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We walk across the yard to the car, and he opens the door. Before I get inside, my eyes drift beyond the car through the trees to the big structure on the edge of the cliff. It’s three stories high and made out of a dark brick.
The Ellington Estate.
I’ve always wanted to go inside it. It’s been empty for twenty years, but some people say that a man lives there. A recluse that only comes out at night. No one has ever seen him before, but they’ve said they’ve seen lights flickering in some of the upstairswindows at night. The estate is surrounded by wrought iron, and the top has spikes, so even if people did try to sneak within the walls, it would probably end up in a painful experience. But for some reason, peopledon’ttry to get past the gates or walls. I’ve never heard of anyone trying.
The mystery of the estate has always been just that, an unknown mystery, and it’ll probably always stay that way.
Giving my head a little shake, I slide inside the car.
CHAPTER TEN
HIM
Ireach the bottom of the marble stairs just as Beatrice, my mother’s nurse, grabs the doorknob to the library.
“Is she awake?” I ask the middle-aged nurse.
“Yes, sir. She’s in her usual spot by the window in the library. We were just about to have lunch.”
“I’ll do it.”
She moves out of the way, and I go into the room in her place. The space is big, with two walls filled from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, and another hosts a massive fireplace. In front of the fireplace is a blue velvet chaise lounge. A black leather sofa sits in the center of the room near the bookshelves with a Persian rug beneath them. Above the fireplace is a portrait of a husband, wife, and their young son. The family appears happy, but looks are more often than not deceiving.
This was my mother’s favorite room. If I think back far enough, I can picture her reclining on the chaise lounge with a book in her hand. She always had a smile on her face when sheread, whether it was for her own personal enjoyment or when she read me stories at night as I drifted off to sleep.
I start across the room to the round table that sits in front of a big bay window. In one of the chairs sits a frail older woman, her glazed blue eyes staring at nothing out of the pane of glass.
Vivian. My mother.
“Hello, Mother,” I say, taking a seat on the other side of the small table.
She doesn’t respond. It’s been twenty years since I’ve heard my mother’s voice. It’s been just as long since she’s acknowledged my existence.
I pick up the spoon beside the bowl and scoop up some of the cioppino soup the cook made specifically for my mother. One of her favorite dishes. Or it used to be. I have no idea if it still is.
She opens her mouth when I lift the spoon to her lips, and her throat bobs when she swallows.
Eating is one of the rare occasions when my mother has any reactions to outside stimuli. She knows what food is and what her body is supposed to do when it’s put in her mouth. It’s an automatic, natural reaction, the doctors say. Like a newborn baby when he’s presented with his mother’s nipple.
I look into my mother’s blue eyes as I spoon up another bite. They don’t flicker away from the colorful flowers that decorate the back garden. My mother used to love tending to the flowers. Every week, the table in the foyer hosts a new array of bright flowers in a clear crystal vase. As a child, before my mother fell into this catatonic state, once a week, she would wake me at dawn and we would venture to the gardens to pick her favorites and place them in the vase. I’ve kept the tradition going. Every Thursday at dawn, I go to the backyard and snip a bundle full for the foyer. I always pick her favorites: yellow and purple. At first, I kept doing it, hoping that if she saw them when she was wheeled past the table where they were placed, there would besome type of reaction from her. But she doesn’t even look at them.
The gardener offered to take over the task, but I’ve refused. It was what my mother and I did, and I’ll continue to do it on my own.
After a couple more bites, I grab the glass of freshly squeezed lemonade and bring the straw to her lips. They latch around the straw and her cheeks hollow as she sucks in several swallows. I place it back on the table and spoon up another bite of soup.
“How about a stroll in the garden today?” I ask my mother, not expecting a response. “The weather is perfect and the flowers are blooming nicely.”
I’ve had countless doctors assess my mother’s condition. They all agree that there’s a good possibility that she can hear when someone speaks to her. Most agree that she actually understands what’s being said. Tests show normal brain activity, so they’re all stumped on why she’s in this state of mind.
I know the reason, and any time I’m in my mother’s presence and I’m reminded of her condition, my need to spill blood grows stronger. I want the person responsible in front of me so I can watch the life drain from his eyes as I filet the meat from his bones.
My father.
He did this to her. The night she was attacked was the same night he disappeared. Doesn’t matter that he wasn’t the one to hurt her. He was there, and he didn’t stop it. And he’s not here now to care for the wife he used to claim he loved with every beat of his heart. I don’t know what the fuck happened that night, but he was a part of it, and because of that, I’ll rip his fucking heart out.
Literally.
I was only seven at the time, but I remember the day of the attack like it was yesterday. My mother was her normal self.Breakfast with her and Father was fine. They spoke of taking a trip to the mainland in a couple of months to visit my aunt and refurbishing the sunroom in the back of the estate. After breakfast, Father kissed Mother on the lips, gazed into her eyes like she was the prettiest thing in the world to him, and left her and me in the library while he went to his office to tend to some business. Mother and I stayed in the library for several hours. She read me a couple of books before settling down on the chaise lounge and read her grown-up book. I was content on the floor at her feet with toy trucks and plastic monsters.