Blake Pierce - Once Gone

“Maybe later,” Riley said. “I’ll fix it.”

April smirked a bit sadly. Doubtless she could see that Riley was in no condition to fix much of anything.

“No, I’ll do it,” April said. “Just let me know when you feel like eating.”

They both fell silent. April kept on staring elsewhere. Humiliation gnawed at Riley’s gut. She vaguely remembered her disgraceful phone call to Bill last night, then her last thoughts before passing out – that hideous knowledge that she’d truly hit rock bottom. And now, to make matters worse, her daughter was here to witness her ruin.

Still sounding distant, April asked, “What are you planning to do today?”

It seemed both an odd question and a good one. It was time for Riley to make plans. If this was rock bottom, she needed to start pulling herself out.

She flashed back to her dream, her father’s words, and as she did, she realized it was time to confront some of her demons.

Her father. The darkest presence of her life. The one who had always lingered in the back of her consciousness. The driving force, she sometimes felt, behind all the darkness she had manifested in her life. He, of all people, was the one she needed to see. Whether it was a primal urge for a father’s love, her urge to face head-on the darkness in her life, or a desire to shake off being haunted by her dream, she did not know. But the urge consumed her.

“I think I’ll drive out to see Grandpa,” she said.

“Grandpa?” she asked, shocked. “You haven’t seen him for years. Why would you go see him? I think he hates me.”

“I don’t think so,” Riley said. “He’s always been too busy hating me.”

Another silence fell, and Riley sensed that her daughter was gathering her resolve.

“I want you to know something,” April said. “I dumped out the rest of the vodka. There wasn’t much left. I also poured out the whiskey you still had in the cabinet. I’m sorry. I guess it was none of my business. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Tears came to Riley’s eyes. This was surely the most grown-up and responsible thing she’d ever known April to do.

“No, you should have,” Riley said. “It was the right thing to do. Thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it myself.”

Riley wiped away a tear and gathered up her own resolve.

“I think it’s time we really talked,” Riley said. “I think it’s time I told you some of the things you’ve wanted me to tell you.” She sighed. “But it won’t be pleasant.”

April finally turned and looked at her, anticipation in her eyes.

“I really wish you would, Mom,” she said.

Riley took a long, deep breath.

“A couple of months back, I was working on a case,” she said. Relief poured through her as she began to tell April about the Peterson case. She realized that this was much too long overdue.

“I got too eager,” she continued. “I was by myself and I came across a situation, and I wasn’t willing to wait. I didn’t call for backup. I thought I could take care of it by myself.”

April said, “That’s what you do all the time. You try to take care of everything alone. Without me even. Without even talking to me.”

“You’re right.”

Riley steeled herself.

“I got Marie out of captivity.”

Riley hesitated, then finally plunged ahead. She heard her own voice shaking.

“I got caught,” she continued. “He held me in a cage. There was a torch.”

She broke down crying, all her pent-up terror rushing to the surface. She was so embarrassed, but couldn’t stop.

To her surprise, she felt April’s reassuring hand on her shoulder, and heard April crying herself.

“It’s okay, mom,” she said.

“They couldn’t find me,” Riley continued, between sobs. “They didn’t know where to look. It was my fault.”

“Mom, nothing’s your fault,” April said.

Riley wiped away her tears, trying to get a hold of herself.

“Finally, I got away finally. I blew up the place. They say the man is dead. That he can’t hurt me now.”

There came a silence.

“Is he?” April asked.

Riley so desperately wanted to say yes, to reassure her daughter. But instead she found herself saying:

“I don’t know.”

The silence thickened.

“Mom,” April said, a new tone to her voice, one of kindness, of compassion, of strength, one Riley had never heard before, “you saved someone’s life. You should be so proud of yourself.”

Riley felt a new dread as she slowly shook her head.

“What?” April asked.

“That’s where I was yesterday,” Riley said. “Marie. Her funeral.”

“She’s dead!?” she asked, flabbergasted.

Riley could only nod.

“How?”

Riley hesitated. She didn’t want to say it, but she had no choice. She owed April the whole truth. She was done withholding things.

“She killed herself.”

She heard April gasp.

“Oh, Mom,” she said, crying. “I’m so, so sorry.”

They both cried for a long, long time, until finally they settled into a relaxed silence, each spent.

Riley took a deep breath, leaned over, and smiled at April, pulling the hair off her wet cheeks with love.

“You’ll have to understand that there will be things I can’t tell you,” Riley said. “Either because I can’t tell anybody, or because it wouldn’t be safe for you to know, or maybe just because I don’t think you should be thinking about them. I have to learn how to be the mother here.”

“But something as big as this,” April said. “You should have told me. You’re my mother, after all. How was I supposed to know what you were going through? I’m old enough. I can understand. “

Riley sighed.

“I guess I thought you had enough to worry about. Especially with Dad and I splitting up.”

“The split wasn’t as hard as having you not talk to me,” April countered. “Dad’s always ignored me except when he felt called upon to give orders. But you – it’s like suddenly you weren’t there anymore.”

Riley took April’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Riley said. “For everything.”

April nodded.

“I’m sorry too,” she said.

They hugged, and as Riley felt April’s tears flow down her neck, she vowed to be different. She vowed to make a change. When this case was behind her, she would become the mother she always wanted to be.

Riley drove reluctantly into the heart of her early childhood. What she expected to find there she didn’t know. But she knew this was a crucial errand – for herself, anyway. She braced herself at the idea of seeing her father. Yet she knew she needed to face him.

Sloping all around her were the Appalachian Mountains, far to the south of her recent investigations. The trip down here had been a tonic in some ways, and with the windows down, she was beginning to feel better. She’d forgotten how beautiful the Shenandoah Valley was. She found herself steering upward through rocky passes and alongside flowing streams.

She passed through a typical mountain town – little more than a cluster of buildings, a gas station, a grocery store, a church, a handful of houses, a restaurant. She remembered how she’d spent her earliest childhood years in a town much like this.

She also remembered how sad she’d been when they’d moved to Lanton. Mother had said it was because it was a university town and had a whole lot more to offer. That had reset Riley’s life expectations when she was still very young. Might things have gone better if she’d been able to spend her whole life in this simpler and more innocent world? A world where her mother wasn’t likely to get gunned down in a public place?