If The Seas Catch Fire(52)

“Take them, Mama.”

“But why?”

“So you’ll feel better.” Do they even make a difference anymore? Fuck, I wish I could do something for her. He squeezed her hand gently. “Please Mama.”

She eyed them uncertainly. It was impossible to guess what was going through her mind. If she had any inkling of why she needed to take them. Sometimes she didn’t even seem to know how to take them, or what a pill was, never mind what it might do if she swallowed it.

Sergei pulled her water cup closer. “Take them. I promise, they’re good.”

She shifted her gaze to him. His heart clenched—please don’t ask who I am.

Then she nodded. “Okay, Vasya.”

Sergei had learned years ago how to wince without her seeing it. No need to alarm her. The mention of his long dead brother’s name hurt, but he didn’t want to upset her. To Mama, the Sergei sitting in front of her didn’t exist. She could only make sense of him as her eldest son because she probably couldn’t remember that so many years had gone by. That Vasily was dead and the Sergei she remembered—if she remembered him at all—was no longer a little boy.

One by one, he helped her take her pills. It was very much against policy, letting him administer her pills and vitamins, but everyone turned a blind eye. Whether it was out of sympathy, or because he had better luck convincing her to take them than they did, he didn’t know and he didn’t ask.

After she’d taken her pills, he sat with her quietly. There wasn’t much more he could do. She could still speak, but her mind was too far gone to have a meaningful conversation. He’d learned that the first year she was here, when he’d tried to coax her back to him and succeeded only in confusing her. Even frightening her. Most of the time, she didn’t seem aware of how unaware she was. When she caught on, when the confusion was unavoidable, she’d get scared, and he didn’t know if those episodes were worse for him or for her, but they were hellish.

So he didn’t try. He’d simply be here with her. Let her have some company for a little while. She seemed to like that. She couldn’t remember enough to look forward to his visits, and she rarely had any idea who he was—sometimes she didn’t even think he was Vasily—but his presence seemed to make her happy.

Her presence hurt like hell, though, especially on days like this. When it was painfully clear that she didn’t remember. He was thankful she didn’t remember what had happened, or why the two of them were all that were left, but God, what he wouldn’t have given for a moment—even a few fleeting seconds—of recognition.

He took her fragile hand and stroked it gently with his thumb.

I wish you could see me, Mama.

The docs couldn’t agree on what the f*ck was the matter. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s. Brain damage from one of her almost successful suicide attempts? Extreme PTSD? Hard to say. She’d been nearly catatonic since the last suicide attempt, and now she was… this.

Well, it was a wonder Sergei wasn’t as f*cked up as she was. Or maybe he was. Mama had gone up inside her own head, disappeared from the whole world and never come back. Him? He’d planned and planned and worked his way into a position to destroy every last one of the motherf*ckers who’d destroyed the family.

Which of them was more f*cked up? It didn’t matter. She was here, and she was all he had left except vengeance. Some of the men filling contracts in this town were psychopaths. Serial killers. Not Sergei. He wasn’t a remorseless murderer. But these families were subhuman, menaces to society, and he owed it to his own family to eradicate them. To erase them from existence like they’d done to his father and his brothers and, to perhaps a crueler extent, his mother.

Eventually, he took a deep breath and sat up. “I’m going to go, Mama.”

“Oh.” She held his gaze. “Okay, Vasya. It was nice to see you.”

Sergei cringed. She was making that mistake more and more often these days. Even with his hair cut short and bleached, he couldn’t escape how much he was looking like his eldest brother. On the other hand, if she thought Sergei was Vasily, then she didn’t remember what had happened, and in her world, Sergei was still eight years old and Vasily was still alive along with Papa and Mikhail.

So Sergei didn’t correct her.

He stood, wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back next week.”

“Good, good.” She smiled broadly. “Bring Sergei and Mikhail with you. I’d like to see them.”

It was a struggle, but he made himself smile. “I’ll try, Mama.”

He hugged her once more, and then left. He didn’t bother avoiding Jason and Brittany; they’d all learned that he wasn’t chatty after his visits with Mama. If he was relaxed and calm on his way out, it was one thing. If he was hurrying toward the door, head down and hands in his pockets, his gait fast and determined, no one stopped him.

The blast of summer wind was suffocating and seemed to make the home’s sterile, medicinal air burn even deeper into his mouth and nose. He told himself that was why his eyes stung, too. Just like he always did.

And just like he always did when Mama didn’t recognize him, he got into his car and drove from the home to the beach. Never the same beach—couldn’t be too careful—but one of those places the tourists never went and the locals barely knew about. There were lots of those in Cape Swan. Little fishing spots and places for teenagers to have midnight bonfires and knock each other up. This time of year, it was hard to find one where he could be alone, but he finally found an empty parking lot next to a deserted piece of sand.