from installment 1: Lewis Mikaides, a stodgy and isolated poetry professor, has learned that he has a—very young—half-sister. He has taken the train to meet her for the first time.
Installment 2
His Father’s Daughter
Wind whistled along the corridor between train and station, sweeping along unsettled dust like an old-fashioned truant officer hustling errant boys off to school. No one lingered. They hurried inside for the warmth of shelter, food and friendly faces. Lewis followed, though it seemed to him unlikely he would find any of those things.
He hesitated in the doorway. It was all so like his dream. A sea of faces ranging before him, and him searching for the face of Avon Meredith Mikaides.
"Over here! Mr. Mikaides, I'm over here!" A pathway formed through the bustling horde, as in his dream. This time someone was there, a petite someone with a step as light as a fairy’s. Indeed, thought Lewis, with her slight stature, arresting eyes and short-cropped curly hair. she could easily be an elfin princess. The air was bitter with a belated winter's touch. but she wore neither hat nor gloves. Her raincoat seemed to wrap itself about her body. She stepped right up to him and offered her hand in boyish fashion.
"Mr. Mikaides? Hello. I'm Avon. Thank you for coming."
He peered at her owlishly. She was so tiny, so young!
Joseph would do that.
He took her hand, startled by the cool, reassuring grip, strong of bone and tendon and like to Joseph's. That was not all. Her eyes, at first glance elfin, revealed great and wondering depths, and in them too, was Joseph. twinkling back along the years to a man he would call son.
Lewis blinked; he hadn't spoken. He hastened to fulfill the amenities.
"How do you do, Miss Mik -- Avon. Under the circumstances, perhaps we should use our Christian names. The air could get a little crowded with the name Mikaides.” He added, “If you feel comfortable with it, of course."
"Why -- certainly. Lewis." She flashed a quick smile.
Unattuned to people's behavior, it took Lewis a while to realize she was nervous, far more so than he.
As well she might be, came a mutter from a corner of his mind, annoyed at all the discomfort he was undergoing.
Yet it isn't her fault, counters another, more faint voice. It isn't her fault at all.
Awkward with concern. he took her by the elbow and steered her through the crowd to the front door. They emerged into another cold wash of salty, sea-dampened wind.
"Do you have a car?"
She shook her head. "Papa Joe left me one, but I haven't got my license yet. I can drive, but there's no one to take me to the city test center. I--I thought we'd have lunch here in town and take Bud's local to the house. We--I live on the edge of town. It's a beautiful house. You'll like it. I think." Her voice faded a little, and she looked at Lewis, her uncertainty plain.
He groaned inwardly. He'd have to carry his bag with him into the restaurant. He hated being made conspicuous, but there were no lockers in this small station. He suppressed his annoyance with a sigh. "Where shall we eat?"
"The Golden Hearth. It serves good food, and it isn't terribly expensive, so I can afford it. They're nice there. This is my treat," she added proudly. Some of her self-assurance had returned.
Hostess was a role well-suited and long-familiar to her. Not unreasonable, Lewis thought as they proceeded along the walk, since her mother died when she was thirteen. How old is she now?
Closer inspection did not reveal her age. She was small and lithe, with a dancer's movement. Her face was pertly shaped, enhanced by a touch of cosmetic, though here Lewis could not be sure. He had only his students to go by, and they wore such varying concoctions clean and natural to punk rock-silly that he has long given up noticing such things. He felt old next to her; but the reliability of that feeling was in question also. He feels old around his contemporaries.
They stepped into a small, well-lit restaurant. He searched for a place to leave his bag, muttering to himself as he realized he must carry it to the table.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just this." He held up the bag.
She gave a little laugh. "A lot of train and bus passengers eat here. No one will mind." She stepped into the dining area. "With the two stations so close, this place is used to travelers and their luggage."
He wasn't interested in her comments, which only served to draw more attention to him. Couldn't she see it didn't matter what these other people thought? It was he that minded.
Not until they reached a table and the bag was suitably stowed away did his irritability subside. He surveyed his surroundings.
The Golden Hearth. A tidy restaurant, boasting white tablecloths with gold cloth napkins, a mammoth fireplace that once served as a cooking-place, and the aromas of home-baked bread, baked beans, and fish, fresh fish awaiting preparation to order.
Over salad. Lewis asked her the first question on his mind. "Avon, how old are you?"
She blushed. then lifted her chin. "Seventeen.“
Seventeen! And Joseph must have been ... "Seventy-four!" Lewis murmured with wonder. "He was seventy-four.”
"Papa Joe? Yes, but he didn't seem it. He was so young-acting. He sang me songs and taught me the old Greek dances and told me stories about where he’d been. Was he like that with you?"
Her voice warmed when she spoke of Joseph. It made Lewis jealous, but he wasn't sure of whom. He finished chewing and cleared his throat. When he answered, his voice was emotionless.
"He left when I was four years old."
She stared. "Four? But that's so litt1e! Papa Joe loved children! That wasn't like him -- not like him at all!"
Lewis paused in his slow and deliberate consumption.
Joseph peered out at him from the depths of her eyes again. Is it possible part of him is lodged in her soul? He tried to shake off the fancy. How like Joseph of her to defend the impossible. How very young of her, too. He began kindly.
"I'rn afraid we must conclude that the father you knew and the father I knew--ever so slightly--might as well have been different men. Seeing you, hearing you, I'm prepared to admit Joseph Mikaides could have changed. Indeed, he must have. However, the father I lost was a swaggering, undependable, selfish young man who didn't shy at all from deserting a young wife and abandoning their four-year-old son."
The girl was silent. Her fork trembled traversing the space twixt plate and lip. She dropped it, letting it clatter against the plate, and stared at the tablecloth. She drew a long breath, released it in a quiet sigh. Troubled eyes betrayed the fear she felt as she asked, "Why?"
She wasn't asking why he used such harsh words to describe what happened so long ago, and he knew it. Her meaning was clear. It was the same question he demanded of his mother day after childhood day, the same one that pursued his adolescence, the same answer-less question he'd thought he'd dealt with and buried as a young man. Here it was, raised just as unanswered as ever, by the slip of a girl who is his father's daughter.
He regarded her with something near active dislike. It was precisely what he had feared, this exhumation of old questions and dead feelings. He watched her shrink back into herself at his glance, whitened lines of strain and worry drawn across her cheeks. Again he was touched by her youth, and he felt a stirring in himself that reminded him of a rusty crank trying to turn over an ancient machine. He surprised himself by speaking almost gently.
"Avon, let's leave the subject for now. It isn't a happy one. We have to take this one step at a time, you know. Let's get to know each other a little first, then we can deal with--difficulties. Let’s enjoy our meal."
She took up her fork and resumed eating, even managing a tiny smile when the waitress asked if everything was all right.
They took the cab--'Bud's Local'--to Avon's house.
Conversation centered on the village and Lewis' occupation as professor of poetry and language history, safe topics. Avon, reasserting her role as hostess, paid the driver. Lewis stood before the house, overcome and forlorn, vulnerable. It was a feeling he could not disperse. He couldn't help but think of Joseph as he looked at it--this was his father's house.
Avon lead him through the picket gate and up the broken cement walk. Tufts of grass pushed up, struggling to widen the cracks in the uneven squares. The yard bore that just-awakened-in-need-of-tidying look of early spring. She stepped lightly up to the porch, one step up to thick weathered boards and the shelter of a sloping overhang. The paint on the woodwork was bright and even. She fumbled at the storm door for a moment, but it opened smoothly and noiselessly. The lock on the inner door was in the same well-oiled condition. Everything about the well-worn house itself was--the word came reluctantly--shipshape.
She led him through a plain uncluttered kitchen that smelled of soap and coffee and cinnamon and tea. There was a dining room with its scarred but polished table and chairs and an oval braided rug.
She didn't stop. She seemed to be rushing into the heart of the house. She stepped through hallways and across a small alcove. They came at last to a large dim room with a sofa and chair and a wall that gave the impression of being paneled in books. The opposite wall was covered with a black-stained paneling. It was to this empty wall that Avon dashed. She bent over and busied herself with unseen mechanics.
Lewis turned to set aside his bag, remarking with approval the absence of a television. From behind him. light started to seep and then pour into the room. A throbbing sort of swish became audible, punctuated by occasional muffled splashes.
He turned. It was not paneling but a clever set of shutters operated by a single handle which Avon turned. Beyond them, seemingly just beyond, was the sea. The Atlantic, pounding and breaking on sand and rock just outside and below the planes of glass that comprised the upper two-thirds of the wall.
The scene was without parallel. The inlet curved in. then out to the right. allowing a glimpse of the village's wharf-side businesses. A few pilings pinpointed the municipal docks. Nearer to was a small stretch of grey sand, and piled above it, boulder upon stone upon rock, tumbling down to make a sort of rough-and-ready staircase from the house to the sea.
Avon spun about wearing a bright grin of anticipation. Lewis was caught. His breath came in gasps. He had never confronted the sea before. Now. here in his father's house., at the hand of his father's daughter, it has happened. It was the enemy, heretofore unseen, resented, despised.
Laid before him was the havoc it had wreaked upon the natural shoreline, like the havoc he had seen it wreak upon human lives. It was terrible. the sea, in its power and awesome anger. It was terrible, he thought, as his collar bound and his hands sweat. It is compelling, he thought, moving blindly toward the window. It is ...
"Magnificent," he whispered as the raw beauty of it washed over him and left him drained. "It is magnificent!" The house had done its fearsome thing to him after all. The chord had been struck that linked Lewis with Avon, and with Joseph.
The sea.