She stood on the other side of the museum, next to the big white statues, Wyatt and Ethan stood next to her. Ethan was pulling at his bowtie and Wyatt was talking really quickly…until he noticed Mommy wasn’t listening. His brown eyes looked over at me. He made a face, and in my mind it was like he was asking, “What the heck happened? And why is your face so red?”
I would have made a face back, but the way Mommy was looking at me made me stop. She looked at me the same way she looked at the papers on her desk at work. Her smile was gone.
Mommy?
She looked away and back down at Wyatt, flicking his forehead, making him look away, too.
Her mouth moved and Ethan laughed…soon they were all laughing.
What was she saying?
I wanted to know…but we kept walking further and further away until we got outside and I couldn’t see them anymore.
“Come on, princess,” Daddy said, putting me in the back of the car.
“Are we going, Daddy?” I reached up for my seatbelt.
“Ice cream, remember?” He tapped my nose, smiling at me. “Two scoops or three?”
I grinned, lifting my fingers for him to see.
“Four? You sure you can handle it?”
I nodded, swinging my feet. “Of course, I can! I’m not a kid anymore, Dad!”
“Then four scoops it is.” He laughed, sliding inside with me and nodding to the man in the front. “Drive.”
He rested into the back of his brown seat, pulling out his phone from his jacket pocket. He dialed once then he waited as it rang and rang but there was no answer. Cracking his jaw to the side, he squeezed the phone tightly.
“Daddy?”
He blinked a few times and then looked down at me, putting his big hand on my head. “Don’t be mad at Mommy, okay? Sometimes…sometimes she goes a little overboard. She loves you very much.”
I looked down to my shoes again, nodding.
“Good, now wipe your face. You have a booger hanging from your nose, like Spiderman.”
“Daddy!” I gasped, taking his handkerchief and covering my face, making him laugh.
“Tell me about school? You want to join the volleyball team?”
Somehow, I knew he was just trying to keep me talking because he couldn’t reach Mommy…no because Mommy wouldn’t answer. I knew that he was upset and didn’t really want to get ice cream, but I talked anyway. I told him everything about everything. When I couldn’t think of stuff to talk about, I talked about Ethan and Wyatt…until I ended falling asleep.
I hoped Mommy wasn’t going to be mad.
DONATELLA- NOW
“Ma’am.”
Looking up from the blood and at Greyson; “He’s told us everything.”
I nodded and got up, walking out of the room. But before the door closed, I gave only one order; “Kill him.”
Walking on, I headed to the elevator. Of all the memories I had of my mother, why did that one come to mind? I hadn’t even remembered it until this moment, nor could I remember what happened after.
After my dad took me out of the art gallery what happened? It felt like I blocked it out, but why? I couldn’t remember why.
When the doors finally opened at the ground floor, O’Phelan was standing with a phone to his ear.