Unannounced Visit

There was exactly one week left until the presentation. The heavy lifting was finished, the index cards were written, and the slideshow was formatted. Now, they were just trapped in a holding pattern, waiting for Mina’s government contact to actually deliver the missing data.

With nothing left to do, Hugo had retreated to his standard routine.

He was lying flat on his back, staring at the familiar, uninteresting ceiling of his bedroom. It was four in the afternoon. Both of his parents were at work and wouldn't be back until six, leaving him with a solid, predictable two-hour window of absolute silence.

Riiiing.

The doorbell suddenly echoed through the empty house. Hugo didn't flinch. He just kept his eyes glued to the ceiling. 

If I don't move, they will assume the house is empty and leave.

Ten seconds of silence passed.

Riiiing. Riiiiiiing.

Whoever was standing on the porch had zero intention of leaving. Hugo let out a slow, heavy sigh. He dragged himself off the mattress, his bare feet hitting the floorboards. He walked downstairs, deliberately slow, his hand trailing against the wall, silently willing the person to give up and walk away. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

He unlatched the lock and pulled the front door open just a few inches.

A woman in her mid-fifties stood on the welcome mat. She was holding a clear plastic umbrella over her head to shield herself from the harsh, glaring afternoon sun. She wore a loose, breezy floral blouse tucked into wide-legged linen pants, with a pair of oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair.

The moment the door opened, she spun the umbrella over her shoulder and offered a wide, bright smile.

"Oh, Hugo," she sighed playfully, fanning her face with her free hand. "You sure took your time opening the door, leaving your aunt in this scorching sun."

Hugo blinked at her. His hand stayed frozen on the brass doorknob. His father's sister. He hadn't received a single text or warning from his parents about a visitor.

"I was sleeping," Hugo offered, his voice entirely flat.

His aunt let out a warm, echoing laugh that disrupted the hallway's quiet.

"Sleeping? At this time?" She shook her head, her smile never dropping as she smoothly stepped past him and right into the entryway. "You sure love sleeping, don't you?"

Hugo stood holding the door open, staring at the empty porch. He slowly pushed it shut.

Inside, his aunt was already humming a cheerful tune under her breath, casually kicking off her strappy sandals and leaving them in a messy pile near the wall. She dropped her woven tote bag onto the floor and stretched her arms over her head, completely at home.

Hugo just stood by the door, his hand still resting on the locked deadbolt, watching his quiet, predictable afternoon completely dissolve in front of him.

"Haa... I am alive again."

His aunt let out a long, dramatic sigh of relief. She tipped her head back, draining the last drops of ice water.

Hugo stood completely still on the opposite side of the coffee table, both hands gripping the edges of a serving tray. He was waiting for her to finish so he could collect the empty glass, retreat to the kitchen, and minimize their interaction time.

Thud.

She set the glass down on the wooden table with a heavy, careless force.

Hugo flinched. The sudden noise cracked like a whip in the quiet living room. His eyes darted to the table, silently checking the structural integrity of the glass and the polished wood beneath it.

"Why are you just standing there holding that thing?" she asked, waving her hand casually. "Come sit."

She pointed to the armchair directly across from her.

Hugo’s grip tightened on the plastic tray. His eyes flicked to the fabric cushion. The last time he had occupied that specific chair, he had been staring at his own knees while his father stood towering over him, his angry voice echoing off the living room walls for over an hour.

He didn't say a word. He just slowly lowered himself onto the edge of the cushion, keeping his back entirely straight.

His aunt leaned back into the sofa, resting her chin on her hand. She watched him settle in, a soft, unreadable smile playing on her lips.

"Nothing has changed," she commented quietly. "You are exactly the same."

Hugo tilted his head a fraction of an inch, his brow furrowing in confusion. Before he could ask what she meant by that, she waved the thought away and seamlessly shifted the topic.

"How are your mom and dad?"

"They are fine," Hugo answered.

His aunt swirled the remaining ice cubes in her glass. She wasn't looking at him anymore; her eyes were fixed on the water. "Is everything alright with your father?"

Hugo went completely still. His eyes locked onto her face, tracking the slight dip of her brow and the slow, deliberate motion of the ice clinking against the glass. The casual, breezy atmosphere she had brought into the living room suddenly felt like a perfectly laid tripwire waiting to be snapped. He kept his back rigidly straight against the armchair, carefully controlling his next exhale.

"Same as usual," Hugo said, his voice entirely flat.

His aunt stopped swirling the glass. The bright energy she had carried in from the porch seemed to evaporate instantly. Her smile didn't disappear, but it lost all of its warmth.

"Same as usual," she muttered under her breath, her voice tight with a quiet, heavy disappointment. "So nothing has changed at all."

Hugo sat rigidly in the armchair. He waited for his aunt to explain the sudden, heavy shift in her tone, but she wasn't looking at him anymore. Her gaze had drifted to the blank wall behind the sofa.

"You know, your father wasn't always like this," she said softly.

Hugo didn't react. He tried to search his archives for a version of the man that wasn't standing in a doorway, shouting about wasted time. Nothing came up.

"There was a time when he was loud. Always running around, playing like there was no tomorrow." She offered a small, sad smile to the empty room. "I guess we all were, once."

She picked up her empty glass, tracing the rim with her thumb.

"He got into a good college. But it was far. He had to stay with some distant relatives in the city." She paused, her thumb stopping on the glass. "Three months later, he was back home. Dropped out."

Hugo stopped breathing for a second. Dropped out? The man who monitored Hugo’s study schedule to the exact minute had dropped out of college?

"Nobody really knew why. Some said the city kids bullied him. Some said he couldn't understand the lectures." She shook her head. "One afternoon, our father handed him a basic job application for a local factory. Told him to fill it out. Instead, your father ran away."

Hugo stared at her.

"He only made it to midnight before he came back. Our father beat him right there in the yard for the humiliation." Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. "But that wasn't what broke him. It was the relatives."

She set the glass down. It didn't make a loud thud this time.

"He had no degree. No job. At every family dinner, he had to sit there while the aunts and uncles whispered behind his back. Wasted his chance. A dropout. Useless. They looked at him like he was garbage. And he just had to take it."

The living room fell completely silent. The refrigerator's hum in the kitchen suddenly seemed very loud.

Hugo looked down at his own hands resting on his knees.

An old memory surfaced. He was seven years old, running down the upstairs hallway with a plastic action figure, making loud explosion noises. His father had stepped out of the study.

Hugo remembered the exact look on his father's face. It hadn't been a cold, calculated glare. It had been a sudden, visceral flinch. Panic.

"Stop that noise. What are you doing? Are you just going to waste your time? Go read a book. Don't end up useless."

Sitting in the armchair now, Hugo stared at the pattern of the rug. His father hadn't been looking at a seven-year-old playing. He had been looking at a mirror.

His aunt sighed, the rustle of her linen pants breaking the quiet. The heavy atmosphere seemed to finally exhaust her. She stood up, smoothing out her blouse.

"Say hey to your mom and dad for me," she said, her voice lacking its previous bright energy.

Hugo followed her to the entryway in silence. She slipped her sandals back on, offered a tired wave, and stepped out into the afternoon heat.

Hugo pushed the front door shut. He turned the deadbolt, the metallic click echoing in the empty hall. He didn't turn on the lights.

He turned and walked toward the stairs. As he climbed, his bare feet instinctively sought out the extreme outer edges of the wooden steps, pressing down carefully to avoid making even the slightest creak. He kept his head lowered, moving through his own home exactly like a ghost.

He walked into his room and fell flat onto his mattress like a discarded heavy coat. He stared up at the blank, white ceiling—the exact same way he had for years—needing a long, quiet minute to process the data.