Set In Stone

by Dakota Willink

  She looked at Hale, and her eyes welled up with tears.

  “I’m so sorry, Alex.”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “Sorry for what? What in holy hell is going on?”

  She stood up, stepped to the side, and looked down at the person in the bed. My gaze followed hers, still not understanding why Justine was even here.

  My eyes landed on an older woman, her dark hair was streaked with gray and fanned out over the pillow. She was sleeping, her pale lidded eyes fluttering as if she were experiencing a dream. She looked frail, but…familiar.

  No. It can’t be.

  My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest. Justine began to speak, and I snapped my head up to look at her.

  “She usually takes a nap around this time of day. The medication she’s on makes her a bit sleepy, but she’ll probably wake up soon.”

  As if they had a mind of their own, my legs began to move. I kept my gaze fixed on Justine, putting one foot in front of the other, until I was directly beside the bed. I stared at my sister for a moment longer before slowly turning my head to look at the woman in the bed.

  She had a narrow nose and defined cheekbones. Just like mine and Justine’s. Age lines marred her face, the faint indents of crow’s feet extending to her temples. There was a horrific scar that spread from the right side of her forehead to the middle, outlining a slightly caved in depression. It was in the shape of an elongated U, its deep purplish-gray color revealing how bad the original wound must have been.

  As I stared at the scar, a vision flashed before my eyes. It nearly blinded me and I staggered back. I knew that scar. I had seen the wound that caused it. My eyes burned from the pain that began to build behind them, a migraine of the sorts that I had never before experienced.

  Abruptly, it was as if I was thrown back in time, the hazy details of the day Hale showed up and found Justine and me with my father’s body suddenly becoming clear.

  Someone is knocking on the door. I’m afraid to answer, but I hear Hale’s voice.

  Hale is a soldier and it’s dumb to be afraid of a soldier. I should answer it. He could help me and Justine. She’s still acting funny and won’t eat all her food. Grandma would say it’s wasteful.

  I open the door.

  “Hey, champ,” Hale says to me and messes my hair. “Where’s your mom? Your gran made banana bread, your mom’s favorite.”

  “Mommy’s not here,” I lie. I don’t want him to see her. He’ll tell grandpa about her face and then grandpa will call Mommy a fool. That makes her cry.

  “Oh,” Hale says. He sounds surprised. “Do you know where she is?”

  I shake my head and look behind me. I see Justine down the hall going into her room. She’s humming again.

  “Something happened to Justine, Hale. Can you talk to her for me?”

  He looks past me. He’s too tall, and I can’t block his view. I don’t want him to look into the living room. He’ll see him if he does.

  “Champ, what’s wrong? Where’s your mom?”

  He sounds afraid. Like me.

  Hale walks around me and comes into the house. My heart begins to pound.

  “Wait, no! Not in here. Justine’s room is this way,” I say and pull at his sleeve.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” he swears. Grandma won’t like his language.

  Hale starts running through the house. He’s calling for Mommy. I shake my head. I want to tell him that she can’t answer, but decide I want to eat grandma’s treat instead. It’s better than following Hale and seeing her again.

  “Justine,” I call out. “Hale is here. Grandma made banana bread. Come have some.”

  Justine comes out of her room, and we sit on the sofa. She hums and rocks back and forth as I unwrap the foil. We each share a piece.

  I can hear Hale in the kitchen. He’s talking to someone. I think he’s on the phone.

  I wonder who he’s talking to, but I try not to listen. I don’t want to listen.

  He comes back to the living room. He’s carrying a person. I know who it is, but I don’t look. I don’t want to see her face. It’s not pretty anymore.

  “Alexander, I need you to do exactly as I say,” Hale says to me. “I’m going to take your mother to get help. I’ll be right back. Grandpa will be here soon too.”

  I look down at the floor. I see him still laying there and I feel angry. I look up at Hale, careful not to look at Mommy’s face when I do. I take another bite of bread.

  “Grandpa will be happy the lazy bastard is dead,” I say in between bites.

  “Dammit! Alexander, I don’t want to leave you, but everything will be okay. Just stay with your sister. Don’t leave the house. In fact, don’t even leave the couch.”

  He seems upset. I don’t want to make him more upset, so I nod.

  “Okay,” I agree and go back to eating.

  My mother. She was there the whole time, yet I didn’t remember it until now. I remembered her body on the kitchen floor. Her lips were pale, and she was unresponsive to anything I tried to do. Her skull was pushed in, a shallow crater that oozed with blood and gray matter, causing her hair to mat to her face. I recalled it being sticky. My stomach rolled from the recollection of the terribly gruesome site.

  Is that why I blocked it out? And what about Hale? Where did he bring her?

  I couldn’t think, my vision flooding with a rush of more suppressed memories. This time, I recalled a conversation I overheard my grandfather having with Hale and my grandmother.

  Grandpa will get mad if he catches me out of bed, but I can’t sleep. I don’t want to have another bad dream. I need to ask Grandma for my sleep medicine.

  I go downstairs, but stop when I hear Grandpa talking. He sounds angry.

  “No, I don’t care what your mother thinks, Hale. We can’t tell them. Not now. It’s been over a month. Justine still hasn’t spoken a word, and Alexander can barely get through the night.”

  “These children have been through too much. They can’t see her like this,” Grandma says. She sounds like she’s crying. Grandma cries a lot now. I wish I could make her feel better.

  “Any improvement?” Hale asks.

  “No. The doctors are not optimistic. It’s most likely permanent,” Grandpa says.

  Grandma cries again.

  “Lucille, get it together. You need to be strong for Alexander and Justine. Crying isn’t going to bring her back.”

  “That’s not why I’m crying. I’m crying because I feel guilty. Right now, we have her hidden away. She’s stable, even if her mind is gone. I just feel awful for keeping the children in the dark. Will we ever be able to tell them? Bring them to see her?”

  “Lucille, she won’t even know who they are. You said it yourself. These children have been through enough. We have to protect them. Can you imagine what else they’d have to endure if it came out that their mother murdered their father?”

  “He deserved it if you ask me,” Hale says.

  “Any news on the police investigation?” Grandpa asks.

  “Nothing. They haven’t even found the gun that shot him.”

  I begin to get nervous. They think Mommy killed the lazy bastard. What if they find out what I did?

  “For the sake of Alexander and Justine, it’s better that Helena remains a missing person. Hale, are you sure you can keep her identity a secret?”

  “Yes, sir. As far as anyone knows, Helena Russo is really Lena Silvestri.”

  My hands feel sweaty. I take a step back. The stair creaks.

  “Alexander? Is that you?” I hear Grandma call out.

  If they see me, they’ll know what I did. I don’t need my medicine anymore. I just need to get back to my room.

  I turned to Hale.

  “You knew where my mother was this whole time.”

  I phrased it as a statement of accusation, not a question. Hale simply nodded and stared at some invisible speck on the floor.

  “Alex, wait,”
Justine interjected. “You don’t understand.”

  She spoke, but I wasn’t hearing her. I was too busy watching my security detail, the man whom I had come to consider a friend and the man I had trusted longer than anyone else. For years, I sent him off to chase Jane Doe’s, only to now learn that he was simply placating me. A part of me wanted to deny that he knew my mother was alive all this time, but my newfound memories told me that wasn’t the case.

  Heat rose to my face, and I felt my fists clench. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak.

  So, I acted.

  I lunged at Hale, landing a well-aimed punch to the center of his face. I heard a crack of cartilage. Whether it was from my knuckles or his nose, it didn’t matter. Blood spurted immediately from his face, but I didn’t pause. I hit him again. He staggered back a step, but didn’t offer me a return blow.

  “Fight back, you bastard!”

  I felt something, or perhaps someone, on my back. Krystina. Justine. My subconscious knew it was them pulling at my arms, but I just kept swinging.

  And then I heard her voice. A voice I haven’t heard in over twenty years. It sounded exactly as I remembered, yet…different.

  I stopped moving. My chest heaved and caused by breath to come out in rapid successions as I turned around.

  “Mom,” I whispered.

  She sat up in the bed and clutched her blanket to her chest.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “Alex!” Justine hissed. I slowly turned to look at her. “There are things you don’t know. Please, just play along or you’ll upset her.”

  Confused, I looked back at my mother. She stared at me with a curious expression. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to tell her that I had somehow known she was alive and I never stopped looking for her. However, there was something about her gaze that made me pause.

  It had been decades since she last saw me. She wouldn’t be able to recognize the man I had become. So instead of saying all the things I wanted to, I stepped up to her and extended my hand.

  “I’m Alexander.”

  I waited to see if she would remember, but she simply stared at my hand. It was as if she didn’t know what to do with it. To my astonishment, she didn’t shake it, but took hold of it and turned it around in hers.

  “I thought you had a sweet treat for me,” she pouted. She pushed my hand away, pulled a stuffed rabbit out from under her pillow, and began fiddling with its floppy ears.

  My eyes widened in horror. A wave of nausea hit me and I wanted to vomit. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I turned to Justine. Tears were falling down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked so quietly, I may as well have mouthed the words.

  I heard Krystina clear her throat. I had almost forgotten she was there. When I looked at her, her face showed almost as much shock as I felt.

  “Alex, why don’t you, Justine, and Hale go find a quiet place to talk. I can stay here with, um…with her,” she offered and pointed to where my mother sat in her bed.

  I looked over at Hale who was standing quietly in the corner. His nose was bleeding and it appeared that I split open his bottom lip. However, he made no attempt to wipe the blood away. Instead, he stood there like a statue, his expression stoic.

  Fucking lying bastard!

  I tore my gaze from him and looked back at Krystina.

  “No. I can’t…” I trailed off. I glanced at Justine, then down at my mother.

  How long has Justine known she was here?

  Anger and betrayal, painful levels that I never knew to be humanly possible, sliced through me. It was a burning pain that shredded though every inch of my body.

  And then, I felt nothing.

  I recalled reading a study about how the human mind could effortlessly construct the feeling of being out of body, as if you were experiencing a scene from the outside looking in. I saw myself standing in a comfortable and tranquil room. My mother sat on the bed pretending to walk her stuffed rabbit back and forth on her lap, almost like a small child would. She was humming, as if she too were in another world. Other people stood around me – Justine, Hale, Krystina. All were staring at me in expectation, but I was unable to find the words to describe what I was thinking.

  “Alex,” I heard Krystina say. She sounded far away.

  Her hand touched my arm, pulling me back from the floating abyss and back into my body. I looked down at her hand, hoping to feel the familiar warmth that I always felt when she touched me. However, I was numb. And then it occurred to me, I couldn’t find the words I needed because there were no words to be said. I only knew that I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.

  “I have to go.”

  I shrugged out of her reach and turned toward the door. Krystina called after me. So did Justine. But I just kept walking. It was all too much. My pace increased until I was in a full out run. I needed to get as far away from here as I possibly could.

  30

  krystina

  “Let him go, Krystina” Justine told me when I started to follow Alexander. I looked back at her.

  “I can’t just let him go! He’s probably in shock.”

  “Yes, which is why you need to give him space to process. Alex has a temper. You’d be better off letting him alone so that he can think.”

  I paused at the door when she said that. Alexander did have a temper, but he was usually careful to control it. However, having been on the receiving end of that temper once before caused me to hesitate. I was torn.

  I glanced over at Hale, hoping he would give me some sort of guidance. His nose was badly bleeding, a sight that should have kept me rooted to the spot, as it was proof that Alexander wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Yet, I still wanted to chase after him.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said to him. He didn’t respond, but the way his gaze held steadily to mine made me think that he wanted to say something.

  “Let’s go to the lounge,” Justine suggested. “Hale, go get cleaned up and then meet Krystina and me there. Maybe if we explain things to her first, she’ll be able to get through to Alexander better than either one of us can.”

  Hale nodded and Justine stood. Turning to her mother, she said, “Lena, I’ll be back in a little bit, okay?”

  Once Justine seemed satisfied that her mother would be okay, she led me to a quiet lounge area of the nursing home. She refused to speak until Hale joined us. It made me extremely anxious. The more time that lapsed, the more nervous I became. I needed to be with Alexander. I never should have let him go off alone.

  When Hale finally entered the lounge a few minutes later, I rounded on Justine.

  “I want answers. Now. And make it fast,” I demanded.

  Justine flinched from my harsh tone, but to her credit, her voice didn’t waiver when she spoke.

  “I’m the one who shot our father,” she announced, like it was some sort of grand statement. I didn’t particularly care who killed him. I was more concerned over the fact that Alexander’s mother was very much alive, something that had been kept from him for over two decades.

  “I don’t give a flying shit about that!” I snapped. “Charlie already said as much in an interview to some sleazy reporter. I meant I want answers about your mother. I want to know why you and Hale hid the fact that she was alive.”

  “I didn’t know she was until a week ago,” she explained, then darted her eyes in Hale’s direction. “But Hale knew. He never told us because he was honoring a promise he made to my grandfather. Until recently, Hale believed that my mom killed my father. Now that he knows that’s not the case, he had to come out with the truth.”

  “I don’t understand,” I stated testily, shaking my head back and forth in confusion.

  “With your permission, I can explain, Miss Cole,” Hale said quietly from his corner of the room.

  “You don’t need my damn permission, Hale,” I bit out. “Just get it out already so that I can get to Alex.”

  “I had just come o
ff a stint in Japan. I was home on leave and decided to visit Lucille, Alexander and Justine’s grandmother. Before I left her house, she asked me to stop over to the Russo’s on my way home and drop off a loaf of banana bread.”

  It was strange to hear Hale refer to Alexander’s family as the Russo’s, but I didn’t comment on it. I was too anxious to hear their explanation.

  “I still don’t recall you being there that day,” Justine murmured. “I don’t remember the weeks after either. I only remember…”

  Justine trailed off, and Hale continued.

  “When I got there, I found their father. He had been shot and had quite obviously been laying there for some time.”

  “Three days to be exact,” I filled in.

  “So Mr. Stone told you then?” he asked.

  “Only what he could remember. He said the details were hazy.”

  “I bet they were,” he said regretfully. “When I got there, both kids were like zombies. Their eyes were all glazed over, as if they were in an alternate reality.”

  “They had been living with a dead body for days, Hale. They had to have been traumatized,” I said, annoyed that I had to point out the obvious.

  Hale shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind from the vision of two emotionally distraught children.

  “Anyway, I found Helena, their mother, in the kitchen. It was evident from the state of the place that there had been a struggle. Chairs were toppled over. Dishes were broken. But…it was the blood. It was everywhere. The first thing I did was call their grandfather. I don’t know why I didn’t call the police first. Perhaps it was because of the dead man in the living room. I’m not sure. Either way, Helena was alive, but barely. Mr. Stonewall said that ambulances took too long to respond to that area of the city, so he instructed me to take her to the hospital myself. He said he would meet me there.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Miss Cole, you have to understand. I didn’t know what Mr. Stonewall’s intentions were when I brought Helena to the hospital. He assumed, as did I, that his daughter shot her husband. Had I known what Mr. Stonewall was planning to do, I may have tried to talk him out of it before everything was set in motion. After all, it would have been easy for Helena to claim self-defense.”