Once she was in the car, she let me hold her as we returned to the penthouse. No words passed her lips and her eyes were closed, but I knew she was awake. I would have given a substantial portion of my fortune to know what she was thinking during those moments. My thoughts jumbled together in an atypical mess. My logic was pocked with the same sensation I’d felt when I realized I loved parts of Camille’s personality. I expected the feeling to fade, for my usual calculation to return. It didn’t. After she’d given herself to me, and I’d had the most intense fuck of my life, maybe it was impossible for my brain to heal from its shattered state.
Anton pulled into the parking garage, and Timothy opened my door. I hefted Camille into my arms and carried her to the elevator. She didn’t protest as we rose to the penthouse and I laid her in my bed. Too much silence. I did the math with what little faculties I had left. No words meant something was wrong.
A knock at my door filtered through the beat from my headphones. I didn’t particularly care for music, but my father insisted I show at least some interest in it since most boys my age did.
Slipping off my headphones, I turned as he walked in and sat on my bed.
“Good morning.”
He didn’t say anything, simply stared at the wood floor beneath his feet. He clasped his hands between his knees, and his shoulders stooped at a defeated angle.
I waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, I put my headphones back on and tapped my foot along to the beat so he could see I was taking his advice.
Minutes passed, but he never looked over at my rhythmic efforts. My foot tired, so I gave up and put the headphones down on my desk, the music tinny and far away. Why was he silent?
It occurred to me all this was odd. If he came to my room, he usually had something to say. Why not this time? I cycled through my list of possible responses, but he’d never prepared me for silence. I needed some sort of a cue. Or was this a test? Was silence a cue in and of itself?
A faint thump-thump added to the hum of the earphones’ incessant hum. I flicked off my iPod, killing the noise. It was a plop, not a thump. Dad hadn’t moved, but tears were dropping to the floor beneath him. Otherwise, silence.
“Dad?” Tears meant sad, unless it was a wedding, and then tears meant happy. Unless it was a wedding of someone you hated, in which case it could cut either way. I generally just offered a handkerchief and avoided trying to parse the reason behind the tears. But Dad didn’t cry, so I couldn’t gauge what his tears meant. “Is something wrong?”
Silence. It was oppressive. I’d never minded it before, but this sort of silence seemed to speak. The hackles along the back of my neck rose. Something was off. I couldn’t feel it like normal people, but I could sense it on a basic, animal level. Something that had been whole was now broken. But what?
“Dad?”
He cleared his throat and pressed his fingertips to his closed eyes. “Your mother.”
“Is she upset with you?”
“No, son.” He finally met my gaze, his watery eyes throwing emotions I couldn’t catch. “She died this morning.”
“Died?” I knew the concept, and not just from my experience with the neighbor’s rooster. But I’d never dealt with it like this. So close that it seemed unreal.
“She passed in her sleep. I woke up and she was—”
His voice caught in his throat, and he hung his head again.
“Where is she?”
“Still in bed.” His voice was strained. “Paramedics are coming, but it’s too late.”
“But she’s not there. So where is she? Where did she pass to?” I wrestled with the concept.
“She’s just gone, son.”
“But you said she’s still in bed.” I shook my head.
He broke into a sob. “I can’t do this. I can’t. Not without her. It’s too much.” More sobs followed, each one wracking his body as sirens whined in the distance.
As my father cried, I filed away his behavior in my notebook of human reactions: nothing good comes of silence.
“Camille?” I stripped off my jacket and tossed it to a side chair, then knelt at her feet and removed her heels.
“Yes?” She kept her eyes closed.
“What’s wrong?” After yanking my tie loose, I unbuttoned my shirt, tossed it to join my jacket, then crawled into bed next to her.
“How do you know something is wrong?” She turned her head away.
“Your silence.”
“Did your robot brain do the math on that one?”
I reached up to touch her face, but she flinched away. “Please tell me.”
Fear, sudden and strong, overtook me. Did she regret what we’d done in the restaurant? “Was it the sex?”