“Tell you what?” Victor asked, not, unfortunately to Fazire’s way of thinking, a human who liked to be commanded.
“Tell me about your boy.”
Victor’s body grew tense and he did not respond.
“I can fix him,” Fazire announced.
“What did you say?” Victor asked.
“I can fix him. You tell me about him, what’s stopping him from giving himself to Lily, I can tell Lily and she can wish for it and I can fix him,” Fazire explained.
Fazire didn’t want to do this, not in a million years. He didn’t want to go back into his bottle and be passed along to the next greedy, grasping, vengeful human. He wanted to watch Tash grow up. He wanted to watch Tash’s daughter grow up. And her daughter and –
“You’re mad,” Victor cut into Fazire’s dismal thoughts.
“I’m not mad. I’m here for a reason. I know you humans think I’m strange and I don’t care. I think you humans are strange because you humans
are
strange. However, I’ve got a purpose in Lily’s life and I’m quite prepared to –”
“We
humans?
” Victor asked, watching Fazire closely.
Fazire nodded, crossed his arms on his chest above his belly and tilted his head back to stare down, or more to the point,
up
his nose at Victor. “Yes, you humans.”
“And what are you?” Victor queried.
“I’m a genie,” Fazire announced.
Victor’s brows snapped together, he stared and then his face got a little scary even for Fazire who wasn’t scared of anything.
“You think you’re a genie,” Victor said slowly and incredulously.
“I
am
a genie.”
“You think you’re a genie and you’re living with my granddaughter, Lily, my son –”
“I
am
a genie,” Fazire repeated.
Victor stared at him for long moments then he crossed
his
arms on
his
chest and said quietly, “Maybe we need to find you a home, someplace comfortable –”
“I have a home.
This
is my home and then there’s my bottle and –”
“Dear God,” Victor breathed, his brows coming unknitted and he looked no longer frightening but concerned.
Fazire sighed. There was nothing for it.
Therefore he floated. He crossed his legs under him and he snapped his fingers so his human clothes immediately changed to his genie clothes including the fez, gold armbands and earrings.
Victor’s concerned look was gone. His head was tilted back to stare at Fazire drifting five feet up in the air and Victor’s mouth was open.
“Sarah, Lily’s grandmother, was my first mistress. She gave her wishes to her daughter Becky, Lily’s mother,” Fazire explained, staring down at the stunned and speechless Victor. “Becky couldn’t have babies so she made a wish and I made Lily. I made her perfect and sweet, just what you see. But I wanted her to have humility –”
Fazire explained how Lily used to be, even magically floated a photo album out, an act which startled Victor and made him take two steps back, and flipped it to the right pages so Victor could see the chubby, plain, adolescent Lily, something else that made Victor look like he could not believe his eyes. Then Fazire told Victor about Lily’s wish and where Nathaniel came into this mess.
“It was the most complicated wish
ever,
” Fazire informed Victor. “Now that he’s back and it seems her wish came true. I was channelled last night and told I was nominated for Best Wish of the Century Award. So far this century, I’m the only one nominated. I figure I could win. No one has ever had a wish like
that
.”
Victor stayed mute, didn’t utter a sound throughout Fazire’s explanation.
Fazire floated closer to him and closer to the floor.
“Now,” he said softly instead of commanding it because it meant a great deal, a great deal to Lily. And even though it also could mean that Lily would use her last wish and he would go away, he wanted to give this to her, he wanted to fix Nathaniel, he wanted it for Lily and, these last few weeks, watching the tall, proud, intelligent man and how he looked at and treated Lily and his daughter, he wanted it for Nathaniel too. “Tell me about your boy so I can fix him.”
Victor closed his eyes slowly.
Then he opened them again, sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands.
Fazire snapped his fingers and he was in his human clothes. He floated low until his feet touched the floor. He walked over, sat on the opposite side of the couch to Victor and he waited.
Then Victor’s head came up and he looked at Fazire. He seemed startled for a second as he hadn’t realised Fazire had changed back but he recovered quickly.
“I can’t believe you’re a genie,” Victor whispered.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll have to kill you,” Fazire lied. This was entirely untrue but he’d always wanted to use that line.
Victor shook his head.
“Does Tash know you’re a genie?” Victor asked.
Fazire nodded.
“Does Nathaniel know you’re a genie?” Victor went on.
Fazire shook his head.
“Fucking hell,” Victor breathed.
“You really shouldn’t use that kind of language,
especially
with a youngster in the house,” Fazire admonished.
Victor just kept staring at him.
“Tell me about Nathaniel,” Fazire prompted.
Finally Victor relented. “I’ll tell you about Nathaniel but you have to give him time. And Lily time. If they don’t seem to be working it out on their own –”
“I’ll give them time,” Fazire interrupted.
“You can’t tell Lily right away,” Victor pressed.
“I won’t tell her right away.” Finally in exasperation Fazire snapped, “I’m a genie! I know what I’m doing.”
Really, what could be so bad about Nathaniel? It was obvious to anyone he was a good man. Fazire even
wanted
to dislike him and he couldn’t hold out for more than a few weeks and Fazire was really good at holding a grudge. He once went three hundred years holding a grudge against another genie. He was famous for it.
Victor interrupted his thoughts and started talking. While listening to the terrible tale, Fazire stopped thinking.
When Victor stopped talking, Fazire said immediately, “I
must
tell Lily.”
“You tell her, I’ll have to kill you,” Victor threatened and even though Fazire was immortal, he still felt a thrill of fear.
“Why would he…?” Fazire started.
“I’ve no idea,” Victor cut in.
“But it’s nothing to be ashamed –” Fazire continued.
“I know,” Victor interrupted again.
“I can’t fix that,” Fazire admitted and it was true. He couldn’t.
No one
could fix that.
Except but one person.
“Lily can,” both Fazire and Victor said in unison.
* * * * *
Nate was lying in bed, covers to his waist some papers in his hands he should have gone through that evening rather than taking his daughter and Lily on motorcycle rides.
Instead of reading them, he was thinking about the rides, Tash’s excited babble in is ear, Lily’s body pressed against his.
He was also thinking about the only present he’d ever received from anyone outside his adopted family. A present from Lily. She hadn’t bought him a tie or a watch; she’d bought him a motorcycle. No half measures for Lily, he was discovering.
Lastly, he was wondering if there were blind nuns in the Pyrenees who made tailored shirts out of rare silk and he was hoping Lily didn’t have their phone number.
Lily walked out of the bathroom wearing another pair of short drawstring pyjama shorts, these were light blue with green polka-dots and they were topped by a fitted green camisole. She was rubbing lotion into her hands and arms that made the room smell of almonds. He noticed, and was pleased to see, that she’d gained some weight in the past weeks, her too-thin body filling out into the lush curves he was more familiar with and he vastly preferred.
He watched her walk toward the bed, graceful and unaffected, having no idea that even in her pyjamas, she was more elegant than any woman he’d ever met.
She jumped up and landed on her knees at the end of the bed, sitting on her calves. Her eyes found his and she smiled at him but Nate noticed her smile was warm but guarded.
He gave up all pretence of reading and tossed the papers on the bedside table.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, correctly reading her face.
Her eyes lit with a knowing look, not surprised he surmised her troubled thoughts and asked about them. To Nate’s way of thinking, time was too precious not to cut to the chase immediately, most especially any time with Lily.
She tilted her head to the side and bit her lip.
Then, releasing it, she said, “Promise you won’t get mad?”
Nate wanted to laugh but he didn’t. Lily on the end of their bed smiling at him, however guarded, Tash downstairs asleep and exhausted from an exciting day that centred around Lily’s generosity, his parents in Lily’s old room, now the guest bedroom, with all that, there was practically no way he
could
get mad.
Of course, after what he expected she considered his irrational response to her giving him a present, a response he knew wasn’t at all irrational, he could understand her concern.
“I won’t get mad,” he assured her softly then, deciding she was too far away, he commanded in an even softer voice, “Come here.”
She shook her head, her smile fading and he felt something constrict in his chest as he witnessed its loss.
“I need to tell you something and I think I better do it from here.”
He kept silent and felt his shields go up as he watched her warily.
She took a deep breath.
“It’s all my fault,” she declared.
He stayed silent at her strange declaration.
She hesitated and then spoke again. “Everything that’s happened to us, it’s all my fault.”
He still didn’t speak, this time because he could not imagine how Lily had turned things around in her head to think that
anything
she’d done could make what had happened to them her fault.
“You see,” she went on, “these past eight years, I knew I should, I wanted to but something always got in the way but I always knew I should go to Victor and Laura and I didn’t.”
Finally he understood her worry. His shields went down and he broke his silence. “Lily, darling, come here.”
She shook her head again, her red-gold hair brushing her shoulder.
“I need you to know, to say this. Nate, I couldn’t afford it. I could have called them but what do you say? I was ill, at first, but that’s no excuse. I mean, I got better then it was
years
–”
“Lily –” he interrupted but she was on a roll and getting agitated. He knew this because she jumped off the bed and began pacing.
“I wrote them letters, dozens of them, trying to explain. I thought I could do it better by writing it. I’m a good writer, a long time ago, I even won awards. I never told you that.” She stopped and looked at him as if shy of this admission then she brought up her hands and her fingers started to fidget, clenching and unclenching. “If I’d gone to them, if I’d called, just sent one letter, I can’t even understand myself why I didn’t send –”
Nate decided this was enough. He threw off the covers, knifed off the bed and advanced on her. He was not about to allow her to berate herself for Danielle and Jeffrey’s deception, not after what she’d been through.
She didn’t retreat but when his arms went around her, she kept her hands between them and pressed them against his chest. She tilted her head back and looked at him, her eyes were tormented. At the sight, he felt fury blaze through him but, as he’d promised her, he kept it firmly under control.
She went on quietly. “I thought they knew about my parents dying, I thought they knew and they didn’t care about me enough to –”
His arms tightened but her hands pushed against him to keep some distance.
“Lily, I don’t want to hear –” he started.
She shook her head again. “You have to know that’s what I thought, even though it sounds awful. I thought they might be like Jeff and Danielle, I know it wasn’t right but part of me –”
He saw the tears spring to her eyes and he decided it was a good thing he’d likely never see his sister and brother again for he would not be responsible for what he did.
“I need to explain to them, I need to apologise,” Lily went on.
His arms went from around her and he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling her hands from between their bodies, he gently manoeuvred her against the length of him. When he released her, she slid her arms around his waist and leaned into him and he framed her face with his hands.
“Let it be,” he said softly.
“I can’t,” she replied. “They have to be wondering. Nate, it was seven years I had their granddaughter and I haven’t even told you about my wish yet. When I do, you’ll understand, it’s all my fault –”