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Going to See Kim
She takes the time to change back into her own clothes before she goes upstairs. Fairy tale dresses, she has decided, are very lovely in book illustrations, but rather less than practical for everyday wear.
She doesn't exactly rush.
She also stands outside her sister's room for a long moment, turning the key Kim left over and over in her hand.
And then she squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, and knocks firmly on the door, two sharp raps that sound ridiculously loud to her, in the empty hallway.
She doesn't exactly rush.
She also stands outside her sister's room for a long moment, turning the key Kim left over and over in her hand.
And then she squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, and knocks firmly on the door, two sharp raps that sound ridiculously loud to her, in the empty hallway.
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There are so many other things she could say, but... no.
"I was going to try to find someone who'd heard of the place in a day or so, if you -- if there wasn't any news."
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"Right."
Kim's remembering Sol Laine, who'd lost a son.
Oh, Kevin.
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And then she nods, and takes a step away from the wall.
"Anyway, I'm back. And I'm fine."
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"Of both."
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What else is there to say?
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"Are you sure you don't want to sit down for a little while?"
Kim can't keep the concern from her tone as she adds,
"You look kind of tired, Meg."
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She doesn't even quite turn around.
But she stops, and maybe that's a start.
"I can't imagine why I would," she says, dry and sarcastic and very, very tired.
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"What happened?"
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"Why do you want to know?" she asks.
It's very neutral, and a little cautious.
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"Sometimes," she says, and then stops.
"Sometimes," she says again, a little more firmly, "I feel like you only remember those things when it's convenient."
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"It's always true, and I always remember it."
A beat.
"That doesn't mean it's always easy. For either of us."
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"What you've done, in the past . . . what you're doing now, how am I supposed to see that as your being worried about me? Or do you only worry about me when I do things like go to help save a friend from a dragon?
"Why did it take that for you to get back in touch with me? It's been almost two months since the last time we talked, Kim. And both know we wouldn't be talking now if I hadn't gone to Ambergeldar.
"Every time . . . every time I let meyself think, hey, maybe . . . maybe this time around we'll . . . it just got worse. And worse. And I . . ."
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The look on her face is one of horror, but she breaks off there, steadying herself.
"I've been here every week, Meg. Sometimes twice a week. Just in case there was, there would be something."
Kim pauses, then continues, more slowly,
"I can't explain, but what you told me before, that you think I need to do? I don't think I can, Meg. I don't think anything I can do is going to be what you need. Or enough. Every time I try, it all goes wrong. It's like you're setting tests for me, ones I can never pass."
"But that doesn't mean I don't love you, or that I didn't wish it was different."
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(It probably doesn't help that Kim just threw her phrase about tests that can never be passed back at her.)
"I've been here a lot, Kim. I've never seen you. I've never gotten any word from you.
"Even if all you had you say was what you just told me . . . that would have been something.
"But instead, you do this over and over. You go away. You leave me to wonder -- hell, that note I left you is a damn more lot than you ever left me. And then you come back. And you tell me you want things to be different, but then you do it again. Over and over and over.
"You wish things were different? Stop leaving it for me to fix, and do something about it.
"And, yes, a dragon."
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"I haven't known what to say."
Three beats.
"This may sound stupid, but what kind of dragon?"
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A pause.
"Anyway, he's hardly the point."
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The way she's holding herself, the steadiness to both voice and stance, makes it look as if she's waiting for something.
Or perhaps bracing herself for it.
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Meg's tired of having to do that.
So she doesn't.
Not this time.
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"... The thing is." She glances absently to one side, as if looking for something, then returns her attention to her sister.
"The thing is, Meg -- this isn't up to me. I'm not leaving it up to you to fix, though; that's not what's going on."
"It's that I can't think of anything I can say, any explanation I can give, that will be good enough for you. Whenever I've tried, you've refused to listen, or returned letters without reading them, or told me I was crazy, or that you wanted me to leave."
Tension shows in her body, but not in her tone. Kim just sounds tired, and resigned, and not a little sad.
"So when I waited instead for you to be ready, for it to be time, for -- I don't know, for something to be right -- then you blamed me for not trying, not pushing, not...."
She trails off there with a shrug.
"I'm not perfect, we both know that. I've done a lot of things for reasons that seemed right at the time that maybe I could have done differently, and that might have gone better if I had. But you could have done some things differently, too, Meg, you know?"
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"I've listened to you say a lot in the intervening year and a half. I've listened to your friends say a lot.
"And apparently your idea of waiting for me to be ready is to move to a foreign country and not tell me until your apartment is practically empty? To abandon me -- terrified and trapped -- at the end of the universe when you knew I couldn't leave until I was ready? To come here week after week and not make any effort to get in touch with me when I had asked you to? To make every conversation, every communication, about you and what you felt and what you wanted and what you needed to do?"
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"I didn't tell you about moving to Glastonbury until I was certain it was really going to happen. They could have denied my entry visa, you know," she points out. "And then I kept delaying, because I wanted to tell you in person, and I wanted to do it right-- which obviously didn't work-- because I was afraid of how you'd react."
She tugs at a lock of white hair, then pushes it behind her ear. "I had to go, Meg. I can't change that."
"And I've just told you why I didn't say anything, what I was waiting for. As for making things all about me, don't you understand that's not what I was trying to do?! You'd already told me that I didn't get to assume anything at all about what you thought or felt, so how could I even try to explain anything except by putting it in terms of comparison so that you could see why I was thinking what I was!"
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"And that I don't need to know what you think is important, or what you feel you have to do? I only need to know about things that matter much to you when you actually do them, not when you decide when you want to, or decide they matter, only when you know they're possible?
"I'm not going to say that I would have been thrilled with the news that you were moving to England, Kim. It's a long way. But I wasn't mad because you moved. I was mad because you lied about, for months.
"You have to let me react, not anticipate the reaction and try to avoid it.
"And whether it was what you were trying to do or not, it's what you did. As for knowing how I felt . . . at any point, you might have asked."
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She sighs in frustration.
"I have asked. I've told you time and time again that I'm interested, that I want to hear, that I'd like to know things, that I care, and you keep telling me you don't know if you want to tell me, you don't know if you can risk it, you don't know if you want to say. Gods, Meg, just-- I can deal with you rejecting me if I've got to, the Weaver knows I've lived with things just as awful, but don't stand there and say I'm not asking, that I don't care."
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And "gods" is blasphemy.
Meg sets the key on the closest table.
"I'm not rejecting you. I'm just too tired to go through all this again.
"I'm back. And I'm fine."
She starts for the door.
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"I'm glad you're back. And I'm glad you're okay," Kim says to Meg's back.
"Parker is too, right?"
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"Thank you for asking."
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A beat.
"Good night, Meg."
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