Chapter 4

The Hummels had offered Blaine to come straight back to Lima with them, but he decided it would be better for him to go home for a few days, as he got in touch with his aunt and talked to his parents about the transfer.

It didn’t surprise him he found the house empty, not even a note left acknowledging that he was coming home from his vacation. It crossed his mind that they’d probably forgotten when he was supposed to get back, or maybe that he existed at all. Either way, he was welcomed by an almost completely wiped-out fridge, mess everywhere, and no living creature in sight.

It wasn’t even noon when the Hummels and the Hudsons waved him goodbye and drove to Lima, leaving him alone. He threw his duffle bag carelessly onto the floor next to his bed and headed to the shower. Washing the stickiness and dirt of two and a half hours of being stuck in the back of an SUV with two other people in the heat of August felt like heaven. It also felt good to go back to gelling his hair without the effect being completely ruined half an hour later, as it happened every time he’d applied the product while in Port Clinton. After a couple of days he’d given up using it at all, since the lake was too tempting to stay ashore, and he was on vacation, for Christ’s sake, anyway.

With his hair tamed into submission under a thick layer of gel, clean clothes hugging his clean body, Blaine decided to take advantage of having the house to himself, and began digging.

Other family members, apart from the four of them, were rarely mentioned. There was no tradition of family gatherings, since everyone who used to uphold anything of the sort was already long dead and buried. Blaine could vaguely recall some Christmas dinner from back when he was four or five and the family party was assembled around a long table in his Grandma’s house. The only thing he really remembered was that he got sick on Christmas day, and that Grandma died two years later. Family reunions died along with her.

The image of Aunt Aileen in Blaine’s memory was similarly blurred. He remembered her as a cheery woman in her early thirties, with dark hair reaching the middle of her back in soft cascades. Her eyes were the exact shade of gold as Blaine’s, and sparkled every time she laughed.

He hadn’t seen her since a weekend five years ago when she stayed over at the Anderson house. She was really only there during the two nights and evenings, spending her days at a conference in Columbus. Blaine couldn’t be sure she’d be around any more than his parents were, or that he would feel accepted or loved at her house, but at least he’d be in Lima.

Another thing that made him hopeful was that he’d always got a vibe from her that she wasn’t particularly fond of her brother-in-law, or even her own sister. But strangely enough, it didn’t stop her from always being nice to Blaine and Cooper.

Blaine directed his steps to the study. After rummaging through some of the drawers, he found what he was searching for; under a stack of old credit card statements and paid bills, an old address book was hidden, right next to a couple of old photo albums. He took out the three leather-clad volumes and sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning his back on the book shelves.

After a moment’s hesitation, he put the address book away and focused on the albums; he couldn’t even remember when was the last time any Anderson family photo was taken without forcing everyone into formal clothes and plastering fake smiles on each of their faces, just so the mantelpiece picture would show an updated version of their faux-perfect family.

The opening page of the first album didn’t surprise Blaine; it was a perfectly staged image of a newlywed couple. His parents smiled so widely and so unnaturally, Blaine’s facial muscles ached at the sole thought of making an expression like that. He flicked to the next pages, which showed more and more of similar pictures. Until after some dozen pages, he froze.

This photo was different. For once, it didn’t look as professional, as feigned as the others. It showed a hospital room, his mother in a bed and a hospital gown, her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. Next to the bed, her husband was standing, adoringly staring at her and the small bundle in her arms, only a pink cheek and a tiny plump hand peeking out of a blue baby blanket. Underneath a date was scribbled. Cooper’s birthday.

Surprised and intrigued, Blaine continued to flick the next pages, which showed him a mixture of snapshots of Cooper – as a baby and then a toddler, and then a schoolboy – and the family pictures from the time when there were only three Andersons. It seemed as if there were two lives his parents had lived, out of which now there was just one left.

Blaine reached the end of the album without it ever showing any other family member, and the photos stopped at when Cooper must have been around nine years old.

He picked up the other album with a sigh. This was pointless, but he really wanted to know what he would find. He raised his eyebrows in astonishment, as he turned the cover to see the photo on the first page. It mirrored almost exactly the one taken on the day Cooper was born. His parents beaming, his mother visibly exhausted, a blue bundle in her hands, only sparse dark curls distinguishable over the fabric. But this time, there was Cooper in the photo as well, curiously looking at his baby brother for the first time. A happy, loving family.

Hastily, Blaine flipped through the rest of the pages; half of them was blank, the other half almost identical to the previous album. Pictures of baby Blaine, of him and Cooper, and family portraits. More and more family portraits. Time gaps between photos growing longer, as Blaine judged from the way he and Cooper looked.

Something caused a relatively normal, happy family to disintegrate into pretenses and false grins in photographs. Whatever it was, the realization that once Blaine was truly loved and cherished in this house made him sick.

He cast the albums aside, determined more than ever to do anything to get out.

He grabbed the address book, quickly swiping his eyes over the pages under A. No trace of Aileen. Blaine proceeded to Y, soon coming across her number and address, and snorting at the fact that her own sister would list her by her last name, instead of her first.

With a shaking hand, Blaine took his phone out of his pocket, where he had preemptively placed it before going downstairs. He copied the number carefully, triple-checking every single digit, and hit the call button, the deafening sounds of his heartbeats filling his ears.

One beep. Maybe the number’s deactivated?

Two beeps. What if she doesn’t even live in Lima anymore?

Three beeps. What if…

‘Hello?,’ a vaguely familiar female voice answered.

‘Hi- um-,’ Blaine’s words failed him for a second. ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Blaine, your nephew.’

It was silent for a moment on the other end.

‘Oh my god, I wouldn’t expect you to call! I thought it was you who forgot me, I haven’t seen any of you in ages,’ Aileen said cheerfully, and then she paused for a moment. ‘Wait, but everything’s fine, right? With your parents, Cooper, and you?’

Blaine grimaced, as his thoughts quickly ran through all the reasons why he was calling her at all.

‘Um, yeah, everything’s fine. There’s just this one… thing I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘You don’t mean, like, a shrinky kind of thing, do you?’ Aileen’s voice was tinged with wariness.

‘No, no,’ Blaine hurried to say. ‘But I’d rather talk about it in person.’

It took them two more minutes to arrange for Blaine to come to her house in Lima the following afternoon. He made sure he had the right address, and they said goodbye.

‘I’m glad you called, Blaine,’ she said before cutting the connection.