Pop, too, had disappeared; he couldn’t take the strain and told me at the last minute that he was taking Gramps’ plane over there to watch over his wife and children as best he could. I think he’s still in shock that Ma would be involved in something like this. And now, here I sit, alone in the dark, staring at the screen, going over their plans, knowing that they were being carried out tonight and thinking of a thousand ways we could’ve stopped this and a million reasons why.
I wasn’t surprised when my phone vibrated, alerting me to an incoming call. It was expected. “It’s done!”
“Yes, I know. Are we going to tell them that we know?”
“Why? They’ll only come up with more devious fuck ways to hide from us in the future.”
“You’ve got a point. I must say, you don’t strike me as the type to allow women to get involved in combat.”
“You haven’t met my kid yet, have you? What am I saying? Your daughter is going to be the same, I can see it. Remind me to give you some pointers for what to expect.”
“You mean the fact that she’s a genius? I guess we’re both alike in that as well, that our daughters are more like us, I mean.”
“Speak for yourself, kid; I’m not into that head shit the rest of you freaks are about. By the way, did the men get the stuff you wanted out of the palazzo? I forgot to ask.”
“Yes, they did.”
“Good, because they torched the place to shit. I gotta go pretend I’m ignorant again. See you soon!” He hung up, and I got to my feet to turn out the lights and check on my children one last time before joining my woman in our bed.
I’m not sure how the two of us came to be, Lyon and I, a match made on one of the levels of hell, I’d guess. Whatever the case may be, I like him. I like his straightforward, no-nonsense approach to things his strong sense of right and wrong with no grey area.
It's over, and I don’t know how I feel or what to feel. There’s no great sense of relief, other than the fact that I can now go on with my life without this thing hanging over me, so I guess I’d say I’m happy.
SOFIA
It’s done; it’s finally over. My heart is still racing even though we’re long gone from there. I feel like I’m somewhere outside of myself, but I can’t focus too much on myself right now because I have a young girl in distress who’s heartbroken and scared. She’d just become an orphan, well, in the biological sense anyway.
A lot has happened in the weeks since she came to me. At first, I didn’t want anything to do with her, given who her parents were, the two people who’d destroyed me for a very long time. Then, my son, that beautiful boy, sent his message. I didn’t understand it at first, the way he asked me to accept his brother and sister on his behalf or when he said to make up for stealing his youth by taking better care of them.
I found it a bit harsh, but that’s Gabe, honest to the end. In his wording, they’re now a part of him and a part of the same monster who’d fathered him. I didn’t understand how he could ask this of me, his mother. But when he compared his brother and sister to himself and I, I think I got it.
He doesn’t see Alonzo when he looks at them; I took that as a direct question as to whether or not I saw Alonzo when I looked at him. I never knew my son felt that way or even questioned this about our relationship, and it made me think. I thought it would be hard, and it was for a bit.
When my girls rejected them, I was secretly pleased. I wanted to hate them, wanted nothing to do with them, and had they been anything like their parents, it would’ve been easy to hold that stance, but alas, they’re not. Jr. had a time of it in the beginning, but it was my father-in-law and my husband who worked with the boy to get him to open up. And the girl, Natalia, so broken, like another young girl who’d escaped the same village, running from the same monster.
I held Natalia now as she cried heartbreaking tears of grief and anger. Before we came here, I told her that she didn’t have to take part in any of it, but she wanted to be there; she needed to see for herself that the monster was dead. As for myself, I thought I would feel great relief, joy, anything, but all I feel is tiredness.