Married After Midnight

Mother Dearest

The first time she saw it with its magnificent blue seas that kissed the cliffside and its vivid greens that danced with the winds, Amara whispered that she could stare at it for hours or even days. She couldn't. After three weeks it looked like a well-fabricated hell and felt like a sick joke. The vivid green seemed as though it was constantly taunting her with its freedom, glowing in the warm sun, dancing in the breeze. And when it got quiet and soft, and the world seemed still, the waves in the distance that kissed and climbed the ragged cliff walls sounded as if it was laughing at her lack of purpose.
    Her purpose was gone like a dementia patient's memory. She had everything and nothing to do. Amara could spend every waking hour of the day doing anything, from walking, to reading, to cooking, to working out, to sleeping, to sunbathing, to swimming, to singing karaoke like a drunk child, and it would mean nothing. She could spend the day doing everything that meant nothing and yet she couldn't. Since she was sixteen she had been working, adding to society, earning her keep, and taking care of herself, but at this point not only could she not do that, she had no reason to do that. In this illusively, huge house Amara existed like Belle before the beast showed her his library.
    Beyond the loneliness of existing the house was beautiful, a subtle mix between rustic and dark modern. As you entered you were greeted with natural light that bounced off the warm wooden floors and crawled up the grey-stained limestone wall to the high ceilings. The living room was the first room beyond the railings of the entryway. Its centrepiece a grey-stained fireplace. On the far left was a wall compliment with random geometric shelves, lined to draw attention to the swinging door, each one housing several books on them. And on the far right all the light given by the golden sun flooded through a wall of 5-layer thick bulletproof glass wall, behind it within the walls of the house, an indoor fire pit sat with a small suede sofa next to it. The staircase was made of the same grey-stained lime stone and complimented by burnt oakwood and a black steel railing. It curved as it ascended into the sun-bathed loft that overlooked the living room and allowed for eyes to see as far down the hallway as possible before it disappeared behind the stone wall. At the far end of the loft, there was a hallway that led to the 4 bedrooms, a study, and a room Amara never once entered to know what was inside. In her mind, it was the beast's west wing, Kalon's west wing, a room only he entered. Kalon would go inside, sometimes for a minute other times for hours.
    Today he went in at 7, closed the thick mahogany door behind him and disappeared. Hours later the door never opened, and never once did Aiden try to go in no matter how much the phone rang. Each time the phone rang Aiden answered it and when he was done he'd write a note, walk upstairs and slip it under the door without a word before returning.
     Without Kalon, Aiden was Amara's only company and he tried to be good company but most days Amara wanted to wallow in the self-pity of her defeat. That was most days, today Amara was curious. She was curious about the door, curious about the smoothed jazz that seeped under it, and curious about what could hold a man's attention for so many hours. The jazz that played and leaked under the door reminded her of her father during her childhood before the tables had turned. For a while she ignored it along with the nagging voice in her head, but the longer it played the more curious questions sprouted and ate at her brain. He had an empire of legalities to run, certainly he wasn't doing it from behind a closed door. The time he spent in that room exceeded the compiled time he spent in his office or on the phone for a week, so what was he doing? Was it even work-related? Was he even awake in there? Did that room even have a bathroom? The questions were rampant like angry bees in Amara's skull and she knew it was because of the music. Smooth jazz built around the sweet hum of a soft saxophone; it reminded her of the past, reminded her of her home, her old life, her family, her parents. It was same song her dad used to play when he cleaned his weapons. It was also the last song she remembered her mother playing. Those memories were so old moss and cobweb covered them and yet that song was so fresh in her mind, the melody crisp like cold water after a breathmint. It made her wonder if this was the music only the well-dressed lunatics listened to. Regardless it needed to stop. The memories it unearthed were memories that should have been cremated when that part of her soul died, and yet they were rising up like the undead.
    Amara stood without a words and headed for the stairs and as she did she heard Aiden's voice behind her.
    "Hey," he called voice soft and whinny like a hurt child's. "What about the movie?"
    Amara chuckled lightly as she ascended the stairs. "I'll be back in a minute," she told him.     I just need the music to stop, she told herself.
    Aiden nodded, left it at that and turned back to the TV. One foot in front of the other Amara headed up the stairs through the loft and down the hall. Each step brought her closer to the door, closer to the music. The closer she got to the music the clearer more memories became. In what felt like a few short steps she was at the end of the hall face to face with the mahogany door staring at the polished wood. Her conscience told her how foolish this was, how dumb and dangerous it could be. It reminded her that not even Aiden came here. Still, the brain didn't know the difference between emotional pain and physical pain, it only knew pain. Each note felt like a punch to the gut and each memory felt like a knife to the heart. She just wanted it to stop, that was all. Ever so slowly she knocked on the door and as she did the sax hit its high note just like it did that day.
    That winter day was one of the coldest Amara had experienced in her seven, almost eight years of living. She sat in the back seat of her father's black 1996 Mercedez, knees tucked to her chest, gloved hands stuffed into the pockets of her puffer jacket as her eyes glided between her baby sister and the ice forming on the window. Even with the heater blasting in the car her breaths still fogged as they hit the air but at no point was she unhappy. Yes, it was cold, for some freezing, but that didn't and couldn't change the fact that she was simply, unapologetically happy. All Amara was in that moment, in those days, was happy.
    Smooth Jazz played as they drove home through the woods. Trees were covered in layers of white snow and her mother hummed softly to the familiar tune that her father playsd often when shinning his guns. Her sister giggled lightly from her car seat as the sax hit its high note and at that moment the car spun. Between the snow and an intentional lack of friction, there was nothing to stop the car from imitating a carnival ride. The vehicle spun wildly and Amara screamed holding tight to her sister's car seat as they were tossed in a million directions and every inch of the world around her became one chaotic blur. The baby screamed, her usual giddy voice now enlaced with the fear she wore on her face. Their voices pierced the chaotic air and overthrew the melody of the smooth jazz as their mother struggled to gain control of the car. Just as quickly as the disaster started it ended. The car crashed, the left side of it slammed into the solid, unmoving trunk of an old beech tree pinning the small girl who sat behind her mother's driver's seat. Gasoline leaked as cold air came in from every nook and cranny but the loud cries that echoed through the silent air of the forest made it clear that no one was dead, maybe scared, but not dead. Shaken couldn't describe how anyone felt in that vehicle but there was no time to think about the way anyone felt. The sun was setting and with it the air was getting colder by the minute, but worse no one but God knew how damaged any of the children were. Their mother rushed to exit the vehicle climbing over broken glass to crawl out the passenger window. Amara held her sister tight, pain shooting through different sections of her body as she watched her mother with hopeful eyes. Their mother fought with the door but it wouldn't budge and without hesitation, she sent a fist through the glass. Her bloody hand removed the belt of the car seat and pulled the baby from the blanket of broken glass and random items. She held her baby girl close, checked her for bruising or cuts, saw none and breathed a sigh of pure relief. Her sister had taken it all; a seven-year-old, had taken every hit, nudge, broken piece of glass and all the injuries that came with them and yet she was smiling. She was stuck in pain, pinned leg growing numb by the second and an arm broken in several places but a smile played on her lips as she watched her sister calm in their mother's arms. She stared at her mother with hopeful eyes, ready to be held and comforted the same way but her mother gave her an empty cold stare when their eyes met. There was nothing behind those eyes. No worry, no fear, no concern, they were just empty, as if her mother was staring at a stranger.
    "Mo-"
    "You'll stay. I can't save you," she said to her daughter.
    The words, the tone, the expression, they didn't register in Amara's mind. She didn't understand them. She reached out a bloody hand and her mother stared at it with disgust but Amara didn't care.
    "You can Mommy," she called, hope still in her voice. "You just have to pull."
    A vicious look took her mother's face. "Don't be selfish," she hissed. "I try and your sister could freeze to death or worse we could all die. Your sister and I have much to live for." Her mother's tone was colder than the icy wind that kissed her damaged skin and with a quivering lip Amara's small hand fell. The adrenaline and hope faded from her body and were replaced by fear and pain, tons of it. Tears poured like water from a broken dam and through her blurred vision, Amara watched her mother and sister walk away into the forest. She watched them disappear behind the blanket of snow, disappear behind the blanket scotch pine and oak trees, and disappear right out of her life.
    Amara felt her left leg throb at the memory but she quickly tossed it away, placed it back in its tomb and reburied it with all the other memories that broke her down to nothing. This was no place for a broken woman, there was no one here to hold her. She refocused her mind on the door and the music behind it. It was why she was here, why her brain was spiralling into grievous old memories. She took a deep breath that grew shakier the more she thought about what she was doing, and the more she thought about it the more she acknowledged it was stupid. Aiden, his right hand, his other half, his first shooter, pretended like this door didn't exist but she couldn't. With all this presented in her mind her hand still raised to the door. She needed the song to stop, she needed the thoughts to stop. She didn't want to break because the past had uprooted itself.
    Battling with her thoughts and a gut feeling that told her otherwise Amara knocked on the door. She waited, her anxiety higher than a sycamore tree but nothing happened. Besides the song that just wouldn't end there was silence, there was no form of movement, not even a hint that said there was life behind that mahogany door. Amara had more than half expected the door to fly and open and the beast himself to loom over with vehemence so fierce it made her sick but there was nothing. She knocked again, louder than before but the lifelessness persisted. It was clear that she either was seriously unwanted or no one was behind that door but no matter how many breaths she took that song persisted to pierce her skull. She wanted to ignore it and just walk away but it had a hold on her. Amara wrapped her hand around the knob and slowly eased the door open until she could see everything beyond the door that was illuminated by the light including her legal husband, and it was a sight.
    The room was large enough to hold a 10-seater dining table with space to spare yet its only source of light was a curtained window on the left wall. The farthest wall from Amara was lined with filling cabinets and ever inch of the floors had papers scattered on it. Business documents, photos, bank statements, criminal records, medical histories, medical reports, hundreds of documents were spread across the wooden floor; and those that weren't on the floor were pinned to the wall connected by coloured strings. The white board that hung on the right wall was surrounded by pinned up paper and had multiple statements written in different colours and languages. Amara expected to find Kalon at the desk that sat beside the door, the first thing you saw when the door opened, but all it had were 5 different monitors each presenting different pieces of information. Kalon was sitting under the window, back against the wall surrounded by the chaos he created, and choas only he understood. From where he sat on the floor Kalon glared at Amara with more emotions than she could comprehend. None of them were clear but before Amara could speak, before she could comprehend the room or let out a sound Kalon was on his feet heading towards her as if she was his greatest enemy.
    "OUT!"
    His voice bellowed so loud it bounced on the walls till it hit the furthest corner of this unquestionable large house. It sent waves of terror though Amara's veins and yet she didn't move, she couldn't. Impending doom rolled off Kalon like it was the scent of his cologne and it held Amara by the ankles, held her in place, forced her to face that man that towered over her with meer inches between them. He grabbed her wrist as he slammed the door shut and Aiden watched from the end of the hall in silence. From the moment Kalon shouted Aiden was out out of his seat, gun in hand ready to kill the enemy. But the enemy in question had already caught, held in place by fear and left to face the what some called the god of death. Parts of Aiden wanted to save Amara from her ignorance, save her from a view of Kalon she never needed to see; but he couldn't even think to interfere without it being perfidy.
    Kalon loomed over Amara and yanked her closer till they were centimeters apart, till her toes were stuggling to keep contact with the wooden floors. His hand dug into her shoulder, held her firm in place. She could feel his breath on her skin. They were so close she could hear his thoughts before they left his mind.
    "You don't open this door again." His death grip tightened. "Do you understand?"
    His voice was so low, so even and so empty that the future was clear if she ever did it again; and yet Amara didn't answer him. She didn't speak or nod, didn't even breath, all she did was stare at him blankly as she tried to gather which emotion should present itself on the canvas she called a face. Should it be fear from the fact that he just made it clear that if need be he'd kill her, maybe a twisted look of pain from the way his hand seemed to be crushing her shoulder bone, or should it be a mix of hate and sadness from the song that still played and floted in the air like a disease. She didn't know which to present but she felt all. The fear, the anger, the sadness, the confusion, all of it ran a muck in her and left her dumbfounded at the way her husband resembled her father in the worst way. A pinch of words mixed with a cup of actions and there he was, a perfect replica of the first man she hated. Such a perfect match that she could taste the hate pooling in her mouth.
    "Do I make myself clear?" He counted his words.   
    The words slowly formed in Amara mouth and as she parted her lips to answer the door bells rang. It filled the walls of the house alerting all and just like the snap of a magicians fingers the fear that fused her feet to the gound broke and she yanked her body away from Kalon unruffled by the pain. She stepped back, cleared space between them and when her fierce gaze could take in every inch of Kalon with her neck leveled she turned and walked away.
    "I'll get it," she disclosed, her voice stiff as she stepped past Aiden.
    Without ever looking back she walked down the stairs, her steps precise and firm like a child trying to mask fear. A child that knew if it ran from the monster the monster would chase her. Kalon stared at Aiden who started back at him with a gaze just as intense. They stayed like that for a moment before the tension finally cracked and Kalon's face softened. He pinched the bridge of his nose as his shoulders relaxed and he played over the moment that was so short yet it felt like ages. Played back the moment that was nothing but damage.
    "I know," he mumbled, exauhsted. "I know."
    Aiden holstered his gun, moved closer. "Do you?" he asked, "because I don't think you do."    Aiden's voice was low and even yet it was laced with layers of disappointment. Kalon cracked his index with his thumb then shifted to the middle finger and conitnued down the line cracking each knuckle before starting over on the same hand. He knew that tone all too well, heard it alot more these days and with each step Aiden took towards him he cracked another finger, pressured the air between joints of bones that had been broken too often.
     Aiden grabbed Kalon's hand. "Breath, don't let your nerves get the best of you. She's not angry beyond repair."
    Kalon scoffed. "She not angry at all. She's terrified. She looked at me with a kind of fear fueled by hate and that's even worse."
    "And that's a problem you created which means its a problem you can fix. A great start is not shouting at her, especially like that...ever again."
    "It wasn't intentional," Kalon muttered.
    "Doesn't matter, to her it was. Shit, to me it was."
    Kalon sighed.
    Aiden's rested a hand on Kalon's shoulder.
    "What the hell could you be working on for you to snap at her like that?"
    Kalon's eyes locked with Aiden's and not a word left his lips. He started at Aiden, stared at his closest, longest friend and said nothing. That room was lined with truths, lies, secrets, and evidence of all kinds that could and would tear nations apart. What was in that room would put her in danger so deep that peace wouldn't even be a memory.
    Aiden patted Kalon's shoulder and didn't push. "Nice, the silence works better than yelling."
    Another sigh left Kalon's lips. "She curious and stubborn, the desire to know would have eaten her alive and she'd pry till she got an answer. Instilling fear was better."
    It was Aiden's turn to sigh. "Maybe it was Kal, but you asked me to help you with this outrageous plan. I told you the best and fastest way, open the closet door and let everything out. You said no, so we have to go the long way and that means building trust whenever you can, that means patients and compromise. If she knows nothing then she has no reason to trust you so you have to make her trust who you are and that starts by not snapping at her. She has no truth to grasp so she will forever search for it, your job is to make her trust you so much that she see's no reason to search. That starts by accepting that she's not like your men. She will defy you, she will fight you, she will argue with your decisions."
    Kalon nodded.
    "Let her hate the things you do and not who your are. That's going to take alot of ti-"
    "KALON!
    Amara's blood curdling scream covered the last of Aiden's words and forced its way to every section and crevis of the house. It kissed the walls and spread to the very edge of the property. The scream that seemed to have no end or calm washed Kalon's skin in cold sweat as he ran to it without thought or question. There was so much fear in it he felt sick. It was so different from any sound he had ever heard her make. It was filled with a kind of fear that was almost always associated with a body.
    From the foot of the stairs he saw her kneeling beside the door staring at whatever was beyond it. Her face stained with fear and tears as she mumble over and over "it's going to be okay,". Kalon moved with brisk steps, Aiden behind him and they both looked out the door at what she was staring at. Immediately Kalon's face hardened with anger and remorse as he stared at the snot-nosed child who had cried so long and hard he had made himself sick, the vomit on his shirt evidence of that. The boy was no older than 4 but he understood that death's hand was on his shoulder. He carried the weight of his life, a dozen others and a load of C4 on his shoulders with ninty seconds before it all didn't matter. Men with the loyalty of dogs stood, ready to kill the child's and dispose of the body knowing they wouldn't live. They had no problem dying for their boss.
    Kalon had a simple but sickening choice to make. He had one goal in life, keep the woman he loved safe, keep his wife safe, and if a random boy had to die for that to happen so be it. But that boy reminded him of himself, young, scared to breath, a pawn in a game bigger than he could imagine. He would be killing himself.
    "Amara let go, we have to go," he ordered.
    "What! we ca-"
    "I said move!" he barked.
    There was no time to argue or debate. If she hated him after so be it but at least she'd be alive to hate him. Aiden grabbed her arm and she snatched it away.
    "I am not leaving! So you go or you stay but I am not leaving him to die alone because you're heartless."
    25 seconds.
    Life and death was on the line and she was willing to argue with him about conscience. If he had the time he'd laugh. His eyes focused on the way she held the childs hand, how she rub his chest through his vomit stained shirt, only concerned with conforting him till the very end. It was the worst time to love her more.
    Kalon pushed her out of the way as he pulled the balisong out of his pocket and took her place. He kept his breath even as he started at the wires of a bomb that could blast him from here to another life. With steady hands he reached in and eased the knife on the yellow wire.
    10 seconds.
    Percentages weighed in his head as he added pressure to the blade. 50% chance they lived 50% chance they died. If he was wrong they died and if he didn't do it they died. He sliced it and expected a heat like no other to engulf him and one did. It spread around his torso, burnt his cheek and scared his very soul.
    "Thank you," Amara whispered against his cheek in a broken voice before she hugged him tighter. "Now get rid of him."
     Kalon didn't answer as she let go and eased the child out of the weaponry before bringing him inside. A smile sweet and soft on her face as she guided him. Kalon sat there on the floor and stared at the bomb and bag that came with the child. He stared at it then laughed. It started as small chuckle then grew into a laugh that made Aiden question is friend's mental state. Kalon didn't feel fear often but when he did it rattled his bones. Seconds ago all he had was fear,  now he wondered if the woman he married was bipolar and and if he was crazy because he would live that moment again. He would do it all over to see his wife show love like that, to watch her melt so sweetly.
    Day turned to night faster than the whole even could process in Kalon's brain. Most people had an average of 9 months to prepare for a child, he got 9 seconds, and his wife left him with no words before she disappeared to some corner of the house so far he didn't bother to look for her. He had a child to focus on right now and the only thing he knew for sure was wrong move could break this child from the inside out.
    The boy was young, currently nameless, and more awear of fear than retired soldiers with PTSD. He was afraid to speak, almost afraid to breath. He was terrified of the world around him. Something, some expirence had planted fear so deep into this boy brain that if and when the time came for him to need a bathroom he'd sit in silence, holding it until his body gave up. He was too afraid to ask for a bathroom, too afraid to need one, too afaird to look to find one, as a result anywhere he was when his body failed became the bathroom. The sight reminded Kalon of when he was ten, when the bathroom was a luxury that only existed when auction was near. But this boy was too young for that life, at least Kalon hoped he was.
    The sofa had become a victim to the boy bladder three times and it resulted in him sitting naked on a bucket, towel drapped over his shoulers and eyes glued to the tv that played a list of tv shows suggest for by google. It currently played gravity falls. Kalon and Aiden stood on one side of the room and watched the boy watch his show as they sipped their drinks and contemplated what to do.
    "Could this kid be a relation of Bryan and Quartan?" Aiden asked.