Back to Square One
The commotion carried all the way through Kyle’s firmly shut bedroom door, thanks to the open window.
Kyle slowly pushed his exhausted body upright.
“Hey! Mrs. Etman! Come out here this instant! Right now!”
The man’s bellowing voice was familiar.
“……Uncle Bill?”
Startled, Kyle rose from the bed. When he approached the window, he saw Bill Remmer and the housekeeper confronting each other at the front entrance.
“What is all this racket?”
Mrs. Etman appeared with a cold shout of her own.
“So that thieving scoundrel I’d tear limb from limb if I could was Mrs. Etman? Is this any way for a person to behave? No matter how much you hated our Leila, how could you do something like this?”
Kyle had spun around to rush down and break up the fight, but his steps froze mid-stride.
A thief? Why was that business about the thief being brought up here, to his mother?
While Kyle stood rooted in confusion, Bill poured out an outrageous story laced with fierce fury. Kyle listened to those unbelievable words as still and rigid as a statue.
“That’s impossible.”
Kyle muttered blankly and staggered out of the room. His steps down the stairs swayed dangerously. Even if it was Uncle Bill, he could not accept such an absurd accusation. How—no matter what, how could anyone say something so terrible…
“Did Leila tell you that?”
When Bill’s shouting paused, Mrs. Etman shot back sharply.
“How utterly appalling. To level such a vile slander…”
“Does Leila seem like the kind of child who would say such a thing?”
Just as Kyle was about to step outside the front door, Bill cried out, his voice thick with tears.
“If Leila had only snitched, my heart wouldn’t be tearing itself apart like this!”
“If you intend to make a scene with this nonsense, leave at once! Before I call the constables!”
“Those very constables you mention are the ones who said it! The postman saw that fine cousin of yours hauled into the police station and told me all about it—are you still going to deny it?”
“……Wh-what did you say?”
Mrs. Etman faltered and took a step back.
Please. Kyle prayed as he stared at his mother’s back. Please shout that it isn’t true, that it’s a false accusation, that it’s all fabricated. But Mrs. Etman seemed to have lost her voice entirely; she only gasped irregular, shallow breaths. The bloodless hand gripping the railing began to tremble.
Kyle staggered toward her.
“Mother.”
Only after that almost sighing call reached her did Mrs. Etman become aware of her son standing behind her.
“It isn’t true, is it?”
Kyle’s hand touched her arm.
“Uncle must have it wrong. Right?”
He tried to smile, but it would not come. That this moment was real was painfully clear, yet a thick fog seemed to fill his head.
Hellish days had followed. No matter how many times he returned to plead and persuade, Leila would not change her mind, and time simply slipped away.
Yet Kyle had clung to a vague hope. Dr. Etman had gone to Lutz and, as planned, paid Leila’s tuition in full. So if only he could convince Leila—if only he could stop that foolish girl from her absurd notions—everything would proceed smoothly. He had believed that.
If marriage felt too heavy a burden, then what about a simple engagement? He had meant to go to Leila again this evening and try once more. Let us go to university together as an engaged couple. That alone would be enough. With enough time, you will come to love me as more than a friend. And then we will live happily for a long, long time.
But now.
“Mother!”
Tears colored Kyle’s voice. Mrs. Etman could only stare down at the railing with a face flushed scarlet, unable to form a single word. That was the moment Dr. Etman returned.
Two constables stepped out of the carriage with him. At the sight of them, Mrs. Etman went deathly pale and crumpled where she stood.
After offering a few words of apology to the awkward-looking officers, Dr. Etman approached his wife alone.
“I am deeply sorry, Mr. Remmer.”
He first went to Bill Remmer and removed his hat.
“Even with ten mouths I would have no excuse. I am sorry.”
Despair flooded Kyle’s eyes as he watched his father apologize again and again.
“As you can see, circumstances today make a proper conversation difficult. Once matters have settled, may I call on you again to offer a full apology?”
“……Very well.”
Bill Remmer roughly scrubbed at his eyes and nodded, swallowing his rage. When he stepped back, the constables advanced a few more paces.
“Why did you do it, dear?”
Dr. Etman’s gaze cooled as he looked at his collapsed wife.
“No. It isn’t like that…”
“Daniel is at the police station. He has already confessed everything. That you put him up to it.”
At the name that left her husband’s lips, Mrs. Etman’s mouth froze mid-stammered excuse.
“So do not even think of lying to me, Linda.”
“Darling!”
“You pretended to accept Leila to my face while scheming something like this behind my back? You—my wife, Kyle’s mother!”
Dr. Etman had been struggling to contain his feelings, but at last his face twisted with unrestrained fury.
“This is all your fault!”
A scream-like shout burst from Mrs. Etman’s tear-choked throat.
“Why! Why on earth did you give your blessing to Leila and turn me into this mess of a person?”
“Do you honestly believe that is something you have any right to say after committing such an outrageous act?”
“No. This is all because of you! I told you from the very beginning that I didn’t like that girl! If you had only listened to me then, we would never have come this far! If it weren’t for you, I—I…”
Mrs. Etman, who had been ranting, finally broke down in tears. The two hands covering her face were soon soaked.
After drawing several heavy sighs, Dr. Etman helped his wife to her feet. The constables showed their respect for the esteemed physician by allowing him to place her in the carriage himself.
Kyle watched that nightmare unfolding before open eyes in blank silence. Thick dusk had already fallen. Yet even that twilight was too painfully bright; he closed his eyes instead.
He wished the world would simply be dark. Right now, that was the only wish he had left.
“Please don’t cry, Uncle. All right?”
Leila gently drew out a handkerchief and laid it on the table. Bill, who had been glaring at his beer mug as if it were a mortal enemy, jerked his head up in surprise.
“Cry? Who’s crying?”
Even as he denied it fiercely, Bill took Leila’s handkerchief and scrubbed roughly at his damp eyes.
The food still heaped on the plates was growing cold, untouched. But neither of them could bring themselves to urge the other to eat. Both Bill and Leila knew perfectly well that was impossible.
While Bill drained his glass in heavy gulps, Leila stared down at the edge of the table with a weary face.
Only after the servants from Arvis had come thronging to the cabin and offered their words of comfort had Leila learned what had happened. Mrs. Etman would never have confessed the matter herself, and Leila had kept her own lips firmly sealed—yet every detail of that day had come to light.
Who on earth had reported that suspicious conversation to the police station? Leila could not begin to guess. That day, in the shabby teahouse on the outskirts, there had been only Mrs. Etman, Leila, and one unfamiliar man.
Then was that man the source of the rumor? Who could he possibly have been?
No matter how hard she thought, Leila could not form even the faintest conjecture. One thing, however, was certain. She had inflicted an irreparable wound on Kyle. The heart she had wanted so badly to protect had been torn to pieces instead. The constables who came with Dr. Etman had taken Mrs. Etman away to the station. And Kyle had watched it all.
“Don’t cry, Leila.”
Setting down his glass, Bill held the handkerchief out to her.
“Cry? Who’s crying?”
Just as Bill had done moments earlier, Leila denied it stoutly while rubbing at her reddened eyes.
“I’m sorry. I know nothing of the world, and I pushed and egged you on until I made this whole mess.”
“If you keep saying things like that, I really will get angry, Uncle.”
“Marriage… yes. Better not to go through with a marriage like this. That’s the right thing. That’s how it should be.”
Instead of answering, Leila nodded deeply. The faint smile at the corners of her mouth glittered with tears.
“But you must still go to university, Leila. Dr. Etman has already paid the tuition, and if we return the recovered money to that household, then that will become the tuition I give you. University has nothing to do with Kyle.”
“No.”
“As for lodging, if you take a boarding house or something of the sort, I can help cover that. It’ll be tight, but living expenses—if we try hard enough somehow…”
“I am going to university, Uncle. I haven’t given up. But not now.”
Leila reached out and took Bill’s hand.
“I’m going to become a teacher. I’ll save money, and when I can afford to study in the capital, I’ll sit the exams again then. That was my original goal and my dream. I just got dazzled by a shortcut for a little while, and now I’ve come back to where I started.”
“But you can’t simply abandon a university you’ve already been accepted to.”
“You don’t believe in me, do you?”
Leila found she could now smile a natural smile.
“Even if I take the exams again, I’m confident I’ll pass. Next time I’ll get in with better scores that earn me a scholarship. Just watch.”
“Leila, my girl…”
“You’ve always said it, Uncle. That I would grow into a pretty decent adult. So please believe in me just one more time.”
What am I to do with this child.
If only she would sob her heart out—yet Leila smiled so prettily. Without even knowing that smile was tearing Bill Remmer’s chest open.
What am I to do with you. And what am I supposed to do about that boy Kyle.
Unable to master the emotion surging up inside him, Bill Remmer’s shoulders began to shake. Hating to show such a pathetic sight, he hastily bowed his head, and thick, hot tears pattered down onto the table.
“It’s all right, Uncle.”
Leila rose from her chair and came to his side.
“I’m truly all right.”
The child gathered him into her small arms.
“I mean it. So let’s tell them we don’t want Mrs. Etman punished—that getting the money back is enough.”
In a voice of astonishing calm she continued, gently stroking his back. What am I to do with you. The words he had forced down rose again as even hotter tears. Swallowing them, Bill nodded.
He had thought he could never forgive her, yet when he saw Mrs. Etman crumbling before his eyes and Kyle white as a sheet, his own heart had remained unsettled the whole time. However cruel a thing Linda Etman had done, she was still Kyle’s mother. To Leila she was the mother of a child as precious as blood kin.
“All right then. If that’s how you feel, I don’t mind either way, Leila.”