Intaglio Dragons All The Way Down

chapter 27: Old Wounds



“Cole! Stop it!” Frank commanded. He leaned forward, positioning himself to shield Nina. Defensive and angry.

Cole gasped, closing his eyes and trying to pull himself into some semblance of control. Ava pulled the notebook out of his grip, setting it between the cushion and the side of the recliner. Cole felt her wrap her fingers tightly around his, squeezing three times like he’d done so often with her.

‘I… love… you…’

Cole focused on that warm point of connection. Feeling the balance tipping back in his favour, he let out a sigh, opening his eyes.

“We are all going to keep our voices down,” Marta warned. “All of us.” She had a calm voice, but there was a backbone of steel in every word.

“Cole is going to finish saying what he wants,” she continued. “And then you two may respond to him... appropriately.” She turned to Nina, dark eyes flashing. “Please do not interrupt again, Nina. You’ll have your own chance to speak.”

There was a murmur of assent and Cole began again.

“Nina,” Cole said. “You were the one who gave the note to Ava. So I want you to tell the story. The whole story...” he paused, his face sharp with anger and pain, “... please.”

Her gaze dropped, guilt and shame and something else flickering over her features. He felt almost bad for doing this... but he knew his father could hardly speak of his ex-wife without an explosion. Frank Thomas wasn’t going to be much help.

Nina took a wheezing breath, her free hand coming up to rest on her throat.

“Your father and I met years before he was divorced...” she said, voice wobbling. “We were friends at first, but we grew close over time.” Her chin lifted, voice growing stronger. “Sometimes you can’t stop things like that from happening. Things just clicked with us.”

Cole’s arms tightened around Ava sitting in his arms. He understood that part of Nina’s story... because that’s exactly how he felt about Ava.

“The two of us just had this bond,” she continued. “Like we just knew each other somehow… understood things that no one else did.”

She paused, looking over at Frank, eyes shining. Cole could see how much she cared for his father. There was love and genuine respect in how she looked at him. Feeling like he was intruding on a private moment, he stared instead at Ava’s fingers, noticing how well they fit together with his own.

‘She was wearing my ring…’ a voice inside him whispered, but he couldn’t remember why.

“It... uh... things with us...the affair, I mean,” she stumbled uncomfortably over the word, “it had been going on for some time when Hanna found out. I don’t know if she just suspected, or what, but she came to my apartment and confronted me. And for a while, I left the city.”

Cole’s head bobbed up in shock.

“What?”

“I had to make some choices,” Nina explained. “I went to France for a time, and when I came back, I kept my distance. Things with Frank and me just sort of... stopped for a while.”

Next to Nina, her husband was watching her sombrely. There were sorrow and understanding in his eyes. Nina nodded to Cole, continuing.

“I think you were in Junior High then, Cole, and Hanna had just finished high school.” Her voice was wistful. “Hanna was so determined to follow in her father’s footsteps.”

Next to her, the Sergeant Major laughed bitterly.

“Headstrong, foolish little girl.”

Cole blanched. He’d never heard his father say anything like this before. Not about Hanna: the golden child. It unnerved him.

“Later that year,” Nina continued, “when Hanna died—”

“Wait.”

Everyone's eyes jumped back over to Frank. Marta had opened her mouth, ready to chide him about interrupting, but there was something almost visible about the unspoken communication between Frank and Nina. Dr. Langden waited for him to continue.

“There’s more,” Frank said grudgingly.

Nina smiled, weary.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “It isn’t really part of Angela’s story.”

Frank shook his head, gesturing to Cole.

“No, I do. Cole said he wanted to know it all.” He winced. “So he should.”

“Yes, Dad, I do,” Cole answered in a strangled voice.

Frank sighed.

“Well, your sister suspected the affair. She came to me... accused me of it.” Frank’s voice was aching and sad. “And I... I lied to Hanna. I...” He coughed. “I told her it was all in her head, and that she was...” Frank ran a trembling hand over his face. “She was just taking your mother’s side, the way she always had when we used to fight.”

Frank’s voice broke and Cole could see him swallowing again and again, trying to pull himself together. Fighting down tears.

“Breathe,” Marta said quietly.

After a few long seconds, he continued.

“We had a terrible fight, Hanna and me. God, I just... I said awful things to her. Hanna decided then she was leaving. She said she wouldn’t stay at home a day longer than she had to. Her marks weren’t high enough for a really good college... but she’d always had excellent reflexes… was good at sports, and the military seemed like the next best choice. A choice I supported.”

Frank’s face dropped as he stared at the carpet, his voice ashamed. “She joined up to get away from me. I knew she was probably too young really – younger than I was when I joined – but… but I...” He coughed again, eyes glittering with unshed tears, “I figured it’d help her grow up, you know? Get rid of some of that daredevil attitude of hers.”

Frank looked back up, face ragged and worn. Across from him, Cole nodded, his own throat aching.

“She really pulled some dumb shit sometimes,” Cole said with a tearful laugh.

His father nodded.

Nina squeezed Frank’s hand, clearing her throat as she picked up the story.

“Frank and I became close again after Hanna’s death.” She looked over at Cole, her gaze bright with tears. “Your father was changed by losing Hanna. He blamed himself for her death, and he needed someone to talk to, and I was—”

“But Mom—”

It was Frank who answered him.

“Your mother was broken by Hanna’s death, like we all were. She couldn’t get past it. She wouldn’t let me in... wouldn’t let anyone in. She just wanted Hanna back.”

“She was always Mom’s favourite,” Cole whispered, voice breaking.

Ava turned, watching him fight through the emotions. His father nodded, chest heaving with half-suppressed sobs.

“It was hard for Angela,” Nina said quietly. “She’d lost a child, and now was faced with divorce. I can understand that in some ways, Cole, but she...” Her voice cracked, lips pursing tightly. “She did things, Cole. You have to realize that. She tried to hurt Frank. To hurt me. She used to call me late at night. Showed up at my office. Left angry notes on my car. She threatened me... She...”

Cole stared, horrified as Nina went through a litany of his mother’s erratic behaviour. What concerned him the most was that it all made perfect sense for who his mother had been. She’d always done those types of things. Cole knew Nina was telling the truth.

“...The worst part came when she began threatening to kill herself,” Nina said, her fingers picking nervously at a seam on the chair. “I wanted to end things with Frank again… because of her threats. It scared me that she might actually do it.”

She clasped her hands to her chest, sniffling.

“I made a clean break with your mother,” Frank explained, looking at Cole. “Angela and I didn’t see each other except for the times you came to stay with me and Nina. I thought that it would be for the best...” His face crumpled. “…but I was wrong. And I’m sorry about that.”

Cole’s legs were wobbly, his hands around Ava. This was almost too much. He knew Nina’s secret... and the source of her shame. Marta leaned forward, gesturing, open-handed, to Nina.

“Keep going,” she prompted. “Share the rest. You’ve come this far.”

“We’d been married almost two years when Angela decided to sell the house. The home that we have now... and move into town. She wanted to be closer to her friends. The house, as you know, is a bit out of the way.”

Cole remembered that summer. The suburban neighbourhood they’d moved to, with its modern homes and convenient accessibility, rather than the too-big house on the water that always echoed with Hanna’s ghost. Cole had loved the change of location. For the first time, he had been within walking distance of all of his friends. His social life had become so much better.

“The house had a lot of upkeep for one person, and Angela decided she wanted a new place to start over. When she listed the house,” Nina said, looking over at Frank, “your father decided he wanted to get it back. It had been hers in the divorce, of course, but he wanted it now. He wanted the memories of Hanna, and the times there. The bedroom had never been changed...”

Cole nodded; he remembered his parents’ mausoleum to Hanna. The untouched room, and the bed that still had one corner folded back, waiting for her return. He could remember how his mother had talked of moving away and starting fresh. She’d even brought in a pile of boxes, but they’d never gone further than the hallway.

“Frank offered to purchase the house back from her,” Nina said anxiously. “Angela accepted, and the arrangements seemed fine at first. Hanna’s room was left as it was, and your father hired movers to help Angela with the rest. We moved back out to the coast and you and your mother moved into town.” She smiled tightly. “Everyone seemed to be happy with how it had all worked out, but there were consequences we hadn’t expected…”

The hairs rose on Cole’s arm. The story was nearing the horrible spiral, the dark part of his mother’s life when everything went out of control.

“She started showing up at the house,” Nina said, her voice reedy with strain. “Standing on the doorstep in the pouring rain, keys in hand, not sure how she’d gotten there. We had the locks changed, but… sometimes she got violent.”

Cole’s chest was being pinched in a vise as he sat, horrified by the story.

“We didn’t know it then, but Angela had started drinking...” Nina’s gaze darted over to Cole and away. “I think... I think that was part of it. Though it was depression too, and maybe some type of…” Nina winced. “… mental illness. It started to scare me, these episodes. Angela kept accusing me. There were some horrible, public moments when she called me a whore and a home wrecker, told people I’d stolen her husband. Then the late night phone calls started… the notes… the threats… broken windows…”

Cole tried to focus on the room, but his body was reacting in a panic: blood rushing in his ears, skin prickling with heat. He wanted to run. He wanted to get away from here, but Ava was sitting with him, sitting on him! All he could do was stay.

This was the secret no one talked about.

“One night, very late, she showed up… began pounding on the door.” Nina’s voice dropped. “Frank and I were at home. He was furious that she couldn’t move on without him. The three of us were in the doorway, yelling. She tried to push into the house, and Frank stepped in the way. Angela said she’d changed her mind. Said she wanted things back the way they’d been. She… she wanted the house back… and her husband.”

Cole’s father winced.

“God!” Nina hissed. “None of it made any sense, but she was raging. She… she threatened to kill herself...” Nina took a heaving breath that sounded like a sob, her hand fluttering up to rest on her throat. “But she’d threatened that before… many times. Frank and I told her to leave or we were calling the police.”

Cole felt as if he’d been punched. He couldn’t breathe. One sentence echoed loudly in his mind: ‘she’d threatened that before, many times...’

This was the night she’d died.

“She left. Stormed off without a word. A day passed, and we figured things were fine. You would’ve called if something had happened, Cole. We knew that. And you didn’t call, so we just assumed, you know, that she’d calmed down…” Nina’s words tumbled out faster and faster. “You were supposed to come stay with us that weekend, but then we got a call from the police that... that Angela had killed herself.”

Her words abruptly ended. Cole gulped. Frank was silent and unmoving, watching him. Father and son stared at one other warily, unspoken words and years of heartache exposed to the light.

“That’s why you blamed me,” Cole said, his voice hollow with the weight of the realization. “Because I wasn’t there when she came home that night.”





Ava was still struggling to keep up with the quicksilver shift of emotions. Her gaze swung from Cole to his father, grief leaving her mute.

“No, Cole!” Frank roared, surging forward, his whole body tensed as if waiting for a blow. “No! You were NEVER to blame for your mother’s death!”

Frank was livid, his voice outraged and anguished. Ava recoiled, her shoulders bumping against Cole’s chest. This was the part of his father’s personality she’d been hoping to avoid. Frank’s hands swung in wide circles, gesturing to Cole as he spoke. He was close to exploding.

“I said those things at the funeral because I was angry with you and with her! I just couldn’t believe that she’d actually done it! I should have done something, warned someone! I didn’t!”

Ava cringed. Marta watched him carefully, but she hadn’t interrupted... not yet.

“I think about what I should have done every single day. But it can’t be changed!”

Marta raised her hand – a visual cue – and Ava shifted closer to Cole while Frank continued to rage.

“Believe me, I know you weren’t to blame,” he roared, “I wish... I wish you had been there, Cole, but I wasn’t either, and NEITHER of us can change that!”

Frank was still in control, barely, but it was making Ava uneasy. It reminded her a great deal of her mother: the unleashed temper. Her eyes slid over to Nina Thomas, and that’s when she saw it. Nina’s eyes were narrowed to slits, her hands in white-knuckled fists, her lipsticked mouth a blood-red slash across a white mask of a face.

She was seething with fury.

“God, I’m so sorry I said those things to you!” Frank cried. “So sorry for hitting you at the funeral. Son, I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”

Ava blinked in shock, her chest tightening in reaction to Nina’s emotions too. ‘There’s more?’ her mind shouted. She could see Nina changing. Could see the stoppered-up emotions welling up from somewhere deep inside. Chim’s voice suddenly came to mind: ‘What’s her angle... what’s she getting out of this...?’

There was still no explanation ... no reason for Nina to open up this whole closet full of skeletons in the way that she had. Across from Ava, Nina’s usually calm face contorted in fury as Frank continued to rant about his ex-wife.

“Angela made that choice!” Frank shouted. “She was sick, and she chose her own way out of it! I can’t take the blame for that, Cole, and neither can you! “

“Frank...” Marta warned.

“Jesus Christ, Cole,” Frank continued, voice breaking, “you were just a teenager! I should have done something! Something more, and I DIDN’T! I’ve never forgiven myself for her death! It was my fault! Mine!”

Ava watched, horrified, as Nina’s fists rose. Gone was the speech position Ava knew so well. This woman was ready to attack. Everyone else was focused on Frank’s release of pain, but Ava could see Nina’s own frustrations flaring, emotions unchecked. Released.

“I KNEW how your mother was!” Frank howled, his hands shaking with tremors. “I’d LIVED with her moods for YEARS!”

“Stop it!” Nina screeched. “Just STOP IT!”

Everyone turned. For a moment, Frank’s eyes darted to Nina, then Marta, then back to his son. He was as taken aback as everyone else. Nina was vibrating with long-suppressed anger.

“I am so GODDAMN TIRED of Angela Thomas!” she shrieked, face twisting into a sneer. “Do you know how many years she’s been a third party to our marriage?! How often I’ve had to listen to this? For God’s sake, Frank, she was the reason we went to counselling in the FIRST place!”

Ava glanced over to Dr. Langden, shocked to see her calmness. Not everyone in this room was surprised by the outburst.

‘Marta knew...’

“Angela always used threats to control you,” Nina snapped. “She KNEW how to control us ... and she might be dead and gone, but it has never EVER stopped!” Her chest heaved, voice shrill and bitter. “After Hanna died, you put the flag at half-mast, but you put it back up again the next summer!”

Ava felt Cole sit up straight in shock.

“When Angela died, you pulled the flag down again. Do you KNOW how angry that made me? That she gets your undying LOVE after everything she did!? That whenever things get really, really bad, it’s HER grave you visit!”

“Nina, no,” Frank muttered, face aghast.

“You have never EVER gotten over her death!” she taunted, arms crossing on her chest, fists under her armpits. “Do you have any idea what that’s like for me? What it felt like to live in your dead wife’s house? To see her pictures on the wall? To see you grieve for her year in and year out and never, EVER let go?!”

Frank’s face was grey and sickly. He reached for her arm but she jerked angrily away.

“If I’d died in that car accident last fall, you would have NEVER have grieved me in the same way! You’d had moved on. Kept going… kept talking to Angela the way you do now when you think I’m not listening! She’s never left us, Frank! You’re still in love with her! You always have been!”

“It isn’t the same, Nina,” he gasped. “She was the mother of my children.” He was bereft, his voice quiet. Horrified.

“It IS the same!” she cried. Her arms were no longer crossed, hands slashing the air to punctuate her words. “You sit in that den, night after night listening to that goddamn tape! Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I’ve never listened to it myself?!”

Twisting around, Ava saw that Cole's face was just as confused as she felt. She’d heard the tape, but all she remembered was Cole and Hanna. She looked back to Frank and then to Nina.

The answer was just out of reach. She could feel it there… waiting.

“The rain,” Ava muttered. There was something else there. For a moment she could almost hear the voices of Cole and Hanna as little children. They were telling stories… suddenly – in much the same way as Oliver often did, she simply knew.

“It’s the stories in the rain,” Ava repeated, louder this time.

“You’ve heard it too,” Nina answered, voice strangled with tears. She started to cry, her face crumpling like wet tissue paper as pain and frustration finally broke through the dam of her resolve. Around the room, all eyes were now on Ava.

“There’s a recording that Frank listens to,” she said, her voice nervous. “It’s a video that Hanna had taken. One night when there was a storm. Hanna borrowed the camera from a neighbour to—”

“To film the lightning,” Cole interjected.

Ava turned back to look at him; his face was full of awe, as if remembering the event for the first time in years. Ava smiled sadly.

“Hanna set up the camera in the den as the storm began and then she and Cole came in,” Ava paused, squeezing his hand. “They sat down to wait, and they were telling stories…”

She turned back to the room, voice gaining volume. “The stories were about their life... about Angela... Hanna, in particular, talked about what a good mom she was... about how much she loved her mother.”

She looked up to see Frank, his mask of anger torn away. He looked like a man who’d been flayed alive. When he spoke, his voice was grief-stricken and ravaged.

“We were happy once...” he gasped, before dropping his face down into his hands; the next words came out half-broken. “She was happy once. Hanna talked about it. She knew her mother had been happy.”

Angela.

Everyone in the room had gone still, the revelations peeling back the layers of the years. There were ghosts here now. Too much pain to be managed all at once. It surprised Ava when Cole broke the silence.

“She wasn’t.”

Frank’s face lifted from his hands. There were tears wetting his wrinkled cheeks.

“What...?”

Cole shook his head. Ava could see him warring with something. His body was tensed, but the set of his jaw steadied her. ‘Cole’s okay,’ her mind assured her.

“She wasn’t happy,” Cole said resignedly. “She was never happy, Dad. It just wasn’t Mom’s nature. She was depressed, but it wasn’t because of you. It wasn’t because of us... or even Hanna. She was always like that, as far back as I can remember.”

Frank’s eyebrows pulled together in pain and confusion.

“But you and Hanna... I’ve listened to what you said on the tape...” he stopped, glancing over at Nina sheepishly. He reached out for her hand, and this time she let him take it.

“It might be on the tape,” Cole answered, “but it isn’t true. It’s what Hanna used to do: tell me stories to make me feel better. Those nights when you two would be fighting in your bedroom... or when you were gone and Mom was trying to cope on her own, and she just couldn’t.”

Cole’s hands wrapped even tighter around Ava, pulling her against him. She fought down the urge to burrow her face against his neck. This story was too awful and raw.

“Hanna used to make up stories about our life,” Cole explained. “She could always find a way to make me laugh... keep me going. In these stories, Mom was always happy, even though she never was.” He laughed sadly. “It was all just a fairy tale.”

Ava watched Cole’s father. She saw his face break as the truth was finally revealed.

“Hanna made that up...” Frank murmured, the words barely a whisper. “Angela wasn’t happy after all.”

Ava relived a long-ago conversation with Frank:

“You hear it?” he’d asked her.

“No,” she’d answered. “I don’t…”

“Not as far as I can remember,” Cole said.