Safe and Sound (28 page)

 
Lola set her mug of hot chocolate down and stared at the book. “Are they…?”

 
“Yes.
Your father.
Lots of pictures of your father.
Your mother.
And
you.”

 
Lola’s eyes dampened. “Thank you,” she told her aunt with feeling.

 
She’d only seen a handful of pictures of her dad and only then because she’d found them in a box. When Lola had approached her mom with them, she’d cried, so Lola had put them back and never looked at them again in front of her mother.

 
There were times, though, when Lana had opened up about her husband. Fleeting and far too sporadic, but each memory she’d shared with Lola had been a gift.

 
Lola shook herself back to the present.
“What did you say?”

 
Blair, clad in pink and blue pajamas and hair upswept in a messy ponytail, smile
d and ruffled up Lola’s hair.
“I said, y
ou’re very welcome.
I’ll be in my office working
on
an article if you need or want anything.”

 
Lola absently righted her hair, eyes intent on her aunt. “Do you have to? I mean, would you look at them with me?”

 
Her
face softened. “You bet I will. I didn’t know if you’d want company or not.” She pulled out a chair and sat down beside Lola
, sipping her tea
.

 
“Go ahead,” she urged when Lola continued to stare at the book.

 
On the first page
was a photo of a gangly teenager with brown hair and brown eyes.
He hadn’t grown into his nose or chin yet.
He was tall, thin, and posed like a ninja. Lola laughed, wiping at her wet eyes.

 
“He was quite the character, let me tell you.”

 
Lola turned the page and saw
a
similar photograph. She waited for her aunt to elaborate.

 
“Ben
was a goof. He
had an infectious laugh. People liked him. He was funny, popular in school, handsome, athletic. There didn’t seem to be anything he couldn’t do.

 
“I wanted to be like him.
Which is what made me pick up a camera.
He was a great photographer. Ben knew how to capture a person’s essence, you know?
I
have some of his work framed
on the walls in my office. I’ll show you sometime.
Let you pick one out to keep.
”

 
Lola took a deep breath. “I’d like that.”

 
“I’m not saying
my brother
was perfect. He wasn’t. Ben had a quick temper and could be overbearingly stubborn at times, but he felt strongly
about things
and stood for what he thought was right.
”

 
Blair smiled, lost in memories.

 
“He was a good brother. Usually
older siblings are mean and
pick on the younger brother or sister, but not Ben. He always looked out for me, helped me.
He stood up for me at school when other kids were bullying me.
” Blair’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat.

 
“Ben said he fell in love with your mom the instant he saw her. Did she ever tell you how they met?”

 
Lola shook her head, fascinated by the treasure being bestowed upon her. She didn’t want to speak f
or fear of getting her aunt off
track and missing something she would have told her had Lola not interrupted.

 
Blair took a drink
of her tea
and stared out the window, a thoughtful look on her face.
“Lana was nineteen, Ben was twenty. It was wintertime and he was
stopped
at a set of stoplights. She rear
-
ended him.” She laughed. “He said he got out of his car ready to do some yelling and then he looked at her and forget everything he was going to say.
They were married less than a year later.”

 
Lola took a shaky breath, rapidly blinked her eyes.
She turned the page. A wedding picture of her mom and dad was on the page. They were looking at each other, smiling. Her dad was in a black tuxedo and her mother in a frothy dress of white. They were beautiful, happy.

 
Another page showed her father holding her as a baby, beaming.
Lola was fat and bald and drooling.
He was even handsomer than at his wedding.

 
“I don’t understand how I can miss him so much when I don’t even remember him,” she whispered.

 
“
You were his world.
He loved you so much,” Blair said quietly.

 
An ache formed where her heart was.
Lola sat back, head down. Sorrow
overwhelmed
her. Her throat was tight
as she tried to hold tears in.

 
“Don’t be sad for not knowing him, Lola.
Be glad he knew you, if only for a short time.”

 
Lola wept, shoulders shaking. She wanted her dad. She wanted him back and alive and she wanted to erase everything, all the years, since his death. Lola wanted them to start over; her mother, her father, and her.
She wanted to
know
her father.

 
She wanted her mother back too. She missed her so much. Lola couldn’t believe how devastated she was by her mom’s absence.
She didn’t want to know any of this, any of this pain and sadness and tragedy.

 
Lola
wished she could go back in time; Lola wished all of them could. Her pain escalated when she thought of Jack and his life. She just wanted him okay. Lola wanted his mother back in his life and his father gone and he and his sister okay. She wanted him never to have been hit or yelled at or made to feel like he was nothing.

 
Her sobs turned uncontrollable. Lola wanted to close in on herself, to curl up in a ball and disappear.
Awful, heart-wrenching sounds left her
.
She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop them. It was too much.

 
All of it was too much and Lola was cracking under the strain of holding it all together when all she wanted to do was lie down and never get up, never face any of this again.

 
Blair wrapped her arms around her and helped her to the floor, where she rocked her back and forth, caressing her hair and saying nothing.
Lola clutched
her aunt
, needing to be comforted, needing to know someone cared.

 
“Everything’s going to be okay, Lola, I promise,” her aunt told her, her tone soothing.

 
Lola desperately wanted to believe her.

***

 
It was cold and rainy the day Lola found herself outside her house.
The sky was gray, everything darker than usual. It fit somehow.

 
She stood on the sidewalk, staring at the
tan
building that had been a haven at one time and
then a prison. No lights shone from the inside.
No black car took up the driveway space.

 
Lola shivered, her jacket protecting her from the
damp
, but not the c
hill in the air
. She didn’t know why she was there. She supposed it was time
to confront her mother
, if she wanted to move on.

 
She slowly walked to the front door, not sure if she knocked or just walked in. Lola knocked. When there was no answer after the third knock, she glanced over her shoulder, and seeing no one watching her, tried the doorknob.
It was locked.

 
Relief and disappointment hit her at the same time. Lola crouched beside a window and put her hands to it, trying to see inside. From what she could see in the darkened
living
room, it looked the same as it always had. Lola wasn’t sure what she had expected to find; some visible sign of the tragedy
that had taken place there, she supposed.

 
Lola swallowed and moved through the wet grass to the side of the house, pausing next to her mother’s bedroom window.
Without warning fear slammed into her and Lola sucked in a sharp breath, hurrying past the window. She stopped near her old room, hand to the house, and hung her head.

 
Her head snappe
d up and she studied the window, wondering if it was still unlocked. Lola put her hands to the cool wet glass and pushed up. It
opened,
her pulse quickening as it slid up.

 
Before she could change her mind, Lola maneuvered herself through the window and into her bedroom.
The room was cool, musty smelling. She glanced around it, emotions strangling her the longer she stood there. Lola blinked her stinging eyes and move
d
on, into the hallway.

 
The house seemed empty, disused.

 
Her heart pounded and Lola had to keep reminding herself that
Bob
was locked up, he wasn’t there,
he
couldn’t harm her anymore. She stared at the closed door to her mother’s bedroom, struggling to breathe.
Her hand shook as it closed around the doorknob and she slowly pushed the door open.

 
It was just a
n unoccupied room with a bed and dresser. But the things that had happened in it, the things that had almost happened in it, had added a darkness to it; a menacing quality.

 
Lola went through the rest of the house, not sure what she was searching for. Peace, maybe. Closure, definitely. She didn’t find it.
In fact, all she found was an empty house.

 
Her mother was gone.

**
*

 
Lola flung
her coat
down
and kicked her shoes off. She stormed up the stairs to Blair’s office
, shaking
with indignation.

 
Blair sat at her desk, staring at a computer screen.
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore purple sweats.
She turned
when she sensed Lola behind her
, frowned at
her
drowned appearance.

 
“Everything okay?”

 
“Do you know where my mother is?”

 
Blair looked down, admitting her guilt without speaking a word.

 
“You knew she left and you didn’t tell me? Where is she?”

 
“Lola, she didn’t want you to know,” Blair started.

 
“Where
is
she?” Lola
demanded. She couldn’t believe her aunt would keep such information from her. She’d been agonizing over her mother’s
absence
, wondering why she’d stayed
away,
and Blair had known. All this time
she’d known she was gone
.

 
Her aunt go
t to her feet
. “She’s in a mental institution. Lana admitted herself the day after…
after what happened to you.
She’s sick, Lola, she has been for a long time.
Lana suffers from depression and it’s gotten worse, gotten debilitating, since she married
Bob
.
She’s getting the help she needs, so she can be a mother to you again.”

 
Lola swayed on her feet, bumped into the doorframe and stayed there, allowing it to support her.
She didn’t know what she felt. Lola didn’t know what she
should
feel.

 
“Are you saying,”
she
began in a voice that trembled, “that all this time
I’ve been wondering why she’s hasn’t been to see me, she’s been in some hospital?
Why didn’t she call me, or write? Why hasn’t she contacted me in any way?
”

 
“I don’t know, Lola.” She shrugged helplessly, sorrow etched into her features. “I only know what I was told.
” Blair crossed the room, grabbed Lola’s arms. “But I know she’s doing it for you, Lola, she’s there for you.
She filed for divorce from
Bob
; I also was told the house will be going up for sale soon.”

 
Lola stared at her aunt. “How do you know these things?”