all there. So, when I messed up, I tried to contain it, in the event of a fire, you’re supposed to evacuate, and lock the door. That sets a chain of events in motion that isolate the threat. I followed protocol, not realizing I wasn’t alone in the lab. So when…” she turns to me. “I didn’t see them. I thought I was alone. The minute they appeared at the door, there was an explosion. I didn’t know…by the time I was made aware they were there—it was too late. I can still see them screaming, pounding on the door a split second before the blast. I can still hear their panicked cries. I watched it happen.”
I close my eyes, the image of Tobias and Dominic’s parents pleading for their lives as my mother stood panicked on the other side of the door.
“I called your father first, and Roman was upstairs, he was the first there and sent me away immediately, he refused to let me take the blame. I was almost three months along.”
“But it was an accident, why couldn’t you come forward?”
“At first, I thought it was a knee-jerk reaction to protect me, but it was for a different reason altogether. He took care of it—all of it. And refused to give me the details or his reasoning. He was so…adamant about it. And he’s a man you don’t question. For months I wondered what in the hell he was thinking…until after you were born.”
She takes a long drag of her cigarette. “After the funeral, I quit the plant at Roman’s insistence. But I swore the day I saw Delphine on the opposite side of those caskets, she just knew. She looked at me in a way I knew she knew. She was outraged, she wasn’t privy to the details of the investigation and stopped talking to me when I clammed up when she questioned me. I feigned ignorance. Roman and I tried to move on, but it was the beginning of the end. He moved me into an apartment, away from my mother. I thought it was so we could have the freedom to be together, but shortly after, he slowly started to freeze me out. We were never the same after that night. But it was you that kept us glued together. Sometimes he would look at me—at my belly—and I could see so clearly he wanted to be more, to mean more to the both of us. Sometimes, I could see a hint of us again, but other than an occasional visit, he’d all but ended our relationship.”
“He felt guilty?”
“I know he did. He bore the brunt of it. This secret had the ability to bring all he worked for crumbling down around him.”
“But if you had just admitted to it—”
“He didn’t want to take the chance.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“Because he didn’t want anyone to know about us.”
“So, you were his dirty little secret?”
“No, my love, you and I were his biggest fear. I knew he was a cold man. I knew he was ambitious in his business dealings, but I didn’t know he had others keeping close tabs on him. He’d made enemies with old business partners, and he didn’t want anyone knowing.”
“So, you fought because you were pregnant?”
“I wanted you. He didn’t. And I didn’t fully understand why until three months after you were born.”
She blows out a breath.
“Your father came to see you for the first time that night. I can’t tell you how hard labor was alone, thinking he didn’t want to have anything to do with us, didn’t care enough to see you come into this world. He ignored my calls, my pleas for him to come, and I truly hated him for it, but I had you as consolation. You were everything beautiful about us before things got ugly. The day you turned three months old, I fell asleep in your rocker after putting you in your crib.” Her eyes are somewhere in the past as she speaks as if she can see it vividly. “I woke up in the middle of the night to see Roman standing and staring into your crib, and there was no denying it. His eyes were so full of love. And that’s what it was for him, something I experienced myself the day our eyes locked the first time. It was love at first sight for the both of us the minute he saw you. I stood and went to him, and it