Someone To Watch Over You

Chapter 22

"Alex? Alex, is that you?"

"Mom? I know it's been forever since we talked but now is really not a good time, can I call you back in say..."

"Your father is dead."

Her words caused mine to die in my throat. I sink slowly onto the couch, needing to sit down.

"When? How?"

"Yesterday." My mother's voice breaks and my heart breaks for her. No matter how I feel towards my parents, I know how much she loves him, therefore how this must affect her.

"They found him, in his office. They are trying to convince me he took his own life. I know he's been depressed but Alex he would never..."

"Suicide?" I couldn't wrap my head around what she is telling me. "Jesus, I..."

"I need to see you. Please, Alex? I... I can't do this alone. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please... please, come home?"

One part of me, and it is a very big part, wants to tell her no in not so polite terms. But then Aiden sprung to mind. No matter how I feel about what they had done, I couldn't do it to someone else. I couldn't make her suffer as I had.

"I'll help you, Mom. I need to wrap things up here, though. I need to make arrangements for leave from school, and with my teachers. Once I do that, I'll get on the road and meet you at the house." I couldn't bring myself to say home, it hadn't been my home for a very long time.

My mother broke down crying. Between sobs she got out, "Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much."

"I'll see you soon," I tell her and before I hang up, I hear a raspy, "I love you."

I hang up the phone. I don't say it back. William shows up with movers. "I saw Cat leave, she was crying. I take it you didn't sort things out with her?"

My brain is overloaded. Thinking is impossible. I can't even focus on Cat right now. I'm just staring at my phone's blank screen.

"Are these the boxes?" one mover asks, pointing to the obvious pile of cardboard.

"Yeah," William tells them. "You still want them to take them, right?" William asks of me and it's hard to miss the hopeful hesitation in his voice that I may have changed my mind. I just nod my head yes, which spurs the men into action.

William sits next to me. "What happened?" As I put my phone down on the table, it must have drawn his eye to the other objects sitting there.

"Oh shit! Alex, I'm so sorry," William says, spying the ring and necklace sitting there.

I see what he sees and reach out to pick them up. I don't even look at them. I just place them in my pocket.

"What did she say? I can't believe Cat would just walk away? I really thought she would have tried to work things out. I know the threat, but what court in their right mind would ever take a baby from its mother. Especially when its mother is Cat?"

I know William is talking to me, but I feel detached. My world is distorted. I feel as if I'm viewing my life through a fisheye lens. My father is dead. I'll know I walked away. I know I was mad and rightfully so, but now, now he's gone and I can't fix things between us. The last thing I said to him was that I hated him, and everything he stood for.

"Alex?"

I look up at William. My brain is in a fog. I can't think. I can't process anything that he's saying. He reaches out and touches my arm and I want to pull back. I don't want to be comforted. I don't want to talk. I just want to be alone. This must have been how William felt when he lost Aiden. Why he retreated from me, from everyone, from life.