by Abbie Roads
Matt captured her wrists, locking them in his grip. “Stop it.”
His voice punched her out of the trance she’d been in. She shrank back from him, but he didn’t let go and didn’t look away from her, refusing her the dignity of denial.
Shame blistered her face with its warmth, and the tip of her nose tingled. How had she not thought about Matt in the backseat? She’d been so absorbed in herself that she’d clean forgotten him. She yanked on her wrists imprisoned by his hands, but it was like fighting a pair of handcuffs.
“You done hurting yourself?” Matt’s words themselves weren’t kind, but the way they were spoken, slowly and deliberately, contained latent compassion.
She bobbed her head up and down, uncertain her voice was functional.
“I’m going to let you go, and if you hit yourself again, I’m taking you back to the hospital for an evaluation and immediate admission to the psych unit. Got it?”
He eased his grip on her wrists little by little, as if hypervigilant about waiting for her to start thumping on herself again. When she remained mostly paralyzed by humiliation, he released her from his hold, but not from his penetrating gaze.
His eyes were the color of a clear summer sky, but they contained none of the carefree happiness of a June day. He assessed her, judged her, challenged her. This she could handle. She’d known hate and intimidation at Queen’s hand, and Matt’s efforts were majorly lacking. She met him glare for glare, locked in a strange staring contest that she wouldn’t lose.
Without warning, he stepped back out of the open car door and whispered, “Pull your shit together and pretend to be normal. Someone wants to meet you.”
She barely had time to digest his words.
A woman stepped up beside Matt, and everything that had just happened vanished out of existence. The woman’s hair was a captivating shade of lavender—the kind of color that could be both happy and sad at the same time. She wore a completely normal pair of shorts and a tank top, but what wasn’t normal was her body covered from the collar down with brilliant, flowing tattoos. And with her face full of crumpled construction-paper wrinkles, the woman had to be pushing mid-seventies, maybe early eighties.
Isleen mouthed the only word that came to mind. “Wow.” It was impolite to stare, but she couldn’t stop looking. This old lady wasn’t a sweet, kindly looking grandma. She was insanely spectacular.
“Isleen! Holy hell balls, girl! You’re looking so much better.” The woman’s tone was that of a long-lost friend, as if they’d already met and known each other for years. “I sneaked some peeks at you while you were in the hospital, but you were always asleep. Christ on the crapper, look at your hair! It’s grown at least three inches. How is that even possible?”
The woman paused to take in some oxygen.
“I need to get caught up on all the Institute work that’s been back burnered since—” Matt moved away from them.
“Go. Shoo. Move. Get the fuck outta here.” The woman flicked her hands in his direction but spoke to Isleen. “Sorry, sorry, sorry—you’re probably wondering who the hell I am. I’m Roweena, but everyone calls me Row. I’m the maid, the cook, the laundress, and goddamned keeper of order around here.”
Isleen sat stunned. She’d never in her life heard a woman cuss so much—and do it so good-naturedly. Row bent into the car, pulling Isleen out and into a warm hug filled with genuine affection. For some reason, tears burned in Isleen’s sinuses. No, she knew the reason for her emotion. Gran used to hug her like this, but once her mind was gone… Well, it’d been too long since Isleen had experienced motherly affection. Without thinking about Row being a stranger with lavender hair and covered in tattoos, Isleen hugged her back, earning an even tighter squeeze.
Row shifted away and Isleen didn’t mean to stare, but her gaze roamed over the vivid colors inked onto Row’s skin.
“This one—” Row pointed to the beautiful cameo-esque tattoo in the middle of her delicately wrinkled chest. Shades of gold, orange, and sepia colored the image. Isleen moved closer to take in the intricate details. “—is a portrait of my Granny Maude. She swore like a sailor, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and was kind as a saint until she died in her sleep at ninety-eight years old.”
Isleen straightened from her examination of Row’s tattoo. “You’ve got the swear-like-a-sailor thing down.”
A smile fired on Row’s face, but it was no ordinary smile. It was the kind of smile that surpassed age and transformed her wrinkled visage into timeless beauty. “That’s a great compliment. Granny Maude refused to grow old gracefully—said that was for the unimaginative. So like her, I’m growing old fabulously.” She laughed and ran a gnarled hand through her lavender hair. “One of the gifts of age is not caring what anyone thinks.”
This woman was exactly what Isleen needed. Someone to care for her. Someone to care about. Someone it was easy to be around. “Thank you, Row.” Isleen’s vision got a little watery. “For being so awesome, so nice.”
“Aww…” Row snatched her up in another hug and Isleen clung to the older woman, soaking up the affection.
“I’m all right,” Isleen finally said. “I think I’m a happy crier.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” Row pulled back and visually checked Isleen over like any good grandmother would, then nodded as if confirming Isleen’s words. “You’ve got be just about peeing your pants to see Gale. Alex, he’s such a dumbass sometimes, didn’t think about how badly you might want to see Gale before they left the hospital.” Row’s tone wasn’t harsh or angry, but filled with teasing affection that ticked the corners of Isleen’s mouth up a notch. Her cheeks were stiff, and it felt weird and right to be smiling for the first time since… She couldn’t even remember the last time.
Row linked her arm with Isleen’s and they headed toward the magnificent house. “I’ve got Gale set up in the library. It’s the only private room on the first floor. After we visit with her…”
Isleen lost Row’s words as they moved closer to the house, toward her new beginning.
There was so much about her life she didn’t want to remember. The bad stuff in her past was too immense and diverse and horrific for her to analyze. If she wanted to make this new life work, she needed an amputation of everything up to the moment she met Row. But an amputation meant not only losing the bad memories, but the good ones—the happy moments of the time before they had been captured. Was she willing to sacrifice the good just to forget the bad? Yes. It would be worth it to be rid of the past, the pain.
Start here. Start fresh. Start focusing forward, just like Gran always did. Gran never spoke about painful things in her past. Never. Isleen didn’t know how Gran did it, but she was going to bury all the bad under the rich, dark earth of her mind, then place the grave in the center of an endless labyrinth. If the bad ever escaped, it would be lost in the twisting, turning boundlessness of the maze and never find its way to her.
“Focus forward” had always been Gran’s life motto. Now, Isleen was going to adopt it, coddle it, and care for it too.
Row pushed open the massive front door and motioned for Isleen to enter first.
She sucked in a breath of focus-forward determination and entered her shiny new life. One step across the threshold, her feet refused to move. The expanse and extent of the house held her captive in its cathedral-like majesty. Overhead, the ceiling soared so high it seemed a part of the sky. She felt miniscule compared to the wide-open space.
“Wow. Oh wow. Wow.” She was stuck on repeat, not able to find any other words. The giant room possessed a hominess she didn’t expect in such a large place. A kitchen was to the left, with a huge island and an even larger table that looked like it belonged in a fancy castle. The rest of the open space was filled with clusters of seating areas, some in front of windows, some in front of the fireplace, and some in the middle. It was the oddest, neatest place sh
e’d ever seen.
Across the vastness, a spiral staircase wound up, up, up to an open second-floor family room. Cozy couches and chairs were set in front of a TV the size of a small movie screen. Wow. On either side of the loft ran open hallways with three doors on each side. Bedrooms she supposed. One of those was probably hers. Her own private place. How long had it been since she’d had privacy?
“It’s pretty damned incredible, isn’t it? Alex designed the place himself. He always said he wanted Gale to have a home that reflected the enormity of his love.” Row’s words contained the wistfulness of the past and the ache of love long lost.
“He built this for Gran?”
Row’s brows pinched together, carving a new network of wrinkles across her forehead. “Yes, he did. I’m surprised Gale never told you.”
“Gran’s rule has always been to focus forward. I learned never to ask about the past. I never knew any of this existed.”
“Sweet baby Christ,” Row gasped as if Isleen’s words stung her. “I can’t flippin’ believe… Yes, I can. Knowing Gale, I can believe it.” She started shaking her head in that disappointed way only a grandmother could pull off.
Sparklers of anger sizzled inside Isleen’s stomach and rocketed out her mouth. “Why do you and Matt act like Gran’s a bad person? If you all hate her so much, why did you bring us here?” The moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to suck them back in. She shouldn’t be acting this way when Row had been nothing but kind and accepting of her.
The question snapped Row out of her head-shaking. “Sweetie, I don’t hate her. There’s just a lot of history here between all of us that you don’t understand. I’ll tell you everything—I don’t believe in that focus-forward bullshit Gale always spouted—but let’s get you settled in first. About Matt… I suspect he really does hate Gale. He has his reasons. And honestly, he’s probably not too fond of you either simply because you’re related to her.”
Row’s blunt assessment hit her hard, but Isleen much preferred the pain of bitter honesty over the caress of sweet lies.
“Come on now.” Row wrapped her arm around Isleen’s shoulders and guided her through the house to a door underneath the loft. She stopped a few feet away. “I need to warn you about Alex before you go in.”
“Warn me? Why?” Isleen managed to close her lips before asking if Alex was going to try to hurt her. In her mind, underneath the soil in the middle of the labyrinth, she felt something writhing and roiling—a memory that wanted out, whose entire purpose would be to make her afraid. Nope. Not going to happen. She’d been a victim long enough and refused to be one ever again. If Alex wanted to hurt her, intimidate her away from seeing Gran, what Isleen lacked in physical strength she’d make up for with attitude.
She sucked the inside of her cheek into her mouth and bit down on it, not hard enough to draw blood, just hard enough to razor her focus to the doorway in front of her.
“Alex is…” Row trailed off as if looking for the exact right thing to say. “Hell, he’s checked out of life—doesn’t bother with living. Only his work matters. He and Xander haven’t spoken in over twenty-five years. At least not until four days ago, when Xan called his father to tell him that he found you and Gale.
“I just wanted to let you know that Alex doesn’t speak to anyone about anything except the Institute. He’s brilliant and social and energetic when it comes to the Institute and its associates. Probably because he and Gale founded the place together and it’s the only way he knows how to feel close to her. But he probably will ignore you and won’t speak to you at all.”
“So you’re telling me he won’t talk to me. And it’s not just me. He doesn’t talk to anyone unless it’s business related.”
Row let out a huff of relieved breath. “Precisely.”
“Why? Why doesn’t he talk?”
“The short answer: He lost his heart along with his voice when Gale left him.”
…when Gale left him. Why would Gran leave him? Row opened the door, and the question vanished out of existence.
A pink, frilly gown swallowed Gran’s tiny, gnarled body. The dips and valleys of her skull were painfully apparent through the sparse white hair corkscrewing out of her skull. Her skin was gray-tinged and sagged from her face like the jowls of a mastiff. She lay in the hospital bed, a quaint quilt of pastel colors folded at her waist. Bags of various fluids hung from poles, their tubes tethered to Gran at locations along her arms and hands. She looked so much better. And yet, she still looked horrible.
Isleen’s heart tightened like it was trying to shrink down a size.
She had wanted—oh, gosh, had she wanted—the old Gran back. The one she’d grown up with who was healthy in mind and body. The one who always seemed so wise and promised her better days. But this woman lying in the bed didn’t look like she was in her early sixties; she looked as if she were a hundred and twenty.
Gran stared, completely transfixed by Alex, an aged version of Xander. He sat next to the bed, cradling Gran’s hand between both of his and looked upon her with such a look of naked devotion that Isleen’s throat clogged and her nose burned. It didn’t take a love doctor to see he adored Gran, and Gran adored him. Their love filled the room so completely Isleen wasn’t certain she’d fit into the space.
She forced herself to walk to the bed. “Gran.” She bent over the only person who’d ever loved her and gave her a gentle hug. Hugging Gran was like hugging a mannequin—no response. When she pulled back, Gran’s attention remained locked on Alex. It was as if Isleen didn’t matter to her anymore.
Row stepped up next to Isleen and whispered in her ear, “They’ve been like this since we got Gale set up. It’s kinda sweet how devoted they are. Like you and Xander in the hospital.”
Isleen was going to have to follow up on that one later, because she sure didn’t have any memory of staring into Xander’s eyes with that kind of bald affection.
“Gran? I’m here. It’s me, Isleen.” She carefully clasped Gran’s free hand. It was like holding bones. She willed Gran to look at her, to acknowledge her in some way, but Gran didn’t and neither did Alex. Minutes passed and all Isleen could do was hope that Gran would turn her head and see her, even if only for a second.
“Sweetie, let’s leave them alone. It’s been a long day for everyone. You’re probably tired. Come on.” Row’s voice was soft, as if she were speaking to an injured child.
Isleen settled Gran’s hand back on the mattress and trailed Row from the room.
“Let’s get you settled upstairs. While you take a shower and get dressed in your night things, I’ll make us a late supper. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the Institute and…”
Row chattered away, but Isleen wasn’t listening. Maybe she was being selfish, but she couldn’t help yearning for Gran to at least acknowledge her. Her cheeks stung, and she knew the reason—disappointment and rejection.
* * *
The color of angels, of heaven, of eternity surrounded Isleen in its infinite embrace. But she could find no solace in the space. With hyper-vivid clarity, she remembered what had happened the last time she was here. Something had entered her body and forced her to watch a woman being murdered.
Bristles of fear pricked her skin. She spun around, expecting to see something or someone standing behind her, but there was nothing beyond the eternal whiteness. For some reason, that scared her worse than if a chainsaw-wielding madman had stood there. Adrenaline primed her muscles and she couldn’t stay still, waiting for whatever horrible thing was about to happen. She ran. She charged through the white nothingness, trying to outrun a phantom.
The atmosphere shifted. A subtle change in energy and function. Color invaded and shimmered, abstract and borderless, but then morphed, solidifying into shapes and images. A landscape formed and focused. She stopped running, mesmerized by the transformation.
She stood in a… Gosh, it
had to be a waiting room. A waiting room? Even with its cheerful blue paint and overflowing bins of toys, the place felt devoid of goodness, on the cusp of evil. Which made no logical sense. But then the prairie had seemed beautiful at first too.
A lone man sat hunched over in the farthest corner of the room. His elbows rested on his knees, his close-shaved head hung as if it were too heavy a burden for him to carry. The man’s shoulders shook, and for a brief moment Isleen thought he might be laughing, but it wasn’t quiet laughter that reached her ears. It was hushed sobs. He swiped a hand over his eyes and sniffled in that way little boys do when they are trying to be brave.
The collective of her pain recognized his pain, and her heart dictated that she do something to soothe him. She understood how it felt to be alone with anguish. It wasn’t a fate she’d wish on anyone.
She tried to go to him, told her legs to move, to walk, to go to the man and offer him whatever meager comfort she possessed. Not one muscle responded to the message her brain sent.
“Mr. Goodspeed?”
Inside her skin, Isleen jerked at the unexpected voice. Her head turned and her eyes drifted in their sockets—only she wasn’t the one controlling her head, her eyes, or her body’s movements.
A woman who looked barely out of her teen years and still possessed the crisp beauty of youth stood in the entry to the waiting room. She took in the man with his hunched posture and the quiet sobs, but her face remained devoid of expression. “Mr. Goodspeed.” His name came out in the firm authority of someone who knew what they were doing.
Isleen’s head moved back to see Mr. Goodspeed.
He shoved the heels of his hands against his eyes and ground the wetness away. He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Yes. I’m sorry. I just… I just… I can’t believe…”