Lack of Words

            Jacques felt his insides nearing the consistency of butter with all of the churning they were doing. The hallway leading to his father’s study suddenly seemed inordinately long and ominous. The once friendly, turquoise walls with their smiling goldfish that he had helped paint suddenly felt dark. The fish were mocking him.

            Slowly, holding the platter of cookies his mother had handed him carefully level, he made it past his door. It was painted sea foam green with silvery bubbles. On the right, he passed by the open bathroom door, the interior glowing rosily and invitingly. Then he was edging past his older brother’s door, the point of no return. The crabs there, with their sharpied in mustaches and eyebrows, looked particularly frightening.

            The door to his father’s study lay at the very end of the hallway. It remained obstinately plain, a dark varnished hardwood thing that seemed to ridicule the rest of the walls for their cheerful decorations. It was also ajar.

            Jacques paused once he was close enough to hear his father talking on the phone. He was busy. He was always busy, something that Jacques’ mom, Kelsey, seemed to conveniently forget every time he was in the house. The fact that her husband spent most of his time either locked up in his room with business, or out traveling irked her to no end. And when he wasn’t around, she spent almost no time in the house. She claimed that the decorations he’d helped paint just reminded her of him, but Jacques had the sneaking suspicion that she just wanted to spend all of the money her husband made.

            Today she had been in an exceedingly cheerful mood, however. Cheerful enough to interrupt Jacques’ homework and demand that he help her make cookies. He hadn't refused, and once they were out of the oven he figured he'd done enough. But then she’d handed him a platter and told him to run off and give it to his father with a pat on the head.

            Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he pushed his way into the dreaded study. Directly in front of him was a large window. He remembered sitting on the windowsill and day dreaming when he was younger. Beside it were large bookshelves. The room expanded to the right, and it was against the far wall that is father sat, desk a barrier between him and anyone who would approach.

            He was on the phone, leaning back in his great leather chair, legs propped up on one corner of his expansive desk. The rest of its surface was littered with papers and open folders and the monitor and keyboard of his computer.

            He glanced up as Jacques slipped in, frowning slightly. His concentration was only broken for a moment, though. Then he returned to the phone conversation.

            “Uh-huh,” he nodded. It sounded as though he was being lectured or something. Impatiently, he gestured for Jacques to approach.

            He did, platter held before him like an offering that might save him from being told off. His arms trembled slightly under the weight.

            “Um,” Jacques mumbled, ready to explain his mission, but his father held up a hand, cutting him off. The voice on the other side of the phone buzzed on. The clock hanging on the wall ticked loudly. Jacques swallowed.

            “Urrrr,” he tried again, lifting the plate a little higher, so his father would notice it.

            With great and obvious annoyance, a cookie was snatched up and slammed down on a closed folder. It crumbled slightly, shedding small chunks in fright. It needn’t have worried, though, because Jacques’ father promptly ignored it.

            Jacques waited another moment, hoping to see some sign of appreciation or at least a promise that the food would be eaten so that he could report it back to his mother, but none came. Dejectedly, and under the baleful glare of his father, he shuffled back out into the hallway, latching the door behind him.

            Just as he was preparing to head back to the kitchen, the door beside him was wrenched open and Jean stood there. His hair was sticking up slightly and he looked as though he’d just woken from a nap on one of his textbooks. He drew up short at the sight of his younger brother and all of the cookies.

            With a grin, he snatched one up, shoving it completely into his mouth. A look of bliss crossed his face, his eyes closing and his mouth turning up slightly in a smile that caused the few crumbs stuck there to tumble onto the floor.

            “Mm-mmm,” he exclaimed, ruffling Jacques’ hair. Before the younger boy could react, his brother’s hand had settled firmly between his shoulder blades and he was being guided back into Jean’s room, his cookie plate growing lighter by the minute.