Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
No one moves. Thomas is holding his breath.
After a moment, I very slowly turn to see a slender and incredibly beautiful figure.
His mother. Her eyes are the same bright green as her children’s.
Brown bangs cut across her forehead while the rest of her hair falls straight down her back like a waterfall of dark silk.
Her skin is snowy white but marked by time and suffering.
Like the scar at the base of her neck, which is only partially covered by her white shirt and slim pearl necklace.
Thomas’s mother is paused halfway down the stairs. With one hand, she holds the rail while the other is pressed against her chest. “You came…” she whispers, observing him with shining eyes. She descends the steps slowly and, in a tragic tone, murmurs, “But you’re already leaving…”
Thomas turns and holds her gaze. He doesn’t say anything; his hands are in his pockets, his lips are compressed into a hard line, and his eyes are full of warring emotions. “It’s better this way.”
“Please don’t go,” she begs, drawing a little bit closer to him. “I can’t stand to see you leave again.”
“Wasn’t so difficult to watch me leave last time.” The moment he says it, I can see on his face that he regrets it, but he tries not to let that show.
His mother hangs her head, overwhelmed, her eyes cloudy with tears.
“I was sick, so sick. I didn’t know what I was saying or doing.
It wasn’t easy to crawl out of that black hole…
but I did it, and I never stopped thinking of you two.
” With a marked hesitation, she grasps Thomas’s arms, as if to make sure he’s really there in front of her and isn’t just a figment of her imagination.
Discomfort is clear in Thomas’s eyes, but he doesn’t fight her.
I’m willing to bet he needs this physical contact too.
“There wasn’t a single day, not one…when I didn’t pray to God and ask him to take care of you while you were away.
” I see her chin trembling and tears appear in the corners of her eyes.
Thomas looks down at her warily. I wish so, so much that he could find the strength to push past his pain and let himself forgive.
“We’ve managed on our own,” he says, his voice overflowing with years of accumulated suffering.
“I never had any doubt that you would. Your sister has always been safer with you than anywhere else.” She swallows hard.
“But I am your mother, and what happened to us…it was horrific for everyone. There isn’t a day when I don’t think about him.
Or a day when I don’t miss him. But I should never have let my pain make you feel unwanted.
You were not unwanted. I made a mistake, a grievous mistake, letting you go.
All I ask is that you let me find a way to make up for it, to make up for all the lost time… That’s all I ask.”
Thomas’s truculent glare softens almost imperceptibly as he takes a deep breath.
My shoulders relax as well, certain that the tension in the air is about to melt away.
After a long moment of silence in which Thomas simply observes his mother, he nods.
His mother’s eyes light up with joy and deep feeling.
She takes his hand and strokes it with trembling fingers.
Then, turning in my direction, she exclaims, “Oh, how impolite…” She wipes tears from the corners of her eyes with her fingertips, trying to compose herself.
“You’ll have to excuse me… I haven’t even introduced myself.
I’m Lauren Collins, and I’m so happy you’re here as well,” she says, holding out a hand to me.
“I’m Vanessa. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Collins,” I answer, shaking her hand.
“Please, call me Lauren.” Our handshake quickly turns into an affectionate hug that makes me feel welcome. I hear her faintly murmur the words thank you a few inches from my ear. I smile at her and tell her that she has nothing to thank me for.
We move to the kitchen, where Lauren goes to the stove to heat up the stew.
While Leila takes a bottle of water out of the fridge, Thomas and I sit in silence.
The atmosphere is still pretty tense. Leila pours four glasses of water and hands them out to us.
Their mother stirs the stew some more before turning in our direction, her back against the kitchen counter.
“You know, Mom,” Leila says brightly, clearing her throat and looping her arm through her mother’s.
“Vanessa is the girl I was telling you about…Thomas’s girlfriend,” she explains, giving us a sly look with smirk on her face.
Lauren watches us tenderly but, seeing my blushing cheeks and her son’s tight face, she decides not to push.
“JC, why can’t you shut your mouth?” Thomas scolds her with a surly look on his face.
Then he takes the pack of cigarettes out of his jacket, ready to stick one between his lips, but his mother gives him a look that must have dissuaded him because he sighs—almost grunts, really—and frustratedly stuffs them back into his pocket.
“Well, it’s hardly a secret,” Leila says nonchalantly, sipping her water.
“What? Your inability to mind your own business?”
She sticks her tongue out at him while their mother gives them both a soft look. As if she missed this everyday normal interaction more than anything in the world.
***
When Lauren tells us that the stew will be ready soon, Leila and I start setting the dark wood table in the dining room.
Every now and then, I peer out of the corner of my eye into the kitchen.
Thomas is still sitting there, on the stool with elbows propped up on the kitchen island.
He’s shaking his foot with an anxious look on his face as he continues to glance around the room.
His mother is with him, and she’s talking to him, but I’m too far away to hear what they’re saying.
Thomas nods a couple of times, drumming his fingers frenetically on the surface of the island, but after a few exchanges, he finally looks at her and responds with a hint of a smile.
Leila and I observe them talking more easily and decide not to interrupt, giving them space to find each other again.
“How are you? I mean, what’s the situation with your father right now? Was he able to ask for your forgiveness before he was hospitalized?” As I talk, I carefully fold the napkins and tuck them under the cutlery.
“When I got here, Dad was in a bad way. Acute bronchopneumonia is hard on a body, but that didn’t stop him from treating me like shit.
” Leila lets out a self-deprecating laugh, surprising me.
“You know, when our uncle called to tell me about his illness and said he wanted to bring the family back together and redeem himself…I almost bought it. I really should’ve known better,” she says, reaching around me to put the plates down next to the napkins.
“It was only later, once I got here, that I realized it wasn’t my father who asked us here; it was my mother.
She was the one who wanted us to come. She was the one who was hoping to reunite us in some way, and when I really think about it, it’s for the best that Thomas decided to stay in Corvallis.
I don’t know what would have happened otherwise. ”
“Why did you stay? You could have called us anytime, and we would have come and gotten you.”
She shrugs, tucking her bobbed black hair behind her ears.
“I know, but I didn’t want to leave my mother alone with him.
It hasn’t been easy this last year and a half, turning my back on her.
I always had a good relationship with her, and deciding to leave was painful.
But I couldn’t leave Thomas by himself, not after what he’d gone through in the past few years.
And the few times I’ve heard from her since we left, she assured me that Dad had stopped hurting her.
But now more than ever, I’m betting she was lying to me. ”
“What makes you think that?” I ask, instantly alarmed.
“When I got here, she had bruises on her arms. I asked her how she’d gotten them, and she obviously made something up about her shopping bags being too heavy a few days earlier.”
My eyes go wide with fear. “I can’t believe it, even now at the end of his life…”
Leila gestures for me to speak softly, putting her index finger against her lips and glancing at the kitchen.
“Do you really think he did it?” I ask finally.
“I can spot my mother’s lies. I’ve been doing everything that I can to get her to tell the truth ever since Dad was hospitalized. But years and years of living under threat has warped her. She was terrified to talk to even me about it.”
Instinctively I turn to look from Lauren to Thomas, who seems to have found some harmony with her. I wonder what would happen if Thomas found out. “We should do something; he can’t—”
“Vanessa,” she interrupts me, her eyebrows drawing together.
For an almost imperceptible moment, it seems that I can see Thomas’s cold stare in his sister’s eyes.
“You have to face reality. My mother wouldn’t admit what’s happening to her even under torture.
But suppose that she did; what would it do?
Do you really think he’d be sent to prison to live out his final days behind bars? ”
“Yes!” I answer with even more conviction. This man needs to pay for all the evil he’s done and continues to do. He can’t just get away with it all.