Margaret and I found ourselves back at our favorite café—our first visit in two years. She loved it because it was the only place with a gigantic indoor fountain and air conditioning. I liked it because no one else seemed to know it even existed. We were probably the only two people who ever came here.
Water trickled down the cups on the wooden wheel, making it spin sporadically.
"Looks like he's not coming." I sighed, watching the wheel.
"He'll come."
"How do you know that?"
"I'm his sister, he'll come."
I let out another sigh. "You're still not going to tell me."
"What is it, dear?" she said.
"His work. Last I checked, you didn't need to get a colonoscopy just to talk to customer service."
"Was that what they gave you?" She blinked.
"They were going there. Why are you not telling me?"
"I didn't know anything about it, dear," she persisted. "He hasn't told me a thing."
This wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation since the day I came to his "company", or whatever it was.
I racked my brain for possible explanations. She had no reason to hide it from me.
Even if she really didn't know anything about his work, why would he feel the need to hide it from her?
Was he working for the government and he was involved in something that had to do with national security?
Highly sensitive information should stay classified, but there was no reason for him to hide the title for his job.
I let out another sigh and fell back into my chair.
It was times like these where I badly wanted a cigarette.
Money was no issue… Whatever, I'd quit a long time ago. It'd be too much of a hassle to go through that process again.
I turned to the side to stare into space.
Margaret.
To think I was doing all of this for her, and this was how she treated me. Both of them.
Some gentle but moody jazz was blasting in the background. I tapped on the wicker armchair to the chaotic rhythm of the saxophone runs.
"So... It's been a while," I said.
"How's the girl doing?"
"Good. She often asked me about you."
"Really?" Margaret chuckled.
"She said she had a lot of fun the last time we went out together. She hoped we could go again soon."
"Aww that's nice. But you two can go on your own next time. You're getting by just fine without me."
"Why are you making that face?" She was pouting. "Isn't this what you wanted? More freedom to do whatever you want?"
Margaret got up from her chair and wandered toward the pond, like she always did.
"I'm free, Robbie. I'm freer than I've ever been." She crouched down in front of the wheel and watched the black swarm of catfish bobbing up and down inside the pool.
"How do you know that you are truly free?" I asked her. "How do you know that the you right now is freer than the you yesterday?"
"It's the feeling, dear. When you realize that you have more to choose from, that's when you know." Margaret dipped a finger in the water, the finger gently gliding on top of one of swirling catfish, feeling its glossy skin.
"What if those feelings were wrong?"
"My feelings are never wrong. They're irrational, but never wrong." She stuck a finger inside the mouth of a fish.
"Do you ever feel alone?" I said.
"I have Kevin."
Right.
…
I knew I had to ask her eventually.
Up till now she still hadn't even touched on the subject.
"Did you get the email?"
"Yeah, I read it."
"Did you sign it yet?"
An abrupt silence hung between the two of us. After a while, she gave me an answer.
"We can just stay like this."
"I'll give you half of everything."
She laughed so hard and for such a long time that she got cramps in her stomach. "Aah... Ow... Why would I want a half if I already got all of it?"
"Then what about your boyfriends?"
"Hm? What about 'em?" She turned her back on me and played with the fish. "I can date men all I want. I already know what it's like to live a family life."
"You said you value your freedom."
"I am free." Even without seeing her face, I could hear the smile in her words.
"I thought you'd want to be with someone you love."
When she heard that, she just turned around to look at me.
She was angry.
I reflexively turned my eyes away.
...
So she didn't sign.
Then Margaret suddenly stood up as if she expected someone.
Josh walked into the cafe.
When he saw me sitting in the corner, for a brief second, almost by reflex, he turned as if he was going to leave, but then he came to us anyway.
He stormed toward Margaret and berated her, "You said it's just you and me."
"Come on, Josh. He's almost invisible." She came back to me at the round glass table for some tissue to wipe her hand. "Just don't talk to him and you'll be fine."
"Thanks. How much is it?" Josh dug into his pocket for his wallet as the waiter put down his drink.
"No, I'll pay," I put my hands out to stop him but he completely ignored me, like I wasn't even sitting at the table. The waiter took the two-dollar bill from him and walked away.
"So let me get this straight," Josh leaned back into the wicker chair, the knuckles of his fingers intertwining, "this man named Robert—"
"I'm your brother-in-la—"
"—Was struck," Josh spoke right over my interjection, "by some kind of demonic curse where he was haunted by giant cockroaches."
"Was that right, dear?" Margaret said without looking at me.
"Close enough."
"And now this piece of paper," Josh said, holding up his phone with a photo of it, "with a message on it—might contain a clue to breaking the curse?"
Margaret and I both nodded in unison—it was a little extra on my end since they couldn't see me anyway.
"What kind of clue do you think it is?" he asked. "Let's hear it," he turned to Margaret.
"It could be hints as to how the curse fell on him." She was hesitant. "Or there could be instructions to reverse it."
"Isn't that a little too optimistic, don't you think?" Josh said with a corner of his lips turned upward. "Just put yourself in the head space of this supposed individual who created the curse for a second. They wanted to kill you. Why would they leave behind bread crumbs so you can have an out?"
Margaret shut her eyes for a second to think.
"Oh… I see it now," she said. "You've actually got a point..." Her voice trailed off before picking up again. "Maybe the message was not for us but for them, in case the curse fell on the wrong person, and they wanted to reverse it."
"Uh-huh." He nodded.
Margaret had another idea, "Maybe they wanted to teach us a lesson?"
"And what kind of a lesson would that be?" Josh said.
Closing her eyes again, Margaret thought long and hard for an answer. I almost wanted to get a peek of the things she was seeing in her head.
"... Give more to the poor?" she said.
"You're too kind." He laughed, shaking his head. "Any other possible motives?"
Margaret eventually came up with another answer, "Ooh, they want us to stop taking life for granted and be grateful with what we have."
"Not bad," he said.
She closed her eyes again for another eight-second meditation session.
"Oh! They want to..." Her face lit up as if she'd stumbled on a profound insight. But then she squinted her eyes. "I was going to say it's some kind of prank but..."
"It's possible," Josh said in mutual contemplation. "Keep going. We're trying to collect as much data as we can."
"Data?" I decided to chime in.
"Come on, Robert, help me out here!" Margaret reached out and shook me by the hand, preferring the view of total darkness from behind her eyelids than the sight of her own husband.
"Keep going," Josh said. "You're doing great." Obviously, by "you", he was referring to her.
"Revenge?" Margaret asked.
Josh nodded behind intertwined fingers.
"Revenge?" I said. "You think one of my clients might have something against me?"
Her face lit up as she opened her eyes. "What about the guy you refused to build a water slide for that connected the two tubs on different floors?" She stared blankly ahead as if she didn't know where I was in the room.
"He wanted me dead because of that?"
"How about that handsome man who wanted the house with no entrance or windows?"
"I gave him what he wanted."
They paid the money. I was just doing my job.
Technically, there was an entrance, just not on the exterior. The house was on elevated land so you had to enter through a hallway that led to the center of the house.
He specifically said he didn't want any windows or light wells so a ventilation system had to be installed and the AC had to be running at all times.
The client wanted his privacy and I respected his wish.
Margaret then said, "Or the guy with a twelve-story house on a one squared meter plot of land."
"Man's living the dream. Why would he have it in for me?"
Land was getting more expensive.
To someone as incompetent as I was, the fact that project came out well was an engineering feat in itself.
"Or, um, that guy who complained you kept showing up in his dreams to build new houses and then charge him money for them."
"Who? Oh, him. I think he said that as a joke."
Or at least I hoped he was joking. He was laughing when he said it.
"That's a lot of potential enemies," Josh said mockingly. "I mean, I can't blame you for that. You're a pretty big loser yourself."
"Josh!" Margaret said, looking surprised.
"Just stop it, will you?" I said to him, "What are you getting at, Josh?"
"I'm just saying, it's extremely unlikely you'll get anything from this piece of paper."
Margaret tried to reason with him, "But we have to try—"
"Like I told you, I might be able to solve a very small part of it, but it's not much."
"That's great!" Margaret said. "Maybe you can help us out with this one."
"No. I don't want to help." Then he stood up. Josh was pretty tall he wasn't slouching in front of the computer. "Can't do it. Just came here to let you know that."
He'd come all the way here just to tell her something he could've said over the phone in ten seconds.
"Josh, please," I said to him. "This is important to me. I really need your help."
"That's nice," he said. "Never thought there'd be a day when Robert himself would be asking something from me."
"We all go through rough patches in life every once a while," I tried to convince him. "I've always thought of you as part of the family. Is it wrong for me to ask this one favor?"
He turned to leave.
"Josh." Margaret said suddenly, making him stop for a moment. "As your older sister, I'm asking you just this one thing. Please help us."
He started laughing. "You? Or just him?"
She stood from her chair. "You're doing this for me, forget about him."
"What if I refuse?"
"I'm your older sister and I'm asking you. Just this one thing. Please, Josh."
"I told you, anybody but him." He turned around. "For the record, Robert, seeing you in such a state makes me very happy." He looked at me when he said it.
Not knowing how to respond, I stood up, knocking my glass over by accident. It smashed against the floor and broke into tiny pieces.
Margaret walked over to him, her back turned to me.
"... Did you really mean what you said?" I asked him.
"Heart and soul." He stared into my eyes as he said those words.
"Josh," Margaret pleaded, searching his face for any hint of uncertainty.
"You're going to have to try harder than that."
"Just tell me. What does he have to do? What do we have to do?"
He chuckled. "Maybe you just have to try to kill me."
"It's only this one thing. You gave me your promise."
"I never promised anything. You offered me a deal. The conditions were not satisfactory."
"It wasn't good enough for you?" she said. "There is nothing that money can't buy. All you have to do is give me a number."
Josh gave a sly smirk. "You think you can afford it?"
"Just say your number." Her tone was cold as steel.
He chuckled.
"What is the price of Enlightenment?"
"Huh?"
"Enlightenment, at its current price, costs 18 trillion, 786 billion dollars. Five years ago, it was only 45 billion dollars. So you're a little late."
What was he talking about?
He wasn't making sense.
"Eighteen trillion, seven hundred eighty-six billion, three hundred ninety-nine million, eight hundred ninety-four thousand, nine hundred fifty-four dollars," he said with a smirk. "Think you can afford it?"
And what kind of a number was that?
All the money owned by the top 100 richest people in the world combined wouldn't be anywhere close to that figure.
Margaret stood rigid as her fists clenched. I couldn't see her face from back here. He patiently waited for her response.
Her shoulders rose and fell as she took deep breaths.
"I can do it." She responded calmly.
No, it couldn't be right.
We wouldn't be able to afford anything past 250 thousand, let alone a million, a billion, or whatever number he was coming up with.
This had to be some kind of game they were playing, a game of metaphor or a symbolic exchange.
"I'm sure you can. Unfortunately, just like the last time we had this talk, I remember I already told you that I'm not interested. I already have all the money in the world."
Margaret didn't say anything in response.
He continued, "What I want is the truth—the proof of your conviction."
Then he turned and walked away.
"... It's not enough. You'll have to give more than that." He shook his head and snickered to himself as he left, "Much, much more than that."
I leaned down to pick up the broken glass pieces.
"Maybe I owe him an apology?" Though I needed to figure out what I'd done to him.
"Not like it mattered," I said to her. "He already said that it was unlikely there was anything useful in the paper. We'll… We'll keep looking."
The swarm of catfish on the surface squirmed on top of one another, making waves that swelled until they broke over the brink of the pond onto the other side.
She slowly turned and walked back to me.
"Margaret—what was he saying just then? It sounded like madness. And you even tried to play along and tell him you'll pay."
Hearing what I said, she looked at me.
All the tension I expected to be weighing on her face was not there. For some reason, she was smiling.
"I was bluffing him!" she said with a grin. "Josh would never take money from me. I was just trying to change his mind by showing my good will."
He sounded pretty serious. Or it really was some kind of game they were playing.
Margaret leaned down to pick up some of the glass debris. "Leave it to me."
"How? You saw how he was acting. He hated my guts."
"I'll talk him around."
"No, you don't have to." I sighed. "You've done far more than enough trying to lure him out to meet us here. Besides, there's no point in trying to force anything on him. I don't want him to hate me any more than that."
"He'll change his mind."
"How?"
Then she laughed, "I'm his older sister. He'll listen."
How was she going to do it? Reason with him? Hold him at gun point?
But then he'd said he wouldn't help even if meant she'd kill him.
"He's not the same Josh anymore," I said. "And I know I shouldn't interfere with your family business, but I think Josh doesn't hol—"
"You're right when you say that."
"Huh?"
"You shouldn't interfere with my family affairs. I'm his sister and he will listen. That's all you need to know."
Margaret put the final piece of glass on the table.
"Don't interfere."
"All right, I got it."
Suddenly she grabbed my hand, holding it gently. She looked into my eyes.
"It's fine," I said, "I get it. It's not a big deal."
I wasn't mad. We'd agreed to lay down clear boundaries from day one—and I kept to them.
If there was anything she wouldn't want me to know then I would steer clear of it.
Her gaze was still fixed on mine.
"Trust me."
I didn't know what to think anymore.
What was real? What was illusory?
Despite knowing she was forcing that smile, a small part of me couldn't help placing all of my trust in her. That was how it had always been. Like soft rays of dawn at seven in the morning, whenever she smiled like that, I just knew that things were going to be okay.
A big white lie of a smile. And yet, I still couldn't help it.
You're going to have to kill him if you want to change his mind.
When someone hated you that much, any attempt at mediation would be meaningless. If you disliked someone, they might still change your mind at some point if they could say or do the right thing.
Once you'd crossed a particular threshold, there was no going back.
I felt like I had already gone past that point a long time ago in Josh's eye.
Judging from the way he looked at me, I knew I must have done something terrible to him.
I couldn't hold back another sigh.
The two of them had always been close, ever since they were little. But something happened between the three of us.
And I was the one to blame for it.
Whatever the case, people were allowed to change. I just hoped Margaret could come to terms with that one day to save herself all the trouble.
But that shouldn't matter. In the end, even though I knew she wouldn't listen, I still told Margaret she should forget about the message thing and go make up with Josh. He could despise me all he liked, but the last thing I ever wanted was to see them arguing because of me. I wouldn't want things to fall apart between them because of something so trivial.