Chapter 2: Jorge Is Abandoned

Fri, October 16, 2074 10:52 pm: Abormoor Manor- Arbormoor, Pleasantview



Jorge couldn't remember a time when the house had been so loud. In fact, he was certain that there had never been such a time. Though he was alone, he could swear to hearing a cacophony of sounds that had not been made in days, months, years behind the stone walls. He heard his late wife's trilling laughter and the clinking of her ten-year-old daughter's bangles as she skipped though the halls. He heard Macaulay missing notes at the piano, then cursing himself under his breath. He heard his sister Donna shouting up to his window that she was getting married. He heard Lavinia singing Hunter to sleep.



Jorge sighed deeply as he lowered himself onto the bed. Lavinia. He had not a few regrets where she was concerned. He should have never hired her but he little knew how he would have raised Macaulay without her. Kelly's passing rendered Jorge unfit to care for a child. Lavinia's family had been so poor and desperate... They needed the money. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.



Lavinia herself was such a perky, optimistic little thing that Jorge thought she could do him nothing but good. Wasn't that the cliché? Wealthy curmudgeon adopts, inherits or otherwise borrows a bubbly little girl who teaches him the value of living? Jorge's mistake had been in considering everyone but Lavinia. He stood by and watched as her exuberance eroded away until she was scarcely recognizable. Worse, he had been too selfish to care.



Living with him had added decades to her life, he was sure. Lavinia was twenty-four now, simultaneously hard and withered. She rarely looked at Jorge but glared. She hated him. Jorge thought that it was no less than he deserved. But it was more complicated than that.



Jorge didn't have the luxury of knowing what Lavinia was thinking the first night she crept into his bed and dozed off. Any tenderness she showed him was precarious- He had been too scared of losing it to say a word. Holding on to her affection was part careful task, part gamble. It was like trying to contain water in one's hands. She continued coming to his bed for weeks until the night he, in the duel fogs of alcohol and sleep, sought out her body in the dark, thinking that she was Kelly. Lavinia responded by wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head on his shoulder.

During the day, everything was business as usual between them but at night, he had belonged to her. Perhaps it was her last ditch attempt to reform him. Or perhaps part of her loved him in spite of himself. They never spoke about it. If Hunter hadn't been born with Jorge's very face, Jorge would have thought that he imagined the whole thing. Now he lay in bed, unable to sleep without her thin frame pressing against his. Jorge realized much too late how he needed Lavinia and not just for Macaulay's sake.



But Macaulay was indeed another issue. Lavinia had always acted as a sort of bridge between Jorge and his son. Without her, they could only stare helplessly at one another from across the chasm she left in her wake. Jorge sat up and tied his hair back from his face. Then, as if on cue, he heard the front door open. A shout resounded throughout the house.



"Vin?" Macaulay was just getting in. Jorge would need to have a talk with his sister about keeping his son out so late. Jorge was immobile as he listened to Macaulay's footsteps up the staircase. He suddenly began to panic. He had not prepared what he was going to say to Macaulay about Lavinia's departure. He was an idiot.

"Vin," Macaulay shouted again.



Macaulay walked briskly into the bedroom, visibly tired but smiling.

"Hey Dad, where's Vin?" Macaulay didn't stop but headed over to the window, peering through the stained glass as if to find Lavinia there.

"She'd have been very irritated with you, yelling like that at this time of night." Jorge smirked. Macaulay smiled sheepishly.

"I guess so. But where is she?" No sooner had the words left Macaulay's mouth than a pall cast over his features. Jorge didn't need to tell Macaulay where Lavinia was, he already knew. Macaulay raced out of the room, down the hall and up the stairs towards the nursery.



Jorge was again abandoned to long expired sounds. Down the hall, six-year-old Macaulay was awakened from a nightmare. In the scullery, Lavinia threw a wine glass at Jorge's head. He stood. The wind outside was ripping through the trees. He heard Macaulay a floor above him making a guttural sound somewhere between grief and anger. It was a feeling that Jorge knew all too well. The footsteps that re-entered Jorge's bedroom were heavy and well-paced. They were not the childish jog that perforated the house only minutes ago. They were older.



"Where is she living?" Macaulay's face was drawn. Jorge ached for him.

"Somewhere near her sister and Christine, I expect. I don't really know for sure, Cully. She left an address for you. I had the impression that I wasn't to read it," Jorge said.

"But I thought- I thought the two of you-" Macaulay didn't seem capable of finishing his sentence. He closed his eyes, furrowing his brow. Perhaps in his mind, he was floating on a sea of dogwood blossoms. "You two were fine just a few days ago. What did you do?"

"Cully... Nothing new has happened in this house, ok? I didn't force Lavinia out. If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with her. She'd been saying for years that minute you turned thirteen, she was gone. I'm surprised she stayed as long as she did, to be quite honest."



When Macaulay opened his eyes, they were ablaze with a fresh loathing. It was very unsettling for Jorge who had never seen this look on the only area of Macaulay's face that matched his own.

"I'm going out for a walk." The boy's voice was low and chilling. As someone who loved Macaulay, Jorge didn't want him to leave before they had discussed the situation rationally. As a parent, he didn't think that he should allow his son to go out in the woods at night, anyway. But as a coward... As a coward, he would let Macaulay go.