Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (16 page)

“Miss
BROOKS!”
he roared, but she didn’t stop.

Cole was running
to catch up before he’d even thought about it.  He left his papers and
book bag behind, not knowing exactly what had happened, but realizing that she
needed him.

“She’s sick,” he
muttered to Wilkins as he passed, heading out into the hallway.  Wilkins
raised his hand, but Cole refused to explain.  He knew he wouldn’t be able
to.

Reaching the
hallway, he glanced down one side.  No Ava.  Looking back the other
direction, he saw the distant fire exit leading out to the rear of the
building.  The metal door's delay-hinge was just closing.  Cole
sprinted down the corridor, his mind on  the panic and fear he’d seen on
her face. 

Pushing the door
open with a clang, he almost ran directly into Ava.  She was on the
stairs, arms tight around her knees, shaking with sobs.  The image of the
gruesome, blood-covered figure from the painting flashed through Cole’s
mind.  Ava's reaction terrified him.

She startled as
he slumped down next to her. Cole watched in dismay as she wrapped her arms
tighter around herself, her chin down to her chest.  She was trying to
make herself as small as possible, folding herself up like a piece of paper
against the cement stairwell.  He shifted closer, hands raised, not
wanting to scare her.  Ava was rocking herself, Cole saw.  The sight
left his scalp crawling. 

He had never
seen her so terrified.

With gentle
fingers, Cole reached out, easing her in against his side.

“Shh… it's alright,”
he whispered, “You’re safe… I’m here, Ava… okay?”

He rubbed her
back, feeling her uncurl in his arms. Her body was quaking with tremors, but
slowly her motions began to have pattern and focus as if she was slowly waking
up.  All the while, Cole whispered to her – random, innocuous phrases of
comfort – just wanting to soothe her.  After a few minutes, she turned to
him, tucking her head underneath his chin, her arms releasing her knees to wrap
around him.

“Fucking
painting,” she hissed, the words vehement.  “I hate it.”  Cole let
her body rest again his as the shivers slowly retreated.

“Yeah...” Cole
answered pensively.  “Me too… It was dark.”

“Awful,” she
said.  “Just awful…”

They sat for a
long time in the stairwell.  Cole noticed new graffiti on the bottom wall
by the exit door.  He wondered if it was Ava’s, but the drawing style
seemed wrong.  Too rough.

He continued
rubbing her back, pressing kisses against her ear now and then.  She
sighed heavily, the last bit of tension releasing from her shoulders. 
Sitting up, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of tissue, loudly
blowing her nose.  Cole smiled and brushed her hair off her face. 
Her eyes were red-rimmed and raw.

“You want to talk
about it?” Cole asked.

Ava laughed
harshly.

“You sound like
my dad,” she said thickly.

“Okay with me,”
Cole said, grinning in response.  “Sounds like a pretty nice guy.”

She nodded.

“He is.”

There was a long
pause. Cole reached forward and placed a hand on her cheek, his face serious.

“I’ll tell you
my story if you tell me yours.”

She glanced up
at him, her eyes almost black in the dim stairwell.

“Fair enough,”
she said wearily, “but I’m going to need a drink before we start.”

: : : : : : : :
: :

They sat in the
corner booth at the Crown and Sceptre, their school bags, which Cole had
retrieved from the empty classroom, thrown onto the vinyl seat beside
them.  It was still light outside on the street, but inside, it was a
comforting twilight.  Ava had several empty shooters beside her, and Cole
sipped a glass of beer.  She wasn’t
quite ready
to talk about it
yet… though he’d seen her break down and had been beside her since then. 

‘So that’s
good,’
she thought, her mind hazy with alcohol.

She imagined her
father next to them, tapping his foot impatiently.  He knew the story, of
course, and she knew he’d push her to just ‘
spit it out’
… not make more
of it than it deserved.  She smirked at the thought, almost able to hear
his voice.

“What?” Cole
asked. 

 “I should
just say it… but I don’t know how to begin.”  Her eyes sidled nervously
over to him.  “It’s just really fucked up.”

She sighed,
picking up another shooter and tipping it back.

“I’ll start
then,” Cole said.

“Okay.”

He slid over so
that he was sitting next to her, taking her hand and rubbing gentle circles
against her knuckles.  She glanced down, noting the slowly-healing skin of
his hands.  It had been more than a week since that night, and Cole’s calm
control had been back in place ever since.  She had almost forgotten the
need to talk about it.

“My parents
weren’t really happy for a lot of my childhood,” Cole started.  “Dad could
be really hard sometimes as a parent, lots of discipline.  My mom had…
other
issues
.  They fought a lot when Hanna and I were kids.”

Ava glanced up
at him, face anxious.

“My mom was a
disciplinarian too.  She was…
harsh
.”

Cole nodded,
waiting for her to say more.  When she stayed silent, he slid closer
still, his arm moving around her shoulders before continuing.

“My sister ended
up kind of doing a lot of the burden of parenting after the divorce… my mother
just…” He winced.  “
Didn’t
.  So Hanna picked up the
slack.  She made me dinner… kept care of me.  You know… things a
mother usually does.  My mom really relied on her.”  Cole’s eyes
settled on the empty glasses on the table.  Ava saw his face ripple with
emotion before pulling it back under the mask of control.  “My sister was
my mom’s
favourite
,” he said tightly.  “Everyone knew.  I
don’t blame her, really.  Hanna was a really good person.”  He shook
his head.  “Easy kid to love, you know?”

Cole reached
out, absently tracing the sides of the empty glass as if drawing. 

“Hanna was
always a pleaser,” he muttered.  “Wanted everyone to get along.  She was
a great sister, actually.  You would have loved her, Ava… everyone
did.  She joined the military
for my father
.  Wanted to serve
because that sort of thing was important to Dad.”  Cole’s fingers
tightened around his glass.  “He’d enlisted because his father had served
in Korea.  Dad served in the Gulf, so Hanna felt she owed him the
same.”   Cole sighed again, his eyes closed as if in pain. 
“Like I said, she was a pleaser...”

“That had to be
hard for you,” Ava offered, but Cole didn’t answer, just continued.

“She was just
out of high school when she enlisted.  Fast tracked with the war effort in
high gear… Hanna got shipped overseas a few months before her nineteenth
birthday.”  Beside him, Ava nodded, dropping her hand to his lap. 
Cole’s voice took on an echoing quality, as if time and pain were pulling him
away somewhere else.  “She was on her very first mission,” He said
bitterly.  “Not even out of the country for a full fucking week… and her
group's transport helicopter got shot down.  Everyone dead on
impact.  When we got the news, my Mom just couldn’t go on.  She just
fell apart…”

“Sorry,” Ava
said, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

“My dad came
home on leave for a while afterwards, to try to help with everything, but their
marriage broke down… Couldn’t handle the pressure of losing Hanna.  Mom
always felt my father had caused Hanna’s death… that he was to blame
somehow.  Things were just… out of control.”

For a moment,
Cole seemed lost in thought.  He’d stopped tracing the glasses and his
hand lay in a tight fist on the tabletop, the arm around her shoulder
tensed.  Blinking, he turned back to Ava.

“Your turn.”

Sighing deeply,
she leaned back, letting herself focus on Cole’s arm around her as she
talked.  This was the place she didn’t like to go inside herself and today
things were too close to the surface.  That painting had brought it
back.  Ava picked up another shot glass, tossing it back and feeling it
burn its way down.  She cleared her throat and began to talk.

“Like I told
you, my Dad played in the symphony – even back when my parents met.  And
when I was a kid, he was on tour a lot.  Mom grew up in the city. 
Her father was a dock worker… they were poor.  Rough life.  She
graduated high school… barely.  Worked as a waitress, which is where she met
my dad.  The two of them just...” Ava paused, frowning for a second. 
“They weren’t well suited, I guess.  They married because Mom was
pregnant.  You know… that whole stupid story.”

Ava fell back
into introspection, forehead crinkling. Cole spoke.

“What kind of
mom was she?”

She closed her
eyes.  The feeling from this afternoon – the bloody figure with the dark
eyes – was back.

“Oh god,
Cole...” she muttered in a low voice.  “She was just…
bad.”

Cole ran his
fingers up her arms, not speaking.   She knew he was waiting for her
to keep going.  This was the part of the story that the school counsellors
and the therapists had always had to fight to get her to release.  She
lifted the last shooter, drinking it in a single gulp.

“What happened?”
Cole repeated.

His words hung
in the air, and she turned her face into his shoulder so that she didn’t have
to see him as she spoke.

“She was always
a really strict parent, but when my father was gone – sometimes for weeks and
months at a time – she just got worse and worse.  Anything I did wrong
earned a new punishment.  It started with little slaps and things, but
every day Dad was away it got harsher.”  Ava took a sharp breath through
her nose, nausea rising.  “Mom couldn’t cope with being left alone.
 Started drinking.  Sometimes she’d leave me by myself in the
apartment.  I think I was four… maybe five at the time.”

“Shit,” Cole
muttered.  Ava squeezed her eyes closed as the darkness intruded. 

“To punish me,
she’d sometimes lock me in a cupboard… sometimes forget to let me out until she
sobered up.  She was...” her words disappeared, strangled by
memories.  She swallowed hard, as if the word was gagging her.  “She
was
abusive
.  And an alcoholic.  Horrible and… and I
still
fucking
hate her most days.”

“Oh god, baby,”
Cole said, kissing her forehead.  “I’m so sorry.”

Ava coughed,
abridging the story in a rush.

“So then when I
was in kindergarten, my teacher saw some bruises… and Child Protective Services
got involved… and Dad broke his contract to come home… and then, um… they
divorced and I didn’t see her again.”  She ran a shaking hand over her
face, her words a low growl. “But the things she did… they fucked me up for a
long, long time.”

She didn’t say
anything after that.  The two of them huddled together in the dim
bar.  Outside, the winter sky darkened, the lights of the Crown now
gleaming by comparison.  

It startled Ava
when Cole’s voice interrupted the reverie.

“A year after
Hanna died,” he said, “Mom and Dad divorced. I went with Mom like most kids do. 
Dad was away a fair bit, so it seemed… for the best.  Mom had a hard time
with the end of the marriage though, especially when Dad remarried a few months
later.  It just seemed to… break her.”

Cole stared at
the far wall, his face so tight with grief that it left him looking far
older.  The expression reminded Ava of a dream she’d had, and she couldn’t
for remember why.

“She had issues…
lots of them
, but I was in high school, so I kind of managed on my own…
But she was in a dark place.  Depressed.  Angry.  Irrational...”
Cole closed his eyes and took a slow breath, “...used to say some pretty awful
shit to me sometimes.  Things about Hanna being her ‘girl,’ her
favourite.  That it shouldn’t have been Hanna who died.  Things that
just sort of drove a wedge between us when I was trying to hold it all together
myself.”

“Oh Jesus,
Cole,” Ava gasped, twisting to see him.  “That’s really fucked up.” 
The darkness he carried around made more sense now.

“I just kind of…
withdrew,” he said with a sardonic laugh.  “Didn’t notice how bad things
were getting.  I was seventeen by then… Had my own life and friends. 
With her being so out of control, there wasn’t really a hell of a lot holding
us together.”

“That must have
been awful,” she said quietly.  “To have to see that happen.”

His forehead
crumpled before smoothing once more.

“Yeah,” he
muttered, “it was...”

His voice was
vacant, his expression shattered.  For a moment they sat in silence. 
Unexpectedly, Cole’s voice started back up.  Ava had been certain that he
was done, but there was more to it.

“There was a
night one summer. I’d been overnight at a friend’s house and I came home late…
much later than usual.  The house was quiet and it smelled just…
weird
. 
I didn’t think anything of it until I went to the kitchen to grab something to
drink, and saw the note...”