Leading Lady

CHAPTER 25

"Darling, you're watching that again?" Ines laughed, walking through the living room with a laundry basket. Little Lucille peeled her eyes off the TV and looked up at her mother from the floor.

"It's such a great movie mommy!" Lucille beamed, "She's so beautiful!"

Ines put the basket down and went over, kneeling next to Lucille, who turned her attention back to the movie Gone with the Wind. Lucille watched Scarlett O'Hara dramatically turned and looked off to the side.

"She's so pretty," Lucille whispered in awe, "Mommy, what's the name of that actress?"

"Vivien Leigh," Ines snickered and brushed a dark strand of hair away from Lucille's face. "You've inherited my love for old movies, it seems."

"I want to do that," Lucille smiled at her mom, "I want to be in movies like this."

"You can, someday," Ines smiled, "And I'd be your number one fan, my darling."

"You think I can do it, mommy?"

"You can do anything you set your mind to," Ines told her and put her arms around her daughter. "I have no doubt in my mind you can achieve anything you want. As long as you do it honestly, work hard and never lose yourself in the process. Never forget who you are."

"I never will, mommy," Lucille said and snuggled into her mother's arms.

I never will...

... Lucille stood outside the hospital staring blankly up at the sky. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying and her cheeks were stained from all the tears. Her brother was dead and now so was her mother. Lucille bawled her fists and covered her face, starting to sob again. She let out a cry. Her throat ached from all the sobbing she'd done but she didn't care. Lucille couldn't stop.

"Honey," Harrison said, appearing from behind with Sarah and Jackson. Lucille turned to her father and hugged him.

"Daddy she's gone, she's gone too," Lucille sobbed. No matter how hard he tried, Harrison couldn't hold back his tears. He felt sick to his stomach and as if he were in some kind of nightmare. He couldn't understand how in such little time he had lost both his son and his wife.

His Ines.

Sarah wrapped her arms around the two of them and hugged them tightly.

"I'm so sorry you guys," she whimpered, "I'm so, so sorry..."

Jackson could only stare at them. He was incredibly shaken by all this. Lucille's mother had suffered a heart attack as a result of Jesse's death. The paramedics tried the best they could when they got to them but by the time they arrived at the hospital, Ines had gone into sudden cardiac arrest and within minutes was pronounced dead. Jackson couldn't help but feel this was his fault too.

I killed Jesse, he thought with remorse, and now Lucille's mother died because I killed him...

Jackson closed his eyes, trying to shake the thoughts away. He opened them again when he felt Lucille wrap her arms around his waist.

"Please take me home," she said hoarsely, looking up at him through tears. Jackson didn't say anything but simply nodded his head.

* * *

The following days dragged. Harrison and Sarah returned to Summers California and Lucille shut herself in her room, begging Jackson to handle all the funeral arrangements. It was decided, at Harrison's request, to hold the funeral services back home where Lucille grew up, to which she agreed the second she heard her father's voice over the phone. It pained her to hear him sound so broken hearted and defeated.