by Rose, Willow
"I think I'll take the boys back to the suite now," I said, when I’d finished my last shrimp. "Victor needs his rest. There’s too much noise and too many people everywhere."
"Arh, come on," my mom said. "It's not too bad, is it?"
If only looks could kill.
"Well, it is to him. A nap will do him good."
"I thought we were hanging out by the pool after lunch," my mom said. "I was looking forward to spending some time with my grandchild in the water."
"Now, Ulla. If the boy needs his rest…," my dad said.
"You're always taking her side against me," my mom interrupted him. "Why is that? You're all ganging up on me. I feel like I don't really belong in this family anymore," my mom sniffled.
I rolled my eyes. She was playing the victim-card again. I wasn't falling for it. But my dad was.
"No. No. Ulla. That's not true. Of course you're a part of the family, just as much as the rest of us."
"Just because I’ve been away for a little while, doesn't mean I don't love all of you," she said, sobbing.
It was ridiculous. Her little charade was too much for me.
"Of course not," my dad said. "Emma tell her."
I frowned. "Tell her what? That it doesn't matter that she was gone for almost five years of her children's lives? That she missed some of the most important days of her grandchildren's lives? Well, I can't. Because it's not true. It does matter. It matters a great deal."
My mother gasped and held her chest. "How can you say such horrible things Emma?"
"Because it's the truth. It's how I feel. I know you're back and I love that you and Dad are doing so well. It's truly amazing, but you can't come back and pretend like you haven't been away. You can't come here and be condescending towards me because I have a son who is a little different and might not be the perfect grandson you wanted. Yes, he is different. But he is also smart and a great kid. And I happen to be doing this the best way I know how to. You can't just come here after all this time and think you know anything about how he should be treated. You don't know him, Mom. You don't know anything about us."
My mother sighed and gesticulated, resigned. "Okay. So I was gone. So I don't know much about what has been going on with you. What do you want from me? I'm trying here, Emma. I'm trying to get back in your life, but you won't let me."
"No, you're not, Mom. You're not even trying to get to know us again. You never ask about anything. You never asked me about my divorce or how it affected Victor and Maya. You never asked about how it has been for me to have to raise a kid with several diagnoses for mental illnesses, what it has been like to run from doctor to doctor only to get more confused and have no real answers. If you're so interested in us, like you claim to be, you would at least ask me how I've been."
My mom snorted again, then sipped her white wine with tight lips. I felt a knot in my stomach. I hated conflicts. I hated fights. My dad did too. He looked insecure and very, very uncomfortable. He was squirming in his chair and sweating heavily.
"Now, anyone up for dessert?" he asked. "I hear they make a killer Tiramisu. I always wanted to try the real thing in a real Italian restaurant."
I scoffed, leaned over and kissed my dad on the forehead. "Nothing for me, Dad. I need to get Victor back. Come on boys. We're leaving."
31
April 2014
I WAS EXHAUSTED FROM the fight when I got back to the upper deck. Victor had calmed down a little now and was trotting along behind me, while flipping pages in his book. I felt horrible. Especially for Christoffer, for coming into the middle of all this. Part of me wanted to go back and apologize to my mother, but the other part was happy that I had told her those things. It was, after all, the truth. It was hard for me to let her into my life again, since I was still so angry with her for leaving. It wasn't something that simply passed after a few days together. It was a deep-rooted anger that was eating me up inside.
I called Morten from my room, while Victor and Christoffer watched a show on the TV. I walked on the balcony and talked with him for almost an hour. It helped a lot. Morten could do that. He could always make me feel better.
"Thank you for being there," I said, when I was about to hang up.
"No problem. Things are pretty boring around here with you guys out of town anyway, so I have all the time in the world."
"Yeah, I wish I could say the same about this place. It's crazy. Well, I better get going. Talk to you later?"
"Absolutely."
I threw myself on the couch next to Victor, who was watching some strange documentary again on the History Channel. This time it was showing some forensic investigator working on a murder case. The story was quite macabre. It was all in English, but I sensed Victor understood a lot of it anyway. He did take English in school, so that was probably why.
I found my iPad and opened Facebook. I scrolled through my friend's updates and soon concluded nothing much was happening in their lives. I opened a Danish news site and read some news updates and soon concluded that nothing much had happened there. But there was one article that made me stop and read. It was the story about the race driver Alonzo Colombo, who was now detained by the police and accused of having murdered his wife and son on a cruise ship along the Italian coast. The article went through the events as the police believed they had taken place onboard the ship. And then the things that puzzled them. For one, they hadn't found the body of the son yet. They had searched the waters at the harbor of Sorrento with divers and boats, but found nothing. They knew Alonzo Colombo had left the ship on the day of the son's disappearance and been away most of the day. Unlike the other passengers aboard, he and his wife hadn't gone on the trip to Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii. He had taken a rented limo and gone to visit friends of his who were vacationing in the town in a place up a great hill. They had searched the house and the cliffs and waters beneath it, but found no trace of the boy.
"It's all very strange," a police inspector was quoted saying. "It's our theory that he must have dumped the body somewhere in the city to hide his actions. Maybe his wife was even in on it. Maybe that was why he had to kill her, as well, later on. But we're not giving up. We will keep on looking. The body will show up sooner or later."
Until then, they were focusing on charging the race-driver with killing his wife. But there was another detail that puzzled the officer. The fact that Alonzo Colombo had no gunshot residue on his hands or any part of his body when they took him in. He hadn't taken a shower, there was still some of his wife's blood on his shirt from the blow. All the investigation of the crime scene seemed to benefit the race-driver's explanation.
"We still believe he’s guilty," the inspector said. "There is no doubt about it. We just need to find more evidence to prove it."
I put my iPad down and looked outside. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day.
No gunshot residue, huh?
I turned my head and looked at Victor. Then I thought about what he had told me. He knew this. Somehow he knew this.
The question was, what else did he know? Did this have anything to do with his nightmares? With his sudden nosebleed? Could Alonzo Colombo be innocent? Was it possible?
I thought about the girl who had disappeared last night. If Alonzo Colombo was, in fact, innocent, then that would mean someone else had made Alberto Colombo disappear. It would also mean that that someone was still on this ship.
I got up from the couch and looked at Victor and Christoffer. "I need to go talk to someone, guys. Just stay here and watch your show."
32
April 2014
I WALKED OUT INTO the hallway. I walked to the right towards my parents' suite, then knocked on the door to the one next to theirs. An older woman opened the door. She looked weary.
"Si?"
"Mrs. Alessandrino?" I asked in English.
"That's me."
"Can I come in? My name is Emma Frost. My parents are your neighbors. I’m staying in a suite further down
the hallway."
The woman looked confused, then opened the door and let me in.
"Thank you," I said and walked past her inside their suite.
In the living room, I found Mr. Alessandrino. He was sitting in a chair, looking glum and worried.
"We have a guest, Michael," Mrs. Alessandrino said in English. "Her name is Emma Frost."
"Hello, Mr. Alessandrino," I said.
He didn't answer. He kept staring out at the moving ocean. "If she fell in the water, then we're just moving further and further away from her every minute," he said. "We asked if they could stop and go back, but they said it was too late. The coastguard is out there, looking for her and that guy. All we can do is sit here and wait. Wait for what, I ask? Wait till they pull her dead body out of the water? Wait for them to knock on this door and tell us we were right? I know she’s dead. I just know it in my father's heart. It's all in here, you know," he said, and punched his chest hard. "My heart is bleeding right now. It is hurting so bad. I'd rather jump in that water myself and look for her. I might die, but at least that would be something. At least I wouldn't be sitting here."
I felt Mrs. Alessandrino's hand on my arm. "You have to excuse Dr. Alessandrino. He was…is very close with our daughter. She has always been a daddy's girl. Please have a seat."
I sat at the dining table. Their suite was a little bigger than mine and had a formal dinning room as well.
"I'm sorry I can't get you anything," the woman said, almost bursting into tears at the fact.
"It's okay. I didn't come here to be served. I came here to see if I could be of help to you."
Mrs. Alessandrino nodded. She grabbed a chair next to mine.
"Lots of nice people have stopped by to offer their help in our time of need. But unfortunately, there isn't much we can do. The cruise-ship personnel are searching every corner of the ship, but it’s like she has simply vanished." Mrs. Alessandrino inhaled sharply to stop herself from bursting into tears. I put my hand over hers. I felt a huge lump in my throat. I thought about my own daughter, Maya, and wanted badly to call her right now. I had seen her updates on Facebook and knew she was alright, but still. I wanted to hold her. Feel her in my arms. Make sure she was still here. Watching the sorrow in these people's eyes was unbearable.
"So, how much do you know thus far?" I asked.
Mrs. Alessandrino shook her head. "Not much. She was seen in the nightclub downstairs and apparently left with some guy I’ve never seen before. The bartender was certain it was her when we reported her missing. Then, they pulled the surveillance photos and I…I simply can't understand how this can be my little girl. She would never do anything like this. It's just not her."
"And they're sure it was her?"
The woman sniffled and wiped her nose with a napkin. She got up from the chair and walked to a dresser.
"I have the pictures here. They gave us a copy. Would you believe they would serve drinks to a thirteen year-old? She’s just a child."
Mrs. Alessandrino showed me the pictures and sat down again.
The girl certainly doesn't look thirteen in those pictures, I thought to myself. She was wearing a very tight dress and dancing wildly with a guy who, in several of the pictures, had his hands on her body.
"I really can't stand looking at those pictures," Mrs. Alessandrino sobbed. "I don't understand what is going on with her. It's like she’s someone else all of a sudden."
"I know how you feel. I have a fourteen year-old myself and it felt like she changed overnight as well. Like, all of a sudden, she is this grown up who is nothing like the girl I used to know."
I flipped through the pictures from the club, then paused. "What is this?"
"That is a picture we had taken last night during dinner at the restaurant. The ship's photographer took it. It's the last picture we have of her…where she looks like herself and not this…this strange…," Mrs. Alessandrino paused. She wiped her eyes with the napkin, then sniffled. "It's the last time we were all together."
"You all look very happy."
"We were," Dr. Alessandrino suddenly said. "Who'd know that one stupid mistake could destroy such a beautiful picture? Could destroy our lives like this?"
"Now, Michael. We don't know if she is dead yet," Mrs. Alessandrino said. "She might just have slept in some cabin somewhere that they haven't searched yet. Remember, they told us that it will take them all day to go through the entire ship. Some of the people who have been out all night might still be sleeping. If she was that drunk, she might not wake up until later today. I still have my hopes up. Be the pessimist if you want, you old grumpy man. I refuse to believe the worst."
"I'm not believing anything. I know she is dead, woman. Don't you understand? I know she is gone," Dr. Alessandrino hissed.
"Don't listen to him. He always was the pessimistic one in our family," she said to me. "Not a good trait for a surgeon, right? I mean, if it was someone I loved who was going under the knife, I would like the doctor to be a little optimistic. But that was never my Michael. Not since…Well, not since he had a bad experience once. It's not something we talk about."
I nodded silently, not knowing what to say to all this. I wondered if it was a mistake to come. I had nothing to offer to these people in all their sorrow and worry. I held the Polaroid photo in my hand and looked at the family who appeared to be so happy. I wondered if they just pretended, just like we had tried to when the same photographer took our picture and everything went wrong. Was this entire trip just a mistake? Were we just pretending we were happy among each other?
"Are you alright, dear?" Mrs. Alessandrino asked.
"I'm fine. Sorry. I was just thinking of my own family. My daughter is not on this cruise with us. I just miss her all of a sudden."
"Take good care of her while you have her," Dr. Alessandrino said. "We tried everything to protect Francesca from the world, except for wrapping her in bubble-wrap. But it still wasn't enough. The one moment you're not paying attention can snap them away from you."
"Michael!" Mrs. Alessandrino hissed. "She's not dead yet."
"Yes, she is."
"No!" Mrs. Alessandrino was yelling with tears in her voice now. "No, she is not!"
"Then tell me where she is. Tell me."
"Arh, you old grumpy man," she snarled. "Just because of that old stupid story about those weird twins…Not everything in life has to end badly."
I got up from my chair. "I think I need to get back. But please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you in any way."
"That is awfully nice of you, dear," Mrs. Alessandrino said and followed me to the door. "I'm sure she'll turn up later today and then everything will be fine."
I listened to her say the words, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was losing confidence in them. She said them, but no longer believed them.
It broke my heart.
33
April 1982
THEY CAME INTO THE back of the truck in the morning, as usual. The twins were awake when the door opened and bright sunlight struck their faces. As usual, it was the two men who entered with sticks in their hands. And, as usual, they were supposed to beat up the twins as a part of their preparation ritual. They never fed them till nighttime, after the shows. Their breakfast always consisted of beating and humiliation.
The cage was opened and the two men stuck their hands in and grabbed the twins' arms. They pulled them out of the cage and threw them on the ground of the truck. The twins usually growled when someone touched them, but not this time. This time, they didn't make a sound as the men lifted their sticks and let them fall down hard on the twins' mutual body. They didn't moan in pain; they didn't snarl in anger.
They remained completely quiet.
"Freaks!" one of the men shouted.
The other one spat in their faces, then swung the stick and whipped them on their back till red stripes appeared on their bare skin.
Still, the twins made no sounds. They simpl
y stared at the men, looking like they were waiting for something, waiting for the right moment.
It frightened the men. Everyone was afraid of the twins. Ever since the gang's fortune teller had made the prophecy. In her tea-leaves, she had seen the twins kill them all. Rip their bodies apart, one after another. That was why every gypsy in the gang wanted to beat them so badly. They wanted to beat the strength out of them, beat out the spite.
Sensing how the beating didn't affect the twins on this particular morning, the men became frustrated and increased the intensity. They made the strokes harder and wilder; they swung the sticks faster, and left very visible marks on their mutual body.
Still, there was no reaction.
"Monsters!" one of them yelled.
"Beasts!" the other one joined him. "Ugly, freaking beasts. Go back to hell where you came from."
The men were sweating, soaking their shirts under the arms and on the chest. They were frustrated now. The twins could see it in their eyes. They could smell it in their sweat. The sweet smell of anxiety.
"You two are the ugliest damn thing on this planet. Nasty drooling mutants," one of them continued.
He was circling the twins, while panting for air. Their back was striped from the beating. But they refused to feel any pain. Today was their birthday. At least, they had decided it was. This was the day when they would be re-born.
One of the men was looking at the other. "I don't know what’s wrong with them today," he said.
"Mama Florea said to make them aggressive, so that's what we'll do," the other said. "We'll continue until they get angry."
"Fine by me," the first man said. He grabbed a baseball bat and lifted it in the air. With a huge roar, he ran towards the twins and swung it against them, when suddenly they reached up an arm and grabbed the bat in the air. With a strength that was barely human, they stopped it in mid-air.
The man gasped and let go. He watched with eyes wide open as they crushed the bat, splintered it into atoms in front of him, using nothing but one single hand.