Chapter Eleven

Parental surprise

Nina

As it turned out, I could apparently not ask Matthias about anything. Not if the anything I asked about included his ex-wife, at least.

He muttered something about not knowing why he hadn’t mentioned his marital status during the days we spent together on the island.

I called bullshit, but I did it using nicer words and mostly in a gentle voice.

The tone was apparently not gentle enough because he shared curtly that his belly hurt, and he would go to bed.

“You could just say that you don’t want to talk about it,” I said and forgot to be gentle, so it came out in a snap.

“Okay, Nina,” he growled, and gave me an arrogant glare. “There are things in my life I just don’t want to fucking talk about.”

“Okay,” I said, but I did this to an empty room since he’d disappeared into the bedroom.

He was asleep when I crawled into bed, and when I woke up the next morning, he was still sleeping. When he hadn’t gotten out of bed by lunchtime, I caved in and made him a latte.

“I guess I deserve feeling like shit,” he said with a sleepy smile. “Not drinking whiskey in a while.”

“You don’t look too good,” I said quietly, not sure how to act.

We’d had a fight last night, hadn’t we?

Or, not exactly a fight perhaps, but a disagreement, which we’d had many times before, but this time, it had felt real.

“Gut hurts a bit,” he admitted.

A couple of Tylenol later, he felt well enough to go pick his dog up from his daughter, and then he texted to let me know that he wouldn’t join me on what had become our usual Sunday night run. Instead, he was going to sleep, and we’d apparently talk on Monday. I wasn’t entirely sure what we’d talk about, but he hadn’t seemed upset when he left, so I assumed we were okay.

I didn't enjoy the run, which partly was since I'd gotten used to having someone to talk to if we did an easy lap or compete with if we felt like pushing a bit harder. Mostly it was because I kept looping his angry words around in my head.

“Okay, fine. Not a big deal, and now I know,” I mumbled to myself as I went through my stretches.

Talking about Jackie-the-jackal was apparently a big no-no.

It wasn’t as if I was all eager to dissect my marriage to Dave with him, so I decided to let go of the whole thing, and just pretend it hadn’t happened.

I still wished he’d been a bit nicer about it, though.

 

***

Matthias

He had fucked up.

Thoroughly.

She surprised him when she asked about Jackie, and he hadn’t handled it well. To his defense, he felt like shit and had more than once vowed to never drink alcohol again in his entire goddamned life.

He wasn’t going to wonder if he’d caught the flu or something because that’s what teenagers asked themselves instead of accepting that they’d had one too many, so he simply popped a couple more pills before leaving for the office on Monday morning. Nina acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary when he called her from the car, but there was a faint hesitation in her voice, which he didn’t like. It was totally on him to clear the air, so he’d talk to her about Jackie that night, he decided. He wasn’t sure how to explain why he’d been such a fool, but he’d try.

The day passed by in a blur of meetings and more painkillers, and he started to wonder if he should go home and spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, wallowing in his misery. Len stopped by his office, though, and shared with considerable glee that his hangover had been gone by lunchtime the day before, so Matthias grit his teeth and braced for the pain he knew would hit his gut when he heaved himself out of the chair.

“Bud, you don’t look so good,” Len said quietly as they walked together to a meeting Nina had called for to talk about a few invoices or something. “Do you have a fever?”

“Might,” Matthias ground out.

The ache in his belly burned like fire, and his knees felt wobbly, so he was about to add that he was probably not hungover but actually sick when there was a loud crash from the open landscape outside the conference room.

Several voices were suddenly screaming loudly, and they started running.

“Shit,” Len snapped. “Anyone hurt?”

Matthias ignored how it suddenly felt as if someone twisted a knife around in his belly, and surveyed the mayhem in front of him. A large file cabinet had tilted forward, and the only thing preventing it from falling to the floor was the fact that it was leaning precariously on another, smaller cupboard.

And the fact that it had partially hit Peggy on its way down.

Binders and papers were scattered over the floor, and people were running around.

“Everyone, back off,” he roared. “Tom. Len. Get to the sides and hold it in place, so it doesn’t fall further.”

The two men moved immediately, but then Len shouted, “It’s fucking heavy, Matty. Need a few more to help.”

Matthias pointed at a younger man who dealt with their business intelligence and then at Dane, who came running. Then he focused on Peggy.

“How are you doing, Peg?”

“Peachy,” she croaked out. “I know I shouldn’t kick the damn thing shut. Never thought it’d kick back.”

Their eyes met, and he saw pain but also a calmness that was quite impressive.

“This is not fucking funny, Peg,” Len barked out and added a few select curse words.

“I have something stuck in my arm, Leonard,” she snapped back. “You think I don’t know how supremely unfunny this is?”

“Let me take a look,” Nina said.

There was another admirably calm woman, Matthias realized.

“How bad is it?” Peg said, and the two women looked at each other for a second.

“A small piece of metal from the drawer went into your arm, honey,” Nina said quietly, twisted carefully to take another look and calmly said, “You’re lucky. It went into the fat.”

“I do not have fat arms,” Peggy protested.

“No,” Nina said slowly. “Except they’re not super skinny and the –”

“Nina,” Len roared. “For fuck’s sake.”

“Can you raise the thing?” Matthias asked loudly. “If you do it slowly, I can hold her arm and...”

He looked at Peggy and saw that she understood what would happen.

“Shit,” she whispered. “That’s gonna hurt.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she said with a wince.

“Hold on to me,” Nina said and grabbed her hand.

Then she placed her other hand on Peggy’s elbow, and Matthias ignored his aching stomach and leaned forward to look.

Nina had been right. The metal had gone into the arm just under the skin, and it would hurt pulling it out, but it didn’t look like it had done any critical damage.

The cabinet suddenly made a creaking sound, and Peggy pushed out a soft moan.

“Matty, we have to raise it now,” Len ground out. “It won’t hold much longer.”

“Okay,” Matthias said.

They should wait for help, but there wasn’t any time. Nina pulled off the scarf she had around her neck, bunched it up in her hand, and their eyes met.

“Just do it,” she said quietly. “It’s worse waiting for it.”

“On my count, are you ready?” Matthias called out and got shouts of confirmation back. “Three, two one, go!”

Security had arrived, and they helped to push the heavy piece into an upright position. Peggy pressed her lips together but didn’t make a sound as the sharp metal slid out of her arm. Nina held her scarf against the wound and moved them away from the cabinet.

“Let me take a look,” Len said and pushed both Nina and Matthias out of his way. “Christ, Peg. What were you thinking?” he snapped as he twisted the arm around. “She was right,” he added. “Shallow and mostly through –”

“Call my arm fat, and I’ll clock you.”

“Shut up,” Len snapped. “Let’s get you to the hospital. Did anyone call an amb –”

“I am going there in a regular car.”

“For fuck’s –”

“No need to curse.”

Matthias assumed the angry woman couldn’t be too badly hurt if she felt well enough to get into an argument, so he looked around the room.

“We’ll take Peggy to the hospital,” he said. “Roger. Secure the damned thing and find out how the hell this could happen. It should have been secured properly to the fucking wall.”

The fact that the CEO of the company dropped the f-bomb on him made the head of security bark out a flurry of orders.

Then Matthias ground his teeth together and helped Peggy to her feet.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “I hope it wasn’t my fault.”

“No way you could kick it hard enough for that,” Matthias said. “We’ll find out later what happened. Let’s go.”

The drive to the hospital was a bit blurry, and Matthias wondered how much fever he had, but he held it together until they were in the waiting room, and Peggy had been wheeled away on a gurney.

“How are you feeling?” he heard Nina say, but it felt as if her voice came from far away.

His stomach roiled, and there seemed to be tiny yellow sparkles in the air around him.

“Gut hurts,” he managed to say.

Then he leaned forward and threw up.

 

***

Nina

I was not fast enough, so when Matthias suddenly puked, he did it all over me. Then he fell forward, and I tried to catch him, but he was too heavy, so I went down with him. We landed in a heap on the floor, and I heard Len shout for help.

People came running and quickly rolled him off me, so I scrambled to the side to let them help him. Someone poked him in his belly, and he pushed out a ragged sound, which turned into a curse when they raised his right knee slightly.

“Get me a gurney and call the OR!” a doctor-looking man shouted. “I suspect his appendix will rupture any minute if it hasn’t already.”

Before I knew what happened, they were disappearing down the corridor, taking Matthias with them, and I sat on the floor, covered in vomit and with a throbbing eye from where Matthias’ elbow had made contact as we landed on the floor.

“Jesus,” Len said and stared at me. “What the hell just happened?”

“I guess he wasn’t hungover,” I mumbled.

“Come,” Len said. “Let’s find someplace to wipe off your shirt.”

“I need to call Jacob.”

“Bathroom,” he said firmly, and the smell of vomit reached my nostrils, so I nodded and followed him down the corridor.

We cleaned me up as best we could in one of the bathrooms, and then Len took my keys to fetch some clean clothes for me. I talked to Jacob, who would take the next ferry over to the mainland. Then I spoke with Matthias’ younger brother, who turned out to be in San Francisco, a fact that made the man curse the golden state, Delta Airlines, and for some reason, a man named Joaquin. I assured them both that I would let them know as soon as I got news about Matthias.

Then I called Matthias’ son, Simon.

“Hey, Simon. My name is Nina Petrie, and I’m –”

“I know who you are. Is Dad okay?”

Sharp as a tack had been Jacob’s description of his grandson, and he hadn’t been wrong.

“Matthias is fine,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying. “We are in the hospital, and they just rolled him away to remove his appendix.”

“Which hospital?”

I told him, got a curt, “On my way,” in return, and then he hung up.

The surroundings were depressing, and I stood there, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to bother the staff who probably wouldn’t know anything yet anyway. I still smelled faintly of puke, and a mix of fear and adrenaline rushed through me, making my knees shake a little. Layla had gone with Teddy on a business trip to London, and I tried to figure out the time difference, but my brain didn’t seem to work properly, so I gave up.

Then I picked up my phone and closed my eyes in relief when a familiar voice full of laughter and strength answered.

“Nina, my darling!”

“Mom,” I said quietly. “Things are a bit messy. Can we talk for a while?”

 

***

 

“I don’t give a shit. I am not sitting in a goddamned deck chair with a fucking blanket over my legs.”

“It’s cold,” Jacob said.

“That is why God gave us the Internet, wi-fi, laptops, and consequently...” Matthias glared at his father and put what I thought was a pretty annoying finger in his face. “Working. From. Home.”

“You’re on sick leave.”

I thought Matthias would hit Jacob and decided that it was time for me to intervene.

Again.

Matty was not excellent at convalescence, one could say.

Which one often did when he was not in the room.

“Sweetie –”

My placating voice wasn’t placating him at all, and he rounded on me, albeit gingerly on account of the stitches on his belly from where they had indeed removed his appendix.

While Matthias was in surgery, I had paced the waiting room, not sure what to do, and unable to relax even though they'd told me it was a standard procedure. Then Len returned from taking Peggy and her surprisingly harmless injury home. He promptly told me I should sit my ass down, which I promptly did because he did not look like a happy camper, and I just couldn't deal with what might be pretty loud anger right then. Shortly thereafter, a doctor showed up and told us Matthias would be fine. She casually added that it was good we'd gone to the hospital since the appendix apparently would have burst within hours, which potentially could have killed him.

That’s when two things happened.

I started crying.

And Simon walked through the doors.

Seeing me wailing uncontrollably on the shoulder of a doctor made Matthias’ son start running toward us, but Len managed to calm him down with a few reassuring words.

“Matty is such a stubborn fool,” I said with a sniffle once I’d regained some composure.

“You’ve been dating my father for months. This can’t be news to you,” Simon said with a grin.

“We’re not dating,” I shared. “We’re friends.”

“Nina...” Len said with a smile. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” I said, but turned to the doctor. “He got sick really fast. Could something have made it, you know... worse?”

“What do you mean?”

I glanced at Simon and leaned in closer to the woman.

“Vigorous physical activity,” I whispered.

It had occurred to me that sex against the wall might not have been a good thing if he had appendicitis.

“Ah,” the doctor said with a small lip-twitch. “No, Ms. Petrie. Physical activity, however vigorous, would not have caused complications.”

Len burst out laughing, and I wished she’d lowered her voice.

“You were drunk,” I said to him in an effort to change the subject.

“That we were,” Len said with great satisfaction. “As skunks.”

“Dad was drunk?” Simon cut in. “As a...”

He looked astonished, but Len just grinned.

“Skunk,” he finished the sentence. “Haven’t been in years, and it was fun.”

Simon was still chuckling when Jacob arrived, and when we were allowed in to see a drowsy Matthias, he started laughing again.

After that, things were supposed to be easy.

Peggy had a few stitches in her arm but went back to work a couple of days later.

Matthias had stitches on his stomach and was told to take it easy for a while.

Then the pretty grumpy CEO was informed by the owner of the company, who also was his father, that he would be on sick leave to heal.

The argument which ensued was loud and angry, but in the end, Matty agreed to go to the island with Jacob on the condition that I went with them. Since I anyway didn’t want to stay in the city alone, I faked meekness and murmured blandly that I would pack some clothes for us and pick up Pippin.

During our first days on the island, Matthias mostly slept, and I got quite a lot of work done. Then he felt that he should get a lot of work done too, and that’s when the trouble started.

It didn’t help that Jacob told him that Len had been appointed acting CEO and was handling things well and that he should go outside and sit in the sun for a while.

“I have got to do something,” Matthias snarled. “I’m going crazy.”

“I know,” I said, and tried to keep in mind that he’d been sick so I couldn’t yell at him. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?”

Dear Lord, he both sounded and looked like a grumpy child, but I would also have been frustrated by the situation, so I tried to come up with something harmless and relaxing.

Except we usually didn’t do a lot of harmless and relaxing activities, so my mind was blank.

“What did you like to do when you were younger?” I asked.

“Paint,” Jacob said, and I blinked furiously.

This was news to me.

“Dad.”

“Well, you did. You painted and studied art in college.”

“That was a long time ago, and I got an MBA too.”

“I’ll get you what you need,” Jacob said. “There’s a lot of artsy people on the island, so the store has plenty of supplies.”

“I don’t paint anymore.”

“You will now,” Jacob said, and that was apparently that.

 

***

 

To my surprise, Matthias used the acrylics Jacob got him, and he was good at it. Not amazingly so, and it showed that he hadn’t done it in a while, but he clearly had talent.

And I recognized talent because I’d grown up around an abundance of it.

I was about to share this with him when the door was thrown open, and Jacob walked in, followed by my parents. I had thought they were in Ecuador, or possibly Colombia, so I froze and stared at them.

“Mom?” I wheezed out. “Are you here?”

“Sweetie,” Mom said indulgently and pulled me into her arms.

Dad hugged us both, and for a second, it felt a little like being a child again. We’d moved around a lot as I grew up, so home to me had always been the three of us, wherever we happened to be.

“But –” Matthias said, and I pulled away from my parents.

“Matthias,” I said. “This is –”

“Your father is Cornelius Amadeus Miller,” he said, cutting me off rather rudely.

Of course. A man who had studied art would know exactly who my father was, but then again, a lot of people did. Cornelius Amadeus Miller was known all over the world for his amazing paintings.

“That’s a stage name,” Dad said and stretched out a hand. “I’m Cornelius Petrie.”

Matthias made a visible effort to collect himself and shook dad’s hand, and then he got a kiss on his cheek from my mother.

“I’m Josephine Petrie, but you can totally call me Josie,” she said.

“Josie,” Matthias said, swallowed and turned to me. “Your father is –”

He stopped speaking and looked so confused that I had to smile.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you work in finance.”

“Yes,” I repeated.

Before Matthias got another word out, Dad tilted his head to the side and looked at Matthias’ hand and the paint around the nails.

“You’re painting,” he said.

“No,” Matthias said quickly.

“Let me take a look.”

“No fucking way.” Matthias looked utterly horrified. “You’re Cornelius Amadeus Miller.”

“So?” Dad asked, but Matthias turned back to me.

“I own his paintings,” he said accusingly. “They’re in my office.” He narrowed his eyes and muttered, “You could have given me a heads up.”

I could have, but I didn’t talk much about my famous father with anyone.

“Perhaps there are things in my life I just don’t want to fucking talk about,” I said sweetly, throwing his words about his ex-wife in his face.

He didn’t look happy about it, but I hadn’t been happy either, so I figured it was justified.

“Aha!” a voice called out before we could say anything else.

My goddamned dad had opened the door to Jake’s room which was where Matthias had been painting.

“Dad,” I said and moved over to drag him out of there.

“Not bad,” Dad said and kept moving even though I was pulling at his arm. “Couldn’t make a living of it, but you’re not bad.”

“I couldn’t make a living –”

Matthias cut himself off and scowled.

“Fuck, no,” Dad said jovially. “Not from selling these, anyway. Your perspective isn’t off too badly, so you could probably do illustrations or commercial art, though. That shit is more lucrative than acrylics anyway.”

I thought about the chunk of cash he’d made from his last exhibition and sighed.

“You should try ink,” Dad went on. “Nina isn’t bad at it.”

Oh, no.

“You paint,” Matthias concluded.

“No.”

I really didn’t.

“You used to.”

“Not really,” I said, although I had when I was young.

“We’ll buy some ink,” he said.

“No.”

“Jake is coming later this week. He can bring it if they don’t have it in the store here.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

We were glaring at each other for a while, but then Jacob suddenly cleared his throat.

“This is excellent,” he said happily. “Cornelius, Josie, let’s get dinner organized while they squabble.”

Squabble? Who the hell used a word like that?

“Perfect,” my goddamned mother said just as happily. “Come, Cornelius. Leave the poor boy alone.”

Then they walked out the door and the man who hadn’t been poor for a single day of his life, and also not a boy in the past thirty-five years suddenly started laughing.

“That was unexpected,” he said.