Chapter Three
Atop of the stairs they found- like they always did- a closed, dark ebony wooden door. A short knock of Sera's was answered by a softly muttered spell and the door flung open- a hoarse woman's voice inviting both girls to enter the room.
"Come in, Serena, Minerva."
Minerva could hardly suppress an audible gasp as she obeyed and entered, all of a sudden looking down the woman who was Sera and Frank's mother. Matilda Sinistra, pale the way her sheets were, eyes barely opened but a faint, bitter smile on her broad, once beautiful face.
"He hasn't come, has he?"
It was barely a question, and Serena's helpless look caused Minerva to lower her eyes- a gesture which Matilda rightfully interpreted as a clear answer.
"I am so sorry, Mama."
Minerva automatically raised her hand to softly pat Sera's back as the her friend crouched down beside her mother's bed, hiding her face in the sheets as she helplessly cried. Matilda simply held her only daughter's hand, though, locking her big, brown eyes with Minerva's instead.
"Where is he, Minerva?"
Minerva helplessly shrugged her shoulders. She had known the now deathly ill woman for many years, she'd seen her inner strength slowly subside to the consuming attacks on her health- the cancer that had crept into her body years earlier had fought and, in the end, conquered, too. But Matilda still was a personality, and somehow, Minerva found it hard to confront her so directly with the truth.
"Minerva, please tell me."
The young woman bit her lips, then honestly looked up.
"He's gone off to the states, Mrs. Sinistra. I don't know when he's coming back.- actually- I think- I think he'll never come back."
She felt tears in her eyes for the first time and slightly sniffed, shaking her head as Sera rested her comforting, cool hand on her shoulder.
"I am okay, Sera- it's just that I am so sorry..."
Crouching down beside the bed of her once almost mother-in-law, she squeezed the dying woman's hand. Matlida simply smiled.
"He never deserved you, Minerva. I told him that a hundred times- told him never to let you go, because for some strange reason you loved him. But he didn't deserve you, and he doesn't deserve your love anymore, my child. He never did."
Minerva did everything she could so as not to have the older woman see her cry, but she couldn't keep two, big tears from running down her cheeks as she thought about the man whom she'd- loved?- for more than three years- and who'd left her.
What he'd done to her didn't compare, though, to what he'd just done to his mother.
Matilda had had cancer for more than three years, and her only son and- painful but true- favourite child had never gone to see her. He'd never forgotten nor forgiven the fact that she didn't like him being a "singer", that she had never approved of his "career". It was just the prejudice of an old woman, of course- Minerva had always known that- and had Frank been able to set his pride aside, things would have been better in no time.
But that he could not- he never had.
And now, finally, in the end, he'd lost his mother's favour, and though Serena had always suffered under the obvious preference of her mother for her brother, it pained her even more to see the ill woman so hurt- so helpless.
Minerva rested her cheek on the pale, thin hand of Serena's mother.
"Don't say that, Matilda. He's still- still your son..."
It was useless, though. The strong character of the woman resulted into stubbornness in the end, and she shook her head.
"I have two children, Minerva- and they are both daughters."
She died mere moments later- leaving, indeed, two crying daughters behind as she passed through the borders of this world.