The house looks the same as it had before, Rita can pick out parts where work had been done but all in all it was eerily similar.
"Here's your stop miss ".
Rita blinks feeling older than her sixty years, paying the man Rita takes her leave. The steps are uneven and covered in chalk drawings, there's a tire swing in the front yard and several sports balls litter the grass.
Nostalgia takes over, Rita can still see all the kids together before. It happened.
Rita can almost hear Lynn singing as he cooked, her eyes feel misty. Lynn had passed on almost fifteen years prior but the pain was still real. Rita knocks on the door, a familiar face answered the door.
Linka smiled nervously " hello mom".
Rita sits across from linka in the living room. Rita notices new carpet and paint, it's an oddly cosy room.
Photos of the grandchildren she never met nor intended to meet smiled at her mockingly. Linka sat sheepishly across her, like a child who had done something mischievous.
Linka had grown into a beautiful woman, naturally curvaceous linka seemed to be very fit( she was in much better shape than Rita was at her age), her hair was still white but linka wore it long down to her back.
Here sat Rita's beautiful snow haired daughter. Despite her contempt Rita couldn't bring herself to hate her daughter or any of her sons.
"I'm sorry mom ", linka whispers softly.
If Rita closes her eyes she can almost picture linka as an eleven year old begging for forgiveness after they found out she was pregnant.
"How are they, your children"?
Rita knew the first four of her grandsons, before the truth of their parentage was discovered.
Linka beamed, Loan and Lennon are staying with loni this summer, next fall they are getting ready for college...Luka and leroy are getting ready for a talent show at the highschool. Lace and Lynn were preparing for peewee football come fall. Lugosi and lars are touring transylvania vampire hunting. Leta was at summer school,and lance and Larry were visiting their respective fathers and toddler Luis and infant lamonte were napping.
Rita winced when she heard her sons mentioned with their children, she knew that they all bore strong resemblances to their parents. Rita felt herself shudder in revulsion.
"Why"?
The question seemed to catch linka offgaurd, "what do you mean "?
"Why did you take them away from me "?
Linka flinches like she was slapped.
Rita knew the answer to her question was likely to be disappointing, but after tonight Rita was leaving Royal woods for good.
"I didn't mean for this to happen ".
Rita won't look but knows that linka is crying, Rita remembers the child she used to hold in her arms. Then she remembers hearing a cry in the middle of the night and finding her son having sex with his sister.
Rita had never felt more stupid than she had at that moment, even lynn sr had mentioned something about the way loni and linka hugged, or how Lone was a splitting image of Loki, or how Leroy's laugh was identical to lanes much like his rusty brown hair.
" Dad would of wanted us to be a family again ".
" your father would want a lot of things if he wasn't dead ", Rita snapped.
Linka winced, but said nothing.
Rita remembers watching Lynn as his heart failure was at its worst try to forgive their daughter, who would go on to marry her brother baring his name. He disowned the four eldest sons, he died before he knew about Lynn jr.
Lynn died before lars fell to linka, lexx and leif were next. Even Levi with his genius IQ had lain with linka in unnatural Congress, leon had been the last straw.
Her youngest son, the baby of the family. Leon had just turned 18 this year, while linka's youngest son was almost two. Rita knew who the father of that baby was, leon was killed in a motorcycle accident last fall.
In the end linka had taken everything Rita had left, her husband and her sons.
" do you love your children " ?
Linka blinked, " ofcourse I do"!
Rita smiled softly, " for their sake I really hope that's true ".
Linka spoke up for the first time" me and the boys want you back in our lives as a family, after leon ..."
Rita stopped linka before she could continue, " dont you dare say his name in front of me "!
"He was all I had left, but you had to take him from me. Didn't you"?
" i loved him ".
Rita winced at the admission, wondering how they had gone wrong raising the kids.
" I love all of them".
Rita wonders if linka is joking with her only to see her daughter teary eyed.
Rita forces herself out of the chair just as Lynn Jr openedthe front door, linka runs into his arms sobbing.
It's too much like that night, Rita can hear linka calling out to her but she ignores her cries. How fundamentally broken was she as a person? Rita had failed linka at some point, what were the boys excuses?
The taxi ride to her apartment is quite, and it starts to rain. Rita can feel herself lost in her memories, memories of that sweet time before the rose colored glasses were yanked off her eyes...
The weight of the pistol is heavy in her hands but Rita doesn't mind, the weight gives her something to focus, as she fingers the trigger Rita can't help but feel happy to be finally leaving Royal woods, she can taste the metal but that doesn't last for long, after the bullet explodes the top half of Rita's head clean off and blood starts to spurt from the gaping hole.