Make Them Regret It Chapter 32
“I failed her.”
My grandmother turned and slapped him across the face.
Hard.
His head snapped to the side, but he didn’t move to block it.
“The day she married you, I asked if you would protect her. You knelt before me and swore you would never let her suffer a single grievance.”
“She died because she was afraid you were dead. She went with you. And you?”
My father’s lips moved.
“I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know she would die, so that made it all right to lock her in there?”
My grandmother jabbed a finger at his chest.
“You knew she would be terrified. You knew she would believe her husband and sons were gone. You just decided one night of terror didn’t matter.”
My father closed his eyes, tears sliding down the red mark on his cheek.
“Mom, I’ll stay here with her. I won’t go anywhere.”
“She waited for you her whole life, and you never came. Now that she’s dead, she doesn’t need you to stand watch.”
My grandmother held out her hand.
“Give me her ashes.”
My father’s head jerked up.
“She’s my wife.”
“Did you ever treat her like one?”
My father clutched the cloak in his arms as if it were the last thing he had left on earth.
I saw the little rose on the cuff crumple in his grip.
“Father, give her to Grandmother.”
He looked at me, his eyes pleading.
“Blythe, this is all I have left.”
“Mother was never yours to possess.”
I took the cloak from his hands, folded it neatly, and placed it in the jewelry box my grandmother had brought.
Then I walked into the cemetery’s memorial hall and took down my mother’s urn.
My father followed me, step by step, but he didn’t dare try to take it back.
My older brother and second brother knelt by the door.
My second brother asked in a rasping voice, “Blythe, at least let Mom stay here. We’ll come see her every day…”
My grandmother took the urn into her arms.
“That’s not what she would have wanted.”
The hall was quiet. Only the wind whispered through the open door.
I walked out with my grandmother.
Behind us, my father suddenly called out, “In the future… can I still go see her?”
My grandmother never turned around.
“When she’s willing to come to you in a dream, you can ask her then.”
That day, my mother’s ashes left the Romano family cemetery.
For the first time, the place my father had guarded for so long was truly empty.