me – “have to do with anything?”
Caleb said nothing. I waited, watching him.
“This is ridiculous,” Gareth muttered.
And then suddenly, something hard struck me on the back of my head.
I felt myself collapsing like a card-house. Caleb gave a shout of surprise and leapt forward.
That was when darkness claimed me.


Nineteen


“Having nothing, nothing can he lose.”
~ William Shakespeare (English playwright and poet, 1564 – 1616)


“I still can’t believe you just knocked her out cold like that.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It was just a tiny knock. Your girlfriend’s going to be fine.”
“Dad. Enough already.”
“We can’t risk her exposing us like that, Caleb. You heard what she said. She was threatening us.”
“The only person who’s going to risk exposing us is you.”
Splinters were stuck in my head. At least, it sure felt that way. I couldn’t even move an inch because it would feel like ice shards were stabbing my head viciously, so I made a noise to signal for some attention.
“Kristen?” Caleb said, a towel in one hand and a glass of water in another. He helped me sit up on the couch, placing a hand gently on the back of my head. “I’m really sorry about that. Here, drink up.” He handed me the glass of water.
I took the glass gratefully, as he pressed the wet towel lightly against the back of my head.
“Better?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He shook his head and turned to glare at his dad.
Gareth shrugged. “Told you she’d be fine.”
“Where are we?” I asked, looking around. The place looked vaguely familiar.
“The shack,” Caleb sighed. He turned to glower meaningfully at his dad, gesturing at me.
“Oh, alright,” Gareth grumbled, and then turned to stare glumly at me from where he sat, on a chair