My eyes burned red as I knew what I had to say next. It had been so many times now that I'd visited my mom that I had stopped crying. I never really did cry much. And yet now, thinking about staying with Eliot, with his strange withdrawals, I was on the verge of outright sobs. I managed to choke out the words quietly, without letting the tears fall.
"But I miss my friends back home. I miss Shannon. I miss everyone in the math department. Even Quentin. And Mark is going home soon..."
I looked down at the envelope. Mark's letter. I hadn't responded to any of his texts. He'd left me voicemails telling me that he loved me, telling me that he understood if I didn't want to talk, telling me that he hoped I was better. I didn't know how to answer him. How do you talk to a friend after you've broken his heart?
I blinked back into focus, took a deep breath, and ripped open the envelope. When I read the letter, all of the air in my lungs seemed to disappear, and the crumpled daisy in my hand fell forgotten to the ground.
Brynn,
I need to talk to you. It's about your mom.
CHAPTER THREE
Eliot
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Galileo Galilei
When the doorbell rang, Eliot had no idea who it could be. Hard at work on the general case of the mathematical proof he was working on, he groaned to hear the distraction.
"Who is it?" Eliot asked through the closed door.
"For God's sake Eliot, don't be a ninny. Open up."
There was only one person who would say something like that, and he opened the door to find his sister-in-law grinning brightly at him, her blond hair tied back into a sleek ponytail.
"Marta, it's good to see you. I'm sorry, but I'm working on a problem—"
"Yes, yes," Marta said, pushing her way past him and into the foyer. "You're always working on a problem. I know. I'm interrupting. I wouldn't if this weren't important."
"What is it?"
"Let's walk outside," Marta said. "It's too nice a day to stay inside. Otto says hello, by the way."
"Are you sure? Your shoes..."
"Pfft." Marta flapped her hand at Eliot. "I can walk anywhere in heels. Give me a drink first, though. Lemonade."
"I only have water," Eliot said.
"Water's fine," Marta said. She followed him into the kitchen. "You would starve to death without someone around to feed you, I think."
"It's true. Brynn makes me sandwiches most of the time."
"Where is the girl?"
"She—she's visiting her mother's grave, I believe." Eliot didn't want to mention their fight. Not to Marta.
Marta shook her head.
"Pity the child's nearly an orphan. She told me her father was none too nice. You've not spoken with him?"
"No," Eliot said. He poured water into a glass and added ice to it.
"And the grandmother?"
"No."
"Well, when do you plan to introduce yourself to her family?"
"When the time is right," Eliot said, flustered by the questions. He handed Marta the water glass. "I don't see why it's so important."
"If this is a something serious, don't you think it's important? I'm sure she thinks it's important. Whether or not she tells you."
"Maybe," Eliot said. He opened the door and they walked out back into the garden. Marta was right—she walked as deftly in heels over the grass as she would have on the dance floor. Eliot looked at his brother's wife and felt a pang of jealousy that she should still be alive when his Clare was lost. The sun shone brightly down on Marta's shoulders and she smiled up at the sky. "Is that why you're here? To badger me into talking with Brynn's family now that we're romantically involved?"
"No," Marta said. The smile dropped from her face as quickly as it had come, as though clouds had moved over the sun in the sky. "I wanted to talk to you about your coming back here to Hungary."
Eliot pressed his lips tightly together.
"Yes?" He asked.
"One of Otto's friends works at the national paper. He said that they were going to run an article about you. About your return."
"Yes?" He thought he knew what was coming. They stopped at the edge of the path just before the forest, and Marta looked wistfully into the trees. A bird called out, the chirping ringing through the pine branches in search of a mate.
"I am not sure you understand," Marta said. "What they are going to write..."
"I understand perfectly," Eliot said. His throat tightened as he spoke. "I am not reading the papers."
"That won't stop everybody else from reading them," Marta said. "I wanted to tell you so that you would be ready. What they say—"
"You think I don't know what they say about me already?!" Eliot wiped his hand across his face. The sun now seemed unbearably hot, and he moved into the shade. "What they say about Clare?"
"Everybody loved Clare—"
"And I killed her!" Eliot clasped his hands to his head, turning toward the forest. The bird had stopped its call. The night ran through his mind again, as vividly as always. The car, the ice, the paparazzi behind them.
"It was an accident." Marta's hand came to rest on his shoulder and he felt it from a distance, from the memory he was lost in. "Everybody knows it was an accident."
"I miss her." Eliot's voice broke on the last word.
"That's not fair," Marta said. Her voice was sharp, and Eliot turned, frowning, to look at her.
"Not fair?"
"To Brynn," Marta said, and at the sound of her name Eliot flushed red.
"She's strong," Eliot said. "She understands."
"She says she does because she does not want to hurt you," Marta said. Her blue eyes darkened as a cloud moved over the sun. Eliot was grateful for the temporary cool. "I know what it is like to love a man who loves another woman. Don't do that to her."
"Marta—"
'I owe you a great debt, Eliot. More than I can tell you. But this girl—"
"She's strong," Eliot repeated. He looked through the trees to where the stream ran freely through the woods. That spring, the hunter had attacked her next to the stream. It had been still partially frozen then, and Brynn had fallen in. He remembered how cold her skin felt when he picked her up. He shivered.
"She's young," Marta continued. "She has nothing here to support her."
"I understand that," Eliot said. "I wonder if it would be better to go back to California."
"You would go with her?"
Eliot looked over at Marta. Sorrow crossed her face and then fled, leaving only hardness.
"Why not?"
"You've spent so long away from here, Eliot," Marta said. "And the reason you left before—"
"I left Hungary gladly," Eliot said. He did not want to discuss this. The entire morning had been tainted by remembering why he had fled in the first place.
"Would it not be lonely?" Marta asked.
"What?"
"To leave your country? Again? Even to go with her. After you've just returned..."
"It's not my country anymore," Eliot said. They stood in silence. From the forest came the bird's call, again, then another echoed from a nearby branch.
"I would go with her," Eliot said. His voice was firm, and as he spoke, his heart steeled along with it. "Wherever she wants to live, I will go."
CHAPTER FOUR
Brynn
On the stairs of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, I paused and took a deep breath. I clutched Mark's letter in one hand, my fingers damp on the paper. Pushing open the door, I willed myself not to panic. It was the first time I had been back since the attack.
Fortunately, nothing seemed different. The same clusters of students grouped around tables, arguing over mathematics. The same professors sat at benches with reams of paper spread out in front of them, searching for the answer to unanswerable problems. My shoes clicked over the tile familiarly. I breathed easier now as I climbed the stairs up to the mathematics library on the second floor.
"Hey, good to see you, Brynn!" Another student waved at me, and I waved back, although I couldn't remember his name. It seemed an eternity had passed since the last time I was there, but it had only been a few weeks. Nothing else had changed.
I wondered about Mark. Would he still be infatuated with me? Would he act differently around me? I hated to be treated with kid gloves, as though being assaulted had made me fragile, able to break more easily. If anything, it was the opposite—I felt stronger now, unafraid.
Walking past the first bookshelf, I saw Mark sitting back next to one of the whiteboards, talking animatedly about some problem written up on the board. As I moved closer, I saw who he was talking to. I stopped in my tracks. It was the Academy director's daughter, the one who had kicked Lucky out of the apartments when I lived there. Her perfect long blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, her fitted blouse crisp and expensive over her slim frame. Beautiful, but ugly inside.
I bristled as she moved closer to Mark, and to my surprise he put his hand on hers. They laughed at some joke I couldn't hear, and I felt the blood rise to my face.
The bitch. I hated her for what she had done to my poor kitten, and I didn't understand how Mark could have become close to her. After he had helped me to sneak Lucky back into the apartments, after we had talked about what a horrible person she was!
Then she bent over to Mark, and he lifted his chin up. My jaw dropped as they shared a kiss. The girl walked away, and despite myself I felt a pang of jealousy scrape across my heart. I steeled myself and walked across the room to him.
"Brynn!" Mark stood up in front of me and hugged me tightly. I hesitated, and he pulled away quickly.
"Sorry," he said. His brow furrowed in worry. "I know you—I mean, I don't want to—"
"It's fine," I said. "I'm fine." I didn't want to talk about the hunter who had almost raped me. I wanted to talk about my mom.
"Oh, Mark!" The blonde girl came back over to the table. Her eyes flickered up and down, taking me in briefly. Her face turned blank with suppressed emotion. "Sorry, I left my notebook."
"Here," Mark said, handing it over to her.
"Thanks," she said. She nodded to me coldly. "Good to have you back." Turning on her heel, she left, her body swaying gracefully.
Mark clasped both hands in front of him, and an awkward tension settled between us.
"The director's daughter," I said. "I remember her." I didn't bother to hide the disgust in my voice.
"Her name's Csilla," Mark said. "She's not as bad as you think, Brynn. She's really very nice."
"Just not to cats," I said. She would have thrown Lucky out in the snow. I didn't know why Mark would even talk to her.
"She doesn't like animals," Mark said.
He wasn't about to apologize for her, and I didn't want to talk about it any more. That wasn't what I was here for.
"My mom," I said. "You said you knew something about her."