Mother Dearest & Letting Go
Today, I’m meeting Grace at her villa. I had to take a speedboat to reach her isolated island in the middle of nowhere. It took a lot of threats to get her corrupted lawyer to disclose her location. I have fame, which is power to divulge what a dishonest crook the best southern lawyer is. He didn’t want that. He has a family and a lucrative reputation to keep.
Now I sit in wooden chair with a cold glass of lemonade in front of me like I’m here on vacation. She has me waiting in her private enclosed garden and deck with an outside cabana that provides a shaded area from the flaming yellow disc that burns high in the sky.
The three platinum rings on my left thumb glints in the sunlight. I never take her rings off. Last night Isabel asked me if she could visit the beach. I told her we could both lounge on the shore when I return. She was extremely excited. I haven’t seen her eyes light like that since we were young kids. My intention wasn’t to prolong her suffering when I took Isabel. All I wanted to do was make the pain go away for her. I feel like a fool for going through with this unachievable plan to rescue Isabel from herself. In the end I feel like maybe I should be rescuing Isabel from me. I see the me I truly am and I don’t like him. Not one bit.
“What a pleasant surprise it is to see my son.” Grace appears from around the corner. She dressed in an crisp white loose pantsuit. Her head is wrapped in a silk black scarf. She looks thin and her bones look brittle and weak. Grace looks sickly.
“Mother,” I greet snippily as she takes a seat across from me.
“How are you? I hope you’re doing well. You look great—strong.”
“Let’s skip the formalities. Shall we Mother? I’ve came a long way to talk to you.”
“Yes. I’m aware,” she smiles, never breaking her southern belle character. Her politeness is simply a character, a mask of sorts.
“Did you have anything to do with Ivan’s and Isabelle’s death?”
“Absolutely not. I loved Ivan and I would never plot against him.”
“What about Isabelle?”
Her red-painted lips press together grimly. “I didn’t have anything thing to do with her suicide either. Isabelle was…tortured.” She pauses to fill her teacup with a stream of steaming lavender tea and then sips from it. “It was true that I envied her, but my pity for her outweighed any jealously I harbored by far. After Ivan passed she just couldn’t cope. Isabelle was a tortured soul, really.”
“You know, I find that very unlikely when you’ve been keeping surveillance of Isabel’s family since I was little. Why did you have pictures of them?”
“I needed to know Ivan was happy. That’s all.”
“When did you meet Gabai?”
“We went to Stanford together.”
“You had his child. Hero and Rex are only eleven months apart. How did you keep that under wraps and why did Mrs. Gabai go along with it?”
“You were very young, Hunter. Do you remember my trip to Paris?”
I nod. Of course I remember her trip to Paris but only because I was so happy when she left. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells and Caleb was home a lot. He seemed to enjoy my mother’s absence as well. Grace stayed gone for almost a year. “You hid you pregnancy while you were in Paris.”
She touches her thin silver necklace with her eyes fixed on a spot on the table. “Rex was such a well mannered baby. Jolene couldn’t have more children after she gave birth to Max. She considered it a blessing that I gave her Rex. Jolene has always wanted more children.”
“I assume Caleb didn’t mind you getting pregnant by another man?”
She laughs softly and then coughs into her napkin. “Caleb wasn’t concerned with anything I had going on. Your father can keep himself busy enough to not worry about us. You should know that, Hunter.”
“You seem to have an answer to everything. How about why you kept us locked in cages in the barn?”
She coughs into her napkin again and swallows hard. “I’m dying, Hunter. Let’s not bring up the past. It’s rather depressing.”
I snort un-amused. “Are you seriously telling me this right now? I fucking lived it. You locked us in cages for animals. You left us there for days. We didn’t have food or water. You left us in the dark and in our own filth, and then you came to hose us down only when our fear got the better of us.”
“I’m dying, Hunter,” she repeats, looking into my eyes where I do see an emotion that resembles remorse. Yet I don’t think she’s asking for my forgiveness.
Laughing a humorless laugh, I shake my head. “Really? Of what?”
“They’ve found a cancerous tumor in the frontal lobe of my brain. Symptoms of tumors affecting the frontal lobe could be anything up to personality change, disinhibition, which includes loss of inhibition leading to offensive behavior that may be out of character for that person.”
I can’t conceal the dumbfounded expression morphing my features. “So you’re blaming all that on a brain tumor?”
When Grace is about to respond she chokes on a gurgle and brings her napkin to her mouth and releases a cough in it. The balled up white napkin is splattered with brilliant blood that seeps through the fabric, staining it as she crumbles it in her hand. “No. I’m not blaming what I did on anything. I am simply stating the facts. I was ill Hunter, but maybe if I would have gone to the doctors more often, they would have caught it faster and your childhood along with Hero’s and Naya’s would have been spared. I know it’s much too late to ask for forgiveness and redemption. I don’t expect you or your brother to forgive me so easily as Naya has.” She takes a deep inhale and turns to gaze at her exotic flowerbed. “I will offer you an apology anyhow.” Her glossy eyes shift to me. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a mother to you. I’m sorry that I never once offered or gave you comfort. You should have had loving hugs and sweet kisses.” She takes a deep breath, wiping at her eyes. “I’ve failed you and your brother and sister. I’ve failed you all.”
For the first time in my life I feel something close to compassion towards Grace. She was a terrible mother. It’s because of her that Hero, Naya and I are all scarred and tarnished. Grace has marked us all for life. In this moment, I can’t bring myself to feel completely sympathetic towards her. “What about Lily Stewart, Isabelle’s sister and Isabel’s aunt? Where is she?”
“I kept her here on this island. She agreed to leave after Isabelle married Ivan. Lily and Isabelle were adopted by Blain Stewart. Blain was a…wicked and cruel woman. She was very cold. I favor her in the ways I wish I hadn’t. Lily was a lost soul back then. She didn’t have much money and Blain was her only option. Her best friend and twin sister was getting married and Lily had a baby she could hardly take care of. Then there was Smith and Omar that endangered her life as well. I told her that I had my own private island in the tropics and she was welcomed to stay as long as she liked. She agreed and left soon after she gave birth to Taylor. Lily wanted to take Taylor with her, because Taylor’s father died in a motorcycle accident. Taylor still had her father’s father, John, to take care of her. I convinced Lily to leave the child in Cherry Creek so Taylor could get to know Isabel and Tyler.”
“Why did you want to help Lily?”
“I suppose, I protected her because of your father. He loved both Isabelle and Lily. I knew he would never love me in the ways he loved them. I won your father by default. We won each other by default.”
“Where is Lily now? Isabel’s been looking for her.”
“Lily is with her daughter and Rex. They reside in the Rockies. I’ve heard they have a spectacular view of the mountains and a lovely home.”
“So this it, then? The mystery is solved?”
Grace gives me a weak smile. “I don’t know, but that is all the useful information I can provide you.”
“Well, I guess there is no reason for us to be talking,” I say, standing from my chair.
“Wait. Please,” she rasps, through her severe coughing. She takes an envelope from inside her jacket pocket and slides it across the table to me. I pick it up and scan the front. It’s to Hero. “Hero is the only one I haven’t recently talked with. I want him to know things time will not allow me to tell him. I would be extremely grateful and thankful if you could please give him that.”
Giving her a nod, I walk off and leave her coughing and gagging where she sits, wondering who is this new woman I was just conversing with. Our lives would have been utterly different if this New Grace raised us.
***
Isabel and I lounge on the beach. She sits in my lap while I hold her close. It’s night and the sky is dark, the stars are shimmering high above us, the unbelievable glow bouncing of the ocean’s reflection. I told her everything that Grace told me and I have yet to feel better about any of it.
“Why didn’t Taylor tell me they found Lily?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t feel like you were ready for that kind of news,” I say.
She wraps her arms around me, sighing into my neck, placing a kiss there. Isabel is going to make what I’m about to do difficult. She’s been very attentive and clingy lately. This is my fault. I trained her to be what she is and now I’m going to set her free just as soon as she’s getting comfortable in that submissive role. “Well, I’m glad Taylor has her mom back.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I whisper, running my hand down the length of her silky hair. “I have to talk to you about a few things.”
She smiles and her lips softly touch mine before she pulls back to look me in my eyes. “Yes?”
“I love you, Isabel. So much. You know that, right?”
She nods, caressing my jaw. “Yes. I know.”
“You also know what I did was wrong, really wrong. I shouldn’t have taken you, Isabel. I’m so unbelievably sorry, baby.” Digging in my pocket, I pull out her real ID and passport along with the fake ones. I lay them beside her in the sand, then I take out the key and unlock her collar, removing it from around her neck. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Her pretty hazel-green eyes are brimmed with glistening tears. Her shaky fingers reach up to touch where her collar used to be. “But I love you, Hunter. You can’t…you can’t just let me go.”
“Isabel, you are free. You can turn me in, if you like. I will not fight you. I am letting you go. There’s a duffle bag full of cash on the bed in our room. You can leave here, right now and go anywhere you desire. Anywhere in this world, Isabel. You can use your real ID and passport, or you can stay missing by using the forged one. It’s up to you. I can’t…I won’t continue to keep you captive.”
“Do you remember our wedding day?”
“We were never married, Isabel,” I say, standing with an unbearable ache surging throughout my chest.
She yanks on my arm and uses me to pull herself up. “We might as well have been. You don’t remember our wedding?”
I say nothing.
Her eyes fill with tears and her expression is one of frustration, or maybe irritation. “Hero and Tyler were there and my parents put the whole thing together, even Caleb showed,” she says softly, tears rolling down her cheeks.
We did have a wedding day. It was a beautiful ceremony complete with a real alter covered with a perfusion of orchids and white roses. We all wore white. Isabel had on a white tulle dress with her red Converses and a white braided daisy flower crown on top of her head. Her father gave her away and we said vows. It felt real. But we were only children.
I relax the features of my face to utter blankness and unconcern for her tears I’m witnessing. “When we were kids? That was a long time ago. Things have changed. We have changed.”
She nods, wiping at her tears that continue to spill down her cheeks. “You told me you would never let me go then.” I’m stunned when she wraps all of her limbs around me suddenly. She holds me so tightly our frantic hearts almost beat as one. I want to shove her off me so the pain won’t hurt as bad and at the same time hold her forever so she can never get away from me. “So you can’t leave me now.”
“Isabel—”
“No, Hunter!” she yells determinedly, her arms growing firmer around my neck. “No. I want to be with you. I love you. I want to marry you. I want have all of your babies. I choose you, Hunter. Only you. Please.”
My heart almost splits in two from the overwhelming pleasure I get as those words leave her mouth and sink into my bones. She’ll never leave. I have her right where I wanted her, but now that I’ve come to my senses…this entire situation we’re in is a very disturbing and wrong. There’s only one thing left to do. It’s my solution time and time again when dealing with Isabel.
I have to break her once more.
“Isabel,” I snap in harsh voice, wrenching her head cruelly back so I can look into her wide eyes. “Remove yourself from me this instant. Or so help me you’ll be entirely too bruised to move within the next week.” It’s almost comical the way she jumps off me. “I want you to take your IDs and passports into our room and lay them on the bed and then I want you to treat yourself to warm bath with lots of bubbles and oils. I want you to stay in there a good while. After that, I expect you to be kneeling at the door for me. I need you to follow these orders step by step. Fail to comply will result in severe punishment. Do you understand?”
I watch in utter fascination as her pupils dilate. “Yes.”
“Go. Now,” I mutter with a dismissive wave.
Releasing the pent-up breathe I’ve been holding, I turn my back to her before I can watch her leave. But then I pause a moment, debating on turning around to look at her. I’m not strong enough to do that, though.
Balling my fists at my sides, I grit my teeth despising myself for everything I’ve done to her and everything I’ve continue to do to her. Only when I think she’s out of sight do I walk away and leave for the dock. The boat seems to speed through the dark ocean much quicker than my racing thoughts.