Vincent’s full name was Robert Vincent Faire and he distanced himself from it as much as possible. Robert Faire spent his childhood in hospitals—both medical and mental—always alone. Robert Faire believed he was insane and hated himself. Robert Faire was a burden, a money sink, an attention-seeking ingrate.

  “Robbie, must you be so difficult? You won’t even talk to your own mother?” Cassandra Faire spoke in a way that sucked sympathy from those around her. Based on the echo, she had him on speaker phone, displaying his egregious lack of filial piety to whatever audience she managed to gather.

  “What do you want?”

  Cassandra huffed, aghast, probably looking from person to person around her fishing for vindication. “Robert! We haven’t heard a peep from you in years! The only way we know you’re still alive is the occasional update from Robin.”

  “Where is Robin? Is she dead? Because if she isn’t, she’s a traitor.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Robin’s voice called from somewhere in the room with Cassandra. “Just this once, I promise!”

  “It’s your sister’s birthday this weekend,” Cassandra stated.

  “I’m aware.”

  “Come to the house and spend some time with us. She wants us all together. That’s all she asked for this year.”

  Dread curdled his stomach and stiffened his muscles. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Is that all.”

  There was a whispered exchange on the other end of the phone as Vincent’s mother and sister argued. Robin won.

  “Vincent, listen, I want everyone to.… I just have something important and want you to be here, too.” Her voice was low and the echo of speaker phone was gone.

  “Why do you have to put me through that? They probably have a straitjacket ready and waiting.”

  “They won’t. I already told them to leave you alone.” Robin dragged her words out in her signature annoying whine. “Please? You don’t have to stay all day. Just a couple hours.”

  Vincent let out a long sigh. In all her twenty-six years of life, he never refused her—and she knew it. “Fine. A couple hours. Are you still dating that deadbeat?”

  “Chris isn’t a deadbeat! He’s an artist! And he has a part-time job now.” He could hear the pout in her voice. It made him feel a little better. “Saturday. I’ll text you the time. You better not block me!”

  Long after he hung up, he stood staring at his reflection in the black screen. He’d have to cancel his Saturday appointments and probably Friday afternoon as well. He couldn’t go to this gathering when he already had a headache. He’d have to turn down any excursions Eric invited him on in the days before as well. If Eric ever contacted him again, that is.

  “Vincent…” Jill called, her voice quiet and tense with her barely held back impatience. “The tea party….”

  ~*~

  The last few days of the week flew by no matter how Vincent tried to cling to the sands of time. He hadn’t seen his parents since his grandmother’s funeral when they blamed her for his “affliction” and hoped he would get better once she was gone. It was the opposite. He only felt “better” when she was alive.

  Robin’s gift, packed in a plain red gift bag and covered with magazine pages because he forgot the tissue paper, sat on the stool by the front door. It had been sitting there for the past three hours, since that was when he was supposed to leave to arrive by the time his sister sent him. He missed brunch.

  “Stop. You’re not coming,” he called from the couch. Jill froze in the middle of her fourth attempt to sneak Cici into Robin’s gift bag. She radiated energy from the concentration and effort it took her to open the bag without phasing through it or tearing it apart. Vincent could feel it even with a pillow over his face.

  His phone vibrated in his hand, where he had half typed out an apology to his sister after her slew of angry texts. It continued to vibrate until he answered it.

  “The only way I’ll forgive you for not showing up is if you’re dead,” Robin snapped as soon as the call connected.

  “I can arrange that.”

  “So you don’t have a good reason for not being here?”

  “I don’t want to?”

  “I’ll never talk to you again! This is important, so get your mopey psychic ass over here!” The line went silent as Robin hung up. She'd never forced Vincent to be in the company of his family before.

  He groaned and dragged himself from the couch. In lieu of his usual hoodie, he at least decided to dress up. He wore his least wrinkled V-neck t-shirt under the one knit cardigan he owned and nice black slacks that didn’t have crosses, chains, or belt buckles around the legs. He couldn’t do anything about his dyed black hair, so he hid what he could under a beanie.

  “I want to go to a birthday party!” Jill whimpered. “I never get to go to birthday parties….” Loneliness filled the room, making Vincent feel even worse.

  “Adults don’t have birthday parties. I’m just going to eat dinner while my parents tell me to go see a doctor. You’re not missing anything.” He patted her on the head on his way out. He heard Gracie comforting Jill behind him as he closed the door.

  The train ride was an hour and a half. Persistent mists of rain made the world outside the windows match Vincent’s mood. Gloom followed him on the long walk from the station to the quiet residential neighborhoods made for people too good for trains.

  Altogether, he stood at the edge of their driveway nearly five hours later than his sister had asked. The midafternoon sun struggled to peek through the gray clouds above, casting an even darker shadow over Vincent’s childhood home.

  The lawn had been fully torn up years ago and replaced with reddish-brown gravel outlined with a short brick wall. His and his sister’s old bedrooms jutted out over the wide garage on the second floor looking out and over a neighborhood of mostly one-story homes. The beige paint had been redone and now had an even more fleshy tone, making the pure white outlines around the windows and along the edges look like bone.

  Shadows moved on the other side of the frosted glass window in the middle of the front door. Vincent rang the doorbell that still played an entire song on the brass pipes inside the foyer. Whenever they wanted to greet their guests or shoo away solicitors, they had to shout over the never-ending chime.

  Cassandra opened the door with a glass of wine in one hand. She looked her son up and down, the frown on her dark red lips adding to the wrinkles in her face. “Robbie, would it kill you to put on some color?”

  She wore a red and white floral blouse and neat beige slacks, adding a few inches to her height with black open toe heels that looked too narrow for her feet. Gold jewelry covered her ears, neck, wrists, and fingers.

  “The sweater’s brown, isn’t it?” Vincent stepped past his mother and into the bright entryway.

  A decorative chandelier hung from the high ceiling, its glass glittering in the light from the round window that looked over the upstairs loft. Every morning before school, searing sunshine shot straight through that window and into Vincent’s eyes when he went from his room to the bathroom.

  Cassandra huffed and strode past, her heels silenced by the long, checkered rug that led to the main rooms. Her steps echoed through the house once she stepped onto the hardwood floors of the living room. Robin and her boyfriend sat shoulder to shoulder on the sofa while Joel Faire sat in his leather reading chair by the fireplace. Even though it was June and barely below eighty degrees, a fire crackled and filled the room with suffocating heat.

  “Well, look who decided to show up,” Joel commented, staring at his son over his glasses. “You nearly had your sister in tears.”

  “He did not! I wasn’t crying.” Robin folded her arms and leaned back into the cushions. She was wearing a long, patchwork dress that made Cici’s dress look brand new. Vincent always compared her fashion to that of a medieval peasant.

  “If you wanted to see me so bad, you know my address.” He dropped Robin’s gift next to her on the sofa and sat in the armchair closest to the exit.

  Robin’s boyfriend looked between the siblings, concern in his eyes and words on his tongue that he seemed unable to let out. Vincent had only met him a few times before. Once when his sister brought him over to first introduce them, again for some art event he participated in and most recently, at their grandmother’s funeral.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  While they sat in uncomfortable silence, Cassandra busied herself going back and forth to the kitchen bringing out assorted cheeses and crackers on charcuterie boards. The smell of dinner roasting in the oven drifted in the air, reminding Vincent he hadn’t consumed anything other than coffee all day.

  “Robert, how are you doing?” Joel eventually asked. His eyes raked over Vincent, searching for something to critique. “Is your… business still going well?”

  “Fine.” Vincent caved and moved to a chair closer to the food. “Someone even accused me of being as heartless as funeral directors. You should be proud.”

  “We never offer more than the family requests,” Cassandra interrupted. “We don’t nickel and dime people who are already miserable.” She dabbed sweat from her forehead with a napkin and turned to her husband. “Joel, is the fire really necessary?”

  With a sigh, Joel waved his hand between Robin’s boyfriend and the fireplace. “Chris, do an old man a favor and close that up.”

  “So?” Vincent turned to his sister. “What is so important that I had to come here?” As he ate cracker after dry cracker, he realized he’d have to venture into the kitchen for a drink, giving Cassandra another chance to corner him.

  “How about I open your present first?” Robin pulled the gift bag into her lap, frowning at the packing. She wadded up a page of magazine and threw it at her brother. “Don’t you have a recycling can at home?”

  The frown disappeared as she pulled out a tarot deck, each card matte black with shimmering foil images, and an ornate lacquer chest with a handful of crystals Vincent found at the same flea market stall.

  The only reason he knew anything about tarot or crystals was because of Robin’s insistence he try to “expand his psychic ability” and “unlock his mind” and all sort of other nonsense. The crystals did nothing for him, but they made his sister and his customers happy.

  “I knew you could tap into the universe if you tried,” Robin whispered, smiling down at the box of rocks.

  “Robert don’t encourage this behavior in your sister, too. And Robin, stop with all that nonsense,” Joel scolded. Cassandra stared him down, eyebrows raised and rendering her Botox injections pointless. Her husband sputtered and gestured vaguely at his children. “Cassandra, how—”

  “Enough,” she hissed. Her eyes darted between Robin and her husband, conveying some kind of warning. “That is a lovely box, dear. Perfect for jewelry, I think.”

  Robin paid no mind to her parents, scooting closer to Vincent. “You already know, don’t you?”

  “Know what? I promise you the universe doesn’t tell me anything. I just got the ones that had to do with women.” Vincent glanced into the box on his sister’s lap. He couldn’t even remember what he got without the books his sister kept giving him. They were all just pretty rocks in his eyes.

  “Rose quartz and moonstone? Bloodstone? Malachite?” As she said each stone, she looked to her boyfriend. He looked more confused than Vincent.

  “…Right, well, I’m glad you like them.” Vincent stood to get his drink, taking advantage of his parents’ silent argument. “I got them at that flea market by—”

  “Okay! No reason to keep mom and dad waiting.” Robin reached into her pocket and held out her closed fist. “Chris, hurry up and come here.”

  “I thought you wanted to wait until dinner?” Chris whispered as he rejoined Robin on the couch. He glanced around the room, noticeably nervous.

  Vincent narrowed his eyes at the boyfriend. He saw no reason to wait.

  Robin threw open her fist to reveal a ring, silver with a tear shaped diamond at its center. Silver vines wrapped around the diamond with tiny green stones accenting the band. She slipped it onto her left ring finger and proudly displayed her hand.

  “Chris proposed! And he designed this ring himself!”

  You couldn’t tell me this over the phone? Vincent kept his thoughts to himself while his parents offered praise and congratulations.

  “We need to start planning right away! A spring wedding sounds lovely, don’t you think?” Cassandra cooed, holding her daughter’s hand.

  “Wait, one more thing, mom. Something I think Vincent already knows.”

  Vincent shook his head. “I don’t know anything. For once, you can call her delusional and be right.”

  “Then why did you get these stones for me?” Robin pointed at the box as if it would prove something.

  “They were in the section that said ‘good for women’ and I got those months ago!” Vincent wracked his brain to remember his thought process that day. He refused to be gaslit into believing he had more psychic ability than he already had.

  With a frustrated huff, Robin turned away from her brother and sidled up next to her boyfriend—fiancé now. “We’re also going to have a baby.”

  Joel stared, slack jawed, as he tried to process the information and Cassandra burst into tears, pulling both Chris and Robin into a tight hug.

  Vincent understood why this couldn’t be a phone call. “Did you only propose because you got my sister pregnant?”

  “No! He proposed then got me pregnant. Stop being an ass.”

  “I still don’t know what I did to you, but I promise I’m going to take care of Robin,” Chris told Vincent, absurdly stern.

  Cassandra blotted her tears with the same napkin she was using for her sweat. “Oh, the roast! Joel, help me in the kitchen. And Robert, those were supposed to be for everyone. Don’t spoil your supper with cheese and crackers.”

  Joel had Chris’s hand in a tight handshake, trying desperately to hide the fact his glasses were slipping down his wet cheeks. “Yes, right. Dinner! How long has it been since we had dinner all together?”

  Vincent sat back and tapped the arm of his chair. “Dinner wasn’t part of the agreement.”

  “Too bad. Stay and eat. You’re clearly starving the way you were going at those crackers.” Robin pulled Vincent’s beanie down over his face. “Can’t you at least pretend to be happy for me?”

  “When did I say I wasn’t? I’m obviously ecstatic.” Vincent pulled the beanie off and ran his fingers through his hair. “If it’s a girl, I know how to do tea parties now.”

  “I didn’t know you had kids.” Chris’s eyes went wide and he looked to Robin for confirmation.

  “I don’t. No living ones at least…. There’s a spirit of a little girl who refuses to pass on. She’s possessing her doll at the moment.”

  Chris grimaced and subtly leaned away from Vincent. “So… there’s a living doll walking around your house?”

  “The doll isn’t living, but… yeah. She’s learning all kinds of new tricks….” Vincent frowned, tugging at a loose thread in his beanie. The longer Jill stayed with him and the more she interacted with the world, the harder it would be for her to pass on. “She tried to sneak her doll into your gift bag.”

  “Aw, you should have brought her. I’d love to see mom and dad’s reaction to a doll up and walking around.”

  “I don’t think your boyfriend would like that.”

  Chris shook his head, having grown paler at the thought of meeting this doll.

  Robin remained oblivious to her future husband’s fear. “What about you, hm? When are you going to find a man?”

  “Please don’t. I also have the spirit of an old woman that won’t leave—not Gran—and she’s been trying to marry me off to every customer that walks in. Always saying I can’t take care of myself….”

  Robin’s brow knitted in concern at the mention of an old woman that wouldn’t leave. Even after Vincent clarified, the concern didn’t leave her face. “You should have someone, though…. I feel like you get thinner every time I see you.”

  “I’m fine,” Vincent answered through his teeth.

  For the first time in a long while, he was glad to hear his mother calling.

  A sprawling dinner of roast beef, baked potatoes, five different vegetables, and two different salads was spread over the candlelit dining table. A floral table runner split the large oak surface in half and an ornate bouquet adorned the center. Six lights hung from the ceiling, all different lengths, usually kept dim for ambiance.

  Vincent happily let his parents lead the conversation to wedding and baby planning, only offering his two cents if asked.

  No, he didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. Sure, teal would be a nice wedding color.

  What did he know about either topic?

  There was a chance he could escape the whole engagement without—

  “Oh, Robbie, speaking of little ones….” Cassandra lowered her voice, though there was no one else around. “My friend Cynthia, she recommended this doctor….”

  So close.

  Vincent thought he could avoid being the topic of conversation.

  “Mom, not today. You promised.” Robin grabbed Vincent’s sleeve as she always did before their parents sent her brother somewhere new.

  “I know, Robin, but you’re bringing a baby into the world. Your brother needs to get better first.” Cassandra spoke like the topic truly pained her. Maybe it did. “This clinic specializes in people like you, Robbie.”

  “People like me? What do you mean?” Vincent’s voice was flat, unemphatic, like he was reciting from a script he’d recited a thousand times before.

  “You know what we mean,” Joel cut in. His voice was stronger, scolding his son over something he couldn’t control. “Telling your little fortunes and giving advice is one thing, but you can't keep claiming to speak with the dead.”

  “If it makes you feel better to think I'm lying, go ahead.”

  Joel took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “It’s not about what makes us feel good, Robert. We don’t want our son to spend his life in a mental hospital.”

  Robin’s grip tightened on Vincent’s sleeve, keeping him from escaping. “Then stop sending him to them!”

  “Robin, we only want what’s best for him, and for your baby.” The concern on Cassandra’s face twisted into distaste for a split second. “You don’t want an influence like your grandmother affecting your child.”

  Vincent slammed his hand onto the table and wrenched his other arm free of his sister’s grip. “Gran was the one who helped me! Not the psychiatrists or the hospitals or the medications. Definitely not you. If you want what’s best for me, leave me alone.” He stood, evading Robin’s attempts to grab him again. “Congratulations, Robin. I really am happy for you.”

  Without another glance around the table, he stormed out of the house. Voices called after him—pleas, curses, apologies. His grandmother was right, years ago when she all but kidnapped him from that “luxury” mental health facility.

  “Those who don’t want to understand never will.”

  The sun had set and the clouds and fog hid the moon. The infrequent streetlights were the only light on the residential roads. In his haste and anger, he was sweating by the time he neared the station, despite the crisp night air. A group of lost tourists held up the ticket gates long enough for him to hear Robin calling his name.

  She ran up to him, panting and holding her side as she caught her breath. “You… asshole…. Making a pregnant lady run….”

  “I didn’t make you do anything. Don’t you have a car?”

  Robin slapped Vincent in the arm, then continued to weakly punch his shoulders, taking out her frustrations. “I told them to leave you alone. I just wanted everyone to be together for once.” She tried to wipe tears away before they fell, but the flow was soon too strong for her to keep up.

  Vincent stroked his sister’s head. The clip that had been holding her hair had fallen out at some point, leaving it to fall in messy waves down her back. “If they haven’t given up after nearly thirty years, I don’t think they ever will. It’s not like they can force me into any hospitals anymore.”

  “I’m sorry…. I’ll understand if you don’t want to come to the wedding next year.” Robin leaned into Vincent and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “Chris does believe you, though. He doesn’t think you should be committed either.”

  “He believes you. He cares about you, so he’ll go with whatever makes you happy.” Vincent rubbed his sister’s back until she decided to free him.

  “Just… come visit sometime. No matter what mom and dad say, this kid’s going to know their uncle.”

  “Alright. I don’t know anything about pregnancy or weddings, but if you need me, I’ll try to help.”

  A red SUV pulled up next to them and Chris rolled down the passenger window to call out. “Is everything okay? Vincent, do you want a ride home?”

  “As okay as it’s going to be,” Vincent answered. “I don’t need a ride. You should probably keep mom and dad from finding a way to commit me.”

  Robin looked up at her brother, a thousand things she wanted to say reflecting in her eyes. Whatever arguments she had, she kept to herself. With a final squeeze, she got into her car. “Take care, big brother.”