The Loving Silence

Chapter 23

Rue fought hard to keep himself from feeling the true extent of his injuries. He knew he could not allow himself to think too deeply about what the two men had just told him either. What he'd just learned should have shocked him, but he'd always had a feeling that Kayla's darkness ran deeper than she let on. No matter how cruel she was to him, he had a sense that that was somehow still no more than a glimpse of the dark void that was her soul. And now he knew the truth. He truly felt for his mum, and for his true grandmother. How could these people have done this to them?

Wait. He just realised that the kidnappers omitted to tell them what truly happened to his grandmother after she was sent away. Where did her parents send her off to? Where was his mother actually born? He had to find out.

"You need to tell me what happened to my grandmother. Where did she spend her pregnancy? Where was my mother born? Did she love my mother?" Rue said with confidence. He didn't care what they tried to do to him. He would not fall victim to these men. He would make it out of there and he would make sure they paid for what they did to his loved ones.

Cole smirked. He always did like it when they struggled. When they weren't too easy to break. He wanted to feel like he achieved something and breaking someone who had already given up was no feat. A child could do it. No, Cole wanted his victims to be strong. Not too strong. He wanted to see them fall apart eventually, but he wanted to be able to take his sweet time to get there. It meant more if he had to work for it, if he could savor it.

"To an institution, of course. As was the custom at the time." Cole snarked.

Nass shook his head and continued in a tired voice. "Like many other young women in her predicament, she was taken there under the pretense of being sent to a mother and baby-home. As soon as the young unwed women arrived, they checked them in and held them there against their will. They were to remain until their pregnancies had come to term, but most families did not want their daughters and granddaughters back, and so they had no choice but to remain there. Most of the children were sold or "adopted" as they called it. Call it what you will, but the institution earned quite a bit of money off of their little side business."

"Johnna's diagnosis was 'moral decay'. Because of her pregnancy, they could not medicate her with pharmaceuticals, but that's not to say there weren't other things they could do to 'treat' her illness." Cole looked positively elated as he pictured it.

Rue on the other hand, was not. He made an involuntary choking sound. He just couldn't take it in. It hurt his head when he tried. "Her parents sent her to an mental institution for having sex and conceiving a child?"

"Yes." Cole said as if it was obvious. "She was 15. It was a disgrace. There was no way they could allow for such a truth to get out. What else could they do? They told their friends and neighbours that their daughter had fallen ill and had been sent away to a hospital to meet with a specialist. Then as the months passed, they told them that the treatments weren't helping her."

He leaned toward the wall and began picking at his nails again.

"Johnna gave birth to a healthy baby girl, thus successfully ending their obligations toward her. They spared no time before announcing that their daughter had fought well, as had her doctors, but alas, her illness had won the battle. They even held a small funeral for her. Jude carried the casket."

Rue couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had never felt more glad that he never had to meet his great grandparents, and he couldn't help but feel relieved that his great aunt and grandfather had now joined them. It appears they had all been certifiably insane, only they had been allowed to roam free and wreck havoc in the world, while his grandmother, who had done nothing wrong, had been locked away. He wished he could've saved her, and his mum too somehow. That they both could have had the chance to reunite and get to know each other. But it was useless to think like that. They were gone and there was nothing he could do to change that. Nor could he have done anything back to help her back then. He was a child, an innocent bystander. He was lucky he didn't lose his own life when she lost hers.