CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Xavier’s POV

I drove to the estate the next day around midday.

I saw Pamela’s call few minutes after I left the penthouse. I silenced her call angrily, I can’t deal with that for now.

Ivanna’s call came into my phone barely two minutes after I ignored Pamela’s. I silenced it too, put my phone on silent mode and dropped it in the drawer.

I knew Pamela had already communicated with her and whatever Pamela was calling about earlier had already been relayed.

The drive took almost an hour in light weekend morning traffic, the land slimmed gradually into the kind of landscape that made you understand why someone had bought twelve acres of it fifty years ago had decided not to sell.

The estate gates opened immediately my car got there on recognition of my plate.

***

Margaret met me in the entrance hall with a wild smile.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Xavier,” she said with a little smile tugged on her lips before it disappeared, the kind that clearly says these kind of visits are rare. “Mr. Beaumont is in the garden with a company.”

“Bryan?” I asked.

She smiled again, this time fully blown and warm. “Yes, sir. Master Bryan arrived about an hour ago.”

I nodded once, dropped my jacket on one of the cushions in the sitting room and walked my way to the garden.

***

I heard their giggles before I saw them.

Bryan’s voice carrying across the garden with the projection of a child who had not yet learned that volume was something adults modulated for the benefit of their surroundings. He was explaining something at length and with great conviction to Arthur, the words arriving faster than the pauses between them.

Then Arthur’s voice came, lower and interjecting with a question that set Bryan off on another extended explanation.

I came around the corner of the hedgerow that divided the formal garden from the lawn area and found them at the garden table, Arthur in his usual chair, Bryan standing on the bench beside him with one foot on the table in a posture that would not have been permitted for any other visitor to this estate in its entire history. He was pointing at something on Arthur’s open newspaper with the focused authority of someone who had been asked for their expert opinion and was delivering it thoroughly.

“That one is too slow,” Bryan was saying, jabbing a finger at what appeared to be a sports photograph. “His legs are not fast enough. I can run faster than him and I’m only five.”

“Nearly six,” Arthur said.

“Nearly six,” Bryan agreed, with the solemnity of someone for whom those three months ro six were a significant developmental milestone. “Ask my Coach. He says I’m the fastest in my age group.”

“Coach is a reliable source then,” Arthur said with a grin.

“He is,” Bryan answered firmly, then he noticed me.

A rapid transformation took place in his face when he spotted me, the kind that happened so fast that you may almost missed it. The surprise, recognition and brightness of a child who had decided you were someone worth being excited about, all in about half a second.

“Xavier!” he called, abandoning the newspaper and the football analysis simultaneously and running across the lawn with full commitment.

He stopped just short of me and looked up with amused assessing directness.

“You came,” he said. The statement carrying a faint note of accusation, as though my previous absence from his weekends had been a personal failure he had noticed but chosen not to raise until now.

“Mm!” I nodded.

“Are you staying for lunch?”

I looked toward Arthur who was obviously enjoying every bit of it. “I wasn’t planning-”

“Stay,” he pulled at my hand in that cute childish manner and stamped his feet on the ground gently.

I heaved a little sigh. “Okay!”

He leaped for joy, calling Grandfather as he turned back toward the garden bench. “Arthur. Xavier is staying for lunch.”

Arthur looked at me over Bryan’s head with a surprised expression rather than satisfaction. “That sounds really great,” he said.

***

Lunch was lamb sauce again, at this point I suspected this was not a coincidence but I couldn’t prove it.

Bryan sat between us and ate with focused enthusiasm, liken to that of a child who treated meals as refueling, periodically abandoning his fork to illustrate a point about subjects unrelated to food before being redirected back to his plate by Arthur’s patient but consistent intervention.

“If a koi fish and a regular fish had a race,” Bryan said, somewhere between the main course and what he had already identified as the dessert sitting on the counter inside, “who would win?”

“That depends on the species of regular fish,” Arthur said.

Bryan considered this for about a second. “A normal one?”

“There are a lot of species of other regular fishes out there,” Arthur said calmly.

Bryan looked at me. “Xavier, who would win?”

I dropped my fork, interlocked my hands below my chin and looked at this inquisitive yet smart boy. I wonder if this was how all kids his age acts. Have I been like this too? A faint smile tugged on my lips at the question, which sounds unreasonable to me at the same time. “The koi, probably.” I said finally.

Bryan pointed at me. “See? Xavier says koi.”

He clapped excitedly with those little hands of his. I almost laughed it loud.

The breezy, uncomplicated confidence of a child who knew what outcome he wanted from a conversation and engineered toward it without embarrassment looked so funny to me.

Arthur caught my eye across the table. His countenance was different today, it doesn’t look like his usual looks I was used to. This looked as if there was something he wanted to tell me but was still being skeptical on whether to say it or not. He casted more glances to me at some couples of time but I was quiet, whatever he wanted to say, judging from his look, I knew it will be something serious. And apart from Bryan’s childish blabber across the dining table, I don’t think I want to dive into any topic that might ruin my mood and not enjoy this meal.

This kind of meal are to be eaten in good moods.

After lunch, Bryan’s attention was redirected toward the television in the sitting room, he was so engrossed in the cartoon movie he was watching. When I was his age, Grandfather would have forced me to go and carryy books and read, immediately after meal. I’m jealous of this little man.

Arthur pulled me over to the study, immediately we got in, he closed the door, which was a gesture he rarely does. He prefers the study room door opened most of the times when he’s in there.

He sat behind the desk and I took the chair across from it. I noticed a ledger on the corner of the desk, the old leather cover worn soft with age, sitting in the kind of deliberately placed position that told me it had been put there on purpose.

Arthur looked at me for a moment with a dedicated, slow attention of a man who had been waiting for this conversation for considerably longer than the afternoon suggested.

He cleared his throat. “There is something I need to tell you,” he started. “I should have told you sooner, but I just wanted to be certain before I-”

A knock at the door interrupted, and the door flung open before any of us could answer. The other person at the door was too impatient I believe.

To my surprise, and probably to Arthur’s too. Ivanna walked into the study with the composed ownership of a woman who had decided that a closed door in a house she considered part of her future was not a meaningful barrier.

She was wearing a red shiny dress, with a pair of white heels, her hair hung loosely around her shoulder. Her brown Louis Vuitton bag carried with more elegance than it required, her lips painted in matte red lipstick.

A typical Ivanna Sinclair. Flashy as always.

Her eyes moved around the room with the swift, comprehensive sweep of someone taking inventory.

“Hi, Papa,” she said warmly to Arthur and gave him a hug before crossing toward the other side of the desk. I only looked on im bewilderment.

“I hope I’m not interrupting.” She continued, settling in one of the chairs. “I was in the area and thought I should stop by as a good daughter-in-law that I am and say hi to Arthur, it’s been a while you know.” She smiled again and looked toward me as if she just noticed my presence. “Xavier, darling. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

But the smile said otherwise. I knew she came to the estate on purpose. Maybe she had gone to find me at the penthouse, and met by my absence there, and today being a weekend, she knows I’ll definitely be at Grandfather’s. My movement is so easy to discern, that was one of my major weaknesses.

In the moment of the courtesy, I saw frustration played behind Grandfather’s face. Like he had just been interrupted of an important conversation.

He reached for his walking cane and stood up gently. “I think I should leave you both to yourselves. We will talk later, Xavier.”

I could see a mischievous smile tugged on Ivanna’s lips as Grandfather turned to walk out. Only God knows what she’s up to this time.