I glanced down at Elsie and saw the compassion on her face. Lifting my hand, I ran it down her soft cheek, and said, “I asked you what you thought was the most beautiful thing in your world.” My hand dropped to the locket around her neck and I ran the tip of my finger over the delicate object. Elsie swallowed and inhaled a low pained breath. “It was your mamma,” I said. Elsie’s eyes squeezed together and she nodded her head.
“I don’t know how you lost her, Elsie, but I know what it feels like to lose the one person that’s your world too young.” I nodded my head. “I know what it’s like to feel a piece of your soul break away… I know what it’s like for a hole to form in your heart, and never seal itself shut because you had no time with them. Cheated from getting to know them as an adult.”
Elsie’s tears fell down her cheeks; I backed away. To nature’s pyrotechnic show of light, and its soundtrack of thunder, I pulled back the sheet, hearing Elsie gasp behind me.
I didn’t look up. I wasn’t sure I could right now.
Elsie walked past me. I saw her in my peripheral vision. She stared up at the angel, at all I had left of my mamma.
I breathed in and out, waiting for the strength to lift my eyes. But I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t sure I could ever find the courage. The rosary beads dug into my skin with the strength that I held them. Suddenly, Elsie was in front of me. The expression on her face was one I’d never seen before. Elsie’s hand fell to mine and she hooked a single finger around mine.
I stared down at those fingers, and she whispered, “You’re mom was beautiful.”
Pain sliced through me, and I fought to see her healthy in my head. But the memories didn’t come. The only memories that filtered into my mind were of her lying paralyzed in bed, with her sad, dark eyes watching helplessly as our lives fell apart. All I remembered was the day I came home with the Stidda on my left cheek—the Heighter mark confirming I’d taken my first shot at a rival King—and the pain that echoed on her broken stare. This was the stare that replayed in my head each night. That and—
“What happened, Levi?” Elsie asked quietly.
My breathing labored, as Elsie let me go. She walked to the side of the angel sculpture that saw my mamma broken and lost, her body dying, face wracked in pain. But what broke me most was Elsie dropping to her knees before my mamma’s cupped hands, black ash in her palms, drawn by death’s insistent pull.
The sight of the girl I was losing my heart to, kneeling before the woman with the already shattered heart, began to overpower me. Elsie reached out her trembling hand and cupped my mamma’s frail cheek. Elsie’s bottom lip quivered, then her gaze fell to me.
“ALS,” I rasped, now overcome with emotion by the unfolding scene. “She died slowly and painfully. She died before our very eyes, day by day, minute by minute, but—”
“What?” Elsie prompted, her eyes back on my mamma. I walked closer, and closer still, feeling like a magnet was steadily drawing me to the sweet silent girl who had blasted into my life like a hurricane.
I lowered myself to the floor and my head dropped in shame. Elsie shifted before me. I took comfort in the sweet smell of coconuts from her hair. But the shame, the guilt her question had sparked, broke the dam I’d built up inside.
“Levi—”
“She fell unconscious, alone. I was in the trailer, I was meant to be in her room watching her, it was my turn, but—”
This time Elsie didn’t push. I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering that night; the last night my mamma opened her eyes. I opened my mouth. As though it was fighting for its freedom, with rosary rotating in hand, I admitted my biggest sin…
The rain bounced off the trailer’s roof as I sat on the floor of my mamma’s bedroom, her soft weakening eyes watching my every move.
Axel was gone. He had run away from the police after someone OD’d on the drugs he had dealt. Austin had taken his place as the Heighters’ right hand man. Austin was outside now, standing in the rain, waiting for the paying druggies to come get their fix.
I read the sentence again but my mind wasn’t on it. Dropping the pen and paper to the floor, I rested my head against the mattress of Mamma’s small bed. I stared at the damp-stained roof and took a deep breath. Feeling I was being watched, I turned my head to the side, to find Mamma’s eyes watching me.
I blushed, never liking being under any attention. Shifting until I sat right before where she lay, I smiled and said, “You okay, Mamma?” My mamma’s eyelids closed, her most recent sign for ‘yes’, but I could see something else was in that stare. And it frightened me. Her eyes were dull, and the usual light sitting in their depths had dimmed.
I cast my eyes over her body, noting how thin she had become in recent weeks. A lump built in my throat but I swallowed it back, wanting nothing more than a miracle to occur, and for her to get to her feet and walk.
A soft noise came from her mouth, and I ran my hand down her face. She was cold. Real cold. My stomach flipped, not liking how cold she was.