“It’s been days since I’ve been dealing with the stunt you pulled on me,” Eric complained on the phone. “My phone is blowing up, everyone is asking for answers and want an interview with you, we need to—”
“I can’t talk to you right now.” I parked my car like an asshole in the middle of the Clemonte family residence in another impulsive act. “I chose to work with you for a reason. You’re good, Eric. You’re even the best at what you do, and I trust you to make the right choices to handle that shitshow.”
I grabbed my keys, closed the door of my Aston Martin, and walked with heavy stomps toward that manor of misery. “Plus, for now, none of our contracts backed out. I’m sure we’d have a year booked with commissions.”
“Since when are you optimistic?” he grunted. “I hate to admit this, but your impulsive act is maybe the best marketing strategy we could have ever thought about. You’re back in the spotlight with your newest paintings. The way the public perceives those will determine your career.”
“I have faith in those.” I couldn’t be more disinterested in having this conversation right now. “Now, I have to go. We’ll talk later.”
I hung up, not letting him have the time to complain more as my brother slammed the front door open before I could mouth a semblance of politeness.
“You asshole,” he greeted me with the family snarl and crossed arms. “I can’t believe you lied to me. I mean, I’m your brother. I can keep a darn secret.”
I believed he was referring to the reason for my arrival here: the fact that I was the man behind Spectre.
“You were a real pain when we were kids. A temperamental one who could act on purpose to get me in trouble, and I was the one paying for your mistakes,” I dropped.
“You mean you were the cold, emotionless, favorite, perfect one while I was the constant failure who couldn’t stand up to you as much as I tried,” he deadpanned. “I had to decompress somehow.”
I knitted my brows, having no idea my own brother disliked me that much. “I tried to protect you from our father.”
“You mean you abandoned me with him while I had to collect all of the broken pieces. All I ever wanted was for my fucking brother to trust me and be there for me like a friend when I was a kid.” Archi gunned his eyes at me, his tongue working across his cheeks. “But you didn’t seem to care about friendships or any human interactions. You never asked me if I was all right after I took Father’s beatings because I wasn’t as perfect as you. You only thought of yourself. You cared only about achievements, just like him.”
“I’m—” I swallowed, a knot tightening in my chest. “You’re right, I failed you. I didn’t tell you I was Spectre because I thought you’d resent me the same way our father did. I thought you’d be better off without me because Father had pitted us against each other. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a humanoid incapable of emotions.”
“You have to stop pushing everyone away. I’m not Father. I’m better than him—and not only in the medical field. I don’t need you anymore. I’m not that weak, and I thank you for that. Now—” He laid a hand over my shoulder. “That stunt you pulled about revealing who you are was genius, by the way. Very cool. So unlike you.”
“Of course, you’d approve of me almost burning my career to ashes.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, but one thing I’m sure of is you owe me an art piece I can put in my penthouse, and that’s not negotiable.” Archi pointed his finger at me and entered the house.
“Knowing you, it’s going to be something megalomaniac like your close-up portrait,” I mumbled.
“Exactly, and I can promise you, you’ll hate doing it.” Archi flashed his dimples. “Mom! Look who is here!”
I set foot in what used to be my home for the first time since the angry dinner with my father. I stood frozen in the hallway, waiting for one of my parents to arrive, preferably my mother.
“You have to know, Ajax, that her dementia and chronic condition progressed last month. It was pushed by a virus she contracted.” Archi’s jaw clenched. “I just want to prepare you. I’ll go get her.”
Get her?
Archi headed in the direction of the kitchen. Long minutes passed, and only the sound of Archi’s whisper came through it. I took a step forward, and that’s when he came out of the room, rolling my mom’s wheelchair. A frozen wave lashed across my spine; it branched across my back like lightning. My mother seemed completely lost. A prickle of something unpleasant squeezed my head.
She, who used to be so carefree, was in a wheelchair, unable to walk on her own. She had lost weight, her bones were visible, and she was as white as a ghost, almost blue. She, who was always so clean and proper, was wearing an old dress that was way too large for her. She’d hate it. She laid her eyes on me for a moment hesitantly.
“It’s Ajax. Your son,” I told her, trying to appear friendly in front of my own mother because I knew I wasn’t talented at making a good first impression.
“I have to pick up my baby from school. I—” She still smiled the same way, with care and generosity. “I—I’m—” She searched for her name, and she stared at the ground for long minutes. When her eyes went back to me, she frowned, one of her fingers jerking. “Who are you?”
“Two weeks ago, she attacked Dad in the middle of the night, thinking he was a stranger, and now—” Archi muttered. “She’s unable to move on her own. She doesn’t even want to eat anything or drink.”
“Ajax,” the voice of my father echoed behind my back. I turned around to take him in. He was actually gardening, judging by the gloves he wore, the boots, and some pants with pockets. He was planting flowers. Lilacs. My mom’s favorite. The ones he held in his hand. “I—You’re here because you’re Spectre.” He cleared his throat with his usual pride. “You can leave. We won’t say anything to the media. This will pass eventually.”
“You’re not working.” My father always worked. I didn’t even recognize him. If my father and I shared something in common, it was the perfectionism for details, and right now, it was the first time in my life I was seeing him with a beard, badly shaved, not dressed in his typical polo or fancy suit.
“He retired,” Archi continued. “He’s spending some time with Mom because she’s—”
She’ll probably leave this world soon.
Our father had finally understood these were the last moments he had to live with his wife before she died.
Something burnt my heart like a poison spreading at a slow, agonizing pace. “Can I speak to you, Father?”
He shot a glance at my mother, then at me, and nodded in agreement. We headed to the veranda near the gardens to continue the discussion.
“I know we don’t have the best relationship.” I paused. “I’m leaving soon.”
“You know—” He knitted his brows, his gaze resting on his garden. “I expected so much from you, Ajax. I’ve always been hard on you because I wanted what’s best for you and your brother. I didn’t want to be kind because I knew life was hell. I made you strong and the man you are today. I gave you everything so you’d succeed in life in a way I wasn’t given those things.”
“You did,” I said. “And we’re more alike than I would like to acknowledge. I pushed Archi away because I thought that was what was good for him. I closed myself off from emotions and focused on work and achievements because I could control it. Just like you, I was self-made, disowned by my own father. And in the end, we both screwed up, and we’re alone with our mistakes.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Léon spat. “If I had your chance, I would do so much more and not waste it on art. You had everything, Ajax. You were smart and talented, and you gave up everything for—”
“For my dream, Father. This vision of me you wanted me to be, it’s not me. It never was.” I stiffened. “I’m not saving lives like you and Arch, but I help immortalize memories and make others feel, and that, Dad, that’s a gift.”
He let out a slight, dark, mocking laugh. “You never felt, Ajax.”
“I felt. Everything. I just never expressed it. I never knew how to share my emotions. Just like you feel for Mom, and yet you still pretend you’re stronger than your feelings, but no one is. Last time you asked me what pain was; now I know. It’s like stabbing. An ache that won’t go away. A shard in my gut. You can’t sleep. You feel like you’re sick. The world’s so cold that even breathing is agony when you’re in pain.”
Being on the verge of losing Aurore had taught me pain. Heartbreak. Love.
“I can’t accept who you are.” He pinched his lips together, still not looking at me. “You remain my biggest disappointment.”
I nodded. He would never change. “And what did you feel when you learned I was Spectre? What’s the first thing you did? If you ever had some love for me once, you’ll tell me.”
He thought this through, and he took a deep breath, closing all the features of his face. “I smiled.”
He smiled.
That meant everything.
I had made him feel. We might never see eye to eye or have a relationship someday, but I knew, deep down, there was some love left inside his heart for me.
“I’m gonna see Mom, and then I’ll leave.” I cracked my knuckles. “I’m sure she’s loving that you’re planting her favorite flowers.”
His gaze lingered on the lilacs around him. “When she was still conscious, she said to me she didn’t want to die in a hospital. She said she wanted to be surrounded by her family in her home, just like a flower blooming in her habitat. I’m just honoring her.” He tried to act soulless. “I’m powerless.”
“You’re not powerless. You may have been cruel sometimes to Arch and I, but you’ve never been powerless.” Aurore would probably say he was a villain who made the wrong choices but had a good heart deep inside. “You’re doing everything you can to create memories that you will remember. You’re making her live through you.”
I took my pocket watch out of my jacket and put it on the table on the veranda, next to my father. “Your watch. I stole it the day I left.”
My father’s eyes doubled in size at the sight of the pocket watch, as if he had seen a ghost from the past. “It’s been years… I thought I lost it.” He took it in his palm as if it were a weak puppy, and even then, my father wouldn’t show as much care as he did now. “I confiscated it from you when you were a kid. I was afraid you would break it.”
“I remember.” That was one of the reasons why I had stolen it. It was the most precious thing to him. To the point that every time I dared hold it, he’d slap me in the face, and I had to stay in the basement to pass my tests one hundred percent, or I wouldn’t come out. “You said I’d never deserve it.”
“It was your mother who gave it to me thirty years ago to celebrate her pregnancy.”
I furrowed my brows. Thirty years ago. I wasn’t born yet.
“She said it symbolized the years of happiness to come,” Léon continued the story. “She had a miscarriage. Your brother, Achille, was never born. She could never bear to have lost your brother—that’s why I did everything I could for you and your brother to not be weak. We never told you about it, but that watch was the only thing we have left of him.”
My jaw clenched, and I balled my hand. I had a brother. Another one. That was the reason my father had a stern heart. For someone who had dedicated his life to saving lives, he was unable to save the one of someone he once loved.
“I’m sorry.” I turned around, ready to step away from the past.
“Keep the watch.” My father handed me the pocket watch while his back was still facing me. The moment I grabbed it, he continued. “Your mother left a letter for you some time ago. It’s in your old room. I didn’t open it.”
It was the last conversation I had with him as I went to get the letter from my old bedroom. Coming down, I went back to my mother’s side, who was facing the window without moving, her eyes vacant.
I kneeled next to her. “Mom, I’m gonna take you to see your lilacs, and we’ll talk, okay?”
She turned her head slightly at the sound of my voice, and when her gaze rested on me, her eyes bulged as she panicked. “Help!”
I parted away from her the moment she screamed, but she struggled, her gaze shifting to every corner as if looking for a way out. “Let go of me! Help!”
I remained blank, and Archi and Léon pushed me on their way to reach for her.
“Come back later. She’s having an anxiety attack!” Léon roared, trying to calm her down, but she was still struggling, slapping him.
“Go away!” My mother continued screaming, and I did not insist, rushing out of the house.
The moment I walked through the door, I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, ignoring the slamming of my heartbeat. My grip tightened on the letter locked in my hand.
I couldn’t leave just yet.
I slept in my car.
I couldn’t enter my old house, especially not when my father was glaring in my direction through his bedroom window and double locking the front door so that I couldn’t get in. I couldn’t leave either, the screams of my mother still haunting me. My plane was late this afternoon, and Eric had already scheduled three appointments upon my arrival, thanks to the time-zone difference.
I looked like shit, and the first ray of light piercing through the mist blinded me. I got out of my car, took out my drawing board, and headed to the veranda, where my father was wheeling my mother out for her favorite moment of the day near the freshly planted lilacs. From afar, he seemed almost caring and gentle, tugging her robe closed and preparing her favorite breakfast—breakfast she didn’t want to eat.
“She’s calmer today.” He zipped up his silky bathrobe; Léon was wearing the embroidered slippers we had given him for his birthday a long time ago. “I’m trusting you to leave afterwards.”
“Yes.” I displayed the same coldness as he as I sat across the table next to my mother.
She was silent, regarding the horizon with a very light, almost imperceptible smile, probably feeling at peace. I set up my materials on the table and hooked an ankle around my knee before grabbing my charcoal and pulling out a drawing paper. I observed the sunrise trying to break through the branches of the trees in a cadmium-red light and deep hansa yellow.
“You wrote me a letter, but I wanted to open it next to you,” I said, but she didn’t react. “I’ll read it out loud, okay?”
“Aurore,” she whispered, her eyes reflecting the dawn. She used to wake Archi and me during the summer mornings so we could all witness the dawn.
I started to draft everything around us, a pencil in each hand to sketch faster, immortalizing this moment in time. “I know a woman named Aurore, and she’s just like that. You actually loved her when you met her, but what’s not to love?”
My mother parted her lips and shut them again. Once the landscape was drafted, I observed every angle of her to translate her benevolent expression into my drawing. I wasn’t good with words, but I’d let her see what I saw. I’d communicate through art.
My mother’s gaze fell on my sketch, and her smile deepened into an almost real one. “Who?”
“It’s you,” I said, working in the way her eyes squinted. “But wait until you see the colors.”
I took out the tubes of watercolor paint, and I made my color palette under the supervising eyes of Hélène. She observed my every move, the way I applied colors to reproduce the landscape and mixed opposite shades to work contrasts.
“You’ve never seen me paint.” I painted the way her cheeks blushed in the sun. “With all those dawns, I never painted any. I always preferred the night, but it made you feel sad.” Just like Aurore, she was all about happy endings and seeing the beauty in a world I was blind to see. “I get it now. The dawn is the promise of something new, while the night announces… the void to come.”
I finished the details, the final touch of the artwork being the shades of purple of the lilacs she adored so much. Sometimes, a nurse would assist her or feed her between the breaks, but I didn’t stop or acknowledge anyone’s presence.
“I’m done.” I cleaned the pencils and left only the painting on the table. “What do you think?”
She looked at herself through the artwork as if trying to guess who this woman peacefully installed in her garden was.
“I woke up happy,” she responded, having trouble speaking as if her throat hurt her. “No more pain, leaving happy.”
I tried to make sense of her sentence but didn’t. I only deduced it was positive because of her illuminating features.
“Thank you.” I almost reached for her hand but retracted. “I’ll read your letter now.”
I unfolded the piece of paper and read everything out loud in one go.
Dear Ajax,
If you’re reading this, it means you came back home, which makes me tremendously happy. It also means I’ll quit this world anytime soon, and please, don’t blame your dad or yourself. I’m blessed to have lived a fabulous life. I have no regrets, and now it’s your turn. Life is too short to have remorse or feel sadness over me—and I know you feel, Ajax. I always knew you felt more than everyone else. A mother always knows.
It’s like that time when you were eight and you tried to stand up for your brother when he broke your father’s antique vase. You said you did it, and then you pushed your brother on the ground, provoking a fight, so your father would believe you were responsible. Archi insulted you, thinking you had rejected him, and you took it. You said nothing. Later that night, when Archi and your father were together on the veranda (because there were so many good memories, honey, don’t look only into the bad ones), I went to see you in the attic. Your father had torn away your drawings, but I glued them back together. I still have them. When you looked at me, you had a tear wetting the corner of your eye. You didn’t even feel it—your face didn’t show your pain except for that single tear. That’s when I knew you were so strong, but I also feared you’d become lonely.
I don’t blame you for leaving, Ajax. You had to fulfill your dreams, and every time I watched the dawn rising, I knew you’d do splendidly. You have a unique way of representing the world. I’ll always live through your heart: remember, memories last forever. But if there is one piece of advice I could give you, it would be to love with your whole being and live with such passion and energy. Don’t close your heart.
The letter had been written in two different sittings; the pen was no longer the same, and her handwriting had changed. It seemed that her hand was shaking between each word.
I was about to sign this letter a couple of years ago, but today, I met your Aurore—I love her. You finally opened your heart, and I can now depart to the other world in peace knowing you’ll have the happiness you deserve. Don’t be lonely. You have so much to give.
We can’t control life, Ajax.
I’m demanding you not watch me die—let that be your father’s burden. Don’t be here. Live for me. Remember the good memories, and don’t pity me. I’m not scared of death. Let me go. Live for me.
I forgot what I wanted to write to you… but know that I love you. You were always enough and worthy of love. Follow your heart.
Ps: Don’t watch the dawn alone.
Your mom,
Forever.
I folded back the letter, and it took me by surprise when I felt my mother’s fingertip on my cheek. She gazed upon me, and for a moment, I thought she had recovered her memory back. That she understood everything I had told her. She withdrew her finger in a small stroke, and her eyes fell on her thumb. There was a single teardrop.
One.
Sadness.
This was sadness. None of my expression budged, but the stirring pain of emptiness was still present.
“Are you an angel?” she said.
“Yes, and everything will be okay.” I tried to smile. “Thank you for trying to teach me how to live.”
She frowned, and then she was gone as if we’d never had this conversation, her defenses weaker with the disease. My phone vibrated again and again in my pocket. My plane. I had to catch my plane.
“I have to leave. I can’t stay.” I lifted myself up from the chair. “I’ll do as you said to me.”
My Adam’s apple bobbed, and I took the courage into my hands to depart from her, leaving the painting on the table.
I raced to my car and revved up the engine, my lips twitching.
I had to leave.
She asked me to leave.
We can’t control life, Ajax.
As for Aurore and me, I wouldn’t read the ending yet.
I would watch the dawn and make a new one.
