Chapter 9 Like yesterday
Three days earlier Aiden Frost was having a panic attack in a cemetery when his father called to ruin his life.
It had started as just a visit, something he did every Wednesday, rain or shine, guilt or no guilt. His mother’s grave was in the northeast corner of Riverview Cemetery, under a massive oak tree that his father had paid some obscene amount of money to transplant there because Catherine Frost had loved oak trees.
The headstone was simple, despite the money: Catherine Marie Frost. Beloved wife and mother. 1987-2019.
Aiden hated it. Hated how it reduced her entire life to two dates and five words. Hated how “beloved” was just a word people put on gravestones because they didn’t know what else to say. Hated how he was eighteen years old and could barely remember what her voice sounded like anymore.
Six years. She’d been gone for six years.
Sometimes it felt like yesterday. Sometimes it felt like forever.
He sat cross-legged in front of the stone, jacket soaked through from the damp grass, trying to have a conversation with someone who couldn’t respond.
“Lily got accepted to that art program,” he said quietly. “The one in New York. She’s really excited. I think…I think you’d be proud of her. She’s so talented, Mom. Like you were.”
The wind rustled through the oak leaves. Not an answer, it was just the weather.
“Dad’s still working too much. Still pretending everything’s fine. I don’t know if he’s mentioned it to you, wherever you are but he looks terrible. Really sick. He won’t see a doctor, or if he has, he won’t tell me about it.” Aiden picked at the grass. “Classic Richard Frost. Control everything, tell no one, expect everyone else to just deal with whatever mess he’s made.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Aiden’s whole body went rigid.
“No,” he whispered to himself. “Not today. Please not today.”
But the storm didn’t care about his panic disorder or his therapy techniques or the breathing exercises that sometimes worked and sometimes failed. It just rolled in from the west, dark clouds swallowing the gray afternoon, turning everything ominous.
Another rumble, this time closer.
His heart started racing. His hands started shaking. The world tilted sideways.
I was just twelve years old. It was thundering so loud the windows shook. I was all alone in the house because Dad was at work and Lily at a sleepover. Mom was supposed to be home an hour earlier but she wasn't. I called her phone. “Mom? Where are you? I’m scared. The storm is really bad. Can you come home? Please?”
And she said, “I’m in a meeting, baby. I can’t just leave. You’re going to be okay. It’s just noise. It can’t hurt you.”
But I begged and cried. I Was only twelve years old and terrified so I begged my mother to come home.
And she did.
She left her meeting. Got in her car. Drove home in the storm.
But she never made it home
Because of me.
Because I was scared.
Because I needed her.
Aiden couldn’t breathe. His vision was tunneling, gray at the edges. He pressed his hands over his ears but the rumbling was inside his head now, inside his bones.
His phone rang.
Through the panic, through the noise, through the memory that was trying to swallow him whole, his phone rang.
He fumbled for it with shaky hands, barely able to see the screen.
Dad.
Of course. Because Richard Frost had some kind of sixth sense for when his son was falling apart. Had to swoop in and fix it, manage it, control it.
Aiden hit accept because the alternative was drowning.
“What?” His voice came out strangled.
“Where are you?” His father’s voice was sharp. Annoyed, not concerned.
“Cemetery.” Aiden gasped the word.
A pause. Then, quieter: “Again?”
“I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine. His heart was trying to punch through his ribs. His lungs wouldn’t work right. The thunder was getting louder.
“Aiden, you need to come home.”
“Can’t. Storm. I can’t…”
“Listen to me.” His father’s voice shifted into that commanding tone that usually made Aiden want to punch something. “You’re having a panic attack. I can hear it. You need to breathe In for four, hold for four, out for four. Can you do that for me?”
Aiden tried. Failed. Tried again.
“Good. Keep going. I’m staying on the line.”
They stayed like that for several minutes Aiden breathing in broken patterns, his father counting, the storm rolling overhead. Gradually, slowly, the panic receded enough for Aiden to think.
“Okay,” he managed finally. “I’m okay.”
“Come home. Now. We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Not over the phone. Just come home, Aiden. Please.”
The “please” made it worse somehow. His father didn’t say please. His father commanded and expected obedience.
“Fine,” Aiden said.
The line went dead.
He sat there for another moment, staring at his mother’s headstone, trying to find the words for goodbye. He never knew what to say. I’m sorry felt too small. I miss you felt too obvious. I’m still broken and it’s still my fault felt too honest.
“I have to go,” he said finally. “I’ll come back next week. Like always.”
The stone didn’t answer. It never did.
He stood on shaking legs and ran for his car.
The drive home was a blur of windshield wipers and gray road and the storm chasing him up into the West Hills. By the time Aiden reached the mansion, the rain was coming down in sheets, thunder cracking so loud it made the car shake.
He sat in the garage for ten minutes after parking, hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to calm his still-racing heart.
It’s just weather. Just noise. She’s already dead. You can’t kill her twice.
The thoughts didn’t help. They never did.