Half Past Ten in the Rose Garden by grey_gazania

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Chapter 2

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We meet for lunch in a more secluded area the next day, off the main square a bit. We both want this conversation to go unheard.

 

"My parents would like to invite you to dinner next week," I say. "I was thinking in four days? That'll give you some time. You can talk to your parents, do whatever else you need to do…" Doubtless I'll be going on a similar visit to her family soon, but I met her parents a few years ago, briefly, and they seemed to like me fine. They also were obviously keen on Parmë making her own decisions, not acting to please them.

 

She nods, but doesn't speak. I take her hands, and I can feel her pulse fluttering like a bird under the fingers that rest on her wrist. "Parmë," I ask gently, "what are you afraid of?"

 

She bites her lip and looks down, pulling her hands away. "People are going to talk," she says softly. "And I don't want to be talked about."

 

"Why will they talk?"

 

She laughs, but there's no real humor in it. "Carnistir," she says, "you're a prince. I'm not exactly a princess."

 

"So? I don't have to marry a princess. Atto didn't," I point out. "Neither did Uncle Nolofinwë."

 

"But they both still married someone important. Your mother is a renowned artist, your aunt is politically connected…" She pauses, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "I'm nobody special," she says, very softly.

 

"That's bollocks," I say. "'Nobody special'? Canyanis told me the Head Archivist was so excited after he interviewed you that he just about fainted. And you didn't even have a teacher! Everything you knew then, you'd taught yourself on your own. You're smart, Parmë. And you do your job so well that your coworkers gave you an epessë for it before you were even out of your apprenticeship!" I cross my arms, tipping my head up the way Maitimo does when he knows he's won an argument. "'Nobody special,' my left buttock."

 

That gets a laugh, a real one, and some of the worry clears from her face. "You have such a way with words," she says. "All right; four days from now it is. I'll talk to my parents."

 

***********

 

The conversation sticks in my head the entire way home. I'd like to talk to Ammë, to ask her if she felt any similar apprehension about marrying Atto, but I don't think Parmë would want her vulnerabilities revealed to my family before she's even met them. So I seek out Atto instead.

 

He's in his office with the door open, and he beckons me in before I can knock on the doorframe, using his foot to nudge out one of the chairs near his desk for me. "How did it go?" he asks.

 

I drop down beside him and rest my elbows on my knees. "It went well," I say. "I suggested dinner on Arë Fanturion; I figured that would give everybody a little time to prepare. She agreed."

 

"Excellent," he says. "We're looking forward to meeting her. But this brings us back to the issue of rings."

 

"I know. And I really do appreciate you offering to craft them, Atto; I know they'd be beautiful. But I'd like to make them myself. I think who makes them will matter more to Parmë than whether or not they're technically perfect," I say honestly. "I mean, if she expected perfection in all things, she wouldn't be marrying me, would she?"

 

"Moryo…" Atto says, using my childhood nickname, his voice chiding but also a little sad.

 

"It's true," I say. "I have flaws. I'm not always very good at mitigating them, but I do know they're there."

 

He surprises me by pulling me into a sudden embrace. "You give yourself too little credit," he says. "You're a good boy — a good man. Your mother and I are very proud of you."

 

I rest my head against his shoulder for a moment, feeling his love like a warm blanket around my heart. My parents have never hesitated to tell me that they love me, but hearing that they're proud of me is much rarer. Though I try not to be, I'm usually the one who causes them the most embarrassment.

 

"I mean, if you wanted to help, I wouldn't mind— I mean, I'd like it," I say. "I know I never went much beyond basic proficiency." Neither I nor my brothers have ever had much interest in forge-work, and I think it makes Atto sad sometimes. If my parents choose to have another child, I hope he or she shares Atto's love of crafting.

 

"Of course," he says, squeezing my shoulder before letting me go. "I'd be happy to advise you."

 

***********

 

The dinner seems to come both too quickly and too slowly. I make the rings with Atto's help, succeeding on my fourth try. Ammë frets about what to serve for dinner, Maitimo does his best to assist her, Makalaurë offers to help me compose a romantic ode — I decline — and Tyelko teases me relentlessly before taking off to the woods to escape the bustle.

 

We settle on a rich potato soup, lobster — a favorite of everyone in the family — mixed greens, some of Ammë's corn-and-mango salad, and peach sherbet. The next few days are a whirlwind of cleaning, until Arë Fanturion finally arrives.

 

I meet Parmë at the halfway point, to walk with her from there to my home, and I can't help but be stunned by what I see. She's in a dress of cream and deep burgundy, the colors bringing out her dark eyes, and her hair, usually pinned up and hidden by a serviceable kerchief, tumbles loosely from her veil in a black sheet.

 

I've always thought she was pretty, but tonight she looks truly beautiful.

 

"Ready?" I ask, taking her hand and pressing a light kiss to her cheek.

 

She nods, though I can feel her nervousness prickling under my skin. She's clutching a basket in her other hand, and I peek in to see several fat flower bulbs.

 

"Grape hyacinths," she says before I can ask. "A gift for your parents. I wasn't going to inflict my cooking on any of you."

 

"It'd be a memorable first impression, though," I joke, trying to lighten the mood, but I receive only a half-hearted smile in return. I've never thought of my family as being particularly intimidating, but I suppose we are, at least for someone of Parmë's background. "Look," I say, squeezing her fingers. "Everything will be fine, I promise. My family is really looking forward to meeting you."

 

"I hope so," she says softly. But she walks with me down the road with determination, squaring her shoulders as we near the house.

 

Ammë greets us at the door, enveloping Parmë in a welcoming hug. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you, Parmacundë," she gushes, ushering us inside.

 

"Thank you, my lady," Parmë says, a little pink in the cheeks. Holding out the basket, she says, "I brought— These are for you."

 

"Please, call me Nerdanel," Ammë says. "Are those hyacinths? How lovely — I adore hyacinths!" She places the basket on the hexagonal side-table that sits in the hall and gestures for me to take Parmë into the sitting room for introductions. Those go smoothly enough — Atto, Maitimo, and Makalaurë are as warm as Ammë was, and even Tyelko manages to put on a welcoming face.

 

It isn't until we're seated at the table, soup finished and waiting for the main course, that a thought occurs to me: I'm not certain Parmë's ever eaten a lobster before.

 

That hunch is confirmed by the barely-visible furrow between her eyebrows as one is set down in front of her. It's a subtle tell, one I doubt the rest of my family picks up on, but I know exactly what it means. I can see her watching me out of the corner of her eye, so I go slowly as I crack the claw in two, giving her a chance to see how it's done. She places her own claw between the nutcracker and squeezes, and the tip soars across the table, striking Makalaurë squarely on the chin.

 

Silence falls, and her face flushes to the approximate shade of a grapefruit. "I’m sorry!” she squeaks, just as Tyelko bursts into laughter.

 

"It’s all right,” Makalaurë says, wiping his face with a napkin. He smiles gently, but I can tell he's just kicked Tyelko under the table. “No harm done.”

 

“Do you remember that dinner, Makalaurë, just after Uncle Arafinwë and Aunt Eärwen were engaged? And we were at Haru Finwë’s and he served snails?” asks Maitimo, and right then I'd swear he was sent straight from the One. "You tried to eat the shells.”

 

Makalaurë laughs. "Of course I remember. I lost a tooth.”

 

“And spat it out into Arafinwë’s wine,” Ammë says, picking up the story. "All in front of King Olwë!”

 

"Did you really?" Parmë asks, looking shocked, and when Makalaurë nods, grinning, she answers with a small smile of her own.

 

Sometimes I think my oldest brothers are true gifts.

 

Apart from that little hiccough — which I suspect isn't little at all from Parmë's perspective — things go smoothly enough, though the conversation comes in spurts and stops, and by the time we reach dessert Tyelko has withdrawn completely, only looking up once from his sherbet to shoot me a dark look that I can't interpret. But I don't think Parmë notices; she's deep in discussion with Atto over the virtues and drawbacks of various calligraphy styles, both of them gesturing animatedly as they speak.

 

She receives embraces from both Atto and Ammë at the end of the evening, and as I leave to walk her home, I think that, all in all, this was a good first meeting.

 

Parmë disagrees. We're around the corner, finally out of sight of the house, when she breaks down. “Oh, I made such a fool of myself,” she says, burying her face in her hands.

 

“Shh, no,” I said, pausing to hold her. "Most of it’s my fault; I didn’t think how you might not have eaten lobster before. I’m sorry.“

 

"Still,” she protests, her voice muffled as she leans her head against my shoulder. “That was a fiasco; don’t deny it.”

 

“It wasn't," I say. "Ammë likes you a lot. And she was thrilled about the bulbs. She really does love hyacinths.”

 

“But the rest of your family? Tyelkormo looked like he wanted to gut me and serve me to his dog! And I hit your brother with a lobster claw! I hit Kanafinwë Makalaurë! The musician! With a lobster claw! In the face!”

 

“Tyelko's just being stupid,” I said dismissively. "And the lobster thing could have happened to anyone; Makalaurë wasn't angry, I promise. He and Maitimo and Atto like you, too. It's—" I pause. "It wasn't that bad, really," I say, trying to be reassuring. "I know what my family looks like when they're displeased, and I know what they look like when they've accepted someone. They really liked you!"

 

She makes a noncommittal noise, still leaning against my shoulder, and I rub circles over her back until I can feel her returning to a more even state. "Let's get you home," I say. "It won't seem so bad in the morning."

 

***********

 

I don't see Parmë for another two days, but when we do meet for lunch again she seems much calmer, and she invites me to dinner with her family next week. But back at home Tyelko keeps up his sulking, and things build up between us until, predictably, they finally explode in a knock-down, drag-out fight, the biggest we've had in years, one that leaves both of us bruised and Ammë's favorite lamp broken.

 

It's Maitimo who finds me afterward, of course, up on the roof over Ammë's workshop. He's forever smoothing things over between the lot of us. I don't know how he does it, honestly; if I were my own brother I'd never have the patience to deal with me.

 

He hauls himself up from the window one handed, cradling something in his other arm. Once he's seated himself beside me, I see what it is — a towel full of ice. Taking it, I press it to my swelling eye, and we sit in silence for several long moments.

 

"You do know what the trouble is, don't you?" Maitimo eventually says.

 

"No," I say. "I really don't."

 

"You've grown up," he says simply.

 

"Well, that's not news," I say, feeling a rush of irritation. "My begetting day was back in the fall! That was months ago!"

 

"So it was," he says with a nod. "But it's one thing to turn fifty, and quite another to get married. It's not the fact that you're legally grown, Moryo; it's that you're doing grown-up things. I think Tyelko's having a hard time reconciling his memories of his baby brother with the young man you've become."

 

"And you, you aren't?"

 

He shakes his head and gives me a fond smile. "You're my third little brother, remember? I've had plenty of practice. Besides, she seems like a very sweet girl, and you clearly love each other. I'm happy for you, Moryo. We all are."

 

"Tyelko isn't," I mutter.

 

"Tyelko'll come around," Maitimo says, reaching over to ruffle my hair. "Just give him a little time — and try not to punch him again, all right?"

 

I swat his hand away with my free arm, but I nod and say, "I'll try."

 

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Chapter End Notes

Many thanks to Pandë for the lobster!