his eyes shut, refusing to let them fall, to christen that place. No, Benjamin wasn’t worthy. He could never afford my tears… All this damn money, and he can’t afford my sorrow. His knees grew weak and he was overcome. Before he knew it, the all too familiar warmth and comfort surrounded him, held him, helped him stand.
“Benjamin, this is your son, Aries. Aries, you know this man now.” Her words came out strong. Sure. She stroked his back and held her head high. “You feel him in your veins. The blood flows, and it’s not hot with animosity anymore. It’s with understanding. You hate that you understand him now. You don’t approve… but you get his voice, the words, like the print on an old book in a library long forgotten. You’ve read his words. He’s no longer an abstract illusion. I will be your voice – and his voice came in text, born of his own hand. It came in what I love most: written word. Written word saved my life, and it saved yours too, baby. You just don’t know it yet.”
He sobbed heavy now, resting his forehead against the coffin.
“When my husband died, I was left in silence, Aries. My tongue no longer belonged to me. I blamed my tongue for the harsh words I’d said to him. Lamented over each and every argument we ever had – especially if I was the one who’d started it. So, I spoke seldom for several months. My anguish debilitated me. I ran to what I knew best. Books. I let them speak for me. They grabbed my grief and told my story, especially the romance novels. I hated the cliffhangers, but isn’t that how life works?” She sniffed and dabbed her own tears away.
“Life is a constant cliffhanger. We don’t know if it’s a happily-ever-after until we get to the very last day of our lives. As long as Benjamin here continued to never show his face, or use his words, you were safe, Aries. You could keep on hating him. You could hold on to whatever and whoever you thought Benjamin was. Then, your rage at the man fueled you. You wanted revenge. But as you drifted from property to property, reading his words, walking where he’d walked and seeing all he’d seen, you began to understand him.
“You began to dissect the mystery, the mania, the mansion, and simply saw the man. You saw a bit of yourself in him, too. And because you love yourself so much, Aries, you could no longer hate him as hard as you had before. You realized, not only was he a part of you, but he was a part of Aiden – because without the great-grandfather, there is no grandfather. Without the grandfather, there is no father. And without the father, there is no son. Just ask Jesus.
“So, yes, baby, I will speak for you. In our lives, we’ve seen fire, and we’ve seen rain. Sometimes, the flame, the hot head, the passionate soul that we are must be extinguished, for just a short time. It must be snuffed out by a torrential storm, so that we can be humbled. So we can gain understanding. So we can breathe and accept the unacceptable, if it is given in love.”
He hugged her tight. Everything that was locked inside him, things he couldn’t find the right words for, she’d just described so easily. She’d told the dead man in that casket what needed to be said. After a short while, he pulled himself together, and they started to look around for the letter.
“Wait a minute. What’s that?” He pointed at a shiny black box sitting in a corner. It had a lock on it, as well as what appeared to be a small alarm. Though small, it stood out in contrast to the light colors of the place. Aries drew close to it, taking in his reflection on its surface. He ran his finger across it, wondering what was inside.
“Hold on, I’ll be right back.” Lauren wasted no time running off in search of a groundskeeper, a worker, anyone.
Every second felt like an eternity, and now, as he stood there alone, amid all the coffins, he began to feel a sense of dread, almost as if he were forbidden to be here. Unwelcome. I’m the secret bastard Creed child. And I’m not ashamed. As he made to step out for some fresh air, he spotted Lauren jumping off a golf cart. She’d