chelsea corner (filial) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-10-19 16:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | chelsea corner |
WHO: Chelsea and Callum Corner
WHAT: Trying to understand these events
WHEN: October 19, early evening
WHERE: Corner house
"I don't understand," Chelsea said for the fifth time in twenty minutes. It was more defiant than the last four times — clarifying, curious, tentative, confused — as if she was daring her dad to say it was all a joke. "Ba ba, I don't understand. Why would you do this?" Callum Corner was weary and it showed in the slump of his shoulders, the paleness in his face, the sigh he let out. He pushed his glasses up and stared at his hands, still shaking since the spectacular scene at the office hours ago. Thirty some years at the Floo Office and this was how it ended. He remembered his daughter had asked a question. "I don't —" he began, his voice cracking. Chelsea shoved a glass of water in his face and he took it, gulping down half of its contents before he continued. He wished his hands would stop shaking. "I was worried, I think. I felt worried." "About what?" Chelsea asked. She scanned her father's face and found nothing there but exhaustion. She looked down at his hands and frowned at their movement. She stood up and paced for a moment. "I don't und —" she cut herself off in frustration. Enough with the repetition, she admonished. She didn't understand it, but she would find out. That was why she'd rushed home after the news had spread. Her father wouldn't do this and she didn't know why this had happened, but she would find out. "You said you wouldn't make any more mistakes. Victoria Mulciber hasn't come to talk to me about anything else, so I thought things were going well." "They were —" "But you opened up a Floo? At the Ministry, no less!" "I —" "That was reckless, Ba ba! It makes no sense for you to have done that, and I can't even process any kind of reasoning —" "Chelsea." She stopped pacing and looked at her father, complete with a stern look that didn't suit him. He wasn't the stern one in the family. It was her. She sat back down and folded her hands together. "I don't know why I did it," he said and Chelsea's hands tightened. "You had to have had a reason. You don't do things just because." "That's the thing! I don't know! I did it and I don't know why!" "I don't..." He shook his head. "My memory. It's been strange lately. I can't explain it." "Try," Chelsea pleaded, trying to fit this new information into what she already knew, which, admittedly, wasn't much. She knew that his memory had already made him forget things, deadlines, papers, at work; she knew that he'd been caught opening the unauthorized Floo, that he'd said it was out of concern for her; she knew that he was lucky he only got fired. But she also knew that this wasn't like her dad. He was only in his early fifties and while he was prone to forgetting minor things every now and then, like everyone else, he would never let it affect his work. She knew that. "It just feels wrong." Chelsea deflated at his response. This wouldn't help her at all. "You've been stressed," she said, an echo of their last conversation. "I'm worried about you." She pinched her left index finger. "Maybe it's better that you're not working there anymore. Safer." Her dad said nothing, and then, "And you?" With a weak smile, she reached over and squeezed her dad's hand. "I'm careful. I don't do anything." He didn't return her smile, but he clasped her hands in his. "We could go to Hong Kong. Find your aunt, your grandparents —" Both of them ended the sentence where it always ended: "Michael." They fell silent after that and the emptiness of the house seemed even more pervasive than usual. Just a few months ago, it was filled with people. The last time they'd all been together, they'd celebrated her grandpa's birthday. Michael had given him a talisman to guard against danger. Chelsea had said it wasn't reliable — she had never hoped she was wrong as she did now. "Be careful." More forceful this time: "I always am." |