“What the fuck are you mumbling about?” Caroline asks angrily.
I keep my eyes closed and say it one last time.
“Cole Garrett Lafierre, my son, Cole’s son. You can kill me, but you can never, EVER take that away from me,” I sob, a sad smile on my face as I wait for it to happen.
A loud crack of thunder shakes the ground around us and I silently beg for Caroline to hurry up and end it already.
“Put the gun down, Caroline. Please, don’t make me do this.”
I feel the gun move away from my head and my eyes fly open. Caroline turns and points the gun behind her.
Directly at her mother.
“Please, baby,” Vivien cries. “I’m sorry.”
She looks at me as she apologizes and I see the anguish on her face. She’s holding a gun in her hand, pointed right at her own daughter. A daughter who ruined lives and forced her to pile lie on top of lie to protect her, but still her daughter. The little girl she raised and had so many hopes and dreams for. No mother should be put in this position no matter what she’s done to bring it on herself.
“Go away, Mother. I’ve got this handled,” Caroline huffs.
She starts to swing the gun back in my direction, but the click of Vivien turning off the safety on the gun makes Caroline pause.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia. You have no idea how sorry I am,” Vivien sobs. “I know it’s my fault that you’ll never get to be a mother and I will never forgive myself for that, but you have to understand how hard it is to not do everything you can to protect your child. I just wanted her to get better. I just wanted my little girl back.”
“Will you stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Caroline complains.
“Oh, baby. Why are you doing this? Please, just put the gun down. Please, don’t make me do this.”
I swallow back the tears as I watch the struggle tear through Vivien. I take a step back, away from Caroline, while she’s busy staring angrily at her mother.
“There’s nothing you need to do, Mother. I told you, I’ve got it all under control. Go back home where you can continue trying to control things that are out of your control and leave me the fuck alone,” Caroline shouts.
I turn to run just as Caroline starts to aim the gun back in my direction. I take off running as fast as I can into the pouring rain, hearing Vivien scream at the top of her lungs.
“Oh, God, please forgive me!”
The explosion of a gun roars louder than the thunder crashing all around me. My body jerks before I fall to the ground, splashing into the sopping wet grass and mud.
GARRETT IS DRIVING so fast that my shoulder slams painfully against the passenger door when he jerks the steering wheel to the left to pull into the gravel drive. He got us here in record time, dodging the assholes and idiots in this fucking city who don’t know how to navigate the hilly roads in the pouring rain but don’t have the sense to stay off of them, either.
I’m out of the car and racing through the rain before Garrett even gets the car in park, ignoring the tug and sharp pains radiating through my knee. I don’t care if I reopen the incision and I don’t care if I wrench it so badly that I’ll never walk again. All I care about is getting to Olivia. As I make my way across the wet grass of the front yard trying not to slip and fall while the thunder booms around me, I hear a gunshot and my heart stops.
“OLIVIA!” I scream through the wind and rain, moving faster as the partially finished house looms in front of me.
My whole body shakes with a combination of fear and cold, the chill of the rain soaking my skin and clothes as my eyes search frantically for Olivia. I hear Garrett stomping through the puddles behind me and the distant sound of sirens. The police were right behind us when we left the house, but Garrett quickly lost them in the mess of traffic by flying through red lights and pretty much disobeying every single traffic law known to man.
I crash through the plastic that covers what will eventually be the front door, moving through the skeleton of the house and trying not to think about the fact that I might never get to tell Olivia it’s all for her.
I stop short when I see my mother standing under the partially constructed roof of what’s going to be the back deck, her back towards me as she stares towards the cliffs in the back yard. It’s dark and the rain is coming down too hard for me to make out what she’s looking at and my heart stutters with fear.
Jesus Christ, please let her be okay, please let her be okay.
“Mom?” I say softly so I don’t spook her.
She doesn’t turn around, but I can see her shoulders shaking and heaving and I know she’s crying. Both of her arms hang limply at her sides and my stomach fills with dread when I see the gun clutched in her right hand. I slowly inch my way closer to her, trying to see around her and out into the yard.
When I get closer, I can hear her mumbling something over and over as the rain beats down around us in what would normally be a calming rhythm. Nothing about this situation is calming. My heart is racing and my stomach is churning with fear.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, I’m sorry.”
Her monotone voice as she whispers the words to herself while she stares blindly out into the yard makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to see what she’s looking at. I don’t want to know what she’s sorry for. I don’t even have it in me to care about her. All of my worry and fears are wrapped up in Olivia and there isn’t room for anything else.
When I’m right behind her, I slowly lift my eyes out into the yard.
“No. Please, no.”
My sister, my vibrant, fun-loving sister, who I still can’t believe is responsible for all of the pain and destruction in our lives, is lying face down in the wet, muddy grass just beyond the cover of the porch roof. Her feet are hooked on the edge of the wood floor as if she was just standing there and then tipped forward onto the ground. The rain mixes with the blood seeping from the hole in the middle of her back, soaking her shirt and turning the white silk varying shades of red.
I don’t have time to try and wrap my head around the fact that she’s gone and that my family has just been broken beyond repair, because a few feet away, lying in the same position, is Olivia.
My legs shake and my eyes fill with tears as I step down off of the porch and around the lifeless body of my sister. I take off running, screaming Olivia’s name as I slip across the wet grass as I fall down on my hands and knees right next to her.
As soon as my hands touch her body, her head lifts up and she cranes her neck, looking back over her shoulder at me. When her eyes meet mine, I sob with relief, flipping her body over and crashing her to my chest.
“You’re okay, you’re okay. Fuck, I thought I’d lost you,” I cry, burying my face into the curve of her neck as she throws her arms around my shoulders and holds me tight, her body shaking with tears as she holds onto me.
I pull back to stare at her face, drinking in the sight of her as I memorize every single feature. My blood boils when I see a bruise on her cheek and a cut on her lip that’s oozing blood, mixing with the rain and dripping down her chin.
“It’s okay, I’m okay. Cole, look at me,” she demands, grabbing onto my face and pulling my eyes away from the marks on her beautiful skin.
“Your mother,” she says firmly when our eyes meet.
“I don’t give a fuck about my mother. Just let me hold you, let me make sure you’re okay,” I argue.
I try to pull her body back to mine, beyond grateful that she’s alive and in my arms, but she moves her hands to my chest and stops me. “I’m fine. I swear to you, I’m okay. Cole, please. No matter what she’s done, no matter what part she had in all of this, she’s still your mother.”
I glance away, but she grabs onto my face and forces me look at her. “She killed her own child, Cole. I know you’re angry, but she saved me. She made a choice between her daughter and me. No mother should EVER have to make that choice. Please, Cole. Don’t make her face this alone.”
>
Her words rip through me and I see the truth shining in her eyes that I should have seen earlier. Olivia got to be a mother, if only for a little while. She would have moved heaven and earth for our son, would’ve given her own life to make sure he had a good one. The notion that Olivia would ever have consciously chosen to kill her own child is preposterous and I’m so ashamed of myself for doubting her. My mother, for all of her faults, loved us very much. She proved that she would literally do anything for her children—lie, cheat, steal and, in the end, take the life of one to protect the other and everything he held dear.
With a quiet nod, Olivia wraps her arm around my waist and helps me up from the ground, my knee completely useless at this point after the way I abused it today. I shout in pain as I put some of my weight on my leg to test it out, and my knee immediately buckles. Olivia, thankfully, is stronger than she looks, her free arm flying around my waist as she easily takes the majority of my weight. She helps me hop on one foot through the mud as I curse and yell into the rain, my knee already swollen to twice its normal size. Adrenaline is a great fucking drug until it wears off.
Garrett meets us out in the yard and I watch him grab Olivia’s face in his hands and check her over, snarling when he sees the blood and the bruises. She brushes him off and he gently moves her out of the way, helping me walk towards my mother and the shelter of the porch as Olivia rests a supportive hand on my shoulder.
The cops arrive around this point, swarming around the skeleton of the house and badgering my mom with questions. She doesn’t answer them or even look in their direction, just continues to stare down at the lifeless body of the daughter she tried so hard to help. The gun is carefully removed from her hands before an officer pulls her arms behind her back, reading her rights and slapping a pair of cuffs on. Her eyes still haven’t left Caroline’s body and she gives no indication that she’s even aware of what’s going on around her.
I hobble forward with Garrett’s aid until I’m staring down at my mother. Moving my arm from around his shoulder, I stand there on one leg, gazing at the woman who did everything to save her children. In the end, it wasn’t enough. I feel Olivia’s hands on my hips, holding me steady, and it gives me the strength I need to face this, to tell my mother I forgive her for the things she’s done. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly forgive her. In her own twisted way, I know she was doing what she thought she had to do, but her secrets and lies tore my life apart. They took Olivia from me and they took our child from us.
I’m don’t think I’m strong enough to forgive that, but I can give her the words. I can do that much, because it’s what Olivia wants. She needs to know I will do ANYTHING for her, anything she asks, including facing my mother and easing some of her pain.
“It’s okay, Mom. I love you, it’s going to be okay,” I tell her.
Her eyes finally move away from Caroline’s body when one of the paramedics begins the process of covering her up.
“I’m so sorry, Cole,” she whispers. “I’m so ashamed.”
I hop forward and put my hands on her shoulders. “You saved Olivia. You have no idea… she is my everything. I can’t live without her and you saved her.”
I feel Olivia’s hands tighten on my hips and my voice cracks with emotion as I continue. “I know you did what you thought was right. I know you were only trying to protect us.”
She nods her head in agreement as the tears fall from her eyes. My mother’s head jerks up at the sound of a zipper behind me, and her face scrunches up in agony as Caroline’s body is lifted onto a stretcher. The cop holding onto her arms starts to tug her backwards and she screams at the top of her lungs, struggling to get out of his grasp.
“NO! I CAN’T LEAVE MY BABY! SHE NEEDS ME!”
I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what to say. I’ve never even heard my mother raise her voice and she’s screaming and crying so loudly right now that it’s like looking at a stranger. Gone is my proud, regal mother and in her place is a broken, hysterical woman. The cop wraps his arms around her, trying to prevent her from charging the paramedics wheeling my sister’s body away, and my mother’s cries continue to get louder and more distraught.
“SHE’S SO COLD! MY BABY IS SO COLD AND SHE DOESN’T LIKE THE DARK! GET HER OUT OF THAT BAG! IT’S TOO DARK!”
Before I can say anything, try to come up with any combination of words that will soothe her, Olivia is in front of me, holding onto my mother’s upper arms.
“It’s okay, Vivien. We’ll go with her. We won’t let her be alone.”
My mother’s screams instantly quiet at Olivia’s words, a soft, pitiful keening sound coming from her throat as she stares at Olivia.
“I promise, we won’t leave her alone,” Olivia reassures her.
My mother stops struggling and the cop slowly removes his arms from around her. Her chin quivers and she closes her eyes and nods.
“I never wanted this to happen. I thought I was keeping you safe. I thought I was keeping you all safe. My grandson is gone because of me. My daughter is gone because of me. It’s all my fault.”
We watch as they walk her through the rain, sliding her into the back of a police car. We agree to meet them at the station to answer all of their questions, but only after we do what Olivia promised.
We follow behind the stretcher as my sister’s body is loaded into the back of the ambulance, Garrett and Olivia helping me climb inside before joining me on the bench. Olivia sits in between us, holding onto both of my hands as I remember games of hide and seek, a sweet laugh that echoed through the halls of my childhood home and little hints of madness and obsession underneath the mask of frivolity and playfulness.
We sit in silence on the long, quiet ride to the hospital, making sure my sister isn’t alone.
ONE WEEK LATER…
“I’m so sorry I haven’t been back here sooner.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, a gentle breeze ruffling my hair. Part of me hopes that when I open my eyes, I’ll be somewhere else, a place where this isn’t my reality. I want him here with me, smiling and laughing and changing every day. I haven’t been back here in five months because I couldn’t bear the thought of him in this place alone, never changing, forever frozen as the tiny infant who only lived a few minutes.
The words I spoke to Vivien last week ring in my head. I promised her we wouldn’t leave her baby alone and yet, I couldn’t make the same promise to my own baby.
I slowly open my eyes, finding myself in the exact same spot. I’m still surrounded by perfectly manicured grass, little squares of granite popping up from the ground as far as the eye can see. There’s only one that means anything to me, though. Only one that bears the name of my heart and soul.
Kneeling down, I nestle the stuffed monkey that I bought on the way over in the grass right in front of the headstone. Reaching up, I trace my fingers over the name etched in the stone.
“Cole Garrett Lafierre,” I whisper as my fingers move gently through the grooves. “I wanted you before you were even conceived. I loved you long before you were born. I would have gladly given my life just for you to live and know how much I loved you.”
“He knows.”
I’m not surprised when I hear the quiet voice behind me. I told Parker I was coming here and it took fifteen minutes to reassure her that I was fine going alone. She isn’t Cole’s biggest fan at the moment, but given everything he’s been through in the last week, she’s been cutting him some slack. I wish I could do the same. I want to do the same, but my heart has been beaten and abused so much in the last year that I don’t know if I have anything left to give. I’ve ignored his text messages, I’ve sent his phone calls straight to voicemail and I’ve pretended like I wasn’t home when he knocked on my door. I know he needs me; I know his family has been ripped apart and I know he wants to try and make up for the hurt they’ve caused, but nothing can fix my broken heart. Nothing can take away the memory of the words he spoke to me or the fact that he beli
eved I was capable of something so selfish and uncaring.
I can forgive Vivien for the part she played in the destruction of our lives. Mother to mother, I can feel her pain and her desire to do everything in her power to save her children. Cole Garrett Lafierre was only mine for a short while and yet I would have given anything… EVERYTHING to keep him safe. Vivien had twenty-eight years with Caroline. Twenty-eight years of watching her grow, loving her unconditionally and dreaming about the life and the future she wanted for her. Years and years of tucking her in at night, holding her close, running her hands through her hair and listening to her voice. Caroline was her child and all her hopes and dreams for the future were wrapped up in a beautiful girl with a twisted mind that she just wanted to save. That moment a week ago in the pouring rain, when a mother had to choose between her child’s life and that of a virtual stranger will forever haunt me.
And so will the words Cole spoke to me in misplaced anger and betrayal.
“He knows you loved him. He knows you will always love him,” Cole reminds me.
The guilt I carried around with me for so long washed away with the rain last week. There were forces at play beyond my control and I finally realized that no matter what I could have done differently, I couldn’t anticipate or stop a woman who was hell bent on ruining everything I held so dear.
Cole and I stand in front of our son’s grave, staring down at the single date carved in the granite. His entire life represented by one date and not a dash like so many other graves in this cemetery. Our son didn’t get the dash. He was robbed of the chance to see the world, to experience life and to grow into the amazing man I know he would have been some day. I held him in my arms for a moment, but I will carry him in my heart forever. It hurts to think about walking away and that’s why I’ve never come here. I can’t stand the thought of leaving him here in the cold, dark ground. I know now that he isn’t really there because I feel him in my heart and I see him in my dreams. I wanted a little boy to shower with love but instead, I’ve been given the gift of an angel who will stay with me forever.