She stared at Joe, whose hair, like hers, was still standing on end. Suddenly, it fell back down and the roaring around them instantly disappeared, leaving an echoing emptiness, along with a multitude of wavelengths swirling down through the crystal monument.
“What just happened?”
Rickards rose to his feet, pulling her up next to him.
“That was…incredible,” Angela said and heard her own words echoing as if in a bubble. “Do you hear that?”
“I do.”
“What did we just witness?”
“I have no idea.” Rickards raised both hands and stared at them. “But I can still feel it. Like it went through us.”
She peered at her own two hands. “Me too.” She lowered them and stared back at the giant spire. “Mike also said that enough energy could affect time-—”
She stopped talking when she noticed Rickards’ eyes staring curiously past and behind her.
When Angela turned, she was startled to see a figure on the opposite side of the monument, quietly walking toward them.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t know.”
At first glance, they both thought it was one of Urcaguary’s group. But the figure had white skin and was dressed in normal clothing. Long blond hair hung down around the person’s shoulders, and as the figure grew closer, they could see it was a woman. Younger with clear, youthful skin, probably in her thirties. Perhaps even her twenties.
She continued forward, one smooth step at a time, until stopping to examine the giant spire between them. It was not until after several seconds that the woman looked up and finally seemed to notice them.
When the woman faced them directly, Angela suddenly gasped aloud and stiffened.
Joe turned to see her with eyes wide open.
“You okay?”
She didn’t answer.
“Angela?”
She didn’t move. Not even a slight twitch. Instead, she remained frozen, staring at the woman with her mouth open.
“Angela?” Rickards looked back and forth between them. “Who is it?”
She grasped Rickards’ arm as she spoke.
“It’s…my mother.”
84
“What?!”
“It…is…my…mother.”
A dumbfounded Rickards blinked at her, trying to process what he thought he just heard. He looked back at the other woman, who had now stopped and was peering at Angela with a slow-forming curiosity. It took several long seconds for the look in her eyes to change from curiosity to recognition. Until her own eyes widened.
Angela’s breathing became short and erratic. Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s…not…possible.”
Rickards didn’t have time to reply. The woman was now walking toward them faster, her face just as shocked as Angela’s. When she reached them, she stopped.
“A-Angela?” she whispered slowly.
The woman’s entire face began to tremble and Angela broke into tears. “Mom?”
They both inched forward in disbelief, reaching out breathlessly, stunned when they touched each other’s skin. They stood that way for several seconds until they suddenly lunged into each other’s arms.
It was a long, astonishing embrace, before Angela pulled back to look again, crying just as her mother was. “H-how is this possible?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking around the canyon walls. “What is this place?”
Angela didn’t know how to respond. “Bolivia?”
Her mother stepped back, allowing her hands to slide down into Angela’s. “I don’t understand it.”
Angela could only shake her head. “Neither do I…”
She didn’t have to finish. Her mother let it go and merely stared at her daughter. At her eyes. Her hair. Her mouth. She reached and traced Angela’s cheek. “I don’t understand this…but I knew it was you. When I saw you…I just knew.”
“I’m…sorry,” Angela cried, sobbing. “I am so sorry.”
Her mother, still dazed, looked at her as if puzzled. “For what?”
Angela tried to speak. “For causing you to…”
Her mother cut her off. “Oh my child! You didn’t do anything.”
“But I…”
Her mother frowned and pulled Angela into her, pressing her cheek against her daughter’s. “You didn’t cause anything. At all. It was not your fault. We just lost each other. That’s all.” She leaned back to look at her. “My God, is that what you thought?”
Unable to speak, Angela simply nodded.
“You blamed yourself when I was the one who left you.” She reached up and stroked Angela’s hair. “It wasn’t your fault. Believe me. Sometimes that’s just how things happen. And I’m so sorry you blamed yourself.” Her mother began crying again. “I thought you would understand.”
Angela wiped tears from her eyes.
“I am so very sorry,” her mother wept. “I left you alone. I left you all alone and blaming yourself for me.”
“I didn’t know what to think,” Angela stuttered. “I was only a child.”
“Look at me,” her mother said and stared into her eyes. “It was not you. It was not you. It was just a condition. An illness I didn’t even know I had. And something that would have happened anyway.”
“But—”
“Believe me,” her mother said. “Believe me. It would have happened anyway. Besides, it doesn’t matter. Not now. What matters is that we’re here. We have each other. I don’t know how…but we’re together.”
Her statement pried Rickards from his state of shock like a crowbar—a truly incomprehensible shock, leaving him speechless from head to toe at what he was witnessing. Unable to believe what was taking place, as though it were some extraordinary illusion.
Until Angela’s mother spoke those words. All that matters is that we have each other. Rickards blinked and remembered what Mike Morton had said. Something he had translated from Urcaguary. Never for the same amount of time.
Rickards had no idea what was happening or what Mike Morton’s bizarre entangled energy was doing. But something in Angela’s mother’s words caused a sudden churn in his stomach that told him it would not last.
Again, Angela wiped her streaming tears away. “It’s…real.”
Her mother smiled in awe. “It is.”
“I can touch you,” she said, gripping both hands. “And hold you. But how?”
“I don’t know.”
“There are so many things I want to tell you. So many things—”
“Then tell me. Tell me everything. Because I have missed you so much, from that very first moment.”
Angela beamed through her tears. “I’m an archaeologist. Like Grandpa. And a teacher.”
Her mother beamed. “I love that.”
“They raised me. Grandma and Grandpa. And it was…” she said, pausing. “It was good.”
“I am so glad.”
“And Uncle Roger! Uncle Roger was alive! After the war. Grandpa was right.”
“What?”
“Grandpa was right all along. It’s true!”
A hint of regret appeared in her mother’s eyes as she tried to make sense out of it. “I didn’t believe him.”
“Neither did I. But he was right. Uncle Roger was alive. It’s why we’re here.”
Her mother looked around, still enthralled. “But I still don’t understand where we are.”
“I don’t either,” said Angela. “And I don’t want to understand it. I’m here, with you. It’s all that matters. And I’m never leaving!”
At that, Rickards suddenly cleared his throat. “Uh, Angela.”
When neither seemed to hear him, he repeated, louder.
“Angela?”
She turned, finally, almost startled. “Oh my God, Mom, this is Joe! Joe Rickards. He helped me find this place.”
She smiled warmly. “Hello, Joe.”
He smiled politely. “Listen, Angela. I don’t know what’s happening here. At al
l. But…I don’t think it’s permanent.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember what the woman said. It happens once, and you don’t know for how long.”
Angela’s eyes shifted, gradually, from exhilaration to nervousness. She turned back to her mother. “No. No. It is permanent. And I’m not leaving.” She shook her head fervently. “I’ve wished my whole life for this. I’ve dreamt of it so many times.”
She stopped listening to her own words as they faded and she turned back to Joe.
He spoke reluctantly. “It’s already impossible as it is.”
“No,” she repeated defiantly. “It’s real. As long as I don’t leave.” She gripped her mother’s hands tighter. But this time something didn’t feel the same. Her mother’s hands felt softer. It was slight, but noticeable.
“Mom?”
Her mother’s eyes softened in front of her. “Something’s changing.”
“No. NO! Grab tighter!”
“Angela.”
“Tighter!”
“Angela,” her mother whispered again.
“What?”
“Listen to me…”
“No. No. Don’t say it. Don’t say anything!”
“Angela,” her mother whispered. “Look at me.”
Angela’s eyes began filling with tears again. “Mom, no!”
“Listen to me. Listen carefully,” she said, looking deeply into her daughter’s eyes. “I…am proud of you.”
Angela began sobbing uncontrollably.
“I am SO proud of you,” her mother said. “For becoming the woman you are. And,” Her mother paused, looking around. “For giving me this. I don’t know how…but I could not have asked for anything more than to hold you again. To hold my one and only daughter and tell her how much I love her.”
“Mom, please!” wept Angela. Her mother’s hands were getting even softer. “Please just hold on!”
“I would if I could. Believe me. But being apart is not the worst thing. It’s losing someone without being sure they know how you feel. How much you really love them. More than your words can describe. And how much they are part of you.”
“Mom!”
“I love you, Angela.” Her mother grinned. “I always have and always will. That you can keep with you, permanently. I’m proud of you, and I love you. Forever.”
Angela covered her mouth with her hand, unable to control her crying. Tears flowed down her face. “I love you, Mom. I love you so much.”
“Now I know how beautiful you are. Inside and out. And we will always be bound to one another.” Her face grew faint as she looked back at the monument. “This is proof.” She reached up and brushed the tears from Angela’s cheek, only to find her hand pass through her daughter’s skin. “Don’t be afraid of the future, sweetheart. Be afraid of missing the present.”
“I love you!”
“I know, my baby girl.”
Angela’s body was still shaking when her mother blew her a kiss and gently, gradually, faded away, leaving her standing and sobbing with Joe behind her, his arm beneath hers, helping to hold her up.
There were no words. No words at all. Nothing that could convey any of it. Finally feeling the arms of a mother she had never known. Had never felt or even smelled.
Angela stood there silently staring at the spire before finally turning to hug Joe. Not just for this. But for everything. And in the end, just being there next to her to support her. She was moved on levels that were simply unimaginable. Indescribable. And always would be.
They made it less than a hundred feet when something else happened. Something that stopped Joe Rickards in his tracks.
A sound he had not heard in a long time.
A voice. And a single word.
“Daddy?”
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Rickards did not turn around.
He couldn’t.
Petrified, he froze where he stood. Wordlessly and without movement, unable to let himself turn.
Until he heard it again.
“Daddy?”
He slowly twisted and looked behind him. The tall crystal spire was still glowing brightly, illuminating the area, including the small figure standing in front of him.
His daughter.
His six-year-old daughter.
Dressed in her favorite pink and red dress with black shoes. And his wife calmly standing behind her.
Joe’s eyes and face suddenly crumpled and tears burst from his eyes, his mouth open and shaking as he collapsed onto his knees.
His daughter broke into a run.
She covered the distance and jumped into his arms, wrapping her hands behind his neck and squeezing tight, as though she would never let go.
Joe closed his eyes and prayed he was not hallucinating. He opened them again to see his wife still before him with her long dark hair and beaming green eyes. Smiling broadly.
Without loosening the grip on his daughter, Joe rose to his feet and rushed forward, meeting her just as she began running herself and taking her into his free arm, crying harder than he ever had. He kissed them both, quickly and desperately, as though he would never stop.
When he finally did, he couldn’t form words without sobbing.
His wife smiled and put a finger to his lips. “We’re here, Joe. We’re here.”
No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t speak. Every attempt turned into more tears, his mouth trembling uncontrollably.
His wife looked past him to Angela, who was standing alone, also crying, this time out of sheer happiness, watching all three of them. It all made sense now. All of it.
“I…” he cried. “I…am…so…sorry! I am…so goddamned SORRY!”
With tears of her own, his wife put a hand on both sides of his face. “No,” she said. “Don’t.”
Joe’s daughter pulled her head back to look at him. “Daddy! Where have you been?”
“I…I…”
“I’ve missed you so much.”
He nodded his head, peering at her through a wave of tears.
“She doesn’t understand,” said his wife, stroking their daughter’s hair. “And it’s okay. It’s all okay.”
“I’m so sorry!”
“Look at me,” she said to him. “It’s okay. It was an accident. It was just an accident.”
“But it was my fault.”
He tried to speak, but she quieted him again. “It didn’t happen the way you think, Joe. The car. The accident. It wasn’t because of you.” She smiled and looked deeply into his eyes. “It wasn’t the brakes.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t the brakes. It was something else. It was someone else.”
He shook his head. “But I was there.”
“You’re an investigator,” she said, shaking her head. “And you found a reason. A reason that made sense. But it was the wrong reason and you blamed yourself.”
“No. I was there. I saw—” Joe suddenly stopped when he felt a hand on his back.
It was Angela.
“Joe,” she said softly. “I don’t think you want to use your time for this.”
He stared at her, blinking, without words, then turned back around.
“I miss you so much!” he said, his tears returning.
His wife put her face against his. “I miss you too, baby. We both do.” After a long moment, she leaned back and smiled again. “But being apart is not the worst thing.”
“It is,” he said, shaking his head. “It is. Without both of you, I am nothing. There’s no reason for anything.” He looked at his daughter and kissed her again. “I just want to be with you.”
“You are,” she smiled. “Right now.”
“There’s no reason for me to be here. Not without you.”
“Sweetheart, living is not about missing those who have left. It’s about caring for those who are still there.”
“There…is no one here for me,” he wept. “No one.”
She leaned forward and kisse
d him. “But you need to stay for me. Someone is still there who I care about.”
He looked at her, confused.
“My mother,” she said softly, “is all alone. She’s in a dark place and hurting.”
“She blames me.”
“How could she not when you blamed yourself?”
After a pause, Joe reached out and pulled her in close again. All three of their faces were touching. “God, I love you so much.”
His daughter grinned and snuggled into his neck and chest. “I love you more.”
His wife looked at them, then up at the sky where strange streaks of light could be seen, swirling above the strange spire and twisting downward.
“What is this place?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long has it been?”
Joe’s mouth was still trembling. “Two years.”
She nodded and looked at him. “You need to let go.”
“I…can’t.”
“Joseph,” she said. “Listen to me. You need to let go.”
“But—”
“It was not your fault,” she said. “And I need you there for me. Don’t let my mother live her final years like this.”
“But you’re alone.”
She continued stroking her daughter’s hair. “I don’t know where we are. Or what this is. But we’re not alone. We came together. And that’s more comforting than you can imagine.”
Joe smiled at his daughter when she wiped the tears from his eyes with her tiny hand. “Does my room still look the same, Daddy?”
“Yes. Exactly the same.”
She nodded her head. “You can use my animals if you want. To keep you company.”
He kissed her and began crying again. He looked at his wife. “I don’t want to be here.”
“I know,” she said, stroking the side of his face. “But you have to stay. For me and for you. But you have to let go. And know that we’re okay. That the pain is not from missing someone, it’s from feeling like you didn’t tell them enough. But we know what we mean to you. Both of us. Especially now.” She peered at him lovingly. “You have to help someone else. And learn to be happy again. Until it’s time.”
The Last Monument Page 25