Sweet Soul (Sweet Home #5)(44)

And I ran to him. I ran to him and he pulled me to his chest. My heart thundered and I fought the tears threatening to pour. I wanted to stay out here, I was too afraid to go back inside.

I was too afraid to see what had looked like the final goodbye in her eyes. At her body that no longer had the strength to keep going.

But Austin ordered me back inside to check on Mamma. It was my duty tonight. Nodding my head at Austin, I walked back into the trailer. As soon as the trailer door shut, silence clogged the air.

Forcing my heavy feet to take me to Mamma’s room, I pushed open the door, to see the rosary on the floor, Mamma’s hand limp and hanging over the edge of the bed. Her eyes were closed, and I ran forward, dropping to my knees.

“No,” I whispered, and took Mamma’s hand in mine. “Mamma, open your eyes,” I pleaded, never prepared for this moment, not believing this moment could be real.

“Mamma, please,” I whispered, but she didn’t move. I sat, frozen, intently watching her chest—it barely moved.

I shook my head. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for her to leave. Axel was gone. Austin couldn’t cope… I was too young. I couldn’t… I couldn’t.

But I knew this was it. I knew she was slipping away. My mamma was leaving us for good…

I sucked in a deep breath, my chest feeling impossibly tight. “Levi, calm,” Elsie’s high-pitched voice caused me to exhale, the pent up breath causing my heart to hammer against my ribs. When I looked up at Elsie’s face, I realized that I was crying. That tears were streaming down my face.

“I knew she was leaving me, Elsie. I saw it, I felt it.” A pained sound ripped from my throat, and I added, “And I left her, because I was young and naive and thought that if I left her, she might hang on… that it might never happen. That I could pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“Levi—”

“She closed her eyes alone, Elsie.” I searched for my lost breath, only to rasp, “She never woke up after that day. She died a week later. She died in hospital. But when her eyes closed she was all alone. All she’d had for comfort were these rosary beads, the rosary beads I can’t look at without feeling the guilt and the shame of leaving her to fade away, alone. But the rosary beads that I can’t let go. Because they were her; they are her to me. She wanted me to have them. Me, the son that allowed her fade alone.”

Elsie gripped her hands in mine and squeezed. Her physical strength was nothing, but the emotional bravery that passed from her to me flowed strongly. It was armor strong.

“Breathe,” Levi, she said, but I could see her breaking too. I watched this little blonde silent girl, the one who didn’t talk because people told her she sounded bad. She hadn’t yet told me her life story. And here I was, breaking like a damn *, desperately in need of her support.

“Shh,” she soothed, then surprising me all to hell, climbed on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. I was shocked into stillness, Elsie’s cheeks heating as she laid her head on my shoulder.

Needing to feel her as close as possible, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to my chest. I let her warmth seep in.

“How old were you, Levi?” Elsie asked. “When she passed.”

Gripping her tighter, I replied, “Fourteen.”

Elsie stiffened, then admitted, “Me too. I was fourteen when my mom left me. I was fourteen and I was completely on my own. When they… when it all became too much.”

I frowned, my sadness slowly fading. I wanted to know what she meant. I wanted to know why she was homeless. I wanted to know how her mamma died. I wanted to know how she’d ended up in Seattle. I wanted to know who ‘they’ were. Hell, I wanted to know it all.

“She was deaf. Completely,” Elsie whispered, the volume of her voice almost non-existent, like she didn’t know if she should be confessing.

My hold on her grew tighter.

“She was born deaf, to hearing parents. They never understood her. But worse, they never helped her. They kept her hidden away, their dirty little secret. Until they sent her out on her own trapped in her silent world. Pushed into a world where people didn’t understand her.”

“Elsie,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“She fell pregnant with me—I don’t know my father. You see, my mom got involved with people that weren’t good for her. They made her take things that she wouldn’t ever shake.”

“Elsie—”

“But she loved me. Her half-hearing girl. The little girl she managed to get at least some help for. To get a hearing aid for, so I could at least understand some of what was happening the world,” Elsie’s voice hushed. “Sometimes I wish I’d never been given the miracle of hearing. When you can hear, you can hear what people say about you. You can hear their savage words. If you listen hard enough, you can even hear your fragile heart tear apart.”

Needing to see her face, needing to show her that I was here, that I was here for her, I pushed her back and our gazes collided.

Her bottom lip was trembling. “They never taught her to sign, Levi. She could barely read lips. They gave her no tools to survive, so she had to make them up.”

My muscles froze, waiting for what came next. I didn’t know what she had to say would crush my soul. “So we had to make our own sign language. We had a secret language all to ourselves. It was ours, our secret language hidden in plain sight from the world that didn’t want us. That had no place for us—at least that’s what she’d tell me. We at least had our own language. We at least had that…” she trailed off. I was seeing Elsie in a completely different light.