Shadows (Sequel to Rip My Heart Out)

Chapter 13

The dinner was everything I wanted. I swear it could have been in a Hallmark movie. We ate my dad's signature Sunday Roast, we laughed, all the most important people in my life collided and got to know each other. After dinner, my mother and I offered to wash the dishes. Since my dad cooked, it was usually my mom who cleaned up. She had volunteered me to help her. So Pietro was left with my dad, for better or worse.

Once in the kitchen, I stopped one side of the sink and filled it with hot water and dish soap. This was something my mom and I had done many times before, and we fell in step without having to discuss who would wash the dishes and who would dry them. Once the sink was full, I turned off the water and started washing the dishes. As I rinsed them, I handed them to my mom who already had a towel at the ready.

"So..." She started.

"What?" I said, handing her a clean plate.

"I like him." She said, holding the dripping plate in one hand. Her smile was ear to ear.

"Yeah?" I smiled back, holding my own dripping hands over the sink.

"Honey, he obviously cares about you so much. He's nice, he's smart and he's funny. And..." She paused and took a step towards me, whatever she was about to say was something she wanted to make sure only I heard, "his accent!" She giggled.

I laughed. "I know! Isn't it the best?"

"It's very attractive." She said.

"Mom!" I said, splashing some water from my hand onto her. "Do I need to watch you around him?"

She laughed too. "Please! He's far too young for me." She said. "But if I was thirty years younger..."

I nearly dropped the pan I was holding because I was laughing so hard. By the time we settled down, we both had tears in our eyes. I hadn't seen my mom laugh this hard in a long time. It was nice.

"He really is great, though. I mean, I've never felt like this before, mom." I said, swirling my hand through the water in front of me. I stared into it and watched the patterns of the bubbles swirl around my hands.

"I'm so happy for you, honey." I heard my mom say, but suddenly her voice sounded far away, like an echo.

My eyes were locked on the water in front of me. Those patterns... The soap almost seemed to come alive swirling around my hand. And was the water starting to glow? I knew logically that I must have been seeing the reflection of the ceiling light in the water, but there was something about this light. It seemed to come from the bottom of the sink, somewhere deep in the water, and it wasn't the familiar yellow of fluorescents. It was blue. Bright, electric blue.

Something was bubbling to the surface of my memory. Images started flashing through my consciousness, of strange people and places around the world. Of death, destruction and fear, but also of hope and love. I saw Pietro, only he was different, with electric blue eyes and stark white-blonde hair.

"Emelia? Emelia?" My mom pulled my hand from the sink and everything that was there vanished as quickly as it had come. I looked to her eyes, which were looking back at me as if I'd lost my mind, then looked back to the sink to find that it was exactly as it should be. There was no blue light, no strange images, and the bubbles were lazily swirling around the sink, but in no way out of the ordinary.

"Where did you go just now?" My mom asked, with a smile.

"I just zoned out. Sorry." I said.

"It's alright, honey. You always were a daydreamer." She said.

"I was?" I asked, looking at her with surprise. I don't know why this little tidbit caught me so off guard, but suddenly I wanted to hear more from my mom about myself, about my past.