The missing presence of Azrael within the house is seems to invite more of the cold into the interior, and I feel slightly sad about it. Actually, sad itself is three letters, but less than three-percent of what I want to convey. Wherever Azrael goes, he takes a piece of me with him, maybe every part, and I'm stuck motionless. He does leave something for me though, but it's only thoughts of him. He went out with Duke to grab everyone at home groceries and dinner, and the sunny bright skies permitted it. Almost as if the weather wanted him out of the house. He could use if though, as vitamin D is not something you want to lack.
Walking around the hallways of the house, I search around for a presence to talk to. It's been two days sine Christmas day, which was a nice experience, needless to say. The weather is cold and that may chill the experience, but I still enjoy it. The reason for that being the life that walks around on a steady gait and stand just to my shoulder height.
Thinking now, when I go home, and get back to my apartment in D.C., I'll feel lonely without him. The place I called home will be devoid of the familiar comfort will be as alien as it was before I moved in. It won't have him and that's going to be as awful as now, maybe more. Why can't I be near the person I like, and why won't I be able to?
Walking along the hallways more, I spot pictures and look at them. I'm just looking around when I notice that the picture that Azrael choked up on when he saw it is missing. The negative space created by its absence leaves a hole in the otherwise evenly spaced rhythm of the framed pictures.
That girl with the blond hair and grey eyes. The one with the waning smile.
Maybe though, I can look around more and find the picture and the girl together. Whoever that was. It's not that the girl is demanding my attention as I have my eyes on Azrael. But when it comes to the relevance of her to Azrael, I can't help but feel there's a crucial connection to understand.
And the last time Azrael tried to hush a piece of information, it turned out to be worthwhile to know. Azrael I can tell now when looking back at it purposefully made sure that information of how Luke, Clementine, and Duke raised him was not disclosed. The reason for that I don't know, but it does have some relation to him, and I sense that it does have to do with the awful relation with his father.
Maybe, Luke, Clementine, and Duke because Rafael was a absent parent and so led to Azrael being raised by them. That could be an explanation, or it might be something else that led to that fact and later the omission of that reality.
But for now, in order to really figure out the true reality of the strange upbringing of Azrael and the mystery girl of the missing picture, I first need to find the girl and analyze it more before I can even start to think of a reason for the connection.
From what I can see, none of the pictures seem to have the girl. The farmhouse is large and may hallways wind through the building of it, and with that comes a large number of pictures. Continuing to walk, I try to find her again, but there's nothing of that nature. No girl, and no answer.
Aside from these pieces of information though, the pictures do tell something interesting. One picture is the wedding picture of Clementine and Duke, and later they have a picture of their kids. Duke and Clementine apparently have two of their own children, and I can tell that they are so. The kind happy smiles and the hair and eye colors tell me that much. The wedding photo has me looking at something more than just the overall happy atmosphere captured. Their family picture actually contains three children: their own two children, and Azrael.
Azrael appears in pictures as a young infant and later a toddler, the grey eyes telling me the identity. And later when the two other children appear he's in some of the pictures as well.
Gradually though, Azrael seems to drift away from the family of his. When he's a toddler and a child, he stands close to people in the same picture as him. When time progresses with the other pictures, that close distance seems to grow until when in his late teens Azrael appears only in solo shots or with a considerable distance from anybody else.
One picture that highlights this in stark glaring manner is one of a barbecue. Some people who are not part of the family are there, but I can easily discern that they're not a family member. But in the assorted fifteen people is Azrael among them, and he stands away from the rest in a group photo. The closest person to him reaches out an arm straight to the side but a small space beyond that is where Azrael. He looks back at the camera with a fearful and aloof stance. I've personally not seen that kind of expression in my life with Azrael around, and seeing it is almost the beginning of a nightmare, seeing somebody treasured sad and what looks to he almost terrified.
Many of the pictures of Azrael's early adolescence to early adult life showcase this exact characteristic. Except that it seems to aggravate to the point where Azrael is only in solo shots at one point, and then nobody else is with him again in any picture. Almost as if he pushed everyone away. Created a distance and then putting up walls. The frames of the picture that circumscribe any other presence but his own typifying this exact idea I have of him.
Family pictures are present as the other two kids grew up, but it seems that eventually Azrael also escaped the smiling family picture to leave only the four of them behind. I think the older son of Clementine and Duke's has a picture of his graduation and every other family member is there, even Luke with a smiling face and a collared-shirt on. But Azrael isn't there.
Looking around more, I see that Azrael is older than the other two, as when he's an elementary school kid the other two are infants. So, maybe when the graduation picture was taken, Azrael had already departed from Alaska and was wherever. Possible university, and I'm certain that's the case. He did mention that at one point, and I remember it.
So, what these pictures showcase really is the gradual isolation that Azrael underwent. And he did that to himself, as evidenced by the pictures, where even when reached out to he pulled farther away and into himself.
Something else I do notice as well is that Rafael is not present in the early pictures of Azrael. He shows up around the period where Azrael is maybe twelve. The same time that Azrael started to turn. That could have a relation to Rafael showing up, but that seems more than coincidental, and seems to be linked to the current turbulent interactions that happen between Azrael and Rafael.
These pictures refuse to tell me more though, and soon I'm stuck standing looking at familiar pictures. Refusing anymore clues, and so I have to stand alone and slightly agitated.
Eventually, I leave the hallway and walk toward the living room. Maybe if I find somebody to talk to, I can ask them about the girl, and why Azrael alienated everyone and himself. At the kitchen counter is Shelly and on the couches is Duke and Clementine. The television is on and the two on the couches watch some weather channel while Shelly types more at a computer.
I know that Clementine and Duke are very good at remembering that Azrael wanted them to be quiet, whereas Luke and Shelly tend to be more careless about that. That's how they let me know that Azrael was raised by everybody else, and Shelly similarly let information slip.
So I walk over to Shelly at the kitchen counter, thinking she might talk to me.
"Hey, Hogarth," she says as I sit down, "did you enjoy breakfast?"
"I did," I say as I recall that we ate a few hours ago a meal of thick wide pancakes and plenty of syrup. When I was a kid I ate pancakes with a huge amount of syrup but didn't continue that when I got older. I guess I thought it was too sweet. But the maple syrup that they served me here must've been real and everything else I ate until then was fake as it tasted so much better.
"Is something troubling you?" asks Shelly.
"Well, something is," I answer as I lean on the countertop with my elbows, "about Azrael."
"What's the issue?" asks Shelly.
"Well," I say as I try to figure out a way to say what I want to but really can't figure it out, "I...I think Azrael is hiding something."
"Well," says Shelly knowingly as she tilts her head in her hand, "he is."
"Does," I start to ask tentatively, "does it have to do with a girl in one of the pictures? In the hallway?"
Shelly's eyes widen, and I think her face pales as well. She shifts in her chair uncomfortably, and I know I'm on the right track.
"Why...why do you want to know?" asks Shelly, and I'm now uncomfortable.
"I..." I say, and the reason I'm trying to find out about Azrael makes my face flush so hard, as I'm basically asking Azrael's mother for his hand, in a sense, "I like Azrael. He has me wrapped around his finger."
"Oh," says Shelly as her eyes widen, "really?"
"I do," I say earnestly, "it's...impossible for me to say otherwise. I like him a lot."
"And," says Shelly as she smiles slightly, "you think that, asking me, his mother, for something about him while also telling me you like is a good idea?"
"Well," I say as I realize that the action I'm doing is quite interesting, needless to say. Most would not follow the process I have, and I say, "I suppose that it's very strange how I'm acting now."
"Yes, it is," says Shelly with a chuckle, "but in Azrael's case, I suppose trying to go through the orthodox method of meeting the in-law parents would not be quite applicable."
"Is it a shock that I like him?" I ask Shelly.
"Somewhat," says Shelly, "Azrael has been along a long time. But I guess now I know why he brought somebody home. I did think it strange when he showed up with you, but I tried not to disturb anything."
"Oh, I haven't told Azrael exactly that I like him," I say as I shift in my seat.
"Oh, well, I haven't been honest either," says Shelly, "as technically, I'm not Azrael's mother."
Duke and Clementine who were watching the TV this whole time and were absorbed by that whip around and look wide-eyed at Shelly.
"Mom!" says Clementine across the room, "Stop there now, or it's past the far end!"
"But," says Shelly back, "Hogarth likes Azrael, so maybe we can tell him?"
"No," says Duke sternly, shaking his head once and forcefully, "it's not your or our place to tell him."
"It is mine."
We all turn and into the room walks not Azrael, but Rafael, his darker brown eyes finding mine. He doesn't sound at all mad, but seems to know that he has to talk about this. And I'm guessing that he heard enough of the conversation to get the gist of it.
"Dad," says Clementine pointedly, "Azrael has asked that we don't disclose anything."
"I'm not on any good terms with Azrael," says Rafael with a sigh, his shoulder sagging tiredly, "there's no heart inside Azrael that I can break anymore."
"And besides," says Rafael as he smiles painfully, "it's about time that I took responsibility as his father, and for what I've done."
Clementine opens her mouth to protest, but Duke puts a hand on hers, and Clementine turns to look at him.
"He's right," says Duke, "if there's anybody that Hogarth needs to be told about Azzy, it should be your father."
"But, we have to keep this hidden. Azzy can't even come to terms with it," protests Clementine.
"But if somebody who he likes can accept him with it, then maybe we should let it happen," says Duke as he nods to me, and it takes me a moment to realize that Duke just said that Azrael is partial to me.
"Azrael likes me?" I ask incredulously.
"There's been some indication of it," says Duke with a nod, "he's never brought a living soul home."
"Ever?"
"Never."
"And not to mention," says Shelly, "he only smiles when you're around. It's been so long since he smiled. There are more springs than the instances of happiness. For that little kiddo only too. He likes you, no questions asked."
"So it's really important," says Rafael as he walks over to the kitchen island and takes a seat across from me, "that you know this...stubborn secret that he can't stomach even if it's him that is the most entangled by it."
He looks over at me from across the counter top, and he stares at me for a moment.
"You ready to know?" he asks me, and I don't need any time to nod and give an answer.
"Yes."