Confounded: Part II - 14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 --==Taylan’s POV==--

Ever since Kit’s visit, Tom came out to eat again but only during breakfast, lunch or dinner. Outside those hours, he went back to his room and I wouldn’t see him all day, but he’d play music or read.

I was thankful that Kit had gotten him to eat; the little shit gotten to me with that one and I admired his tenacity, in silence of course. Instead of being the punished one, he’d punished us all by making us worried. Brilliant. Wrong, but brilliant. So this is how he’d done it with his parents, huh?

He hadn’t lifted his silent treatment, although he’d spoken to Kit. Well, once. After that, he hadn’t said a word.

“That’s nothing,” Roman told me, when I called him by the end of the first week of Tom’s punishment. “He can keep it up for weeks. Maddening, isn’t it?”
Kinda, yes. And unhealthy.
“You did what you had to. Bit severe but maybe it’ll get the message through to him. He can’t keep doing this.”

That didn’t mean I had to like it. Punishing him like that was punishing myself too, in a way. Knowing that someone was in the house but not speaking to me, probably hating me, was getting to me. Fighting is healthy; it gets rid of all the small stuff that tends to build up over time. Small grievances, annoyances. His not speaking at all, not knowing what he was thinking, why he was thinking the way he did; didn’t he realize that it was as bad for him as it was for the rest of us? We’re a family. We don’t always have to agree on everything, but we do have to talk.

“I know,” Roman said. “And you’ll be tempted to loosen the punishment.”
I’d been thinking about it, yeah. Even talked it over with Mitchell, who’d been against it. Tom had to learn a lesson. The big surprise was Kit, being in favor of loosening it.
“Don’t do it. He’ll treat you with contempt when you do. In his eyes, it’d make you seem weak.”

Mitchell had used the same reasoning and it made sense. But the whole summer? God, when I gave him the punishment, I was just lashing out because I’d been worried about him. Now I had to stay home too because of it. I didn’t dare go out, not even to the store; for some reason, I had the feeling he’d take off the minute he knew he was alone in the house. And that we wouldn’t be able to find him, then.

So I found myself doing yet another thing I really didn’t want to do; call on Kit.
Each day, for the past week, he’d gone with his dad to the office; there was nothing he could do here and there was no reason to punish him by making him stay with someone who wouldn’t open his mouth at all.

Seeing him go with his dad, clearly enjoying himself, enjoying the work, meeting all these new people and sitting in on meetings where his opinion was asked; he flourished. He knew exactly what he wanted to do (follow in Mitchell’s footsteps) and brought a level of enthusiasm to it that made me reluctant to ask him. We might have had a deal but it didn’t seem fair to ask him.

“Kit, I need you to stay home, tomorrow,” I told him, somewhere in Tom’s second week of punishment. “I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t necessary but I have a load of things I need to do and…”

“Okay,” he said, easily.
Huh? Not even a tiny hint of reluctance?
“I can work from here, if I have to. Dad gave me a laptop so I can do it from here.”

“And you’re telling me this only now?”
He grinned.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry my foot; I could have gone and done a lot of stuff last week? You’re toying with a grounding as well, young man.”

“No, I’m not. He gave it to me yesterday.”
He stuck out his tongue at me.

“Semantics. You’re grounded for life!”

“Cool. Maybe I’ll try the not-eating thing too.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Well, to be honest, your cooking leaves much to be des…”

“Finish that line and I’m making lasagna for a week.”
The one dish I always screw up, no matter how much I try; it always tastes like rubber.
“And you’ll eat it, breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

The silence that answered told me enough and I snickered.

“Jerk.” He laughed loudly at that. And then he froze as piano music suddenly began to play. I nodded to the hallway when Kit started looking around, frowning. “That’s Tom.”

“You’re kidding me, right? He’s playing that?” he echoed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
I nodded.

“Oh yeah. He plays whenever he’s upset. He’s been doing it for a few days now.”

“I didn’t know he could play; is he using my old synthesizer?” Kit asked, curious. He tilted his head a little, listening.

“Yes. There’s a lot you don’t know about him; like that he plays the piano. He just…can. Never had lessons.”
Kit got up from his chair and opened the door; the music became louder.

“Don’t go in there,” I said, warningly.

“Why not?”

“He’ll stop and I prefer this to him not eating or the total silence.”
Kit looked into hall for a while, still listening. Then he closed the door again, but not fully so the music still trickled out, and sat back down.

“Mmm, I see your point.”

“He’s good, huh? Makes you wonder how is it possible that something so nice comes from someone so…not nice?” I smiled sourly when he frowned again, but this time at me. “I know he’s my nephew but I can’t help it; this crap he’s pulling right now makes him not a nice person.”

“If you tried to get to know him, you’d find that he can be nice. He’s just different. And he’s upset.”
Say what?
I stared at Kit.

“Upset? Duh, of course he is, I know that. He can’t do what he wants to do; he’s not home. He can’t go to his friends. Me grounding him didn’t help and this is his way of dealing with his feelings. Roman told me that; he heard him playing when I spoke on the phone with him. He said that it was a good sign.”

The notes died down; then, about a minute later, a new piece began. This was my favorite; he used other instruments programmed in the synthesizer.

The first few days, he’d been fiddling with it, trying the notes and the different sounds. And then he’d just started playing. I think he was listening/copying it from whatever music he had brought with him.

“When he’s dealt with whatever he’s feeling, he’ll come out of his room and he’ll talk. At least; that’s what Roman said. So just let him be.”

“Uncle Roman doesn’t know everything,” Kit replied, a little irritated.
Wait a minute…

“What do you know, Kit?”

“Umm…Dad didn’t tell you?”
Nuh-uh!

“Your dad told me nothing.”
That seemed to clear some things up because his face relaxed.

“Oh. Well…I know why he’s this way. And trust me; it’s not that he can’t go out. Wait! Before you go off on me; talk to dad, ok? I can’t tell you…it’s not mine to tell. But I do know he needs to do it himself.”
Silently regarding my son for a while, I chewed on that. I wasn’t too happy about Mitchell not telling me but if he thought it was a wiser move to do it this way…

“Fine. We’ll try it that way. You’re sure you know? One hundred percent?”

“Yes.”
Then he laid his head on his arm and just listened.