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I pulled out the phone and turned it on, working my way through the menus to get it activated. It was a little eerie howmuch this guy knew about me when I knew Nikolas didn’t take phone calls, didn’t have visitors, nor did he ever get mail. “If she thinks after all these years, I’m getting out of here and walking the other way, she has another thing coming to her.”
I’d been in the dark for six years.Six years, I’d waited for a letter, a visit, or a phone call. Something, and I had received nothing.
My mother hadn’t reached out, Wren hadn’t reached out. Troy, Gavin. Not one person I called my friend. My family.
Except for Jonathan.
Jonathan had been there in the beginning. He hadn’t been a lawyer yet for my trial, but he did his best to get me someone who could help me.
His father wouldn’t let anyone from his firm take on the case. A murder with witnesses, something that was sure to lose, wasn’t something the man wanted on his docket.
Jon’s visits became fewer and fewer every year that passed. It'd been eighteen months since I last saw him.
The letters I sent were never returned.
Every person had abandoned me.
And I wanted to know why.
Wren Jacobson was going to look me in the eye and tell me she wanted nothing to do with me. She would face me, rather than running like a coward.
The sedan accelerated as we merged onto the interstate. I dialed the only phone number I knew by heart, just to have an automated voice tell me the phone number was no longer in service.
CHAPTER 30
ALEX
James David Harper
Gloria Elaine Harper
Beloved Mother and Father
Gone but never forgotten.
I read the gravestone once,twice, three times. I read it over and over, waiting for the tears to fall. Waiting to feel something other than anger.
My mother was dead.
Pure, unbridled rage filled me.No one told me. No one gave me the courtesy of letting me know that she died. I pulled the manila envelope out from under my arm, ripping it open and pulling out the file that Foster, the PI that Ezekiel had connected me with, sent me.
Medical documents. A diagnosis of the stage-four lung cancer that took her life within four months. The dates on her death certificate showed that it happened shortly after my sentencing. Turning the page to the nurses' notes, I saw documentation of every time Wren had checked in and out to visit her. Days went by before she checked out. Even Jon, Troy, and Gavin’s names appeared on the forms. The next few pages were pictures of Wrenat the graveside. Pictures of her cleaning it, sitting with her back to it, her mouth open like she was talking. There was even a picture of her lying in the grass.
A sliver of sentiment wormed its way through me. Memories of her and my mother talking and laughing together flashed through my mind. I was angry with her. I had tried to reason with myself, but I hated her for moving on with her life like I meant nothing. Still, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she loved my mother and did everything she could for her in her last moments.
My father had an unmarked grave for years, and now my mother lay beside him, both their names on a headstone. A beautiful, black marble headstone. It looked expensive. Ma could never afford one for Dad. She could barely afford the funeral costs.
I knew Wren was the reason behind this. I placed my hand on the top of the stone, the cold seeping in. Seeing the stone melted the ice I had built around my heart, but it immediately froze again. There was no excuse for this.
Not one person told me that she died. What right did they have to not tell me?
Guilt ripped through me. I had been angry at my mother. At first, there was understanding. Wren had just been raped. I couldn’t imagine the aftermath of it. I had taken care of the problem I should have taken care of years before. For the first several years, I made excuses for them. Making up reasons as to why they hadn’t reached out.
I couldn’t imagine what my mother thought of her only son murdering a man with his bare hands. I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to her. To tell her I was sorry.
I wasn’t sorry for what I did though. I didn’t regret it at all. The only thing I regretted was not being able to be there for Wren afterwards.
I had imagined that Ma would have at the very least understood.
