They Will Be Coming for Us by Kim Catanzarite

Author:Kim Catanzarite [Catanzarite, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sort1
ISBN: 9781735952208
Publisher: Forster Publishing
Published: 2021-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

When I step out of the bedroom with wet hair dripping on the shoulders of my sweatshirt, I find my mother- and father-in-law seated on the living room couch across from Aunt Constant in an armchair. All three of them are fixed upon the photo of Chateau L’Origine that Aunt Constant and Uncle Jimmy gave us as a wedding gift.

There are nuts in a bowl on the coffee table as well as glasses filled with brown liquid and ice cubes in front of each one of them. Scotch, maybe. Something the wealthy drink during a tragedy.

“Hi,” I say, thinking, So glad to join your party.

The refrigerator closes with a slap; Uncle Jimmy spins around, and his big glasses point in my direction. He must have been foraging in my refrigerator. Probably set his sights on apple pie. Or beer.

No scotch for Uncle Jimmy.

Edmund rises from the couch and reaches me as I enter the living room. “So good to see you,” he says in a subdued tone I’ve never heard him use.

Before I respond, he’s hugging me. He is taller than Andrew, but something about him feels the same. It’s strange because I never noticed before. Edmund has never shown much affection. He’s more of a lean-forward-and-half-hug type of person. I’ve never seen him full-body anyone. Not even Caroline.

But this is not normal circumstances.

When he releases me, Aunt Constant appears beside him. A foot shorter than I am, her head tipped upward, sad-faced and pink in her wobbly cheeks. “You poor girl,” she says as she reaches to embrace me.

She’s not crying.

Then again, neither am I. For the moment, my tears have gone dry. My eyes are as swollen as overripe plums. I feel sick, beaten. Weak.

I sense Uncle Jimmy’s approach. He takes deliberate steps the way you might approach a frightened doe in the backyard.

But I have nowhere to go.

It’s the same old Jimmy: hair mussed as if it’s 7 a.m. and he just rose from bed. A button on his cardigan misaligned so the two halves of the sweater don’t match. His pant legs bunched up on the tops of his shoes. Eccentric, annoying Uncle Jimmy, and yet something about seeing him comforts me. I don’t understand it. My own feelings feel odd to me. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s so familiar. Or maybe it’s that, in spite of all his eccentricities, Andrew loved him.

“Hello,” I say.

He’s still five or six steps away, and I hope he doesn’t expect me to run into his arms. This is not going to happen.

“So, it’s true,” he says, grinning. “You’re going to have a baby. I knew you could do it.” He claps his hands together and folds his arms up to his chest as though he can hardly contain his satisfaction.

He is bursting at the seams.

And not a word about Andrew. Not one of them has said a word about Andrew. What is wrong with these people?

He moves closer, an outstretched hand leading the way. “May I touch it?”

“No,” Aunt Constant says.

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