Part 4: Wine and Circuses

Experimenting with a bit longer entry this time. I can’t promise they’ll stay that way, but it worked with the story beats, anyhow.

Previously in The Vines Inquiry— Frank crept his way through his childhood home, aiming to save his Mom and Dad from a break-in. Instead, he found his parents preparing dinner…for 3.

Rosalind frowned as she found the corkscrew. With a few quick strokes, rioja was gliding into a crystalline glass. 

“Must be the roads,” said Richard. “I’m sure everything will go back to normal after the holidays.” He joined Rosalind at the kitchen island, swept a glass from the rack underneath and accepted a generous pour. “Would you like some, Francis?”

Frank’s stomach gurgled. “Oh, no. Thank you.”

Richard poured him a glass. "Live full,” he said. “Love you.” 

“Me too. Live full, Francis. Love you,” said Rosalind.

Two hits, sharp arrows in the shape of kisses. Poison perfunctory darts laced with Cupid’s scent and none of his savor. 

“Live well, and love you too,” said Frank, flinging his own back. 

But flung wasn’t right, was it? Couldn’t be for how it felt to say the word. Frank recognized certain words, ones like love, shouldn’t be thrown at all. They were gifts. They should be…bequeathed. Handed out carefully, freely, with two hands that remain open, but unexpecting. Frank tried his best to remember that each time they said it to each other, but there was a heaviness to the phrase. A hard, dense lump disguised in colorful tissue paper of a revised past. He knew now, if he got too close, there were bound to be whiffs of coal. Less than an anthill of black sand; the evidence of any real hurt swept away, edited out. Forgotten.

Frank sipped. His parents’ wine was good and maybe if he drank enough, it would be tomorrow morning sooner and he’d be able to escape the Hallmark movie that was trying to trap him in town before he met a curmudgeon who owned everything and was going to sell it to make condominiums. To be fair, Frank’s family owned most of the island and he technically lived in a condo back home, so… 

“I’m the curmudgeon? So what? I’ll meet a really sweet teacher or something,” he said under his breath. 

“Pardon?” said Richard. Frank shook his head and took another sip.

“How has work been, Francis?” said Rosalind, forgetting or ignoring she’d asked the same question at lunch that day. Part of him worried if he still had a job. Hotel managers weren’t known for their ability to take surprise days off around Christmas, snowstorm or not. A grandfather clock in the corner hit the half-hour mark and chimed.

“Ah, well. That’s good. We should all get some rest. Big days coming. Drink up.” She titled Frank’s glass. He pushed her hand away as he choked on the vintage. The wine left a coating on his mouth. Grape skins clotted on the inside of both cheeks. Rosalind’s sharp jaw clicked to the side and a glinting flare shone all around her. 

“Rosa,” said Richard, his Italian an easeful sort that comes from years of manic practice to make it appear so. He massaged Rosalind’s temple and she breathed into the pressure. “Why don’t you go answer the door and I’ll serve dessert?” 

Rosalind gave a curt nod and took a gulp of wine before she walked through the door Frank had burst in. It swung closed and her footsteps disappeared. 

“I didn’t hear the doorbell.” Frank turned towards where his mother left as Richard grabbed him by the chin. His father knit his brows together, titling Frank’s head this way and that. 

“Maybe we can get your ears checked while you’re here. Take a seat.” 

Frank walked towards the breakfast nook, carrying the three glasses of wine in one hand and stumbled into his chair. He thought the hike and panic might have purged the alcohol from his system, but those few sips had reawakened his wobbly. He sat in front of the third plate his father had set while Richard pulled a pie out of the oven. It smelled like the best elements of the Fourth of July and a Christmas fire married in flawless harmony. All apples and cinnamon, but no drunk neighbors letting their secret divorce out itself just before that one neighbor who’s really into World War II sets off the fireworks. 

Alright, FINE! thought Frank. That one white neighbor.

He laughed to himself—certifying that he was a bit too drunk to be flying solo around his parents—and recounted how many shots he and Harlow had taken together earlier that day while he had complained and waited for a ferry that would never come. The pie’s aroma was heavy in the air, heavy in his head. It tore at the tendons in Frank’s mind. 

“It smells great. I don’t think I’ve had one of your pies since…” He paused. The words drying in his mouth. No, that wasn’t true. They were wet. Sticky words; with suckers like an octopus clinging to the tip of his tongue. A cluster of metastasized offal that he wished he could swallow back down, but the growing clump of flesh was already too big to even breathe around. 

“It’s been a while.” 

“Oh, I know, Francis. We haven’t had this since your brother... What story did you land on? Drowned, right? Hopefully the pie doesn’t make your vocal cords spasm and cut off your oxygen supply, eh?” 

Richard said it with holiday cheer; a sledgehammer with a smiley face painted on it.

Rosalind walked back into the kitchen, her presence announced the same moment the door swung inward. “—hat smells marvelous, Rick. I did well.”

She strode over to the nook and took her seat with a small nod to her husband. They glanced at the grandfather clock together and then turned, grinning to Frank. Reality licked at his sanity. His father’s words forced painful considerations. The working conditions in Santa’s Workshop. That they’d invited him back here to torture him. To beg him to admit a lie, again and again.

Frank had to meet this. To beat it to death one final time. 

“You made the pie, Mom?” he said instead. 

“Yes, of course. I always make the apple pie. Remember, I used to bring it to your swim meets. I know some people were against my ‘no quarters’ policy when I took over the snack bar, but they still use that system and it’s been what? Twelve years? That’s fundamental change. What do you always call it?”

“A paradigm shift?” said Richard.

“No, no. Something earthier. Grassroots! Like those parades you go to, Francis.” 

Frank decided he didn’t have the mental energy to decode whether Rosalind was using ‘grassroots’ correctly.

“You did go to my swim meets,” he said like a question. “So many of them. All of them?” Rosalind arched an eyebrow as she cut into the pie.

“Yes. Until you quit. Though it was never really going anywhere.”

“Commitment,” said Richard. “Lack of.” 

“Increased snack bar profits twenty-four percent.”

“We used to love watching you two swim. You found some good friends, too. Tight friends.”

The only friend Frank still had from high school was Harlow, who was most decidedly not on the swim team—“It looks fun but I care more about having dewy skin than successfully mimicking a drowning moth”—but his dad wasn’t wrong.

Dick had been an amazing…everything. And swimming was no exception. Frank couldn’t remember when he’d started. After Dick, surely. But he had found a good fit with it, with him. Little victories coupled with a daily endorphin high. Five-star slaps to each other’s damp backs and roaring cheers at people whose ears were full of water. Those were all good memories. When had it soured? 

“Things were nice back then. Easier. Before,” said Rosalind. “Well, before what you did.” 

Ah, thought Frank. Then. Even with the barb, he agreed. Things had been easier. It was like he’d been in just the right part of a graph—out of his shell enough that they didn’t have to worry about him clinging to their ankles at a party, but not so much that he was beyond their influence. He’d been operating at a perfect vibration for his parents. 

And good for us. For enjoying it while it lasted. 

“I think you could have gone on with that,” said Richard. “Swam in college at least. If you’d focused a bit more.”

“Yes,” said Frank, his lips buzzing enough for the mollification to slip out easy.

His fork paused partway through his slice of pie. He wasn’t surprised to hear them talk about Dick, but in a clan with a list of taboo subjects as long and varied as the Vines family tree, so many mentions of his brother’s death felt oddly bold. Vulgar in a sex way. 

“It’s been ages since I’ve thought about Dick’s recess,” said Rosalind. 

“Mom, please,” said Frank. A wooziness slapped against his tongue. “You know I didn’t… His what?”

“How his lungs filled with water. It’s the alveoli, you know? I wonder how much it hurt, or if the cold got to him first. Did you think about that while you did it, Francis? While he struggled?”

Frank glanced between them, mouth slack. Was he missing a joke? Misplaced gallows humor? 

“How many years has it been, Richard? Fourteen?” 

“Fourteen. Definitely fourteen.” 

“Ah well…” She turned towards the windows behind the nook; the trio that looked out into the conservatory. Through that thick glass, the plants withered and held the back end of the manor at bay. Frank used to have nightmares about the water rising above the sharp-edged cliffs and taking them all in a tide. 

“He always loved the snow,” Rosalind said. “He loved this time of year. I bet he’ll adore this storm coming. Wouldn’t you say, Francis?” 

Frank nodded, his mouth an arctic desert. Is that what’s different? His parents were certainly religious—weekly ceremonies to attend in town, various pre-meal rituals—but they’d never been the kind to mention dead relatives ‘enjoying’ something. That belonged more to people who thought angels were real and likely to be found in an “…In the Outfield.” People who said “gosh.” And praise be, Rosalind and Richard were not those kind. The opposite, in fact. 

As a kid, Frank had spent a week drafting a paper (hoping to appeal to Rosalind Vines, M.D. and Richard Vines, PhD’s devotion to academia) of all the evidence he’d compiled that the Vines house was most certainly haunted. 

“There’s noises in the walls sixty-three percent of nights, ashes are in fireplaces we never use and someone has been taking my strawberry-banana Go-gurts,” said Lil Frank. 

“Enough, Francis. All of that more likely points to a drifter living in the cellar and only coming out at night or when we’re out of the house,” said Richard. 

“Wut?” 

“As for the yogurt…”

“Go-gurt!”

“Sorry, Pants. That’s on me,” said Dick. He rubbed Frank’s hair and promised to sneak him in to see The Mummy. They may have been (fraternal) twins, but Dick looked old enough to buy PG-13 movie tickets since they were nine. Frank, or Francy Pants as Dick lovingly coined, had enjoyed every action-adventure minute. 

While they had dismissed his ‘research,’ Rosalind and Richard had kept the paper on a fridge magnet for the better part of a year. The thesis, Vines, Francis. “Home is Where the (Telltale) Heart Is: Nocturnal Mysteries of Vines Manor.” Kitchen Fridge, 2000., currently resided in a box labeled ‘Frank – Pre-k thru Fifth’ in the attic. The drifter who had (unbeknownst to them) visited with the Vineses last summer had enjoyed the paper and took it as a sign from the powers that be to move along. 

Back in the present, Richard and Rosalind took each other’s hands and smiled. Frank felt like he was watching them make out, and couldn’t explain why. On cue, they both looked at the clock again and Richard bounced up from his chair. 

“Wine’s not fit for pie,” he said. “Water? I’ll get everyone water.” 

Frank slouched in his chair and watched the snow fall through the conservatory’s peaked roof with his mom. A little mound was growing on the sill, salting the Lenten roses in the window boxes. Frank found the crack in the conservatory ceiling; one that looked like it had been there for quite some time, judging by the accumulated ruffage littering the metal walkway inside. 

“It’s starting to stick,” said Frank, quiet as if not to disturb the storm. “Your flowers will be okay?”

“Yes, honey. Hellebore flowers are resilient. Though this is going to be a storm. Once in a decade sort of stuff. You should enjoy it while it lasts.” She turned to look at him, grinning like a painting. Rosalind giggled to herself and winked at Frank, like he was in on a joke. 

“What is up with you two?” Richard set down the glass of water and Frank took a sip. 

“How long do you think it’ll last?” said Richard. 

“Now that’s a question.” Rosalind clinked wine glasses with him and downed a merry swig. They cackled at the transmuted family slogan with heads thrown back so hard, they might come off. Frank was caught in an almost-giggle; his laughter ignition turning over without lighting. They were acting odd, but they were safe. They were all together. Hell, they might even be happy. Finally. 

Richard picked up his wine glass and raised a toast. 

“It’s so nice having you home,” he said, barely able to speak through his laughter. Rosalind clinked glasses. Her laughter gave way to a chortle; the exhalation of a decaying corpse over any real mirth. 

“No,” she said, dead-girl giggling to herself. “No, it isn’t.” 

Frank found himself laughing alone. 

“Have your water, Francis.” Her voice had gone stern.

Frank did as he was told and felt all that had gathered on his tongue throughout the evening get washed down. He took another gulp, swallowing hard. Another. He wanted to wipe it clean; a power scrubbing of the tension and clotted past that he’d been tasting all day. A sour, dizzying ulcer burned at the root of his tongue.

Frank tipped the glass all the way back and swallowed the last drops, watching a tiny pile of translucent sediment, almost like salt, gather on the bottom curve of the glass. 

“I’m tired,” said Frank. “Tequila shots.” 

He saw Richard and Rosalind holding hands, staring happily at each other while his eyelids got low and leaden.