Page 30 of The Heir
As I embraced them, my eardrums hurt from the happy squeals they made.
“Thor.”
I turned when I heard my mother’s voice behind me. It pained me to see her walk fast toward me with tears in her eyes. “Oh, thank Mother of all good, you came back to us.”
“Mom.” I opened my arms just as she threw herself around my neck. “Mom, it’s okay.”
I’d always felt uncomfortable with women crying and didn’t know what to say.
My aunt and uncle, Laura and Magni, came down the stairs, and when my mother let me go, I greeted the others.
“Didn’t you bring Linea back with you?” Freya asked when we hugged.
“No. She wanted to go home.”
“That’s a shame. I was hoping to spend some more time with her.”
“Why?” My question was rude, but it was like my brain was stuck on insulting Linea.
“She’s my friend, Thor, that should be reason enough.”
“Where were you all this time?” Magni asked in his dark, gravelly voice.
“In the Motherlands.”
Magni moved closer and studied my face with a “tsk” sound.
“What?” I asked.
“Just checking to see if you had make-up on.”
“Dad, not all Motlander men wear make-up,” Dina, my youngest cousin, insisted.
“What’s all this noise?”
We all turned toward my father’s office down the corridor and saw him standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips. He was looking at us with a stern expression. There were no tears or running to lift me off the ground, telling me that he’d missed me.
The others moved to clear the path between us and with a sideways glance to my mother I walked toward my dad.
He waited until I was close before he turned and went to sit in his chair.
“Close the door,” he said as I entered his office.
The soft click of the door felt like prison bars locking in place. Too often had I been yelled at and belittled in this room.
“Linea found you then, did she?”
“Yes. I’m not sure how she does it, but she came to see me twice.”
Looking down his nose at me, he had his hands intertwined in front of him with his thumbs pointing upward, creating a triangle as they pressed against each other. “Care to tell me what you’ve done for the past six months? Did you learn something useful at least?”
“I took time to get to know myself and consider my options. I’d say that’s useful.”
“So basically, you lounged around on a beach for six months feeling sorry for yourself and doing nothing productive, is that it?”
My dad’s words pissed me off. He couldn’t stop judging me even if he wanted to. The pattern between us was so ingrained.
“This week I bottle fed a lost monkey at an animal sanctuary, does that count?” Crossing my arms, I leaned my hip against one of the two chairs in front of his desk.
