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“Keep it that way and I’ll pay you triple.”
He nods again, watching me.
“The money will be in your account tomorrow. See yourself out.”
I walk past him further into the kitchen, a sign of dismissal. My back is turned and I don’t watch him leave.
Dead.
If she was dead, she never left her family behind. She didn’t walk out on us and abandon me. My fists clench in my pockets, my knuckles crunched so tightly I feel like I’m losing circulation in my fingers.
My psychopath of a father has all the resources in the world at his disposal to search for someone. There’s no way he ever looked for her. If Müller could find her in less than three months ten years into a cold case, then he should have been able to find her, especially since she was right here. Why did he tell me she was in America?
I don’t know how to process the fact that she’s been dead as long as she’s been gone. I’ve spent more than half my life hating her for something she apparently never did. She didn’t abandon me, she was taken from me.
A glass filled with rich brown liquid appears to my right. I look over my shoulder at Rhys who holds it extended in front of him.
“You’re going to need this.”
He obviously knows from experience.
I turn, grabbing the drink as I come to face him.
“I’m sorry.” Phoenix says.
What a trio we make. Phoenix’s brother passed away when we were children and he never got over it.
We’re now friends bonded by death and the shared experience of grief.
“What do you need?” He adds.
“More of this.” I say, lifting my glass before draining it.
???
“You should lay off the bottle, mate.” The warning comes from Rhys who looks at me with concern in his eyes.
“Piss off.”
“Listen, I know you’re in pain –”
“Piss. Off.” I grind out. “Can you just let me drink in fucking peace. We’re on my private property, I’m not going anywhere, I’m not going to drive, I don’t have my phone. I’m not endangering myself or anyone else so just let me try to drink away the fact that my mother was murdered ten years ago and I’m just finding out about it.”
“We just want to make sure you’re safe.”
Rhys is next to Phoenix and the both of them are standing over me. I’m in a lounge chair by the firepit on the east part of the grounds. A bottle of scotch lays beside me, almost empty.
“Then grab a glass, sit down and stare quietly into the firepit with me while I get fucking drunk.”
Phoenix nods wordlessly as they sit down on either side of me and, thankfully, do as I say. I don’t even know how to sort through the maelstrom of bullshit, contradictory, and unclear emotions I’m feeling right now.
One five minute conversation can change the foundation of your life and everything you believe. How am I supposed to reconcile ten years of despising her with the sadness and unexpected grief of losing her. I hated her for so long and in one moment I have to love and mourn her at the same time.
Anger and resentment at somehow losing her a second time before I could even find her have blackness taking over my soul. I should have never gone looking for her. Living with the belief that she’d walked away from us is less painful than knowing she’s been dead far longer than I’ve thought to look for her.
We drink quietly for what feels like hours. If I thought the alcohol would drown out the pain, I was wrong. It makes everything worse. It exacerbates every thought, every hateful emotion in my body, every vicious thought. It fuelsthe black pit of negativity inside me.
The peeling of a bright laugh rings through the fog of darkness, slicing through it easily. It rings clearly amongst my jumbled thoughts.
