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The protection officers glance at each other, and one picks up a walkie-talkie to mumble something into it. A burst of static responds almost instantly, and he grimaces.
“Lovely,” says Jenkins, as if this has all been settled, and with a grudging nod, the first guard opens the door for us. If the situation were any different, I’d be fascinated by this rare display of Jenkins’s power. But as we enter the room, all I can do is stare at my father’s prone and broken body, and my mother’s hunched form on the small sofa that’s situated a few feet from the edge of Alexander’s bed. A new nurse sits at the computer, scribbling something down on a clipboard, and while she nods to us both in greeting, she returns to her work immediately.
“Whenever you’re ready to leave, let the protection officers outside know, and someone will come to escort you,” says Jenkins. “There’s no rush, though, darling. Stay as long as you’d like.”
I nod, but even though I want to be here, I’m not sure how much I can take. A heaviness surrounds this place, muffling any sense of the past or the future, and even though I knew exactly what to expect, it still feels like another world.
My mom looks up then, and her eyes are distant, like she’s focused on something no one else could ever possibly see. The haziness clears up after a beat, however, and she manages a smile.
“There you are, Evie,” she says, beckoning for me, and I notice a large open sketchbook resting on her lap. As I cross the room to join her, she clears a place for me among the pencils, brushes, and various other art supplies that always seem to follow her wherever she goes, and to my surprise, I notice the paint set Kit gave her for Christmas.
“You’re really using that?” I say as I ease down beside her.
“This? Of course,” she says, opening it to show me the half-empty tubes of paint. “It’s incredibly useful. Your Kit has excellent taste, you know.”
I try to smile, but I still can’t manage it. Part of me knows I should tell her about the ABR’s claims and about the picture with Aoife, but even if I wanted to, I don’t know how. She’ll find out eventually—there’s no way to hide the accusations of murder and treason from her forever—but for now, her ignorance is a balm, and I need it more than I realized.
“Are you okay?” I say. “Do you have your medication with you? Is everyone treating you all right? Have you been eating?”
My mother pulls me closer and kisses my forehead. “I’m perfectly fine, sweetheart, don’t worry. Jenkins is making sure I have everything I need.”
Of course he is, and I make a mental note to thank him. “How is Alexander?” I say, glancing at the bed and the beeping machines presumably keeping him alive. She sighs.
“There hasn’t been much improvement,” she admits. “But he isn’t getting any worse, either, and that’s the important part. It can take a while for the swelling to go down, and until it does…”
She trails off, and instead of finishing, she rubs my back for a moment before focusing on her sketchbook. It’s only because she isn’t trying to hide it that I let myself look at the unfinished drawing, and when I do, I’m startled to see my own toddler face peering back at me.
I can’t be older than two or three, and I’m laughing, all baby teeth and chubby cheeks as someone tickles me. The hands are large and nothing like my mother’s, and as soon as I spot the rough sketch of a signet ring on the pinky, I realize they must beAlexander’s.
“Wow,” I say as my mother defines the knuckles, her pencil moving so quickly that it looks like she’s revealing what’s already there beneath the blank page. “Did that really happen?”
“Of course,” she says, and she pauses long enough to flip back a page. There’s another picture, this one of her and Alexander sitting in what I recognize as her backyard in Arlington, and she’s filled in the garden with bursts of watercolor. They look young in the painting—just a few years older than I am—and it seems so real that it’s almost like I’m staring into her memories.
“That’s beautiful,” I say softly, as if speaking too loudly will ruin it somehow.
“It’s nothing,” she says, but her cheeks grow pink as she turns to a third drawing. It’s a detailed study of Alexander’s sleeping face, whole and well, and his fingers peek through toward the bottom of the picture, laced with someone else’s—my mother’s, no doubt. He’s young in this one, too, but as she moves to another page, there’s a near-identical drawing, and this time, there are lines around his eyes, and his hairline isn’t as thick as it was in his twenties.
One by one, she shows me each of the nearly two dozen drawings, all memories of their history together. By the time we reach the very first sketch, my vision is blurred, and I blink hard before taking in the details of a large building with remarkably detailed Gothic architecture. A girl—my mother—sits on the edge of a fountain in the foreground, sketch pad in hand, as a figure that can only be my father walks toward her. His face is hidden, but I’m struck by the look in her graphite eyes. Somehow, my mother’s managed to convey an entire lifetime of love and joy with only a few pencil strokes, and I brush the tip of my finger against the page, far from any spot I might smudge.
“This is the day Alex and I met,” she says, leaning her head against mine. “I used to think the idea of love at first sight was a fairy tale, but from the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was it for me.”
“He told me the same thing about you,” I say quietly as I gaze at those pencil figures, who have no idea what kind of heartbreak and tragedy are lying in wait for them. “Do you regret it at all? Going to Oxford, I mean. Meeting him. Maybe if you hadn’t…”
“If I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t have you,” she says. “And even if Alexander and I hadn’t worked out, even if he’d never spoken to me again after you were born, you’re worth every moment of it, Evie. Good, bad, devastating—I’d do it all again a thousand times over if it meant bringing you into this world. You know that, right?”
My mom peers at me with such naked vulnerability that I nod, even though I don’t know this. Even though I can’t imagine that I really am worth the pain and suffering she’s faced. She must see my uncertainty, because she sighs and sets the sketchbook aside.
“I hate that you only remember the worst parts,” she says, clasping my hand between both of hers. “My mother—your grandmother thought it was best for me to keep my distance from you while I was still recovering. And she was right at first, especially…well, especially in the immediate aftermath. But it robbed you of seeing the good parts, too, even when they were messy and might’ve seemed like our darkest moments from the outside looking in.”
“Like what?” I say, not entirely sure I want to know. Hearing her talk about Alexander makes me ache in a way I can’t entirely face, but it’s a good kind of pain, too, I think.
She hesitates. “For instance, when I was hospitalized after…well, after what I did to…what happened to you, I didn’t see anyone for months. I refused, and I was…” Her throat tightens, and she glances at Alexander for a split second. “I was in a bad place. But your dad visited me every week. Every single week, he would take a red-eye from London, and he would sit in the visitors’ lounge, waiting for me to come out.”
“He did?” I say, but I’m not surprised. Nothing about how much they love each other surprises me anymore.
“He did. And eventually I started to look forward to it, even though I refused to see him. Just knowing he was there…during a time when I hated myself more than anyone else ever could, it gave me something to live for. And I think he knew that. I think he knew how much I needed him, even though I couldn’t admit it. But when I did…when I finally worked up the courage to see him, he didn’t blame me for hurting you. He didn’t tell me what a terrible mother I was, even though I deserved it.”
“You’re not—” I begin, but she squeezes my hand.
