WHO Cathal WHEN Early December WHERE Burlington WHAT Family feelings NOTES Hi, I’m trying to remember how to actually write words good and put them into pleasing orders and not just feel sick and anxious about it. I had to re-write a lot of these sentences to make them actually sound half decent. I’ve been writing this every day for a week, but here it is now. It doesn’t affect anyone else’s characters though.
The rain had started coming down late in the afternoon, first as just a surprising drizzle but then quickly with much more assurance. By the time that Cathal made it back to the house - running with a pointless hand over his head trying to act as an umbrella - it was definitely very much raining, complete with a roll of thunder in the distance.
“Jesse?” he called out, unsure if they were even home. Cathal vaguely remembered something about a meeting with parents… was that tonight? Either way, walking towards the bathroom (and trying not to drip on the carpet) seemed to make it clear they weren’t home.
Against the small bathroom window, rain was hitting the glass and drizzling down. Cathal peeled off his hoodie and threw it into the bath, where it made a half-hearted wet slap against the porcelain. Luckily he hadn’t been far from home, and so he was ‘a little wet’ rather than ‘soaked to the bone’.
Still, he was freezing: outside it was 30 degrees and that rain was threatening to turn into snow. (Sometimes, when missing home, he thought about how it didn’t snow in Ireland. Snow sure was pretty, but, boy, was it ever a pain, especially once it really started coming down. Dublin, a couple times, had provided a few Christmas dustings, but barely enough to settle. Wisconsin delighted in stopping him driving.)
New York snowed a lot, Cathal knew that. He pictured Marcie there now, all rugged up (in something probably all high fashion) and Christmas shopping, maybe with Kaden beside her. He missed Marcie, but he also found that he missed Kaden, and that he worried about him. He hoped whatever he was doing in New York, he was finding some kind of comfort or pleasure. In this world it could be hard to find that. There were always forces at play in the background that most people didn’t see, and they were intent on messing with regular old human beings.
Back in his bedroom, Cathal changed into warm clothes and ran a towel over his wet hair. The idea of blow-drying it sounded too tiring- he just wanted to get a start on whatever he was going to make for dinner. The thought of a lasagne was appealing, and if Jesse came home at some point they’d be into that as well. They liked Cathal’s lasagne.
Warm(er) and dry, he made his way out to the kitchen to check the fridge for cheese and milk. Grand success.
From his pocket came the Jurassic Park theme song, and Cathal closed the door of the fridge and pulled out his phone. He saw his mother’s name on the screen and his shoulders slumped. A momentary bite down on his lip, a few seconds of indecision, and then he answered the phone and brought it up to his ear.
“Heya mum,” he said, leaning back against the kitchen bench.
“I haven’t caught you too late, have I?” Her voice was so familiar, so home, both Indian and Irish (just like his dad’s too) and like no one else he was ever around as a child. (Well, there’d been one other person with a voice like theirs, but that had never been a comfort.)
“No,” Cathal said with a shake of his head. “It’s just comin’ into early evening here. I was just thinkin’ about gettin a start on dinner.”
“Ah, it’s quite late here but we wanted to hear your voice.”
There was a moment of slight panic and Cathal tried to sound calm as he asked, “is everything okay over there?”
“Ah, yes, all fine with us at the moment.”
Cathal leaned back against the kitchen bench and ran a hand through his hair. He kept the sigh quiet. “Where are you both livin’ now?”
“We’ve just bought a place in Waterford,” she said, and Cathal didn’t say anything about how he didn’t understand why they always bought instead of rented when they were just going to pack up and move again. Maybe they really had convinced themselves that this time was different?
So instead he asked, “bought yourself some Waterford Crystal yet?”
Cathal could hear the smile in her voice. “Ah, I just bought the most darling vase, I’m looking at it now on the windowsill, full of winter roses.” He smiled, picturing his mother looking at her flowers. And then she asked her next question and his smile dropped away. “Are you going by Cathal still?”
“Yes,” he told her, his voice hard. “I told you. I’m not carryin’ on with all ‘o that. I am Cathal. I’m just livin’ a simple life here. I don’t want anything to do with Ravana.”
“You’re our son,” she said gently. “You’ll always have something to do with Ravana.”
“And who made that choice, ma?” Cathal asked as he straightened up from the bench. “Who chose to have me and bring me into this world when they already knew what he was like? You and dad deciding you’d be happier with another kid, even after what happened to Harmon-”
“Stop!” his mother demanded. “That isn’t fair. I loved Harmon, more than you will ever know and-”
“So much that you had another kid to replace him,” Cathal said coldly, and he wasn’t sure if it was too harsh. He thought his parents were selfish for having a second child knowing the transient and dangerous nature of their life, but…. Fuck, maybe he shouldn’t be saying it anyway. He’d left the country for that argument after all.
“You weren’t to replace Harmon,” she said sadly. “We love you, just as we loved him.”
Just as you let him be killed, Cathal didn’t say. Maybe he was cruel, but he wasn’t that cruel. Better to just change the subject, at least a little. “What name are you going by now?”
“Radhika,” said Radhika. “And your father is Devaj. Devaj and Radhika Kulkarni.”
“Radhika?” Cathal asked. “Isn’t that just another version of Radha? Won’t she be pissed at you stealin’ her name?”
His mother let out a dismissive breath through her teeth. “Pissed? The very goddess of compassion and tenderness? You know perfectly well Radha has never been ‘pissed’ a day in her life.”
His mother knew Radha much better, so he’d give her that. Cathal had only met Radha a few times in his life, but she’d always seemed nice enough. Not that ‘nice’ had to really count for anything. His parents were ‘nice’ but that didn’t stop the ways they tried to fuck him up with all the other things they were.
Nice wasn’t enough in this world. Nice didn’t count for everything. If it did, maybe he’d still be living back home.
Maybe in the lingering silence Radhika heard some of that, because eventually she said: “We miss you.” A beat. “I am surprised you haven’t chosen another name by now.”
Cathal sighed, but turned his mouth away from the phone to do so. When he brought the phone back to his face he said, “I don’t have to change my name anymore, mum. I don’t have to watch out over my shoulder.” He rubbed his eye, seeing bright smears as he did. “I’m not in the middle of your whole thing here, and so I’ll be Cathal until the day I die. That’s the man I’ve chosen to be, mum, and that’s not gonna change.”
“As long as you're happy,” Radhika said after a pause, her voice that gentle, soft one that had tucked him into bed and soothed him after a day of schoolyard bullying. “If I just know that you’re actually happy there-”
Cathal looked across the kitchen, taking in the little house he shared with Jesse. He wasn’t unhappy, not exactly. There were plenty of things here that brought him happiness, it was just… it was just that he couldn’t help thinking about what else was out there. New York, LA, Houston, Chicago: Big cities, big places with big things going on. He could picture himself living week to week in some tiny apartment in Brooklyn, barely making enough money for food and rent but also experiencing something.
But he didn’t want to say to his mother I sort of long to be starving in Boston, the landlord thumping on my door to demand the late rent. Instead he chose to say: “I am happy, mum. I have friends and my job and plenty of things to take up my time. I have a good life here, and there’s no danger either.”
“Good,” his mother said. “You deserve that happiness. I wish it could have been here, where we could still be part of your life.”
The tone got right under Cathal’s skin, but he just needed to not let it. Don’t let her do that thing where she guilts you into something. “I love you,” he told her, although there was something a little reserved about his tone. “I gotta go start dinner before my roommate comes home.”
“Oh,” she said, with the deepest sound of disappointment. “Of course.” Cathal refused to let it get to him. His parents had made their choices, even if they didn’t see it that way. You couldn’t expect your son to stay when you try to fill their life with danger and toxicity. You couldn’t put him in the crosshairs of demons and expect him to stay and play along.
Cathal hung up the phone and felt that same sense of guilt talking to his mother always brought, but the only other option was going back home. Which wasn’t actually an option.
No, the best option for tonight was to make lasagne. The best option was to cook up something cheesy and carby and enjoy it on the cold night, hopefully with Jesse. They could come home to a house that smelled delicious and welcoming, to a home where there was nothing to put any of their lives in danger.