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He was looking into the wellspring of their discontent, the rope run taught from where it was tied, until it wasn’t. There’s oil in his throat, and he retches right beside it, his world is too small. Was that the stone? or was it simply shame? Twelve hours.
Twelve hours and they’d lost them both.
Alex pulls himself up- tries to, as his legs give out. He waits it out the expected. And he gets up.
And walks back home.
He feels it in his bones, trying to say the words. Alina, Claudia. Isabel won’t even speak to them. She’s too angry.
“Don’t you remember?” Isabel asked, aware but spiteful, “She jumped in, and you desperate fools let her do it. What makes you think she had a chance?” All in front of the cottage, to head him off.
“Can you keep your tongue for once?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m too busy biting it to keep it.” Isabel said, livid, “What were you doing out there? What was the point?”
“The point was to save your sister.”
“And get Alina dead too? Tell me, what’s the point in that?”
“She wanted to go. Would it have been better to bar her from action?” Alex asked, sure if anything she’d have no answer, “It’s her sister, her responsibility. What could I say against it?”
“-God, I thought you outgrew this.” She says under her breath. Like he still wanted them gone. She was simply hurt, he knew that, between Claudia and Alina, but he was angry.
Did she really think he’d stayed a child?
He was more than grown by height, how could she think he was- “Do you think I wouldn’t have jumped myself?” he asked seething, untampered. How could she be like this, when all was lost.
She opens her mouth to speak- but he cuts her off, “Do you think I’d do any less for her? She was my sister. Blood or not, she’s always been ours,” he said, remembering all that made it so. His mother proving nothing less, he felt strong in saying, “So what haven’t I outgrown Izzy?”
“Tell me.”
She simply walks past him, unbound by his challenge. Like it wasn’t worth explaining.
Like it wasn’t in her nature to say it to his face if it mattered.
The feeling sinks him. It was enough to say something, but he hadn’t listened. He didn’t need to respond.
He enters the cottage, not especially concerned with where she went.
Alex goes to the kitchen, seeing his mother, sitting down at the table with a cup of tea. He’s still angry but he doesn’t want to think about it.
She offers him a cup knowingly, like she’d been expecting it, and he thinks of his father, and how ready she’d been to see him die. “Why are you always like this?” he asks on a lark.
“What do you mean?”
“Like with dad.”
“Oh,” she sighs to a pause, thinking back. “I suppose it was like everyone else.” She says, “you remember the stone? When its sharp?”
“It’s always like this for me. And I can’t pretend I’m not certain.”
Alex stops at this, a bit upset. He didn’t like thinking that this was always how she was. That she’d never been surprised by death.
“I remember when my mother died, I knew it was happening. I knew that it would be soon. I wasn’t anywhere near here at first, and she was angry when she learned.”
“Angry?”
“She wasn’t happy to know that ‘I came to watch her die.’ She wasn’t superstitious, she didn’t lend anything to the stories, even though she’d read them.”
“But she knew I did, and she hated that I’d-”, She stopped herself, remembering how it felt. “I don’t know why she was angry over that. I remember her saying how mature I was at funerals. How unbothered and kind I was even when I didn’t know the person.”
“I was the same when I did. But it didn’t bother her then,” and that was why she didn’t know.
Alex was a bit surprised at the gap in experience, that this was just how his mother was. That it would certainly never change. but he also realized that his grandma couldn’t accept her in the end. Even when she was dying. And Alex hates it.
“Alina’s gone.”
“I know.”
“How could we let this? -” he looks up at his mother, and he saw how.
Certainty.
They were always, no matter what they saw in this world. Certain. And it was only in these moments that they ever lived with that, “why didn’t you grieve- with dad?”
“Didn’t? - Alex, there’s nothing in this world that will stop you from feeling the pain of loss. Is that what you thought of me?”, his mother asked, miserably.
“Yeah.”
“There’s a difference between living with something and not dying of it, Alex. I thought you knew that.”
“I’m sorry, I-”
“It’s alright.” She says quickly, “I kind of always knew. I just. Alex,” she breathes, “Why do you always see the worst in me?”
Alex doesn’t know the answer. He knows better than to try.
She finishes her tea, and takes her cup to the sink. Cleaning hers quickly before ever bothering to look back at him.
“Did Isabel say anything to you?” he asked suddenly, worried that she’d tipped and stirred them both. That he’d made it worse just for her.
“No”, she says simply. Not quick, not slow. It was the truth.
“Really?” he recognized, “She was outright angry with me.” And in consideration, all she’d said.
He felt like a fool.
“That makes sense.” She said unperturbed by what he’d admitted to.
“But why? It’s been years since I was- that bad, why is she still so angry?” he asked, it just didn’t make sense to him, that she’d hold a grudge. Or why his mother would defend it.
“Well, I can’t say that’s not just her. But she’s not exactly easily noticed.” She said, kindly.
“So what? She makes herself big?”
“To a point. But there’s also the fact that she’s the only one left.” His mother said, she was their aunt, they trusted her more.
She’d done everything for that.
“What do you mean? We’re here don’t we count?”, he asked, still livid. She’d basically raised Claudia; they should at least be grateful for that.
“I don’t know, does she?” she asked, finally turning her head.
“Mom, how could you say that?”
“Alex.” His mother started, and he was pulled back from anger.
He looked at her finally, they were alone like they were before that rainy night. When she woke up by herself and he woke later to three girls he hadn’t met twice before that night.
Her nieces.
He remembers being angry that they were there that his father was dead and how they spoiled his home.
It was irrational, but he believed it and he made a point of it for months afterwards. Alina was quiet and stayed that way, Claudia was much the same even as his mom doted on her.
But Isabel wasn’t having it, she told him outright ‘if this is your father than he wasn’t worth much’
Alina had slapped her, but it didn’t really matter to Izzy.
So she kept being angry, and tough, and just not as bothered by Alex as he’d have liked. That is until he was mean to Claudia, who she out right beat him over.
She told on him, and his mother told him outright ‘you do realize they’re ours to care for right?’
‘Your father wouldn’t have behaved like this.’
He was indignant at this, but she told him again, ‘I’m their godmother, how dare you treat anyone like that? Is your sense of morals a fucking joke?’
“-Alex, you weren’t exactly a saint when they came here. You didn’t even have any patients for Claudia. She was a toddler.” She explained, like it was simple.
“That shouldn’t matter, I got over it.” he said forlorn.
“And that’s great,” she caught him, “but did you ever deal with how you were? Did you say you were sorry?”
“I-” he tried to think back, but there was nothing but what little concessions he was half unwilling to make, “No, I didn’t.”
“And I didn’t teach you otherwise. That’s on me. I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but Isabel- Isabel is alone now, and I don’t think she was ever expecting any different.” She said, with a hand on his shoulder.
“Then why did we-”
“We did what we could, Alex. But that doesn’t mean we’re infallible,” She corrected his worry, it wasn’t enough, but she continued, “All I know, is that Hell Is Traversable, and that Alina has faith.”
“Why didn’t we listen?”
“We did, but it would’ve spelled disaster if we didn’t help her.” She stated, referring to Alina’s decision, to Isabel’s certainty, “Alina is strong enough to try on her own. Isabel would defend her no matter the act.”
There’s a pause
“The stones still sharp isn’t it?”
“Yes. But never for this long though,” She confirms, “People live and die, but once I know… There’s never been any other option. Than to live with it.”
Alex mulls it over, “So you don’t think she’s dead.”
“I don’t know anything. The feeling is off, even if it’s there.” And with that he gets up. He can’t listen to anymore. He leaves her be, scared of the doubt.
Altogether, he was trusting her more and more. Isabel was angry, but it wasn’t madness that made her equations. She knew the score- and he didn’t.
That was what his mother told him, and he was still. He was still so- angry with her.
Where is she even?
Where did Isabel go?
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