Monster Among the Roses

Three days passed.

They were a complete blur as if they flew by at warp speed, and yet each hour, minute and second ticked along too slowly for me to handle. Time was so messed up.

I was messed up.

It was hot, dry, and sunny when we buried Mom. Amazingly, all five of her children made it to the service. I don’t know how Alice found them, but they filed into the cemetery just in time for the final farewell to begin. I glanced at them but said nothing. I wanted to be mad that they waited too late to show, except I couldn’t summon the emotion.

I was numb.

Mom was gone. My purpose these last six months was done.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I’d worked so hard to save her, to make her life better. I was a complete failure.

Jesus, I was going to miss her.

How could my mother be gone? Forever?

After the ceremony, Alice invited the other four to my place. “We need to go through Mom’s things and get all her affairs in order, then decide what we’re going to do with everything.”

The others nodded. I shook my head. “Do we have to do that today?”

“When else will we be together?” Justin asked, sounding way too logical, way too unaffected. I kind of wanted to smash my fist into his jaw. “It’s a good idea to get it over with now.”

“Does she still have anything left from the bakery?” Victoria asked. “I’ve been thinking about opening my own shop.”

I glared, transferring my anger from my older brother to her. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re opening a new shop with the money you stole from Mom?”

Blinking in surprise, she reared back as if I might throttle her, which I actually considered, even though I would never physically touch her. I’d just dream about it.

“You’re the reason she went out of business in the first place and had to sell her house and move in with me, where she ended up falling down the stairs and dying.”

“Hey, hey!” Bryce and Justin grabbed me and pulled me back, away from Victoria. “Calm your shit down, little brother.”

Me? My shit had every right to be turbulent.

I pointed toward Victoria. “How dare she? How dare she steal from our mother and then start talking about what she wants to take before Mom is even cold in the ground.”

“Oh, like you really deserve anything,” Becky sneered. “It was your apartment building that killed her.”

My heart wrenched, and a spike of guilt dug deep into my soul. That fact had already been haunting me for over a week. I’d known it was dangerous for her to navigate those steps. She’d already fallen on them once, and I hadn’t found a new place for us to live.

Becky was right. It was my fault.

“Fine.” I faced away from all of them so I didn’t have to see five of my siblings glare at me as if I’d used my bare hands to murder Mom. “Go through the apartment, take whatever you want. I don’t care.”

I didn’t need any of her things to remember her. I just wanted her back.

I didn’t know what was worse: all my siblings browsing through my mother’s boxes full of things, remarking on all the old stuff they remembered from their childhood, oftentimes observing how tacky and gaudy it was, or all the neighbors who stopped by with food, telling me how sorry they were for my loss. I wanted to scream at every single one of them, ask why they hadn’t noticed Mom lying broken and hurt at the bottom of the stairs. Why hadn’t anyone heard her fall and helped her? And why did I feel guiltier with each casserole because I’d been gone and not there for her myself?

When a knock came on the door, at nearly seven in the evening, I about snapped. My refrigerator couldn’t hold any more pity food, and my patience couldn’t stand another “I’m so sorry.” I just wanted to be left alone.

No, actually, I wanted Isobel. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Not while I’d been picking out a casket, or flower arrangements, or watching my mother being lowered into the ground. I’d ached, just wanting her near, her hand to hold or body to hug, her rose scent calming my grief.

I kept wondering if she’d show up to be there for me. I was always looking for her. It was pathetic. She’d pushed me out, let a police officer arrest me to keep me away, and here, she was still the only thing I wanted.

So when I opened the door, and there she was, I nearly wept from the relief. Just seeing her made everything better. And yet worse.

It physically hurt to look at her. I’d shared so much with her, given her a piece of my soul, pressed my chest directly against her heartbeat, tasted her on my tongue, buried myself deeper in her than I’d ever been in anyone. And I could’ve sworn she’d given the same back to me. Yet she’d proven me wrong by shoving me from her life.

When I’d needed her most, she hadn’t been there.

Seeing her now stirred all that up, and still, I was ready to forget everything just for the chance to touch her one more time.

“You came,” I breathed out the word like a prayer of thanksgiving.

Lifting my fist to my mouth even as I stepped toward her, I needed to feel her against me. But then I realized someone was with her.

Her brother.

Ezra glared at me, his eyes narrowed with icy disdain. I returned my attention to Isobel, finally focusing on her face. She didn’t look very sympathetic for my loss. Her jaw was hard and eyes were a cold, frosted blue.

Lifting her chin, she said, “I just came to get my mother’s mirror back.”

At first, I was sure I’d misheard her. She couldn’t do that, certainly not today of all days. No one was that heartless. That evil.

She continued to stare at me, though, as if she fully expected me to go fetch the mirror for her. I stared back, positive this was all a mistake. I couldn’t have been this wrong about her. Yes, she’d been icy and standoffish at the beginning, but she’d only been trying to protect her own pain. She’d never been intentionally cruel.

But to mess with me on the day I buried my mother…

Who did that?

When I glanced toward her brother and asked, “Is she fucking serious?” he scowled back.

“Just go get the mirror, and we’ll be gone again.”

Get the mirror, huh? Oh, I would get the mirror. I’d get her goddamn precious mirror and break it right in front of her. Shatter it on the floor between us the same way she was shattering me.

Spinning away stonily, I left the door hanging open and retreated to my book bag I had sitting on the floor by the sofa sleeper. I still had clothes packed inside, ready to change into after running with her. The muscles in my chest clenched even tighter. I’d never run with her again.

After unzipping the front pocket, I pulled the mirror free, only for the grief to hit me all over again. My knees gave and I almost went to the floor. Such a small, old, scratched mirror, and giving it back was akin to dispensing with my humanity.

What the hell had I done to warrant her losing so much faith and understanding in me?

The anger drained, and defeat reigned.

I returned to the doorway where brother and sister remained, waiting to be reunited with their family heirloom. When I calmly held it out to her between two fingers, she hesitated. There must’ve been some look on my face that conveyed how much she’d just killed me, but it didn’t give her much of a pause. She snagged the mirror and tucked it into her purse.

Then she glanced past my shoulder and into my apartment when Becky and Bryce burst out laughing over something I had no interest in. I kept watching her face as it wrinkled with disdain.

“Sorry for interrupting your party,” she sneered.

As she and her brother turned away to leave, I crossed my arms over my chest and pressed my back to the doorjamb, watching them go. “If you want to call my scavenger siblings going through all my mom’s shit hours after burying her to see what they can claim a party, then you’re more heartless than I ever imagined.”

Isobel slowed to a stop. My blood surged. I hated her in that moment, and yet the idea of her turning around to argue with me made something in me come back to life.

Turn around, that sick and twisted part of me silently begged. Please, God, just turn back around and face me.

She turned, and her face was drained of color.

My breath heaved through my lungs.

I wanted to strangle her.

I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted to bury my face in her hair and weep.

“Burying her?” she repeated softly.

“What?” I growled, keeping my back to the doorjamb and arms crossed as tightly over my chest as I could wind them…to keep from going to her, falling onto my knees in front of her and begging her to love me again. “Like you didn’t know?”

“I…” A strange sound left her lungs. “I didn’t. When…when…?”

“Monday,” I answered, narrowing my eyes and trying to figure out if she really hadn’t known about Mom. “She died on Monday, while I was being arrested.”

She set her hand against her heart and swallowed visibly. “I… Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” The words rasped from her hoarsely. Then she turned to her brother, looking lost, seeking guidance.

He took her elbow, looking not so hostile either. “We should go.”

Isobel began to shake her head; her chin trembled, her eyes filled with moisture. “But—”

“Izzy, let’s go.”

Ezra turned her toward the stairwell, but just as she started to move that way, something made her stumble back into her brother.

I peered past her to find Gloria arriving at the top of the steps, holding a casserole dish. And though seeing another one of those today was horrifying all on its own, I couldn’t see why it’d affect Isobel as strongly as it did.

Until Gloria saw her back.

My mother’s friend and the bane of my existence screeched to a halt. Her eyes went wide with recognition, then with horror, before she gasped, “Oh, no,” and turned right back around, hurrying down the stairs away from us.

I stepped out of my apartment, alerted to something big happening.

“What was that?” I demanded.

Isobel glanced back at me, her face white, as if she’d just seen a ghost.

I pointed to where Gloria had been standing. “Did you know her?”

Isobel gulped but said nothing. Tears still swam in her eyes and her chin continued to tremble. It was enough to make me want to pull her into my arms and hug all her pain away, except her continued silent treatment pissed me off.

“She recognized you,” I insisted, stepping closer. Ezra put up a hand to ward me off, but I ignored him, my focus on his sister, whose blue-blue eyes were full of pain and confusion. I shook my head, harboring plenty of my own pain and confusion. “How the hell do you know Gloria?”

There was no reason at all for her to ever have met Gloria, but there was no denying they’d definitely recognized each other.

Isobel blinked. Then she straightened. “Wait, what?” She shook her head, turned toward where Gloria had been standing, only to whirl back to me. “That was Gloria?”

I nodded, my confusion growing. “Yes. Who did you think it was?”

“I…I…” She shook her head before blurting, “She said she was your girlfriend.”