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In the beginning, Jolyne was incredibly apprehensive about visiting Emporio every other night while Weather was out of commission. In spite of how Emporio had come to trust her, she still felt wrong about her, an unrelated adult, getting this physically close with a child and tending to their needs. And what she felt most guilty about was the fact that, as a result, she had come to see him as a little brother. She always had concern on her mind about everyone else’s wellbeing, Emporio’s being no exception, but the sprouting of this familial shade in her care and affection for him felt transgressive. Everyone had told her that blood is thicker than water, and while Weather had told her the original phrase was “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” (to which Emporio good-heartedly added: “Yup, it’s more viscuous. But it seems that ‘full’ quote is false. Much like how ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ was once just ‘A jack of all trades,’ which was a positive thing, but recently people have claimed the original phrase is ‘A jack of all trades, master of none, is still better than a master of one,’ but it doesn’t go further back than this century. As for the blood quote, I asked people on a forum and they pointed to Albert Jack and Richard Pustelniak as the originators of the ‘full’ quote, but they don’t cite any evidence. It’s just a game of telephone, sadly.”), she still felt the pull of the idea that blood relations are strongest.
But no matter her qualms, she always visited him whenever she could. That first night where he opened up about the resentment he felt toward himself had been too heartbreaking to ever deter her from doing so. In the time they weren’t together, she had rehearsed in her mind every question he might pose to her. For as awkward as she felt about her attachment to him, she knew she had to show up for him as best she could.
And so now they sat in front of the piano on the long emerald-colored seat. The last notes peetered off to let silence reign as Emporio ceased playing—the music sheet in front of them was titled Prelude in B Minor and subtitled Opus 28 No. 6. Throughout, his fingers had slipped and hit the wrong notes on occasion, but they both took in his gradual improvement. But he was looking down at his hands, clearly frustrated. The song itself, apparently Chopin although she had only ever known the cheerier and more relaxing Nocturnes, had been brief but sad.
“Emporio…are you okay?”
He shivered and for a moment she feared he would close himself off and tell her he was okay, but upon drawing a deep breath he hitched and began to cry. Whatever words he tried to say were lost in the downpour. Jolyne instinctively pulled him in for a hug, feeling his small frame, feeling him stuff his face into her shoulder and sob into it.
“There, there, Emporio. Let it all out.”
He continued crying for a few minutes before he began to clear up. It was gradual and heartrending, but eventually the sobs peetered out and downgraded to some sniffles as he pulled his face away from her shoulder and looked up at her. His eyes were red and puffy, and he was shaking and heaving. But this time, he stayed close to her. He had originally been shy about hugs, but, thankfully, he was less hesitant now. If her experiences as a teenager had taught her anything, it was how adverse men were to crying like this. She couldn’t help but suspect that his mother, who was nothing more than a passing shadow in her mind, might not have been the best about letting him cry—a truly mean thought she couldn’t avoid after everything she had seen. It could just as likely be, however, the fault of his growing up hiding in a prison.
“Jolyne…” he croaked out. She couldn’t help but to drown her hand in the curlicued sun-yellow forest of his hair to comfort him. She took off his hat to run her hand through more of it. “I really wish I weren’t here…”
Her heart stopped. “ ‘Here’ being?”
“This place, this prison. I wish I weren’t here. I wish I were outside.”
She didn’t quite know what to say to that. She knew already Emporio was well aware of things like abuse and rape, that there was hardly any innocence in him left aside from the naivety of the inexperienced.
“I think a lot about the outside world, about what it must be like. All I really have is other people’s accounts, but I know that isn’t enough. But I doubt I have any documents proving I exist. Even if I got out of here, it’s useless if I don’t have any papers. I don’t even remember my mom’s name or face…” His mouth began to quiver, and without thinking, without questioning herself, Jolyne brought Emporio upon her lap and put his head into the nook of her neck and shoulder. She felt some tears land upon her flesh and send despairing ripples across it. She felt his arms lock around her neck.
“I really wish I could take you out of here as well. I think about that a lot.”
A sniffle. “Do you?”
She nodded. “You love reading. I know I sneak in some stuff for you, but I like to imagine you at the Orlando Public Library. It’s this huge place—well, I think it’s kinda ugly on the outside, but the inside is beautiful. There’s just row after row of books.”
“I’ve read about such libraries in books, fictional and non-fictional. Or non-fiction. I don’t know what the actual word is.”
“I think both work.” Though I’m not a reader. And I just passed by English class, and then I joined the Hell Riders—but the less you know about that, the better. I don’t want to disappoint you.
A pregnant pause.
“I do remember my mom talking about the outside world. About the places she wanted to take me to in Florida and in Mexico. I do remember she played this piano.” Emporio felt Jolyne’s much larger hand rub around his back. “But I can’t remember what, exactly. Some of these music sheets are hers, and I remember always being put at ease. I assume she played Chopin, DeBussy, and Liszt then. But…”
“I think I get that. I have a hard time remembering some of my own memories with my mom. I know I’ll see her again, but so much has happened that it’s like…like my memories of her have been blocked, almost.” She felt his hands tighten in their lock. “Either way, I’m getting you outta here. I promise.”
“But what about my documents?”
“I’m…honestly not really sure. I think my dad could pull something off with the Speed Wagon Foundation, but I dunno.”
“Where would you take me?”
There was a brief moment where Jolyne felt her mind diverge and then remerge to one conclusion. “My house.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like I said a while back, I wanna get you in some self-defense classes. I want a normal life for you too. I wanna take you to baseball games, to parks, to the library, to bookstores, to concerts, to school. We just…have to settle for this for now, till we get outta here.”
“I think about that a lot too…Can I tell you something?”
“You can tell me anything.”
“I always seem to imagine you there with me. You and Ermes and Weather. Sometimes Anasui is there, but…”
Jolyne laughed. “Yeah, I don’t want him anywhere near us.” Us.
“Us…” He unclasped his hands and looked up at her.
“I know all I got for you is a bunch of promises, but one day, this’ll all feel like a bad dream.”
“All I have is bad dreams…”
Jolyne took a deep breath. At least his crying had stopped. “I feel you there. My dreams’ve gotten way worse since I got here.”
“Does your lap hurt?”
“Not at all.” She ruffled his hair, a motion that she found incredibly difficult to resist. He was just really rufflable. He smiled, and she returned the smile back. She imagined him brushing his teeth at her house, eating breakfast at her house. Would her mother and father accept him as her little brother, as their adoptive son? She knew trips to the library—the public one, not the school one, because she knew a boy such as Emporio wouldn’t be satisfied by the pithy selection therein; she was already concocting plans to check out harder books with her card and passing them off to him—would be guaranteed, but what about piano lessons? How many books could they buy? She had seen how he had written in the books available here and knew if he really liked a book, he would love a personal copy into which he could scribble his marginalia. If they had to share a room, she would have to hide some things from him while not alerting their parents.
“Everything’s gonna be alright, kiddo.”
And for just a moment, Emporio believed it. And he imagined the life that they would have. He imagined the way he would one day shine, and knew it was only a matter of time. One day these gray walls would be a distant memory, or at least he hoped so.