I'm back! and instead of a new chapter... I bring an updated version of chapter 4! wince please don't hurt me.
My mother was dead.
They said it was suicide, but I had my doubts. I somehow didn't think my mother was capable of something like suicide. They also said it was normal for me to think something like that. When they discovered her, she had been shot in the neck, the gun was still in her hand, and her fingers were scorched with gunpowder and soaked with blood, yet, I didn't believe that she did it.
After running all the way home that one unfortunate night, my mother didn't come home until late. I was still awake, waiting for her. I watched in silent fear as she came into the door and dropped her purse to the floor, following it down seconds later. She buried her head in her hands and took a few steadying breaths, her hair obscuring her face. She was like one of the numerous cigarettes in Henry's ashtray, crushed and mangled after he was finished, with nothing but the lingering smoke and ash left to remind him. That strong pride my mother had spent so long trying to build up had been destroyed by one man.
"Mama?" I asked uncertainly she looked up and saw me huddling on the couch, her own shame and sadness buried for the sake of her daughter.
"Oh, my little Lika," she said in Russian. She crawled to the couch and took me into her lap. Even though I was thirteen, I was small for my age, and could still fit wrapped up in her arms. The two of us lay there curled up together on the floor next to the couch. The only sounds came from the old fashioned clock on the wall, and the sound of our breath, becoming more and more steady until we both fell asleep.
Upon waking the next morning, I found myself lying on the couch with a thick blanket wrapped around me. I couldn't remember how I had gotten there, and only vaguely remembered feeling incredibly miserable. I opened a tired eye to see my mother quietly putting on her coat. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, looking at her quizzically.
"Oh! Lika, I-I'm sorry I woke you," she said. She seemed to be stumbling over her words.
"Where are you going?" I asked sleepily. She looked away from me and glared at the door.
"I won't be forgotten," she said quietly, bitterly. Then she looked back at me, "Lika, stay here, He thinks he can quiet me with a threat that he has quieted so many others, but he cannot. I am stronger than that." I said nothing but looked at her smiling innocently. It was the last day I would be innocent. She came and kissed me gently on the forehead and without another word, left.
And by that evening she was dead.
No one would listen to me. And when the investigation was over, I was shocked to see Henry get away without so much as a slap on the wrist. He hardly even had a moments inconvenience when they asked him questions about my mother. How could they not see the guilt on his face? Seeing his gloating smile was almost too much for me to bear when he walked away from the police station, and it made me completely reconsider how I saw the country's "fair" government. We had fled to this country for its freedoms, for it's shining justice, and golden promises. And now to find out that that justice was not so shining after all, left me just a little bit more hardened, and a bit more disillusioned with the world.
Somehow, my mother had written a will, leaving everything she possessed to me, and leaving me in the care of… Richard Lewd. I couldn't believe my ears. I was sitting there in my little black dress wearing the little black hat that we couldn't afford, sobbing my eyes out, when I heard Richard Lewd's name! Richard, on top of everything! How was this possible? I was too shocked to cry out. Too shocked to say anything. It was my mother's will, in her own hand, even signed by her.
For one wild moment, I thought that he had somehow forced her to put him down as my legal guardian, but when I saw the look of surprise, genuine surprise, on his face, I knew that he couldn't have known about this before. Besides, Richard Lewd lacked the resources, mental or otherwise, to force my mother to do anything. Henry looked rather surprised as well, when I looked at him then. And seeing his shock made it all make sense; she was doing it to spite Henry. At least that's what I wanted to believe. Thinking that I was causing Henry discomfort even in the smallest degree made it a bit easier to carry out my mother's wishes. I didn't think for one moment that perhaps Richard Lewd was the only responsible adult that my mother knew well and maybe even… trusted.
Needless to say, I left Celestial Starz agency, but to my surprise, Richard left too.
"I'd been meaning to leave for years now. Henry just walks all over me… he walks all over everyone…I just never had a reason. But anyway, I'm glad I didn't leave years ago though, if I had, I wouldn't have met you." He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder, and I smiled thinly up at him. Just five years, I told myself. Just five years.