Martin clenched his hands into fists, trying to drive away the last paralysis of sleep. His heart raced at full speed as dreams, interwoven with too recent memories, slid from his waking mind. He unclenched his hands and instead pressed his thumbs and ring-fingers together. It was supposed to be grounding.
‘Breath in, hold, breathe out.’ He repeated trying to calm his breath. He didn’t want to wake Arthur. His internal clock wasn’t what it had been, but he knew it was early from the orange street light still peaking from between the curtains.
He tried closing his eyes and settling into the softness of Arthur’s bed and the simple comfortable warmth of Arthur’s body next to his, but it didn’t work. There were too many little flashes of memories still sparking across his mind.
The previous day had been bad on the pain scale, leaving him with little appetite. Now, under the persistent ache, he found himself to be hungry. He would have to get up. Doctor’s orders, if he was hungry he needed to eat. He also had to make notes of dreams, flashbacks, or intrusive thoughts. Orders from more doctors. He’d nearly lost count of how many doctors and specialists had say over some aspect of his life. At least the Agency was paying for them. Better to eat first. If he did that he could possibly take one of his milder pain pills and get back to sleep.
He pushed back the blankets as carefully as he could and tried to slowly roll from the bed, gritting his teeth as he did. He’d found that as one injury healed he would discover another that had been masked. Placing his feet on the floor sent a dull pain from his toes to his hips. Still he kept quiet. He didn’t want to wake Arthur. He’d caused the man enough sleepless nights already. He grabbed the cane that was leaning against his bedside table
It was a longer walk from Arthur’s bedroom to his kitchen than in Martin’s own apartment, but Arthur’s fridge was far better stocked.
The throbbing in his hip had noticeably increased by the time he’d gotten to the kitchen, but as he spotted the fridge the grumble in his stomach turned from light hunger to its own kind of pain. He swallowed hard and breathed. More intrusive thoughts, memories of clawing hunger strong enough to break even his self-control.
He opened the fridge and blinked into the harsh light. Arthur had stocked it with foods he could simply eat, standing right there. He could be sated in seconds and go back to bed. Instead his eyes lingered on the jar of mustard and a block of gruyere cheese. His mind felt as unsettled as his stomach.
He pulled ingredients from the fridge. This he knew, better than any other recipe, the first thing Arthur had taught him to cook. The first thing he had ever learned to cook that did not involve reading instructions from the side of a box or can. “Fancy French grilled cheese,” Arthur had told him at the time.
It was also the memory he’d used when he’d needed to escape deep into his own mind. He would carefully reconstruct it. The sharp smell of the cheese and sourdough bread. The pressure of the knife against the still cool butter and the way it stuck to the edge of the blade before going in the pan. The feel of the ridges of the wrapped wire whisk pressing into the side of his finger. The sound of the whisk through the milk and the way it changed as the sauce thickened. And Arthur, there beside him, patient and thoughtful, laughing bright when his own sauce burnt through lack of attention.
He pressed the power button on the oven. Like everything at this hour, it seemed far too loud. The pain in his hip persisted. He wanted to sit but he also wanted to cook. The urge to create for himself was almost as strong as the hunger. He pulled a copper pot from a hook over the bench and tried to place it silently on the stove, but his arm was still weak and the pot was heavier than he remembered. It clanged against the metal and he winced at the noise.
"Need a hand?"
Martin turned towards the words. Arthur was blinking in the light, hair mussed, a strange pattern from the wrinkled pillow case pressed into his cheek.
"I'm sorry I woke you up."
Arthur smiled at him. "It's okay. Can I help?"
Martin wanted to reassure Arthur that he was fine and send him back to bed, except his therapist reminded him every session that there was nothing wrong in asking for help and he should do so whenever he felt the need. This advice was anathema to the way he had lived his life. Before. But that was then. He was, if nothing else, not stupid. He knew he was on a long road and stubbornness was only going to make it longer.
"If you could assemble the sandwich."
"No problem. Your hip okay?"
"Yes," Martin lied. He was already giving half the job to Arthur. He wanted to make the cream sauce himself. He wanted to feel the warm heat of the pan and witness the subtle chemistry of butter, flour, and milk. They were real and tangible things that would serve to remind him of where he was and what he was still capable of doing.
Arthur sat at the table and began assembling sandwiches. Ham and cheese with a subtle scrape of mustard. Martin dropped butter into the bottom of the pan and watched it begin to slowly melt. The first time they had cooked this together, Arthur had given him precise measurements of weights and volumes. The second time Arthur had insisted he learn how to gauge the proportions by eye. He likened it to a musician being able to play a piece by ear.
The butter melted and Martin slowly whisked in the flour, a spoonful at a time. The rising heat was soothing. There was a hiss and a quick puff of steam as he poured in the milk. He whisked quickly like Arthur had taught him. His hands ached slightly but not enough to risk burning the sauce.
"We could put a fried egg on these. Make them into croque madames. Or is that a little rich at this hour?"
Martin watched the butter and milk begin to thicken into a thick creamy sauce. As hungry as he was, he still couldn't handle too much food or anything too heavy. There was a chance he'd end up regretting the ham and cheese as it was. "I think the egg might be too much for now."
Arthur just hummed in agreement and said nothing more. Arthur seldom, if ever, pushed for more or pressed himself in where he was unwanted. Yet somehow, he had slid himself so fully and naturally into Martin's life that when they were separated, his absence was felt as keenly as any physical pain.
He turned off the stove and let the sauce finish on the residual heat.
Arthur brought over two sandwiches on a baking tray and Martin carefully poured the sauce over them before they were slipped into the hot oven.
"Why don't you sit down. I'll wash the pot."
Martin only nodded, knowing he was on the verge of severely exacerbating his knee. Arthur could probably tell. He would have to put the brace on before going to the library.
It didn't take long for the sandwiches to brown and for Arthur to plate them. It was something Martin had noticed early, when he was still trying to figure out the man who sat across from him at lunch, the way Arthur took time to present everything he made, even if it was just for himself. It wasn't elaborate and covered in garnish, but there was always a sense of care.
Martin's stomach growled audibly as he cut into the croque monsieur and a shock of emotion rocked his body at the taste. He closed his eyes and chewed slowly, trying to fight back tears, remembering the peaceful fun he felt the first time he'd had this and not the months of fear that he would never again sit beside Arthur and share a meal.
He knew he shouldn't be trying to repress emotions at this point in the process, but he was already tired and he was afraid a long and wracking cry would simply take too much out of him and he actually had plans for the morning. He took long breaths in between bites.
"You doing okay?"
Martin nodded. "I'm... here." It was something he reminded himself of several times a day.
"Yes, you are." Arthur's hand momentarily covered his. "Have you decided what you're telling the kids yet?"
As desperate as he had been to slip back into his routine of Saturday story time at the library, he had not wanted to subject the children to the full extent of his injuries. The concussions had also left him prone to nodding off and unable to read for more than a few minutes without developing a severe headache. His face, at least, was down to some yellowed bruises. "I think I'll stick with telling them I was slaying dragons."
"Slaying dragons. They'll like that."
Arthur's voice was soft. Martin wanted to tell him the truth, to cry and scream and try to explain, but it was classified and sealed well beyond Arthur's rank. The size of the "bonus" in his bank account and the lack of medical bills showed just how much the Agency wanted to not be reminded of how badly they had screwed up to leave Martin in the middle of a high-level trade with no back-up and inadequate information.
"You may have to do the reading for a few more weeks," Martin admitted.
"I can manage. Just as long as you're there."
∆ ∆ ∆
The heavy double doors of the library hissed slightly, like an airlock. Inside it was cool and dry and still smelled of aging books and fresh newspapers. Martin breathed deeply. It was another sense memory he had clung onto and buried himself in when he needed to escape the realities of his situation. He'd been afraid that it would have changed somehow in his absence, either some small detail that was important to him would have been changed or the city would have figured out how to strip the last of the funding and he would return to nothing but rubble. In the moments when he had believed he would return.
But there was no rubble. Everything was the same, right down to the collection of old men flipping through newspapers, peering at them through drug store reading glasses.
"Ready?" Arthur asked him softly.
Martin nodded in reply.
Still leaning heavily on his cane and Arthur holding his books, he slowly made his way to the circulation counter.
Amy, the rare books librarian, looked up as they approached. The squeak she let out echoed through the stacks. Martin smiled and she grinned. He’d been finding it easier to smile, just in general. He wondered if that was the result of the Agency mandated therapy or simply hitting a point of no longer caring about what the general population might think of him.
Amy rushed from behind her desk. She started to raise her arms slightly as if to hug him but her eyes fell on the cane, brace, and bruises. Instead she took the books from Arthur. "The children are going to be so happy to see you."
"Are they here?"
"I think I've seen most of them go by." The children’s section had its own entrance, but Martin had always encouraged them to go up the marble stairs and push open the grand doors. He never wanted them in the habit of sneaking in a side door when they could go through the front.
"I should get started, then."
Martin was sure the children’s section was not that far from the circulation desk, but by the time he reached the bright annex a fine sweat had broken out across his body and he could feel an ache in nearly every joint and muscle.
"Merlin!" It was Esmerelda who spotted him. There was a rush, like puppies, banging into and tripping over each other. The children slowed as they approached, really looking at him, but Martin spread his arms. Esmerelda hugged him first. The bruises over his still cracked ribs throbbed and his knees burned as he crouched down. The next hug he got hurt even worse. It felt like his ribs might get pushed right into his lungs. He didn't care. He took each hug and squeezed back as hard as his broken and aching body would let him.
"Where have you been?" Miguel finally asked, once every child had been held tight.
"Slaying dragons," Martin answered and heard the crack in his own voice. "If you think this is bad, you should see the dragon."
The children smiled but he could see wariness in their eyes as they looked him over. He knew many had their own familiarity with violence and used the library as a refuge from that reality.
"Are you going to be slaying any more dragons?" Miguel asked.
"No." As a whole, the children relaxed. "Quite done with dragons." He started to move towards the adult sized chair before his legs could go out from under him. "However, Arthur will still be doing the reading for a few more weeks, and I have not yet had the chance to go through all your papers."
"Do you have a concussion?" one of the youngest children asked.
Martin grunted softly as he sat but hopefully kept the full extent of discomfort off his face. "Yes." Several of the children nodded in understanding. "However, that is not a valid reason to have any lapses in your own studies. I have hopes, and plans, for all of you and I intend to be here to see them through, but you have to do your part as well. So, homework."
He held out his hand and papers were handed forward.
"We read A Sound of Thunder, and discussed how even small actions by people, intentional or unintentional can have great effect on the world."
"I look forward to reading them." And he did. Since that first time he stumbled into a library at age ten, cold, wet, and lost in New York, reading had been the cornerstone of his life. The fractured bones were not half as frustrating as the fracturing of his daily reading.
Arthur picked up a ragged paperback from the shelf and opened it to a bookmarked page. "Today's story is called The Great Wide World Over There and is actually about reading or not, which was something of great importance to Ray Bradbury."
The children settled themselves and Arthur began to read.
Martin watched the children as they focused on Arthur's words. They were all taller. He'd noticed that. Some days it felt as if he had been gone for years and at other times, just moments. During the long stretches, when he’d been left alone, he would bring each child to mind. He would force himself to remember their face and voice and their handwriting, then he would plan. He'd been meticulous in his research. He'd picked schools for them, followed by universities. And after that internships and fellowships, eventually bringing rational thought into the highest levels of the public and private sectors. He always knew it was silly. You can't plan out the life of a child. They must make their own decisions and become their own people eventually, but that didn't mean he couldn't nudge them this way or that. They called him Merlin after all and what did Merlin do but nudge minds this way or that?
He felt himself fade out, losing himself in the melody of Arthur's voice and missing parts of the story. He would ask Arthur to reread it tonight if possible. The specialists told him it could take years for his brain to fully heal from the repeated knocks he'd received. Seven serious ones that he could remember. It left him little doubt that he would have to leave the Agency at some point, but not until he had taken full advantage of the health insurance. They owed him that much.
It also gave him time to consider the next steps in his life as opposed to simply clinging to the first situation that offered, at least the illusion of, stability. Arthur said he should teach, and the thought did hold some appeal. It wouldn't be the same as these Saturdays though. Here he had freedom to teach what and as he wished and the children, in turn, came to him of their own free will. No requirements or expectations on either side.
Arthur closed the book. "Okay, what are your initial thoughts?"
The children were quiet for a minute mulling around their own thoughts.
"The lady put all that effort into making it look like she could read and write, why didn't she use that time actually learning to read and write?" Daniel, who usually sat at the front of the group, asked.
"That is a very good question," Arthur replied. "Does anyone have an idea?"
"Maybe she tried before and couldn't?"
"Possibly."
Martin smiled as the discussion continued, Arthur guiding but not lecturing, and making sure the quieter children had space to talk. He was proud. It had been a fevered moment of need, and perhaps a childish prank, that had him sending Arthur to the library the first time, but he had stepped in and done well.
Arthur began to wrap up the conversation. "Time for the quote of the week. Maybe Merlin should get to pick it out of the box."
The decorated box of scraps of paper was held out to him. He picked one and read it. "Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist"
"Oscar Wilde, a man who was beloved for his writing until he fell afoul of the harsh morality laws of his time. Maybe we should try one of his plays next week. You can all play the parts and read to us instead." The children smiled and nodded. "Okay, pack up and for homework I want you to think about literacy as a status symbol."
The children got up and almost as one turned to Martin. "Are you going to be back next week?"
He saw the unease in their eyes again. "Yes. No more dragon slaying. I promise." And he would keep that promise, even if it meant walking away from the Agency sooner than intended. They had made him promises but he knew that the right changes in upper management could break those promises as easily as they were made.
The clean-up was finalized by another round of hugs which hurt as much as the first, but again he could not bring himself to care.
By the time he got to the car his heart was thumping and he felt another thin sweat across his body. He closed his eyes and let himself sink into the passenger seat of Arthur’s car. Hardly a luxury model, it still felt like the seat was molding around him in comfort.
Arthur got into the driver’s seat. “Home?”
Martin shook his head. “Could we have dumplings? If there is time?” He was still getting used to asking for things he wanted as opposed to providing for himself the bare minimum of what he needed.
“Sure, if you think you’re up for it?”
“As long as we don’t walk much, I think I can manage.” Of the many habits and routines shattered by his time away, lunch after story time was the one he felt would be the easiest to get back into.
Arthur drove them the handful of blocks to the Rabbit Moon Dumpling House. It was one of the first places Arthur had taken him and where he had learned, if not fully mastered, how to use chopsticks. He wondered if he had managed to maintain the fine dexterity needed or if he would have to go back to a fork for a time.
The waitress, whom he didn’t recognize, only glanced at him briefly before directing her attention to Arthur. That had been one of the harder things to get used to over the last few weeks as he started to venture out again; the lack of anonymity combined with an appearance that put people off. Not that he went out much before, but when he did no one stared. He reminded himself that he would heal, he was already healing, and the scars that were unavoidable would be mostly out of sight. He just needed to be patient.
They were lead to a table for two and handed menus while another waitress put down cups and a pot of tea.
“Craving anything in particular?” Arthur asked him.
Martin shook his head. “You can choose.” Arthur knew what he liked. If he was craving anything, it was the ability to sit in a restaurant on a Saturday afternoon. It was something he had never done in his adult life prior to meeting Arthur, but he’d developed a fondness for it.
Arthur poured the tea. The steam rose up smelling floral and a little bitter. Martin wrapped his hands around his cup and held them there until the heat came close to pain. Arthur blew on his and sipped it quietly until the waitress came over to take their orders. Again, she made only the briefest of eye contact before Arthur began to order. Martin wondered what she must be thinking: car accident, fight, victim of random violence?
Arthur ordered a half-dozen items from the menu before taking another sip of tea. “I was thinking, maybe next month swinging back to the classics. Epic poetry.”
“They did enjoy Beowulf.”
“Yeah, but we can go broader. I’m sure plenty of those kids applying for those fancy schools know Beowulf or the Illiad. I was thinking more the Mahabharata. Well, sections of it. It has two hundred thousand verses as I recall from my world lit class. Maybe something from South East Asia. Lots of epics from that region.”
Martin nodded in agreement. It was a good idea and it made him glad that Arthur took his plans for the children seriously. He’d spent large parts of his life with no one to voice his thoughts or ideas to, leaving him wondering how rational or practical they really were. But self-doubt could be a killer, literally, if it came at the wrong moment.
“We can request a suitable translation from Amy next week.”
The waitress put a bowl of eggs on the table. Their shells were mottled brown. Martin picked one up. It was warm in his hands.
“They’re called tea eggs. They’ve been boiled in tea and spices.”
Martin turned the egg in his fingers and a memory tugged at the edges of his mind. Not a recent one. Old. So old. Brown eggs, still warm, almost too large for small hands. Gentle voices over the sounds of chickens. A sandy path and feet bare. Flickers of sunlight through the branches of fruit trees. The smell of warm bread.
“Martin?”
Martin looked up from the egg. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring at his hands. “When I was small my mother and I lived with…”
‘A cult. It was a cult. Just say it.’
“A spiritually-centered agricultural-based community. It was my job to collect the eggs, first thing in the morning, when the chickens were still half asleep. The eggs were always brown. I was very confused the first time I saw a white egg. I thought it must have come from some strange bird, like a swan.”
Arthur reached across the table and placed his hands around Martin’s and the egg. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
The waitress put a plate of dumplings between them and Arthur let go. Martin wanted to say more. He could. There was no reason for any of it to be a secret. There never was. He opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out.
‘Not yet, I guess.’
Small steps. Little pieces. He honestly couldn’t remember when he’d last spent any time thinking about the farm. Not since those first terrifying months in his aunt’s elegant, Manhattan apartment where everything had been alien, from the noise, to the people, to the stench of the air. Her staff had tried to comfort him with broken English and foods like nothing he’d ever experienced.
“Do you know how to make...?” he wracked his tear-streaked memories. “A soup. It has chicken, and green papaya, I think? And it’s spicy.”
Arthur smiled at him and Martin felt like he was standing in a shaft of sun between rustling trees. “It doesn’t ring a bell. But I bet we can look it up and make it together.”