BLACK ROSE

The letter from the grave

Ashley. 

Tired from spending four hours at the dance academy, I head straight for my room, thinking about sleep. I ignore the obvious fact – the empty house. My father's away most of the time, leaving me alone with Elena. Yet not even Elena's here, nor my father.

Giving it no second thoughts I shower, do my routine and put my pyjamas on. I find no note from Elena or my father, explaining their absence when they were both supposed to be here. I text Elena, receiving a reply almost immediately. She apologises, saying something urgent came up. I don't bother texting my father.

Walking past my father's office, I notice the light that's on. Was he home all this time? I knock on the door, waiting for a 'come in'. No voice reaches my ears, so I open the door. The office is empty, no signs of any human being. The chair is pushed backwards, as if he had stood up abruptly and kicked it. My father's big black table, always neatly organised, is covered in documents.

What happened?

Instinctively I look behind me before walking inside. Everything else is in its place. Every single little decoration and painting is in its place. Nothing has been moved or taken, no thieves invading our privacy.

I know looking around and going through my father's papers isn't polite, and minutes pass by as I stand in the middle of his office and wonder why he left so suddenly. He's not the type to leave without finishing his work or to have a messy workspace, definitely not leaving a mess behind. He's a perfectionist at bone.

I move behind the table and look at all the documents. Graphs, tables, numbers I can't understand and names that ring no bell. I hypnotise them with my eyes, wondering if the answer to my question is somewhere in these documents. Though I doubt it.

Carefully I move some documents aside, worried he'll notice even the slight chance.

My heart's beating out of my chest. Not because I'm invading my father's privacy and roaming through his business documents, but because I have a strong feeling I won't like what I'll find. Something's telling me the reason isn't pleasant.

That's when I notice it.

Two pieces of paper thrown on the floor next to his bin. They look suspiciously like a letter, rumbled and one that missed its goal.

I don't have to read it's inside to understand. All I have to do is read the name.

And my heart stops.

It skips too many beats, the blood flows at a slow peace. I reach for the chair my father kicked back, pulling it closer and sitting down before I hit the floor. I forget about the aching pain in my body, about the exhaustion and bruised knees.

I stare at the name and read it over and over again as if it's going to change. I expect my father to appear in the doorway and snatch the letter out of my hands. The house remains utterly and dangerously quiet.

My hands start to shake and so do my legs. Tears form in my eyes and I fight to hold them in. I promised myself I wouldn't cry because of her. She's not worth crying over. She doesn't deserve my tears.

I want to burn the letter, burn any evidence of its existence.

Instead I leave it on the chair, stumbling back to my room. I can't hear anything but my heartbeat.

Why would she reach out now? Years of no contact, years of no attempt to build any relationship with me, years of.... years of absolute nothing, and now? She pretended she was dead for years. And now she's sending fucking letters from the grave. I was heartbroken for years, crushed and felt like drowning. She broke me like a mother isn't supposed to break her daughter.

The heartbreak and fear turn to anger. Boiling and dangerous.

I dial my father's number, my hands still shaking. What will I tell him? Ask him to tell her to fuck off?

She didn't just break me; she broke my father too. She broke our family and ran off like it wasn't her fault.

Tears fall down my cheeks. Tears of anger and frustration. The one time I need to reach my father urgently and he's not picking up. What would I even tell him if I saw him? What would I even do?

I go back to his office and read the letter word after word.

********

"Did you meet her?" I ask leaning against the doorframe. I won't be pretending I didn't find the letter or didn't read it.

My father's eyes slowly travel to mine, and he swallows hard. Then he shakes his head.

"Then where were you?"

He motions for me to come inside and sit down in one of his extremely fluffy and comfortable armchairs. Everything in this office has been moved here from Florida. It might be the only room that doesn't remind me of that place even though the furniture is literally the same.

"Where were you?" I repeat my question.

Reading my mother's letter made me realise a lot of things. I spent the whole night reading it over and over, laughing at her meaningless words and lies. I spent the whole night thinking about how I've been acting all these years. Immature, hurt, broken or spoiled, it doesn't matter. I was acting like a brat, blaming my father for everything when I knew he wasn't the one to blame. It was just much easier than to look the truth in the eyes.

"I went out for a drink." He puts the documents aside, giving me all his attention. "Did you read the letter?"

I nod. "Multiple times." There's a long moment of heavy silence before I break it. "She's a bitch. She's a lying bitch. What does she even want from us?"

My dad chokes down a chuckle, keeping his parental mask on. "I don't know, Ashley."

"Will you... will you meet her?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, sweetheart."

"Why would..."

"She's your mother, Ashley. I don't know why she wants to meet, but she's your mother."

"What reason is that?"

"I don't want to meet her, but it could be regarding you. I'm your father and you're my first priority. And she's still your mother."

I scoff. "She gave up on being my mother years ago." I stand up to leave.

"Sit down please, Ashley." I contemplate storming out, but sit down eventually. That's something Ashley in Florida would do. I'm here to start over and repair the relationship with my father. "No one's asking you to meet her. If you don't want to, you don't have to. It's your decision."

"Why are you going to meet her?" I whisper. "She fucked up our lives enough already. Why are you letting her back in?"

He sighs, standing up and walking to me. "I'm going to meet her as your father and listen to her words. Anything else she'll want to discuss, I'll leave."

I look at him with tears in my eyes. He opens his arms for a hug, and I almost throw myself around him.

"I'm sorry day," I say to his chest. "I'm sorry I was so mean and spoiled and acted like a brat all these years. I'm sorry I yelled at you when you told me we'd move. I'm sorry I blamed you for everything all these years."

He strokes my hair like he used to do when I was little and scared of the monsters under my bed. "There's nothing you have to apologise for, Ash."

"No, there is. I blamed you all these years, even though I knew you did nothing wrong. You weren't the one who walked away and pretended to be the victim. You stayed and took care of me, raised me. You attended every single of my shows. I'm sorry, dad, really."

He kisses the top of my head.

"I made the decision to move for us both," he says. "Florida was getting to us both. We needed a new start. I should've made that decision years ago, but I thought you'd hate me even more if I took you from your friends."

We both made mistakes, yet somehow we're still capable of building a new relationship. And my mother.... I'm going to meet her one last time to tell her to leave me alone for good.