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Chapter 78 — Illusions
Mary laughs. "Well, mom! It could not be happened. I clearly remember how daddy takes me in his hands. I sure that he was daddy."
"And nevertheless he was Larry."
"It's just ridiculous!" Mary stands up and folds her arms.
"Sweetie thinks better. Do you remember how a little you were when Kenneth died? The event was happened much more lately--"
"No!" Mary shakes her head so powerly that her hair comes apart. "Of course, he was daddy--" her voice broken. "He was daddy!"
Theda is going to her, but Mary quickly comes away to the window. Somewhere into her heart she already realized that words her mother is the truth, but she did not wish to believe. She did not wish to let in her mind the evil reality. The person who caused so many bad things to her and Mason! He could not be the person who was known to her as her rescuer. He was not Larry, he was her father... But the recent reality suddenly become so far for Mary, all sounds became silent and illegible. She again felt herself as a 10yrs girl who walking on dark streets and with afraid looks back. And with each her step she begging that her daddy come and rescued her. "Daddy, help me! Daddy, find me! Take me away, I'm so scared!"
Memoirs over flooded, she almost did not hear how her scared mother called her.
Streets, streets, dirt, a stink, a fear... Her teeth beats a tattoo from a cold, her knees give way because her weariness. Daddy, daddy, help me! I am cold, I am cold! Still one step, and more one. I want back home!
The car's brakes creak, the blinding headlights. People with guns surround her. "Here, a little rotter!" "Now you'll punish, you'll know how to escape us!" "Go here, our chicken".
Daddy, rescue me! Daddy! The fear blinds her, clouds her consciousness like a fog. I want back home! I am cold! Daddy!
Mary feels on herself someone's hands, but her still in the power of her memoirs. Hands embrace her, trying to warm. Daddy! Da... The sound of one more approached the car, bad people are parting, and she hears the home, so familiar voice. Daddy! The father takes her on hands, speaks something to bad people, but Mary does not hear him she nestles on the shirt of her father and shudders from tears. Her nightmare is ended...
Ice cold starts to melt, Mary feels that warm hands embracing her. But she clearly hears the voice from the past: "I'll not leave it. You'll pay for you did with my niece". The voice is similar to the voice of her father, but one some different after all. She knows that her daddy is died, but she so badly want that he was him. To her own father being the person who came to help and rescued her!
Memoirs die away, she hears wails of her mother and Mason's whisper: "Mary, return to me, I'm begging you!" She turns to him and nestles faced to his shirt. Her tears rolling, she cannot stop them. So good feels to stay here and embrace Mason...
However he's feeling that she finally begin to come back and tears off her face from himself.
"Mary?"
"Yes... Forgive me, I frightened you--" her own voice seems to Mary like a stranger's.
"You did! I never thought that you can turn to an ice statue. Mary, what was wrong? You--" he afraid to ask, but he should hear her answer. "You are remembered, are you? Do you remember what was happened then?"
Mary shuddered — memoirs were still somewhere nearby, but already subdued — and she stronger nestled on him.
"Yes, I remember now," she murmured. "He was... he was--" she cannot bring herself to utter the name, but Mason understood.
"Your uncle."
"Yes. I run away from those... kidnappers, I wanted to come back home, but lost the way. And then they found me," Mary felt that she speak with some strange way like it's not her but the little girl from the past.
"Did they any bad things to you?" Mason feels the fury inside him begins to boil. "Tell to me what they did?"
"Nothing," Mary poorly smiled. "At the point there is appeared da... the uncle. And take me away. He brought me back home. That's all."
Mason deeply sighed; the fear tormenting him began to dissipate. And Mary continued, feeling that now she must tell up to the very end: "When I walked, searching for the way back to home... I so badly wanted that daddy rescue me. And when Uncle Larry came... I thought up that he was daddy. And then I just convinced myself that I was rescued by daddy."
"Larry did not appear in Santa Barbara for many years, probably, the meeting with him became the catalyst for you--" Mason said.
"Probably, yes. And the truth about the event began to break outside... through nightmares. You were right, Mason. I cannot still believe in it, but you were right."
Mason did not say his usual "I'm always right". Instead he bent down and pick up Chip who slipped from Theda's knees when she putting Samantha to the bed and already a few minutes pulled down Mason's trousers. Sitting on Mason's arms the boy reach Mary and touches with his little palms her tear-stained face."
"Mom sa-ad--" singing him. "Don't be za-ad," and he stretched his hands with obvious intention to make Mary take him on her hands. Mary accepted him and embraced. The tenderness filled her, the past taken away under the impact of the present time.
"Daddy, kiss," Chip kingly show on his own cheek, and then on Mary's cheek.
Mason laughed and covered with kisses his wife and his son. One more day ended with their victory! One more day they pulled out from millstones of this world! One more page of the past shown the teeth and closed forever.
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