Ch. 2 : After the event
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After calling 911, the operator at the other end almost immediately picked up and asked me what my emergency was. I sheepishly explained that my mom had hit her head and was unconscious, without going into the details. I was surprised at myself for still having the presence of mind to abstain from explaining what really happened. It would obviously be a bad idea to say that I had been so shocked during an argument that I had produced a shockwave as a result. I told the operator my address and hung up after she said an ambulance was en route. Not a minute after that, I heard a car pull up in the driveway. I instinctively knew who it was. The sound of a door shutting came to my ears and the front door right in front of me opened an unnaturally small amount of time after. I didn’t care about that though, as seeing Eiea’s face sent a wave of relief throughout my body. She looked at me and, for a second, a rush of jumbled emotions appeared on her face. She peeled off her gaze from me and immediately headed into the living room, where I followed her unsteadily. She went up to my mom, crouching besides her. Taking her shoulders in her hands, she lifted her up and sat her against the wall, resting her back gently on it. She then lightly touched the back of her head with her fingers, prodding the wound calmly with a concentrated expression. She heaved a relieved sigh, her facial muscles relaxing considerably.

-Feels like nothing’s broken. She’ll be fine, she is just unconscious.

Of course, I felt immense relief at hearing that, but my body was too tired by the last few minutes to react in any proper way. After tensing and relaxing so many times, the reaction was dulled. I ended up just flopping unto the sofa, all my limbs feeling like soggy noodles. Eiea called out to me.

-Maria, help me a bit. We’ll lay her on the sofa.

I willed my body to stand up and went to help her. We placed a towel on one of the sofa’s arms and then lifted mom, Eiea by her shoulders and me her legs, unto it, gently lowering her head on the towel. We made sure she was properly laid down and I saw from the state of the towel that her head had stopped bleeding. Suddenly, I found myself in the warm embrace of Eiea’s arms. I was startled for an instant, but immediately relaxed after realizing the situation. Despite how hot it was today, the warmth of her body felt relaxing and comfortable. No words were exchanged while she held my head close to her bosom, slowly caressing my hair. The feeling of security and certainty it brought me was indescribable and I wished it would never end, utterly forgetting everything else. My mind was more than exhausted, to the point that I just decided to stop thinking, my last thought being, “Everything will be fine now.”

 

Alas, the front door opened again and someone entered, breaking my trance. However, Eiea didn’t release me, holding me even closer in fact. I was surprised by this but I didn’t try to fight against it, I was glad that she didn’t let me go. The two paramedics who entered the house with a stretcher looked at us for a moment before seeing my mom lying down on the sofa. They approached quickly and we moved away to give them some space to work. They quickly lifted my mom on the stretcher and were about to leave when I reached out to the first paramedic who had entered.

-I’m sorry, you cannot come with us. Please wait here for the police officer to arrive, he’ll assess the situation.

Showing a sorry face, he said his line and left prom,ptly with his colleague and my mother as we stood there. Eiea went to close the door as I sat down again on the sofa, where she joined and promptly resumed hugging me.

-Eiea?

-I know you need it.

I closed my mouth and waited. She was right. What could have been a few seconds or a few minutes later, the door opened again and, this time, two police officers walked in. They saw us and approached as Eiea released me, an expression of slight disappointment on both of our faces. One of them, a middle-aged man with a hard expression, asked me :

-You’re Maria Grant, daughter of Veronica Grant, is that correct?

-Ah, yes.

-And you are?

He glanced at Eiea with a puzzled look.

-I am Eiea Canton, her second guardian.

The police officer and myself both had a surprised expression. I had no idea she was considered my second guardian… Wait, was she just lying to the officer? I couldn’t know and looking at Eiea certain expression didn’t give me any clues, so I just swallowed my question for now. I fully intended to ask it later. Eiea added :

-If you doubt it, you can verify.

The police officer took his phone from his pocket and called a number with practiced motions.

-Can you verify something for me? The name of the second guardian of Maria Grant. 5 Thierry King Street.

There was a pause, surely as the one on the other end of the line was searching the civil database for the information in question.

-Is that so? Alright, thanks.

The police officer hung out and looked at us with a less perplexed expression.

-I have confirmed that is the case. Can you show me a valid ID?

Eiea took out her wallet and showed him her driving licence.

-Good. I assume you’ll be the one who takes care of her while her mother is in the hospital?

-Yes, I live not far from here.

-Very well, now let's talk about what happened.

He asked me a couple of questions regarding the events of today and I told him the story I had come up with in the meantime of his arrival. I told him I had a fight with my mom about something personal and she had tripped on the table, falling head first into the wall. After that, I told him exactly what happened,without inventing anything this time, how in my panic I called Eiea and all that. He listened intently, bobbing his head up and down at regular intervals. He asked me what was the fight about. I told him the truth about how my mother told me I was adopted and he just made an understanding face, refraining from asking more questions after that. He seemed to sympathize with me enough to not ask about such a difficult topic. The merciful act turned out to save me because I had not come up with a proper description of the actual fictitious fight. If he had asked exactly what happened during the fight, I would have had to improvise everything. I’m normally pretty good at improvising, but I really wasn’t in the mood. They left a few moments later after stating to Eiea that the hospital would call her when my mom would wake up. We were left alone in the house.

 

I asked Eiea if we were gonna go to her house now but, to my surprise, she answered to the negative.

-I need to talk to you about something important and my house is not the best place for that. Do you mind if we stay the night at one of my friend’s place?

I nearly asked why would her house not be the best place for that, but I decided against it. I figured it would probably get explained with the important thing she wanted to talk to me about. I also had a hunch about what would that talk entail. She did not seem really surprised when I told her over the phone I had produced a shockwave, nor did she ask me about it when we were left alone. It was quite obvious she knew about what exactly happened, which opened a wealth of other questions. But those would have to wait a little bit as well. I replied that I didn’t mind and so we left the house after locking the door behind us. We took her car that was still in the driveway and left the neighborhood. During the ride, I looked in the window with an absent-minded gaze, trying to sort in my head the previous events. There was one question I wanted to ask right now, since it probably wasn’t related to the serious talk that would come after.

-Since when are you my second guardian? You never told me that. Neither did Mom...

-Since 6 months ago actually. Veronica wanted to tell you about it today at the same time as… you know, but...

She didn’t continue further, there was no need to. I was surprised since the news was suddenly sprung on me, but I didn’t really mind. Actually, I was happy about it. Eiea was my best friend, but she was also quite motherly to me in several aspects. The hugging session earlier was one of the occasions when she felt like a mother more than a friend. She would also regularly drive me to school in the morning, take care of me when I was sick so my mother could go to work that day (since it wasn’t that bad if the bookstore was closed for a day or two). Thinking about it, it actually already felt like she was my second mother since a while ago. For that reason, I was proud to consider her my other mom. And since my first mom was also not my biological one, as it turns out, it doesn’t really matter if the second one isn’t either. Having resolved that issue, I turned my attention back to the outside world where I was surprised by our location. We were currently in the middle of the city, as was evident with all the tall skyscrapers and the impressive amount of traffic around us. We were quite a long way away from our suburban homes. It seems that friend of hers lived pretty far. We crossed the entire town before ending up in the suburbs on the opposite side of the city. This part of town looked different from our part. It was more like a shopping district here, with small shops, grocery stores and more sprouting on every corner. I had come here a few times before, mostly when we needed to go to specialized shops. My mom had a collection of all kinds of small wooden decorations and an establishment around here was her favourite in town. Though I actually came with here only twice, she came here almost every week.

 

Before long, we parked in front of a building I had never seen before. The three story building looked like a cross between a traditional inn and a modern bar. The outside was of an old style but in perfect condition, the wooden walls had no signs of damage and the windows were freshly washed. Some anachronistic lanterns were hanged on the front of the store, diffusing an inviting light. The name of the establishment was written in bold letters on the face of it like most shops, but was written on a sign board slowly swinging above the main entrance. The sign above the door hung proudly, a pictogram of a cauldron on it with the words “The Drunken Cauldron” on it. The feel that sign gave was so medieval and clashed so harshly with the modern stores around it that the atmosphere became somewhat surreal, like if a temporal anomaly had brought an inn from past to this exact location. Despite that, the new, unweathered appearance of it clashed even against that impression, leaving one truly perplexed as to what they were supposed to feel. That said, it still looked inviting.

-This is your friend's place?

-Yep. He’s the owner, a great guy! You’ll see.

If she said it, then I had no reason the doubt it. We entered the place by the front door, a bell sound ringing above our heads. The interior welcomed us with the same kind of impression as the outside, though a fair bit more modern. Several wooden tables with seats not unlike normal restaurants were placed close to the northern and western walls. The latter were decorated conservatively, red wooden artworks were placed a regular interval, mixing well with the brown of the tables and you could see some stuffed animals on the walls, giving a sort of lodge-like feeling. A rustic staircase ran up into the northern wall towards the second and third floors.The eastern side of the floor was occupied with a bar, its tender behind it was carefully wiping some plates, seemingly lost in thought. He was a middle-aged-looking uncle, about 45-50 if I had to guess. He had a large beer belly with a simple shirt covering it and a stained apron on top of that. With a kind face even when inattentive and large hands he used dexterously to clean the tableware in front of him. The first floor where we were was completely devoid of other customers, but signs of people being there not too long ago were visible on some of the tables. With all that driving we did, it was slightly after supper time. Those customers had probably left not too long ago. After a few seconds of us standing at the entrance, he finally seemed to notice us. Eiea, seeing him finally looking at us, walked in his direction, me in tow.

-Oh Eiea! It's been awhile since you came here, you should do it more often!

-Yo Geoffrey! You’ll be glad then, it seems like that will indeed happen.

-Hahahaha, glad to hear that! What can I do for you today?

-Can I borrow a room upstairs? We’ll also need a meal for two.

-Sure! Oh, and who’s that young lady you got behind you?

-Her name is Maria, you can consider her like a daughter of mine. She just germinated earlier today so we came here for some peace and quiet.

I germinated? What am I, some kind of plant? While some more questions were sprouting in my mind, Geoffrey’s face grew apologetic and looked at me with sad eyes.

-Oh… I’m so sorry to hear that, must have been rough. Are you okay?

He crossed from behind the counter and went up to me with a concerned look. I guessed that the term Eiea used was related to what had happened to me today and the weird event I had produced. If that was the case, it meant that this uncle also knew about it. That said, I could see the truth in Eiea’s previous words about him now. His concern for me and kind demeanour definitely marked him as a great guy. He exuded a sort of gentle aura that put me at ease.

-I’m fine. Thank you.

A slight smile returned to his face as he ruffled my hair with a hand bigger than my head.

-That’s good. Don’t worry, Eiea is probably the best person to help you in that case.

I didn’t know what he meant, but I probably would later. He looked Eiea in the eyes with a serious look, handing her a key he had grabbed from behind the counter.

-Here, you can take that room. Don’t bother with the price, it’s free. Use it as long as you need. I’ll bring you two a meal in a few minutes.

-Thank you Geoffrey, I knew I could count on you.

-Don’t mention it.

With no further discussion, Eiea went in the direction of the stairs. No, it’s not that no further discussion was needed, they had just understood each other without needing it. I ran after her, anticipating the answers I was finally about to be given.

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