Chapter 33

Laura Brando narrating:

Going downstairs when she woke up, she was exhausted, Anastasia sitting at the table kept the same questioning look, as if all the medication she was taking to get rid of the addiction that ran through her, left her too anesthetized to confront herself or me for never having visited her.

"Good morning, daughter, I've prepared a coffee like the old ones..." Anastasia said as she took her medication.

"It's ironic how rehabilitation clinics get patients hooked on drugs to get them out of drug addiction." I said to her in a confrontational tone that I was trying to stop.

Sitting down at the breakfast table that Anastasia had prepared, I remembered how we used to have breakfast together every day. My eyes wandered around the house in search of Aron, but not even his perfume was present, just the cold of his absence.

"I know you hate me Laura, you don't have to make it any clearer. I've destroyed any chance of a mother-daughter relationship, and now I only have that title. You're married, you want to live your life, correct the mistakes I taught you to make, I don't judge you. Have you chosen the next clinic you're going to stick me in so you don't have to deal with what's tormenting you?" Anastasia's cold words managed to awaken in me a guilty conscience for having created this distance between us.

"No... I haven't found another clinic. But if it's any consolation, it doesn't hurt me to have to live with you, it hurts me to remember that you're the reason my father isn't here anymore. And Aron isn't my husband, he's my fucking kidnapper." I said, slamming my coffee cup down on the table.

"I'd like a breakfast like before, but if you can't...."

"No mom don't start, we had breakfasts before, my dad was there with his horrible jokes, after he left everything went together, because my other companion was clogging up with medication." I shouted.

"Your father died because he was a gambling addict, he sold everything we had and I had to turn myself in to a man to get money to pay off his debt, but it was too late." This was a side of the story I didn't know, and it made me sigh deeply, slowly lowering my coffee cup this time, seeing in the depths of Anastasia's eyes how much it hurt her.

"If you hadn't betrayed him and deceived him with your lies, he wouldn't have become a gambling addict." I said after a few minutes of silence.

"If he'd been there, and maybe beaten me a little weaker every night, maybe he'd be here now, and if his arrogance and fantasy that he had a perfect father were a little lower, the bitterness he feels towards me wouldn't be in his eyes. If you haven't found another rehabilitation clinic then do, see your kidnapper husband or whatever he is, I can't bear to look into your eyes and see your hatred while you lie to yourself pretending you never saw the marks on my arm, the marks on my body." Anastasia said, standing up.

"Don't exaggerate..."

"You want to close your eyes to the truth and believe that I shot your father before anyone else did, Laura, you've always turned your eyes to the truth because it was easier, haven't you? You've always decided to believe what you want, you put yourself in the position of victim while blaming the people around you. I hope you don't regret it one day and get out of this fantasy world."

Anastasia left the table, making me punch her bitterly, hurt by her words, hurt by the truths they contained. Ignoring everything, afraid to confront my doubts, I went upstairs to pack my bags as Aron had told me, but deep down I knew I was only willing to run away. As I always do.

Aron Curry narrating:

Walking towards Anastasia, who was standing with her feet in the pool, I calmly looked inside the house so that Laura wouldn't see me. As if I were running away from her.

"I thought I'd be sober for at least a week after leaving rehab..." I said, watching her try to hide the bottle next to her.

"If I'm going back there, it's not worth the effort of trying to find sobriety in a quiet life." Anastasia.

"You're right." I replied, taking a sip of her drink.

"The truth is that I don't need rehab. The drugs you gave me didn't make me an addict." Anastasia said, looking deep into my eyes, trying to see my fear.

"So that means you remember me." I confirmed.

"Of course I remember Aron, how could I not remember the guy who made all this commotion in my life. Going to rehab was the only way for Laura to have a life away from bitterness, away from me. There are things we do for love that we don't understand, just like you're doing, kidnapping her, hiding the truth from her..."

Anastasia's words froze me as I looked at her bitter face.

"And you're not going to do anything about it?" I asked fearfully.

"No, deep down she likes you, she's just not good at admitting it."

"I heard the conversation you had in the kitchen... Wasn't Michael Laura's father?"

"It's true, Laura wasn't the daughter of the man he killed, Michael just raised her, found out about it after twelve years, then started getting drunk, gambling and beating me up every night, she was the bitch who lied to him. Laura loved him, the blood thing was just a question, I became a monster in that house. She hated me with all her might and loved her father. After he'd beaten me up and left me lying on the floor, Michael would go upstairs and kiss Laura goodnight. In the morning she would close her eyes or look away so as not to see what had happened. Deep down she just didn't want to believe that the father she grew up loving was an abuser, in the middle of this story she chose to hate me, it's easier to put her mother in rehab than to have to confront two people she loves." Anastasia's words came out with pain with every sip.

"I'm sorry... for Michael and now for Laura."

"Don't be, you did a favor by killing that man, but Laura will hate you the moment she finds out it was you, just like she hates me for thinking I turned him into a gambler. I haven't said anything about who you are, I haven't made you tell the truth so don't make me watch the way my daughter hates me, I haven't even unpacked, so can you get me out of here today?" Anastasia gave me a choice.

Anastasia is a woman destroyed by life, but looking into her sad eyes and seeing her thank me for freeing her from an aggressor makes me want to do the only thing I still can in the midst of Michael's death, before Laura's contemptuous eyes are directed at me.

"I'm not going to send you to some fucking rehab clinic. Gerald, my right-hand man will take you to a house, with a card, use it to start over." I said as Anastasia thanked me with her eyes. I left her and walked away. "Gerald... take Anastasia to the house on the hill, then leave the car ready for Laura." I ordered Gerald

"You're going to let Laura go?" Gerald said in amazement.

"It will be her decision."

Laura Brando narrating:

Through the window, with my face pressed against its cold glass, I watched my mother walk away, unable to even wave to her from afar. I love her, deep down she's right about all the words she said to me, I'm not able to admit that I was a coward, that I didn't help her, the argument every night tortured me because I couldn't do anything. In some sick part of me, I started to feel hatred, not hatred towards her, hatred towards myself for not protecting her. I don't hate her, I love her enough to feel a knife being plunged into my chest every time I look at her and remember everything she's had to face, alone. Being near her reminds me of my cowardice towards the woman who would give her life for me.

As I went downstairs, Aron was waiting for me at a table by the pool, the scene was repeated, scented candles that smelled the same, roses scattered in a beautiful farewell tone, the perfect stage to bury a love, I confirmed this by looking at Aron's red eyes of someone who had already buried him inside.