She turned to him again, and her expression was blank. “Who are you?”
Because he needed one last kick in the balls before he left.
He smiled tightly. “I just came in to help you with your meds.” He patted her arm. “The nurse will be in later to take you to physical therapy.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “All right.” Once again, she looked out the window.
He sighed and left the room. As soon as he was out in the hall, he stopped to collect himself. He’d never had any illusions that this would get easier, but he hadn’t bargained for how much harder it could get.
“You all right, sweetie?” Brittany’s voice turned his head.
He rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, I’m just…” He held her gaze, and realized she’d probably heard it all before. Even if she didn’t know precisely what had happened, what Sergei and Mama had seen that horrible night, she worked with dementia patients. As much as anyone in the world could without knowing the specifics, she understood. He didn’t need to explain it. For that, he was more grateful than she could imagine.
He exhaled hard. “It’s tough.”
“I know it is.”
They fell into stride together, and walked partway down the hall in silence before she finally spoke again. “It’s good that she has you, Sergei. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but your visits really do make a difference.”
“How can they? She doesn’t know who I am.” He looked back toward Mama’s room, and shook his head. “She doesn’t recognize me as an adult. She doesn’t even know who I am.”
“No, but I think, on some level, she does know. And even if she thinks you’re one of your brothers, honestly, it does her good. She gets lonely sometimes, and whenever you’re here, she’s good for at least a couple of days before she starts getting depressed again.”
“She doesn’t even know why she’s depressed.”
“Doesn’t matter. She still feels it.” Brittany gestured toward the room. “And whenever you’ve been here, she feels better. She’s much calmer.”
“That’s good, I guess.” They walked on, and were nearly to the lobby when he slowed to a stop. She halted beside him too, and after a moment, Sergei said, “I’m curious about something.”
“Sure.”
“Does she have…” Sergei chewed the inside of his cheek. “Nightmares?”
Brittany’s eyes darted away. “Sometimes.”
His heart clenched. “Does she ever say what she dreams about?”
Without meeting his gaze, Brittany shook her head. “She never says what they’re about. By the time she’s calmed down enough to talk, she’s…”
“Forgotten?”
The nurse nodded. “We do everything we can to calm her down, though. I promise.”
“I know you do.” He forced a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll, um, let you get back to work.”
“Okay. See you next week.”
“Yeah. See you next week.” And the week after. And the one after that. How long did something like this go on?
Hands stuffed in his pockets, gaze fixed on the ground, he wondered how the Catholics in town explained situations like Mama’s. What exactly their god’s “plan” was when it came to a woman traumatized within an inch of her life and left to stare at windows and walls until some ailment finally came along and silenced the nightmares she didn’t understand.
He wasn’t even out to the car yet before he had to wipe his eyes. He slid into the driver seat but didn’t start the engine. Instead, he covered his face with a shaking hand and tried to compose himself. He never fell apart here. Not while he was still out in front of the home. He could always make it somewhere—a beach, an abandoned lot, somewhere—before it all came crashing down, but not today.
And he didn’t really care. If people saw him, then they saw him. He doubted he was the first person to cry in this parking lot, and he doubted he’d be the last.
He wasn’t surprised Mama had nightmares. He’d just hoped for all these years that she didn’t. There was a reason it had taken him this long to ask for confirmation, and he wished he’d waited longer.
Mama probably dreamed of the same things he did, though hers would be worse because she’d seen more that night than he had, but she wasn’t lucid enough now to know why. To know that the dreams were memories. When she woke up, the fear probably lingered, and then it was gone and so were the things she’d seen and felt in her sleep.
For that, Sergei envied her. He knew what the dreams were, what was real and what wasn’t, and woke up every day with renewed rage toward the men who’d destroyed his family. Teeth clenched, he balled his fists at his sides. Maybe his encounters with Dom softened him toward Dom himself, but the Maisanos? The families in Cape Swan? The fucking Mafia?
Not a chance.
They were going down.
All of them.
*
It took a few hours, but Sergei collected himself enough to go the club. Though he didn’t really need the money from this job—it was peanuts compared to what every bullet earned him—this was where his contacts came to find him.