18. Ivy #4
When I look back to Emmett’s grandfather, he’s already watching me. It’s as if he didn’t hear what his son just shouted.
“Did Giovanni ask where you grew up?” he suddenly questions.
I stare at him as waves of indescribable chills go down my spine, but I can’t even look away, nor can I hold his gaze.
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow slightly then he leans back in the armchair, as if settling in.
“I want you to shed the cloaks of illusion you’ve been garbed in for most of your life and tell me what happened that night,” he says in a grave tone.
This time, a paralyzing fear grips me by the throat as soon as that question is uttered, echoing and bouncing around the bookshelves around us.
Gramps’s death—that I caused—is not something I like recalling. The weight of the guilt, shame, pain, and punishment is what I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
I might forget formulas, simple solutions, and stuff… but the night Gramps died will forever be etched on every brain cell God gave me. And I’ve never talked about that day with anyone.
Even Emmett. I just gave him bits and pieces that night we met… the rest I’ve kept buried in the thorny, torn-up parts of me.
But now, staring into the aged, sharp, and cold eyes of the older man in front of me, who seems to know more than I expected, I can’t help but bow down to the staggering weight of this confession.
So, in the soft glow of the lights of this magical library, I recount everything I remember the night I caused my best friend’s death.
I describe my stupidity, which proves the accuracy of Grandpa Armando’s judgment of my misplaced yearning and fight against abandonment.
I tell this virtual stranger my part in the worst thing I ever caused and how it led to Gramps coming to find me and then attempting to bring me back home.
A fleet of big black SUVs seemed to appear from nowhere, boxing us in.
Gramps swerved the car several times and sped up to get away from them.
He was focused. He was stern. He was giving me instructions…
At least that’s what I thought until years later when my memories came back.
When we got to the sharp curve, one of the SUVs crashed into us, pushing us past the barrier of the steep cliffs.
We plunged into the roaring sea.
“Gramps did everything to save me. As the dark, cold water quickly filled the car, I watched him shatter the rest of the window that wasn’t open with his bare hands.
Then he reached over to the backseat to cut me out of the seatbelt, grabbed me to pull me to the front where he shoved me out of the window with bleeding, cut hands. ”
Emmett’s grandfather doesn’t interrupt. He just sits there, with his hands steepled under his chin, listening attentively, but I sense a tenseness radiating from him.
“The same pocketknife he used to cut me out of my seat, he could’ve used to save himself too, but he didn’t,” I croak, my voice alien and rough to my own ears. “Instead, he used up all his energy to save a petulant, stupid child.”
Tears like a river are streaming silently down my face, but I don’t dare blink or wipe them away. I keep facing the man in front of me, recounting everything.
“That night, there was a woman.”
I’m watching Emmett’s grandfather so intently that I notice his almost imperceptible reaction to those six words.
“This is the memory I have kept locked in my soul, that I haven’t told anyone.
” I confess in a low, broken voice, but I don’t stop to clear my throat.
“I see her in my nightmares. I see her in my dreams. I hear her screams during the day. The woman with sad, distant green eyes, bandages all over her body. She was in that car with my grandfather and me.”
Silence like a frozen maintain in the dead of winter settles in the room, but I can’t stop there. I continue.
“I’ve been sick ever since I was born,” I admit the sore, unhealed parts of my life to this old man.
“Gramps and Grammy tried to keep it a secret from me but as I grew up, I knew there was a reason for their heavy concern for my slow growth and development. Of course that accident traumatized me enough that I forgot some crucial parts, but that broken, bruised woman never let me completely forget her. Not when her son became a part of my life. Gramps saved that lady as well.”
And just like that, the lid over all the secrets has been blown clean off.
“That woman, in her poor state, wrapped me in the crook of her arm and swam us to shore in that freezing water… leaving Gramps to go down into the depth of the sea in that car.”
Grandpa Armando and I stare at each other.
Me, with my tear-streaked face.
Him, with his now livid expression.
What he says next, as if with his last breath, is so unexpected and out of character that I think I misheard him.
“ Daphne, la mia dolce bambina!”
I don’t understand Italian, but I can guess what he just said.
After all, the indescribable grief and yearning a parent has for a lost child doesn’t need to be translated, nor can it be.
“Your grandson has been searching since then for his mother. Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter to him, he’s dedicated his life for her and to find the ones responsible,” I mutter, guilt and pain ravaging my chest.
“And I have remained quiet about who exactly took Ms. Daphne away that night.”
Grandpa Armando’s nostrils flare like a wild bull.
There was only one witness to Daphne Easton’s horrible suffering that night… and that’s me.
I’m pretty sure Emmett knew all this. Maybe he even knows that his mother was with my grandfather that night, but I know one thing I have been running from all my life.
By denying the return of my memories, I was trying to keep Emmett to myself for as long as I could.
Because I know what else happened that night.
“I see you remember me now,” Grandpa Armando finally says, looking at me with a half smirk. “I was actually offended that you erased our initial meeting that night.”
Yes… that night when Emmett’s mother swam us to shore… a group of men were already waiting.
I’m not sure if they were from the SUVs that had caused us to crash, but as the men seized Emmett’s mother and me, they dragged us to kneel in front of the old man in front of me now.
“I actually did, for a few years,” I tell him. “That night, after you threatened me to keep my mouth shut, no matter who asked, you had your men toss me to the side, to leave me there. My head hit a rock. By the time I came to, I was in the hospital.”
When I’m done, we sit there in silence, my hatred and anger toward this old man festering like an infested wound.
“This might not help but after I found out you were hurt, I dealt with that rabid dog who tossed you so violently,” Grandpa Armando says ever so gently. “After I found out how you suffered, I was so sorry for leaving you there that night. I had no other option.”
Tears fall down my face unchecked.
“Of course, I had no idea that your survival had already been exposed, which led to your life being in danger multiple times after that, but I also wasn’t expecting the results of that.”
This time, a small smile appears on his weathered face.
“What did you do with Emmett’s mother?” I demand. “You sat there, having the audacity to pretend like you didn’t kill my grandfather, but you call him an old friend? You’re the vilest piece of shit I’ve ever seen.”
Grandpa Armando chuckles humorlessly.
“I might be, but you, my dear sweet child, you’re not far off,” he says with a tight smile.
“You got your memories back a while ago, but you still pretended not to know anything, kept everything from my grandson, and even that day you found your fake father and scheming mother, you even acted like you didn’t know me! I’m impressed with your acting skills.”
“That’s because?—”
“And now, that boy you’ve been lying to is about to lose his life!”
My heart is no longer beating.
My lungs are about to explode.
“In any case, your own survival is in your hands,” he states seriously.
“What you do from now on, well, I don’t have to tell you since you don’t trust me and all, but while you sort through the mess of all the revelations we exposed in this library, I want you to try and think back to what happened that night. Did I really threaten you?”
My heart jumps in my chest.
“No more pretending, Ivy Marie,” he continues. “No more hiding your own intelligence in search of faux love and acceptance. Grab hold to what’s real.”
Grandpa Armando presses what looks like a button and a second later, Ripley comes back in the room and proceeds to help the old man settle into his wheelchair.
When they’re done, the old man waves at me and says, “Come with me. It’s showtime. After you become an Easton, we’ll discuss my grandson’s secret.”