Chapter 161: Family Matters, Part 3

I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It was all that could keep my thoughts occupied the entire ride back home. Back then and here now, it was still prospect muddled deep in the trenches of the implausible.

The way I asked, sought, and urged… for her, for dad. And for every vain attempt again, it was as if the entire universe doubled down on its effort to keep my answers at bay, to keep them at bay.

So to imagine how easy it was for her to just defy the efforts of the universe on a whim - that she was here now, cupping my cheek with a hand just as she always had many times before. 

It just got me wondering how any of this could have been so difficult in the first, why any of this was a long time coming… when it really shouldn't have been.

I just wanted to know, man…

"Where were you?"

My mother was never one to keep secrets from anyone, she was utterly terrible at maintaining a lie, didn't even have the heart to tell her kid-son that Santa Claus was indeed real, that the Tooth Fairy does come at night when you're asleep.

It was always go honest or go home with her, probably where I got my lying skills from too. Never could have imagined that her honesty was a lie too, her brazen lack for deception, making up for the biggest deception of all.

Was her hand stroking my cheek a lie too? Was every show of affection the truth or something else entirely? What of her smile? Just what is true about her?

Mom answered the question, retracting her hand away. "In bed, remember? A cough isn't just a cough, a sneeze isn't just a sneeze, a fever - "

"Isn't just a fever," I finished for her, my tone going flat. "Dad still says that, does he?"

"Ah well… you know him," She said, looking off to the side with a fond gaze. "If he isn't worrying, he isn't living."

I wanted to be angry, I thought I'd come home barging in storming towards her and screaming myself hoarse - so why wasn't I? I felt strangely calm, I don't even know if I should be. 

Mon looked left, faintly smiled, muttering under a faint breath, "Elf-Knight…" then she looked right, and smiled even wider. "Then you must be Detective Irene Madison, was it? My son's told me about you - he's a very eloquent storyteller when it comes to sending texts."

She raised an arm, but Irene didn't even attempt to raise hers. They stayed by her side, rigid fingers fidgeting, stroking the inside of her palms, and when she opened her lips, her voice had this almost breathless faint feel to it, one I've never heard come from her before.

"You're not… what I expected you to be."

Mom tilted her head, eyes leering with mild interest. "Oh? So what did you come here expecting, detective?"

"Terestra... "

"Ahh… that… mmm…" A flutter of eyelids, Mom was pursing her lips, her face in a pained grimace. " It's been a long few decades since the last I've heard someone call me by that name. I was hoping I could have gone a few decades more, at least. Please, if it's all the same to you, Lilith would do just fine."

Introductions were brief. But the awkwardness was immense, the tension in the air potent enough to choke the life out of anyone in proximity. Mom took a step back, a long step back… now either she didn't feel what we were feeling or she was intentionally being oblivious about it.

Frankly, I didn't know what was worse.

"You've met some interesting people living here, haven't you?" She said to me, clasping her hands together. "Let's see if I still know my names..."

Wagging a finger, Mom briefly glanced upwards in thought, before with a smile brimming with certainty, started pointing fingers one by one at each and every one.

"Ruria Salvor. The estranged Succubus that went against the will of the Divines."

"You… you've heard of me I see," Irene warily spoke, her eyes narrowing towards the forefinger that pointed directly at her. "That's unnerving."

"I hear everything. Well… I used to anyway," Mom said sheepishly, then spun to the side. "And that flaming beauty sleeping over there has to be the legendary Ria Ignis. So she crossed the realms with you. Why, I never would have imagined."

"You've met?" Irene asked.

"Briefly… this one time actually. Funny story."

"Ria never told me she - "

"I'm not surprised," Mom interrupted. "She's probably forgotten more memories than most people would ever gain in their lifetimes... and I'm sure there are some memories that she does want to forget."

Her gaze lingered briefly at the phoenix in slumber, batting impressed eyelids before she spun again once more to her next roll-call.

"Amanda," She smiled gently her way. "Thanks for being friends with my son despite all of his flaws. You'll look after him, won't you?"

But Amanda wasn't even looking at her, instead, she kept darting apprehensive glances at me as if begging me to get her out of this predicament, ruffling her fingers in her long frazzled locks, tugging at it trying to distract herself from the absurdity of it all.

In the end, the discomforting silence was far too much for her to bear, and she strained a smile of her own, a convincing one too, "Sure thing - uh, Ms. Lilith. I owe your son so much, after all."

"That so?" A relieved look. "Well, I'm very glad to hear that. He never had many friends when he was younger."

Give me a break…

Finally, she reached the last but not least - the glitter of bright greens shimmering in the darkness of her blacks, just as they always do mine. Mom spent the longest amount of time staring at the snowy-haired individual clinging the closest to my side. 

The more she stared, the more her interest grew. From a throwaway glance at first sight, now it's like she couldn't pry her eyes away even if an explosion bombarded the entire vicinity. 

Curiouser and curiouser...

"Ash…" The name escaped from her lips, before she immediately retracted them, shaking her once with squinted eyes. "No, that's not your actual name, is it Elf? How can it be… wait, Eshwlyn? No, you don't exactly look like her."

The harder she tried to deduce, the wider her smile got. "Oh my, I'm amused, I'm so confused. You're not from Kronocia, are you, Elf?" 

Just as it was with Amanda, Ash had refused to speak, if I hadn't given her a little reassuring nudge, I think she'd have maintained her silence for as long as she could.

And even then, when she responded… just as it was with everyone, that same tone of apprehension echoed with her words. "It is as you say. I believe I've merely inherited the name of Eshwlyn. In truth, I come from the world of Asteria."

"Asteria?" Mom's mouth lingered half-open in thought. "There's such a realm?"

"Not… not precisely, no."

"Is that so..." 

There was a glint in her eyes, a familiar shimmer - I would know, because we share that same drive, that same want to know about things peculiar, and when there were things peculiar… that's also where you'd find that glint.

"We shouldn't stand," She coaxed us in, waving a welcoming hand towards the dining table. "There's cake. I know it's a little late for a housewarming present. Still… let's not let it go to waste. Come."

Mom went first, smiling her warm smile, taking small light steps just as she always had. It wasn't fair.

It really wasn't fair.

"What was that? What was that?!" I spoke, I heard my voice, but I didn't feel myself speak. It was like someone else took control of my lips. Someone angry, someone bitter.

Mom stopped, turned around… frowned. "Pardon?"

That someone got even angrier.

"Is that how the truth comes out with you? Indirectly? Off-handed? That's how you're gonna everything admit to me? You can't just tell it to my face directly? After all this time - and this, is this how it's really going to be?"

"I-I don't…"

"You understand! Yes, you do. Don't - you can't lie. You lied once already. You don't get to brush it off so easily. Can't just explain it away as other people's answers. That's just… you're being vile."

There it was, that concerned look of a mother, those eyes so frantic and worried, voice so soft and gentle. That someone detests it. I detest it. She doesn't get to do that - she can't look at me like everything was still normal, like everything was still the way it was.

It wasn't. Not anymore.

"I-I didn't mean to upset you," She spun back to me, walked back to me. "I was just answering their questions."

"Then why won't you answer mine?!" 

Mom's footsteps fell to a silence, a sudden stop midway through. I never shouted at her before, I never thought I ever would. Not until I did. And by then it was already too late to take it back.

Yet even so… I did not feel a shred of remorse. Cruel vile Terestra did not deserve my remorse.

Terestra's blackened eyes, they finally met my own exactly the way I wanted them to.

Without any smiles. Without any lies.

"What was your question?"

"I could repeat it again. But you already know everything, don't you Terestra?" 

She looked away. "I don't want you to call me that, please."

"Then answer the damn question, mom," I responded back coldly. "Where the hell were you?"