When I returned to Mrs. Fulton’s room, I found Hale and Krystina staring oddly at one another. Krystina looked concerned, yet confused. Hale on the other hand, looked uncharacteristically troubled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Hale looked at me with a pained expression. It was rather alarming. “Is it your mother?”

I looked past him and saw she was sitting peacefully in her chair, just as she was when I left the room.

“Mr. Stone, I need you and Miss Cole to come with me.”

I stared at him in confusion.

“Hale, tell me now. What is going on?”

“Just please, follow me.”

He walked out of the room, leaving Krystina and I little choice but to follow him. I was somewhat taken aback. Hale never ignored a direct question from me. I looked to Krystina.

“What happened when I was gone?” I asked her quietly as we walked.

“I don’t know. Hale’s mother had some kind of a panic episode. He calmed her down and then told me that he had to tell you something. I don’t know what though, because you came back right after he said it.”

“Something isn’t right,” I murmured, more to myself than her.

Hale came to a stop in front of a closed door. It appeared to lead to a room for another resident.

“She’s sleeping, so please keep your voice down,” Hale told us.

“Who’s sleeping? For the second time, what the fuck is going on?” I asked, now feeling indisputably pissed off over the unexplained secrecy.

He didn’t answer, but turned the knob and pushed the door open. A sinking feeling began to form in my gut, yet I didn’t know why. I only knew that I had never once seen Hale behave the way that he was.

I stepped into the room and was momentarily stunned by who I saw. Justine sat in a chair in front of a bed. I saw the outline of a person under the bedsheets, someone that I could only assume to be a patient. However, I could care less about who it was, as I was too shocked to see my sister.

“Justine! Where the hell have you been?”

She held a finger to her lips to quiet me and motioned to the person in the bed.

“I…I’ve been here,” she said softly.

“Here? In a goddamn nursing home?” I shook my head in confusion. “Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”

She looked at Hale, and her eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Alex.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Sorry for what? What in holy hell is going on?”

She stood up, stepped to the side, and looked down at the person in the bed. My gaze followed hers, still not understanding why Justine was even here.

My eyes landed on an older woman, her dark hair was streaked with gray and fanned out over the pillow. She was sleeping, her pale lidded eyes fluttering as if she were experiencing a dream. She looked frail, but…familiar.

No. It can’t be.

My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest. Justine began to speak, and I snapped my head up to look at her.

“She usually takes a nap around this time of day. The medication she’s on makes her a bit sleepy, but she’ll probably wake up soon.”

As if they had a mind of their own, my legs began to move. I kept my gaze fixed on Justine, putting one foot in front of the other, until I was directly beside the bed. I stared at my sister for a moment longer before slowly turning my head to look at the woman in the bed.

She had a narrow nose and defined cheekbones. Just like mine and Justine’s. Age lines marred her face, the faint indents of crow’s feet extending to her temples. There was a horrific scar that spread from the right side of her forehead to the middle, outlining a slightly caved in depression. It was in the shape of an elongated U, its deep purplish-gray color revealing how bad the original wound must have been.

As I stared at the scar, a vision flashed before my eyes. It nearly blinded me and I staggered back. I knew that scar. I had seen the wound that caused it. My eyes burned from the pain that began to build behind them, a migraine of the sorts that I had never before experienced.

Abruptly, it was as if I was thrown back in time, the hazy details of the day Hale showed up and found Justine and me with my father’s body suddenly becoming clear.

Someone is knocking on the door. I’m afraid to answer, but I hear Hale’s voice.

Hale is a soldier and it’s dumb to be afraid of a soldier. I should answer it. He could help me and Justine. She’s still acting funny and won’t eat all her food. Grandma would say it’s wasteful.

I open the door.

“Hey, champ,” Hale says to me and messes my hair. “Where’s your mom? Your gran made banana bread, your mom’s favorite.”

“Mommy’s not here,” I lie. I don’t want him to see her. He’ll tell grandpa about her face and then grandpa will call Mommy a fool. That makes her cry.

“Oh,” Hale says. He sounds surprised. “Do you know where she is?”

I shake my head and look behind me. I see Justine down the hall going into her room. She’s humming again.

“Something happened to Justine, Hale. Can you talk to her for me?”

He looks past me. He’s too tall, and I can’t block his view. I don’t want him to look into the living room. He’ll see him if he does.

“Champ, what’s wrong? Where’s your mom?”

He sounds afraid. Like me.

Hale walks around me and comes into the house. My heart begins to pound.

“Wait, no! Not in here. Justine’s room is this way,” I say and pull at his sleeve.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he swears. Grandma won’t like his language.

Hale starts running through the house. He’s calling for Mommy. I shake my head. I want to tell him that she can’t answer, but decide I want to eat grandma’s treat instead. It’s better than following Hale and seeing her again.

“Justine,” I call out. “Hale is here. Grandma made banana bread. Come have some.”

Justine comes out of her room, and we sit on the sofa. She hums and rocks back and forth as I unwrap the foil. We each share a piece.

I can hear Hale in the kitchen. He’s talking to someone. I think he’s on the phone.

I wonder who he’s talking to, but I try not to listen. I don’t want to listen.

He comes back to the living room. He’s carrying a person. I know who it is, but I don’t look. I don’t want to see her face. It’s not pretty anymore.

“Alexander, I need you to do exactly as I say,” Hale says to me. “I’m going to take your mother to get help. I’ll be right back. Grandpa will be here soon too.”

I look down at the floor. I see him still laying there and I feel angry. I look up at Hale, careful not to look at Mommy’s face when I do. I take another bite of bread.

“Grandpa will be happy the lazy bastard is dead,” I say in between bites.

“Dammit! Alexander, I don’t want to leave you, but everything will be okay. Just stay with your sister. Don’t leave the house. In fact, don’t even leave the couch.”

He seems upset. I don’t want to make him more upset, so I nod.

“Okay,” I agree and go back to eating.

My mother. She was there the whole time, yet I didn’t remember it until now. I remembered her body on the kitchen floor. Her lips were pale, and she was unresponsive to anything I tried to do. Her skull was pushed in, a shallow crater that oozed with blood and gray matter, causing her hair to mat to her face. I recalled it being sticky. My stomach rolled from the recollection of the terribly gruesome site.

Is that why I blocked it out? And what about Hale? Where did he bring her?

I couldn’t think, my vision flooding with a rush of more suppressed memories. This time, I recalled a conversation I overheard my grandfather having with Hale and my grandmother.

Grandpa will get mad if he catches me out of bed, but I can’t sleep. I don’t want to have another bad dream. I need to ask Grandma for my sleep medicine.

I go downstairs, but stop when I hear Grandpa talking. He sounds angry.

“No, I don’t care what your mother thinks, Hale. We can’t tell them. Not now. It’s been over a month. Justine still hasn’t spoken a word, and Alexander can barely get through the night.”

“These children have been through too much. They can’t see her like this,” Grandma says. She sounds like she’s crying. Grandma cries a lot now. I wish I could make her feel better.

“Any improvement?” Hale asks.

“No. The doctors are not optimistic. It’s most likely permanent,” Grandpa says.

Grandma cries again.

“Lucille, get it together. You need to be strong for Alexander and Justine. Crying isn’t going to bring her back.”

“That’s not why I’m crying. I’m crying because I feel guilty. Right now, we have her hidden away. She’s stable, even if her mind is gone. I just feel awful for keeping the children in the dark. Will we ever be able to tell them? Bring them to see her?”

“Lucille, she won’t even know who they are. You said it yourself. These children have been through enough. We have to protect them. Can you imagine what else they’d have to endure if it came out that their mother murdered their father?”

“He deserved it if you ask me,” Hale says.

“Any news on the police investigation?” Grandpa asks.

“Nothing. They haven’t even found the gun that shot him.”

I begin to get nervous. They think Mommy killed the lazy bastard. What if they find out what I did?

“For the sake of Alexander and Justine, it’s better that Helena remains a missing person. Hale, are you sure you can keep her identity a secret?”

“Yes, sir. As far as anyone knows, Helena Russo is really Lena Silvestri.”

My hands feel sweaty. I take a step back. The stair creaks.

“Alexander? Is that you?” I hear Grandma call out.

If they see me, they’ll know what I did. I don’t need my medicine anymore. I just need to get back to my room.

I turned to Hale.

“You knew where my mother was this whole time.”

I phrased it as a statement of accusation, not a question. Hale simply nodded and stared at some invisible speck on the floor.

“Alex, wait,” Justine interjected. “You don’t understand.”

She spoke, but I wasn’t hearing her. I was too busy watching my security detail, the man whom I had come to consider a friend and the man I had trusted longer than anyone else. For years, I sent him off to chase Jane Doe’s, only to now learn that he was simply placating me. A part of me wanted to deny that he knew my mother was alive all this time, but my newfound memories told me that wasn’t the case.

Heat rose to my face, and I felt my fists clench. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak.

So, I acted.

I lunged at Hale, landing a well-aimed punch to the center of his face. I heard a crack of cartilage. Whether it was from my knuckles or his nose, it didn’t matter. Blood spurted immediately from his face, but I didn’t pause. I hit him again. He staggered back a step, but didn’t offer me a return blow.

“Fight back, you bastard!”

I felt something, or perhaps someone, on my back. Krystina. Justine. My subconscious knew it was them pulling at my arms, but I just kept swinging.

And then I heard her voice. A voice I haven’t heard in over twenty years. It sounded exactly as I remembered, yet…different.

I stopped moving. My chest heaved and caused by breath to come out in rapid successions as I turned around.

“Mom,” I whispered.

She sat up in the bed and clutched her blanket to her chest.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“Alex!” Justine hissed. I slowly turned to look at her. “There are things you don’t know. Please, just play along or you’ll upset her.”

Confused, I looked back at my mother. She stared at me with a curious expression. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to tell her that I had somehow known she was alive and I never stopped looking for her. However, there was something about her gaze that made me pause.

It had been decades since she last saw me. She wouldn’t be able to recognize the man I had become. So instead of saying all the things I wanted to, I stepped up to her and extended my hand.

“I’m Alexander.”

I waited to see if she would remember, but she simply stared at my hand. It was as if she didn’t know what to do with it. To my astonishment, she didn’t shake it, but took hold of it and turned it around in hers.

“I thought you had a sweet treat for me,” she pouted. She pushed my hand away, pulled a stuffed rabbit out from under her pillow, and began fiddling with its floppy ears.

My eyes widened in horror. A wave of nausea hit me and I wanted to vomit. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I turned to Justine. Tears were falling down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked so quietly, I may as well have mouthed the words.

I heard Krystina clear her throat. I had almost forgotten she was there. When I looked at her, her face showed almost as much shock as I felt.

“Alex, why don’t you, Justine, and Hale go find a quiet place to talk. I can stay here with, um…with her,” she offered and pointed to where my mother sat in her bed.

I looked over at Hale who was standing quietly in the corner. His nose was bleeding and it appeared that I split open his bottom lip. However, he made no attempt to wipe the blood away. Instead, he stood there like a statue, his expression stoic.

Fucking lying bastard!

I tore my gaze from him and looked back at Krystina.

“No. I can’t…” I trailed off. I glanced at Justine, then down at my mother.

How long has Justine known she was here?

Anger and betrayal, painful levels that I never knew to be humanly possible, sliced through me. It was a burning pain that shredded though every inch of my body.

And then, I felt nothing.

I recalled reading a study about how the human mind could effortlessly construct the feeling of being out of body, as if you were experiencing a scene from the outside looking in. I saw myself standing in a comfortable and tranquil room. My mother sat on the bed pretending to walk her stuffed rabbit back and forth on her lap, almost like a small child would. She was humming, as if she too were in another world. Other people stood around me – Justine, Hale, Krystina. All were staring at me in expectation, but I was unable to find the words to describe what I was thinking.

“Alex,” I heard Krystina say. She sounded far away.

Her hand touched my arm, pulling me back from the floating abyss and back into my body. I looked down at her hand, hoping to feel the familiar warmth that I always felt when she touched me. However, I was numb. And then it occurred to me, I couldn’t find the words I needed because there were no words to be said. I only knew that I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.

“I have to go.”

I shrugged out of her reach and turned toward the door. Krystina called after me. So did Justine. But I just kept walking. It was all too much. My pace increased until I was in a full out run. I needed to get as far away from here as I possibly could.