Itsy Bitsy Spider (Emma Frost #1) (17 page)

I got up early
and made breakfast for everyone. While frying bacon on the pan, the way I knew
my dad liked it, I couldn't help but think about last night and the food.

There was a sound behind me and I turned to see
my dad walk into the kitchen wearing a bathrobe over his pajamas.

"Good morning, Dad," I said.

"What's with the cheerful voice this
early," he grunted and sat down heavily in a chair. I smiled and looked at
him. He never was much of a morning person.

"I'm making bacon and scrambled eggs. Just
the way you like them."

My dad picked up the local paper and started
reading while grunting some more. I shrugged and continued my cooking waiting
for him to wake up properly. It always took a while.

"So did you sleep alright?" I asked.

My dad grumbled. "I never slept well in
this house, not one single night in my life."

"That's a little harsh, don't you think?
Certainly there must have been nights in your childhood that you slept
okay?"

My dad put the paper down and looked at me.
"I hate this place, end of story. Just like I loathed my mother who died
in it. I feel like she's still here watching me, condemning me. Hell yesterday
I even thought I heard her voice again. Telling me I was a fool for letting my
wife run off like that." He shook his head with a tsk. "Sounded just
like she used to. Always calling me a damned fool."

I flipped the bacon and turned to look at him
again. "I don't think you're a fool. What could you have done? If mom
wanted to leave, she wanted to leave. It's not like you could have tied her up
and made her stay."

 My dad grunted again and folded the paper
back up in front of his face. I approached him and sat down next to him.
"Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Dad could you put the paper down,
please?" I asked and put a hand on it.

He lowered it and looked at me above the edge of
the paper.

"Just put it down for me, please. I like to
look at people when I'm talking to them."

My dad grumbled some more then put the paper
down. He took off his glasses. "What do you want?"

"To know what went wrong with you and
grandma. I grew up not knowing her at all. You even told me at one point she
was already dead."

"You met her once."

"When I was four years old! If I am to get
really angry, then I'd say you deprived me of a relationship with her by
keeping me away."

My dad snorted. "Well you're better off
without. Believe me. I did you a huge favor."

I sighed. "What’s done is done and we can't
change that, but I would like to know what went wrong with you two? Did you
have a fight or what?"

My dad exhaled deeply. "Can't we just leave
it in the past? Do we have to talk about everything?"

"Dad. We hardly ever talk about anything
important like this. I want to know because it will make me closer to you. It
will make me understand you better and know you better. And I really want
that."

"If you want to be so damn close you
shouldn't have moved all the way across the country now should you?"

"Okay, Dad. I understand you're mad about
us moving away and all ..."

"Damn right I am. You're the only family I
have left. Now you're depriving me of a relationship with my grandchildren. Is
that any better than what I did to you?"

"Touché dad. Okay I admit I feel bad about
having left you alone and I promise we will come to visit as often as we can.
And you can come here all the time of you like."

"Well I don't like it. I don't like this
island or this house."

"Why dad? What did grandma do that was so
horrible it has to ruin everything for us? Explain it to me. Make me
understand."

My dad scoffed. "Some things are better
left in the past." He picked up the paper again while I watched him
feeling the irritation grow. This was so typically him. I exhaled
ostentatiously. My dad lowered the paper again.

"What?" he said. "You don't have
to know everything."

"What are you so afraid of?" I asked
with a scoff. "That I'll get to know you better? Is that so bad? It's just
like when mom left. You didn't even tell me about it. I called you the day
after and you didn't even care to tell me. The only way I figured it out was
because I stopped by a week later. A week later!"

"Don't raise your voice, Emma," he
said sounding like he had done when I was still a child. "I thought your
mother would call you and tell it herself. That's why I didn't talk about it.
Plus I was still very angry and sad and I was afraid I might say something that
I would later regret. You could say I was still in some sort of shock. I had no
idea it was coming. I thought we were doing fine. You have to understand Emma
that it came out of the blue for me. I was in no way prepared for it; I was
still trying to figure out what had really happened when you called me. I
wasn't prepared to accept the fact that she had left yet. There you have it.
That's the truth."

I put my hand on top of his and held it tight.
"I know Dad. I know it has been a hard time for you. It must have been
terrible. Hell I have no idea why she would suddenly do such a thing, believe
me. But what really hurt me was the fact, that you didn't think about talking
to me about it right away. You should have called me as soon as she had left.
I'm your daughter for crying out loud. I will always be there for you. I want
to be a part of your life. I want to know when you're sad and unhappy and when
you're happy. Just like you want to be a part of my life and know what's going
on with me."

Dad nodded slowly with a smile. "I guess I
never thought about it in that way. I thought I was protecting you by not
telling you. I didn't want you to see me unhappy. Guess that comes with being a
parent, right? I didn't want you to feel like you had to take care of me."

 I got up from my chair and kissed Dad on
the forehead. "Coffee?" I asked and poured some in a cup knowing how
much he loved his morning coffee. I put it on the table in front of him and
poured one for myself. He lifted his and put it against mine in a toast.

"I love you kiddo," he said with a
smile. "Even if you insist on living all the way out here."

"I love you too, Dad."

I served him his breakfast, eggs and bacon that
he ate with great pleasure. "What about work?" I asked knowing how
important his work as a doctor always had been to my dad, so much he had been
absent a lot during my childhood and during his marriage to my mother,
something I assumed had a lot to say in her decision to leave him.

"Aren't they going to miss you at the
clinic this entire week?"

"I took the week off. It's my clinic you
know. I can take time off if I want to. Plus I just hired a new guy so now they
are three to take care of patients from now on. I was thinking I might take a
lot more time of from now on, since they seem to run the place just fine
without me. Maybe even better. " My dad winked as he said the last
sentence.

"That sounds like a very good idea," I
said thinking I never thought I would hear my dad say something like that,
ever.

"Yeah, I guess. I have kind of wasted most
of my life at that clinic, huh? Missed most of the years you were growing up.
If only I had realized this many years ago, I might even still have a
wife."

I smiled compassionately knowing he might be
right. "Well, Dad as you put it yourself; some things are better left in
the past, right? We don't have time to waste on regrets."

He nodded while drinking his coffee.
"You're right. I'm trying to look ahead now and my future is with my
family. It's with you and the two young ones."

I chuckled. "Not as young as they used to
be anymore. The oldest one seems she doesn't need any of us anymore."

"Oh but she does. Believe me. She needs you
more than ever."

I smiled and nodded. "You're probably
right."

We sat in silence for a couple of heartbeats.
Then he looked at me and spoke:

"If you must know, it wasn't an argument
that went wrong between your grandmother and me."

"Then what was it?"

 "She could be a very controlling
woman. She wanted to control my life, tell me what to do and who to do it with.
I had to break out of her grip, I had to turn my back at her if I wanted a life
of my own. Otherwise I would be living her life and not mine. You need to let
your kids make their own mistakes. You can't always keep them within your
control just because you want to protect them."

"She wanted you to be one of those church
people?" I asked and ate some scrambled egg. It tasted bland. I poured
some salt on it and kept eating.

"Yes. Among other things. I didn't like it
there and wanted out. I wanted to get away from all this all these people, away
from the church and the island but she wouldn't let me. That was one of the
major things. She wanted to rule my life. So one night I just left. Packed my
things and left the house. Took the morning ferry out of here. I called her when
I had reached the mainland and she told me that if I didn't come back right
away, she would disown me. I was no longer her son and shouldn't bother coming
back. She could be very angry at times and very irrational. I do believe she
regretted having been this harsh on me later in her life, but she never told
me. Well she let me inherit the money after all so maybe that was her way of
telling me."

"What else?"

"She wanted me to marry one of the girls
from the church. A good Christian girl, as she put it. I told her I didn't want
to. She never approved of your mother. She wasn't good enough for me, she kept
telling me." My dad scoffed. "And look at me now. Maybe she was
right, huh?"

"At least it was your choice to make. Plus
you had some good years with Mom."

"And we had you," he said.

I chuckled and washed the eggs down with some
orange juice. I wanted to ask him about grandmother being killed in this house
and what he knew, but was interrupted when suddenly I saw something out of my
kitchen window or rather someone. I got up and walked towards it to better see.

"What's up?" my dad asked.

"What's he doing out in the street on his
own?" I mumbled.

"Who's out in the street alone?"

"Johan. Sophia's youngest son. He's only
two, he shouldn't be running around in the street all by himself, playing
without adult supervision."

"Who would let a two-year-old play
unsupervised in the street?"

"Exactly. His mother certainly wouldn't.
Something is very wrong." I grabbed my jacket from the closet in the hall
and looked at my dad through the door. "Could you stay and be with Victor
when he wakes up? I have a bad feeling about this."

"Sure."

Johan was
sitting on
the asphalt in the middle of the road,
playing with his small toy truck when I got out to him.

"Johan? Buddy? What are you doing out here
on your own?" I grabbed him and lifted him up on my arm. He continued
playing with his truck on my arm making sounds with his mouth. His diaper was
heavy like it hadn't been changed this morning at all. It worried me. Sophia
had many kids and got overwhelmed sometimes, but I had never ever seen her
leave a dirty diaper on any of her kids. This was wrong. This was very wrong.

Feeling the anxiety grow inside of me I walked
quickly towards Sophia's house carrying Johan. My heart was beating faster when
I saw the front door was ajar. I pushed it open and found the rest of Sophia's
kids running around, screaming, yelling, crying in the kitchen and living room.
The house was an extreme mess.

"Sophia?" I yelled.

I tried to shush the kids to hear if she was
answering me maybe from the shower or something, but there was nothing.

Had she left them? Maybe to go
get something? No, she would never. Sophia would never leave her kids home
alone.

I found the oldest, Christoffer who was seven
like my Victor and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Where is your
mother?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"When did you last see her?"

"Last night?" he said.

"Last night! Didn't you see her this
morning?"

He shook his head.

"Have you checked her bedroom?"

"Yes. She wasn't there."

I let go of Christoffer and stormed into the
bedroom. The bed was untouched. I gasped and called out for her again and
again. "Sophia! Where are you?"

But no answer. The kids were all crying now and
Christoffer stood in the doorway looking abandoned. I kneeled in front of him.
"We'll find her Christoffer. Don't you worry, okay? She has to be here
somewhere, right?" I tried to sound convincing but didn’t think I was.
Underneath my shirt my heart was beating so fast it almost hurt.

"Mommy!" one of the kids suddenly
said. A little girl named Ida. She had snot running from her nose and tears in
her eyes. She was in one of the children's rooms and pointing out of the window
facing the yard. I stormed towards it and looked out.

There in the middle of the high grass lay
Sophia. I gasped and turned to look at the children who were all staring at me
like they were expecting me to magically make their mother appear in here. Ida
was crying and hammering on the window.

"Mommy?"

I pulled her away and shut the curtains.
"You, Christoffer. You take care of your siblings now, alright? I have to
go into the yard. Make sure they stay in here. Put on a  video or
something."

Christoffer was tearing up, he pressed it down
and nodded.

"I'll be right back, okay?"

Then I stormed outside.
Oh no. Oh God, no. Please let her be alive. Please
let her be alive.

As I came closer I realized she wasn't moving.
She was lying still in the grass. Naked. Her body bruised. I fought my tears as
I came closer and kneeled next to her. Her face was so badly beaten I could
hardly recognize her. It was all swollen and purple.

"Please be alive, please be sleeping."

I leaned down and listened to her breath and put
a finger on her throat to feel her pulse. It was there. It was weak, but she
was still alive.

Thank God!

"Sophia?" I said. It was hard to keep
the tears away. "Sophia? What happened to you?"

Sophia opened her badly bruised eyes. "Are
you awake Sophia?" I cried. "Please wake up!"

Sophia's body jerked and she bent over and threw
up on the ground.

"Oh God, Sophia, what the hell happened to
you. Who did this to you?"

Sophia spat and blood landed in the grass. She
felt her cracked lip and had blood on her fingers. I helped her get up. She
held on to me as we walked towards the house.

"Do you want me to take you to the
hospital?" I asked.

Sophia lifted her hand. "No," she
said. "No hospital. No police."

"Why? Whoever did this has to pay."

She shook her head while we walked. Tears were
rolling fast across my cheeks.

"I did this," she said. I could tell
it hurt for her to talk. "I did this to myself."

Anger rose in me. "No. That's a lie and you
know it!"

"Just help me get inside, will you? I need
a shower. I don't want my kids to see me like this. Could you help me keep them
away until I'm in the shower?"

I sighed feeling helpless. I had to respect her
wishes even if I didn't agree on not reporting it to the police. I also really
wanted her to go to the emergency room to be checked up. But I couldn't force
her.

"Of course."