The Ryman LegacyChapter 6B

By Mzyra

The plot is for spares…

In the main legacy house everybody’s very happy that little Calvin has arrived – Nicola finally has something to do with her time after so much time waiting and planning.

The same is true of both grandparents who didn’t have much to do before. Carla’s thrilled, while Birch is up to his old tricks…

B: “You like the taste of grilled cheese, don’t you Calvin? You’d like to dedicate your life to it, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you…?”

Sadly Alvin’s still very busy, but at least he finally got the job he was looking for and is several steps closer to achieving what he wants out of life. He’ll just have to hope he can make up missed time later…

And time does fly past, because Calvin quickly gets to his first birthday, in his grandma’s arms…

And he looks almost exactly like his father. And absolutely adorable in a little tuxedo. Alvin’s formal and cleanliness lives on…

Maybe it’s because little Calvin is pretty much a mini-Alvin, or maybe Alvin’s secretly a major family man, but he put his skilling on hold to teach little Calvin how to walk. Maybe he didn’t want the tuxedo to get dirty or damaged… But it was an adorable moment for all and Calvin loved it.

While Nicola turned out to be pregnant once again. A little scary to have two small children at once, but Nicola felt up to it, especially with her parents still sticking around…

Elsewhere the first member of generation 2 had reached the teen years over at Marina and Nery’s. Sara Jayapalan had decided to dedicate her life to friends; the acquisition and manipulation of, and, in particular, politics – hence her respectable outfit and hairstyle, disguising a somewhat terrifying personality…

Marina’s last pregnancy (and that is meant in both ways) lead to a little girl called Cindy who seemed almost identical to her big sister…

And Haley, who certainly wasn’t, being the only one of the five children to inherit Nery’s red hair, but also had his brown eyes like all the other kids. Haley and Brendan were definitely the easiest and sweetest children to deal with out of Marina’s brood and often amused themselves while staying out of the way of the others, who played rougher.

(Marina and Nery’s kids in age order: Sara, Seth, Brendan, Cindy and Haley)

Calvin continues to take after his Daddy, preferring the logical toys over the creative or social ones. One day he would probably bond with his father over tense chess matches in the garden…

But for now everyone was clamouring over each other to spend time with him where they could. If Calvin weren’t naturally so very sweet it would be worrying as to whether all the attention would go to his head…

Even Birch, with the least interest in children generally and with two generations’ difference between them, tried to chip in with paying attention and helping out.

But that wasn’t actually exclusive to Calvin – he frequently got phone calls from the grandkids who lived elsewhere and could chat to them for hours about who-knows-what. All the grandkids who met him loved their slightly eccentric Grandpa Birch and his obsessive love of grilled cheese sandwiches. And he was always up for broadcasting the GCS message, even though none of the kids seemed to take it seriously.

Nicola struggled to have the energy to chase after a toddler with her next baby coming so soon, but she managed to teach Calvin a skill too, though like Carla she was disappointed to not be a first word just yet. Still, several more chances for that…

One coming extremely soon as Nicola went into labour a little later.

N: “AAAAHHH! Help me Mum!”

C: “Just breathe, it’ll be okay!”

N: “Seriously? No pain killers? Not even an offer of aspirin? What is this, the middle ages?!”

A little while and an understandable tantrum later, Nicola was holding a little girl who once again had Alvin’s brown hair, but her mother’s dark blue eyes and a skin tone between her parents’ but closer to Alvin’s. Little Mia Ryman.

Across the room, the grandparents shared a moment – they now not only had a long-lasting marriage and 5 kids, but 10 grandkids too… What more could they ask for?

While Nicola learnt the difficult lesson that was not playing with a baby full of food.

N: “Now I’m covered in baby vomit. Well… That’s just great, isn’t it…?”

Luckily she was not the type to get overly angry and after a change of clothes and a shower was back in her loving motherly mode.

But she was a little concerned about the re-designation of rooms this time – Sean was a good role model for Calvin, but Kimmy wasn’t a good role model for anyone. And she’d firmly attached pictures of herself to the wall. Nicola would just have to remember that it was nature and nurture that would create a personality…

Over at Kimmy’s…

“Hey Uncle Terry, I’m hungry, will you-” He suddenly realised Terry was sleeping properly and already knew how difficult that was for him. Tom wished Terry would sleep in his bed instead, but Terry wouldn’t. Said he wasn’t supposed to and that Tom needed it more. So Tom wouldn’t wake him up now. But he was still hungry and couldn’t use the stove or anything and they were all out of cookies and crisps and stuff.

His thoughts drifted to the stairs… They were his parents, weren’t they? All the kids at school got their lunches made by their parents. He could ask nicely, maybe they would…

He’d never been in their bedroom before. There was a huge bed, but they weren’t in it, instead in their big boxes. His parents were apparently really different to everybody else’s, but he wasn’t sure why. He’d have to ask Terry later.

He went up to the nearer box. He wasn’t sure whether to knock or just lift the lid… He compromised by knocking softly and lifting the lid slightly…

Suddenly the lid flew open and a monster – his father – emerged out of some smoke, teeth bared and yelled at him.

“GET OUT!”

Tom was running away downstairs before he even heard the lid slam shut again.

When he got downstairs Terry was already awake, probably awoken by the shout and Tom’s screaming, and gave Tom a big hug to calm him down.

“I- I wa-was j-just hung-g-gry- And- And-”

“Shhhh, it’s okay. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be fine…”

Tom believed him. Uncle Terry always knew what to do, was always really brave and stuff. Tom always felt safe with Terry around. It would be okay, because Terry said so.

An hour or so later, when it had become dark outside, Kimmy came downstairs while Terry went to go and talk to Christian, having made Tom some dinner. Kimmy surprised Tom by coming to sit with him while he ate, though she never touched the spaghetti herself.

“All this snow we’ve been getting, it’s a shame we can’t go skiing, isn’t it?”

Tom didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what skiing was and he was scared he was in trouble about earlier.

“Would you ever like to go on holiday somewhere, Tom?”

“Dunno…” This seemed like an odd way to start telling somebody off, but he seemed to be frustrating her a bit, maybe she was building up to it…

“… Have you ever tried grilled cheese?”

“Once or twice.”

“And?”

Tom shrugged a little, “It was kinda nice. I like spaghetti too.”

This didn’t seem to be what she wanted to hear. “Come on, you must have something to say to your mother!”

Tom felt uneasy. He’d read books with mothers in them – mothers were meant to be warm and cuddly and bake cakes and stuff. Some of the mothers in newer books had jobs and stuff while the fathers stayed at home, but the warm and cuddliness was still there. She was grey and cold. And didn’t wear the kind of clothes mothers were meant to wear. And didn’t get out of bed until night-time. His mother wasn’t a mother.

He shrugged.

“I’m your mother! You’re supposed to- Don’t you love me?”

This was even more alarming to Tom.

Tom didn’t really understand what people meant by love. He knew it was meant to happen in families and that families were meant to be parents and children. But… that wasn’t really his family and he wasn’t sure what he was meant to feel toward his parents, but was pretty sure he didn’t feel whatever it was. Terry was the one who tucked him into bed at night, who made him food. Terry was his family.

Tom suddenly remember that he’d been asked a question. He shrugged a little.

Kimmy gave a frustrated and angry sigh, but stormed off back upstairs.

When Tom finished his spaghetti he ran off to find Terry- whose eye had gone purple.

“What happened to your eye, Uncle Terry?” He saw Terry hesitate and think for a second.

“I… fell over.” Terry rarely straight-out lied to Tom – he usually made himself believe things he doubted first – which meant he was really bad at it and Tom was also very observant, even if he didn’t always understand what he was observing.

“You’re lying!”

Terry sighed. “I know. But it’s getting on to your bedtime and we don’t have time to have this discussion now.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep until you tell me what happened!”

“Then you’re going to be awake for a long time, Tom. Come on, I’ll even read you a bedtime story.”

“But I want to know-!”

“Do you want Buffy the Vampire Slayer or not?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Then get ready for bed and I’ll be back in in a bit.”

“Okay…”

As soon as he was out of Tom’s sight, Terry winced at the pain in his eye. Luckily there had been some bandages for the cut on his forehead in the medical cabinet, but he’d need to put some ice on his eye once Tom was asleep.

With a sigh he got out his old diary. He couldn’t tell Tom what had happened – the chances were that he wouldn’t be in this state now if Tom hadn’t gone upstairs, but Terry didn’t blame him; it would have happened sooner or later. But this was causing mental conflict; how much was going to happen ‘sooner or later’? Everything had been going to be okay, but was that supposed to discount getting beaten up? Was he kidding himself, in denial? Whatever the truth, Tom had to be protected. It was why he was there in the first place. But not his fault.

Speaking of which, time for a bedtime story…

“-and then she grabbed part of the fence that had splintered off and rammed it through the vampire’s chest until he exploded into a burst of dust that got blown away in the wind-”

Terry wondered whether that would actually work. Maybe he should invest in a cross. Some garlic, holy water, pointy sticks… Would Tom mind if Terry staked his parents? Could Terry really stake his own sister…?

Tom didn’t seem to notice that Terry had stopped reading – he’d finally fallen asleep. Hopefully to good dreams. Memorable ones that would distract him from Terry’s black eye until it disappeared. And hopefully wouldn’t get replaced by another.

Job done for the night, Terry curled up on the sofa once more. He may not be certain of where his life was going, but one day at a time and it might all turn out okay. Wounds healed, after all. Maybe there really would be some kind of vampire slayer who would come and rescue them from this madness without Terry having to hurt Tom’s parents – if he even could. Tom would probably only wind up resenting him if he did.

And eventually Terry joined Tom in being asleep, dreaming of a better life. With attractive girls who killed evil vampires.

CC: “It’s just young, confused children for you, don’t worry about it…”

K: “I don’t get it – I mean, I know I don’t like or get on with children generally, but he’s mine! He’s supposed to love me!”

CC: “You know I love you-”

K: “Yes, but he’s supposed to! There’s something wrong here and I’m going to find out what it is…”

CC: “If you must, my dear…”

~~~End of Chapter 6~~~