The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [83]
“I have no idea where your parents are,” Hobart told Annie and Buster.
“We don’t believe you, Hobart,” Annie replied.
“If they didn’t tell you two what they’re up to, what in the world makes you think that they would tell me?” he asked.
“They love you,” Annie said, the strange tremor of jealousy creeping into her voice. “You were their mentor. They would want to tell you, the one person who would respect their artistic principles enough to never tell anyone else.”
“You two have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hobart said, squinting in a way that suggested he was staring at the visible waves of craziness that were emanating from Annie and Buster. “Your parents hated me.”
“No they don’t,” Buster said, keeping his parents alive in the present tense. “They had some kind of anxiety of influence issues with you maybe, but you were the only artist they ever respected.”
“I haven’t seen or talked to them in at least ten years,” Hobart said, his face slowly showing signs of anger, his bald head turning the earliest shade of sunburn. “I mean, for crying out loud, Buster, I’ve never even met you before, their only son.”
“We don’t believe you,” Annie said once again. Buster leaned slightly, perhaps an inch or two, away from Annie, just enough that she noticed the separation, and then he said, “I kind of believe him.”
“No,” Annie said, leaning toward Buster so that their shoulders were once again touching. “We do not believe you.”
“Well, unless you want to try and beat it out of me, and I’ve seen what kind of a fight this one puts up,” Hobart said, pointing at Buster, “I don’t think we have anything else to talk about.”
Annie felt her hands snap into fists, even though she was telling herself, “Stay calm, stay calm, calm down,” and then she felt Buster’s own hand reach into her fist and slowly uncurl her fingers until they were straight and steady. “I’m sorry,” Annie said. “We’re just trying to understand what’s going on and I don’t think either one of us is very good at finding things out on our own.”
“I am particularly bad at it,” Buster admitted.
“We don’t know what to do,” Annie continued.
Hobart remained silent, his right hand worrying the collar of his shirt, and Annie felt the pinprick of embarrassment for having failed in front of an audience. And not only was she no closer to finding her parents, she had stormed into Hobart’s life and upset the carefully constructed solitude of his final years. The mere mention of Caleb and Camille Fang seemed to have tripped something in Hobart’s memory that had been, until now, successfully hidden from introspection. Annie wanted to run out of the house, jump into the car, and drive away from this scene, but she found it impossible to move, the weight of her failure keeping her anchored to the sofa.
“Can I offer you a little advice?” Hobart asked them, breaking the silence. When Annie and Buster nodded, he continued, “Stop looking for them.”
“What?” Annie said.
“There are two options. The first is that they really are dead, that something awful happened to them, in which case, this wild-goose chase is merely prolonging the grieving that follows any death.”
“Hobart,” Annie interrupted. “Do you really think Caleb and Camille are dead?”
Hobart paused, carefully choosing his response. Annie and Buster waited, feeling that the fate of their parents rested on his answer. “I don’t,” Hobart admitted. “I’ll agree with you on that much. Your parents have such a force of will, a belief in what should and should not be, that I cannot imagine a scenario where their death is something as random and as tacky as a rest-stop murder. Crashing to earth in a homemade flying machine at the air show of a state fair. I can see that. Throwing themselves into the tiger attraction at a zoo during a school field trip. Sure, of course. Setting themselves on fire in the middle of the Mall of America. Oh, yes.”
“So