Back To You

by Fontaine, Bella

  We were so excited for the chance to be there.

  Most of all I remember thinking about how happy she looked.

  She finally looked happy and that made me happy too.

  It did throughout the years that we lived there. She was always working so hard.

  Working so she could take care of me and working so she could take care of Aunt Larissa.

  It wasn’t until years later that I found out through another argument I overheard them having that she didn’t go back to teaching because it didn’t pay half as much as what she got at the O’Sheas. And, the only reason she took that job was because of Larissa. She worried about her drug problem and that one day something bad would happen to her little sister and she wouldn’t be able to bail her out.

  Look how it all turned out.

  Aunt Larissa was wherever she was seventeen years ago, and someone killed my mother.

  I was still trying to process that part.

  Someone killed my mother.

  All that beauty gone just like that. All that creativity, and love. She loved so willingly, so effortlessly. She was the most amazing woman I ever knew and I became who I am today because of her.

  Someone killed her.

  Who?

  Someone killed my mother. Took her life. Killed her…

  I sucked in an involuntary sharp breath. Maybe my body was reminding me to breathe.

  Ryan took me home after our meeting with Detective Gracen and stayed with me.

  I cried the whole time. I cried for hours after, crying out everything inside me.

  It left me weak and completely drained out.

  I’d made it as far as the sitting room where I stayed until the tears ran out, dried up like a desert. I felt the same too. Like all the life had been sucked out of me.

  Ryan was mostly with me, then I remember him trying to call his Dad.

  He’d held my hand, held me, did everything he thought I needed but nothing helped.

  His warm hands over mine brought me out of my deep thoughts.

  I focused my gaze on him. We were still in the sitting room. I was still sitting on the sofa. Still in the same spot.

  The only difference was it was dark outside.

  Ryan was holding a glass of water.

  I was so caught up in distress that I couldn’t remember him leaving my side to get it. It was like he’d just appeared before me.

  Everything around me seemed to bleed into a blur. Time and movements around me, and my poor mind kept slipping back and forth between the past and present.

  I gazed up at him with swollen eyes. His were red and he looked awful, just as bad as me.

  “Try to drink this,” he said, holding out the little glass to me.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything.

  He got down on his knees and held it out again.

  “Princess… you have to drink something.”

  “No, I don’t want it.” Another hot tear rolled down my cheek followed by another. He set the glass down on the coffee table and took my hands into his.

  “Lana, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to Amelia.” He gulped hard and seemed to be holding back more tears.

  “It’s ….” I didn’t know what to say. It’s not your fault, or thank you.

  Neither was right and I couldn’t think straight.

  “I don’t get it Ryan. I just don’t. You knew her, you knew what she was like, she never hurt anybody. She would never. Who would do something like that to her? Who would want to kill her?”

  He bowed his head and the tears slipped down the side of his face.

  “I keep asking myself that same thing … it just doesn’t feel real baby.”

  His grip tightened on my hands. “A part of me feels like I wish I didn’t know. Better if I believed she took her own life than know someone took it.”

  He nodded. “I know. I’m trying to think how such a thing could have happened. I’m trying to think back to when it happened. We weren’t there.”

  No, we weren’t there at all. We were off on one of our little weekend getaways. Oblivious to everything and everyone. We didn’t care about anyone besides ourselves and while I was with him someone killed Mama.

  Words couldn’t quite describe the agony that filled my soul.

  Nothing could.

  “Ryan what am I going to do? What am I really going to do?”

  He got up and pulled me into his arms for the umpteenth time. “I’m here. Princess, I’m here with you. I don’t care about the missing years, I’m here. We’re going to do this together whatever we’re supposed to do,” he promised.

  His words alleviated some of the burden that rested on my body. Some but not all.

  There was still so much to process. It was the part I was avoiding thinking about. The part about the report being tampered with.

  The doorbell rang and in my head it sounded like a gong echoing through my body. I knew it wasn’t really that loud. To my fragile ears it was though.

  “I think that’s my dad. He said he was on his way,” Ryan stated. I moved away from him so he could get up.

  He answered the door and seconds later Mr. O’Shea came in looking exactly the way I expected him to look.

  Tears blinding his eyes, face red and blotchy. He flew over to me, dropped to his knees in a similar fashion to the way Ryan had and took my hands.

  “Lana…” he breathed. “I heard, I…”

  All I could do was nod then more tears came and he held me. Deep sobs racked my insides once again. Once again it took me.

  With that fatherly warmth he held me. “My sweet girl, I promise you, we will get to the bottom of this. I promise you I’ll find out who’s responsible. I will find out. They won’t get away with it.”

  His words were the words that echoed deep from inside me.

  Finding who killed my mother was exactly my next step.

  Chapter 18

  Ryan

  Mom was sitting by the fire place in the sitting room watching the flicker of blaze from the wood. It cast a warm amber glow on her face.

  Her thin gaunt face that looked thinner than yesterday morning when I stopped by.

  I usually came to see her a couple of times a week. Because I was with Lana all of last week I’d missed seeing her so I was fitting in a visit in the morning just in case I didn’t get to see her again until later in the week.

  Yesterday, she’d seemed more vibrant. The color in her face had returned and she almost seemed like her old self. Today, however, she bore a strong resemblance to when she was in the height of her illness.

  That was in between her last few sessions of chemo and radiation therapy.

  That was how she looked now.

  Weak and frail. Aged. Like she’d aged another twenty years since yesterday.

  I could see it on her face that she’d gotten a blow too, from hearing what really happened to Amelia.

  I knew she would have wanted to run around as much as Dad had but was too weak to.

  It wasn’t cold at all but to her it was always cold. It was common in a lot of cancer patients who’d gone through chemotherapy to feel the changes in temperature a lot more than everyone else. That was one of the things the consultants had advised us on.

  Mom looked to me as I approached and she brushed away a tear.

  “Mom.” I pulled up one of the chairs and sat next to her.

  “Ryan… I’m completely numb.” She nodded. “I’m so numb I can’t do anything. I’ve been sitting here for hours. Since your father got back last night and told me what happened I’ve been like this. Could barely sleep. Can’t eat.”

  I knew the feeling. “You must try to focus and rest Mom. I understand how you feel but you need to think of you too.”

  I wouldn’t know what I’d do if I lost her. I didn’t know what I would do. She ran her hand through my hair the way she used to when I was a kid and I looked at her. She looked like a woman who’d gone through so much, a
nd she had. Just looking at her was testament of that. Her hair had only just started growing back a month ago so she’d stopped wearing her scarf. Just looking at her hair ached my heart. I remembered the long golden locks she’d had when I was a kid and how everyone compared her to a Hollywood starlet for her beauty.

  She would always be beautiful to me, no matter how she looked. The sickness however, was evident.

  Her eyes looked tired. “You are always taking such great care of me.” she cupped my face.

  “I’m supposed to, Mom.” I nodded. “Please try to rest. It won’t be good if you don’t. Dad and I will work with the police and get down to the bottom of what happened. We will try. We will absolutely try.”

  “I know you will. It’s all just so sad. So very sad to know that happened to a woman who was practically family to me. She was like the sister I never had. The only person I would allow to take care of you because I trusted her. I can’t quite express how I feel. When I thought she’d killed herself I thought … God, Ryan…I wished I could have saved her. I wished I could have done anything to let her know she was loved and she didn’t have to die. It didn’t have to be that way. Hearing this, the truth …. Oh Ryan… I just can’t.” She brushed away more tears.

  I was holding back again, holding back because yesterday when I broke down it was shock that got me. I only snapped out of it for Lana but the shock was still there.

  “Mom, I know. I know. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” I promised. I meant it too. Not just for her sake. For Lana.

  For Amelia.

  There was so much at work here, so much to be addressed.

  Even though Detective Gracen stated that they didn’t have solid proof as yet I knew he was just saying that out of formality to cover himself in case of not finding proof.

  I knew the damn ropes.

  He’d told us what he told us because he could. He wouldn’t have said all of that if they weren’t at least ninety percent certain. It was what suspicion pointed to.

  So here was my theory. Someone killed Amelia. Someone powerful enough to screw with evidence and reports but obviously not clever enough to make sure all traces disappeared. Or they just didn’t think that far ahead, or whoever they paid off in the coroner’s office hadn’t done a good enough job.

  Fuck. It was all so unreal. So this person created the whole thing to make it look like she committed suicide.

  That was the essence of what happened.

  Why?

  That was what I wanted to find out. I figured if I got that part it may lead me to something else. I needed a motive. I’d thought of Amelia’s sister Larissa because even I knew what went down with her many times with her history of drugs.

  Larissa lived in a dangerous world. It was reasonable to think that maybe someone to do with her got to Amelia. People like that had a lot of power. I’d seen it.

  Someone entered the room from behind us. When I turned around my heart sank right into the ground when my gaze landed on Tiffany standing in the doorway.

  What the fuck was she doing here?

  I couldn’t resist the frown that automatically formed on my face. It was an automatic response to seeing her. Mom on the other hand was all smiles. It was as if someone had sprinkled magic dust on her head and wiped away our prior emotional discussion.

  She’d always liked Tiffany. It was strange to see the difference in reactions from my parents. Dad couldn’t stand her, never could.

  “Hi.” Tiffany beamed, coming closer. She walked right up to Mom and gave her a kiss on her cheek.

  I had to wonder what the hell it was she was playing at because she rarely visited my parents when we were together. Why had she started now?

  My visit today was impromptu so she wouldn’t have known I’d be here. That would have been suspicious. More suspicious.

  “How nice to see you my dear,” Mom cooed.

  “You too Kathy. I thought you might want some company for lunch.”

  “You always were such a dear. I’d love the company. You can join Ryan and me.”

  “I won’t be staying,” I cut in.

  Mom gave me a hard look. “Ryan, please. It’s the simple things that help during times like this.”

  I didn’t get it.

  I really didn’t get how she could be so accepting of a woman who lied about something so big as our child not being mine.

  I didn’t understand it.

  Mom claimed that Tiffany was scared and she’d been completely against the divorce. Never thought about the whole context that happened. That Tiffany basically set a trap for me and I landed straight in it like it was a fucking spider web.

  It was Mom who advised me to marry her when Tiffany found out she was pregnant. Maybe if she didn’t I would have made some arrangement.

  “I’ll be going in a minute,” I told her. That was actually the truth. I’d just come to see how she was. Tiffany’s arrival only accelerated my departure.

  Tiffany looked my way and gave me one of her stiff smiles. Stiff from the fakeness and stiff from whatever shit she’d pumped in her forehead with this month’s maintenance money she’d gotten from me.

  I was in no mood for shit today so I didn’t even bother to acknowledge her.

  “I’m gonna go check to see if lunch is ready,” Tiffany stated, and left us.

  Mom was already looking at me with that disapproving stare.

  “Ryan I really wish you would just forgive her. You guys have such a beautiful family. Yes she made a mistake and I would be hurt too, but we make mistakes. She was perfect for you.”

  I gave her an incredulous glare. “No. Mom she wasn’t perfect for me. She wasn’t anything for me. Not her. Never her.”

  “Ryan dear, I hear that Lana has made her grand return. I sincerely hope she hasn’t swayed your thoughts.”

  So… this was what it would be like to talk to my mother about Lana.

  “She has not. Whatever happens between Lana and me has nothing to do with Tiffany.”

  Her gaze hardened right up and actually stunned me. “Ryan, you are my son and naturally I want the best for you. You talk like you’re with her. If you are, I implore you to think. Think long and hard. That girl left us without a word of where she went. She just left. Look how we cared for her and she just left. Once this investigation is over what do you think she’ll be doing again? Leaving. That’s what. She will not care about you. Tiffany has always been in your life. She was the girl who was the constant.” She nodded like she truly believed that.

  Her words about Lana got to me though. She was mostly right. Lana would leave after the investigation. That was a given, it was expected. I knew that would happen in the grand scheme of things.

  However it wasn’t important now.

  I leaned forward and took her hand.

  “Mother.” I only ever called her that when I had something important to say. “I love you. I love you like nothing else and I value you. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I didn’t want to do but I did them to make you happy. There are however, some things I don’t think you have a say on. Tiffany is one of them.”

  “Ryan, it would make me so happy to see you two together again.”

  I shook my head and geared up to tell her the one word she’d rarely heard from me.

  “No,” I said.

  I said the word, and it felt like a step in the right direction.

  I’d always had a very difficult time telling her no. It wasn’t something she was used to hearing from me so hearing it now stunned her. “I’m really sorry. But no. I’m gonna focus on this investigation and then get my life back on track. She is not included in my plans for that.”

  “And Lana is?” Her face hardened up even more.

  I stood up. It was time to go. “Mom, we’ll see where life takes me.”

  I lowered, kissed her on her forehead and left.

  Discussion over.

  I needed to think so I went home. I drove straight home.

  I
needed to think about what I was going to do, and how. Dad was talking with Detective Gracen today and we were supposed to meet either tonight or tomorrow to discuss the next steps. I’d be seeing Lana in a little while and I wanted to have some plan to talk about with her.

  I needed to clear my mind to think. It was just hard knowing where to start.

  I needed to think of motive. I considered if it was better to hire a P.I. to find Larissa. Or was that going in the wrong direction?

  In the past there was only one thing that could clear my mind.

  I went to the attic, grabbed my paint set, the easel and a canvas.

  It was like they called to me.

  I took them outside and just started to paint.

  Seventeen years and I hadn’t done this.

  My hands remembered what to do.

  But unlike my landscapes, I found myself doing something I’d never specialized in.

  People weren’t my style. I could paint a person but I’d always felt that I couldn’t quite capture the emotion fully.

  Not so now as my mind and my hands flew across the canvas creating from memory the image of Amelia.

  It was her in the park she used to take Lana and me when we were kids.

  I remembered looking at her and thinking she had the most beautiful smile.

  She did.

  Earlier Mom asked me if my path involved Lana.

  It did. It still did.

  It may seem like I was jumping ahead and maybe shooting myself in the foot. Especially with everything going on.

  It might be the worst timing, but I knew what I wanted. I knew what I needed and I wanted to fight for it.

  I wanted Lana back on my path. I made her fall for me once.

  I’d do it again.

  There was so much loss.

  Too much loss. It was time to change things up.

  Nothing could quite express the way I felt when I lost her the first time. Powerless and helpless.

  I wasn’t that anymore.

  Chapter 19

  Ryan

  Seventeen years ago…