One
FRANCINE
Mother is dead.Dead. She’s finally dead. And I don’t feel anything in my heart at all.
The casket gleams black under the sun as they lower my mother into the ground. The males grunt with the effort, ropes sliding between their gloved fingers. The wind of Howl’s Edge Island whips my hair across my face, but I don’t bother brushing it away.
I hug my coat tighter around myself, feeling nothing but the cold.
The casket hits the bottom of the grave with a dull thud. It’s final. Permanent. Just like she deserves. I barely notice my two older sisters standing on either side of me. Carmen stands rigid to my right, her jaw clenched so tight I can practically hear her teeth grinding. Lena sobs openly on my left, clinging to her alpha husband as if she might collapse without his support. His lips move against her ear, whispering comfort words.
They don’t know.
They can’t know what Mother told me because it would taint their memories of her. But the secret of it is burning through me.
The priest drones on about peace and eternity.
I stare at the casket without blinking until my eyes burn. The wind cuts through my thin black dress beneath my coat, but the chill feels good. I couldn’t sleep at all last night, thinking of my mother’s confession on her deathbed.
“Are you okay?” my sister Carmen whispers, looking over at me in concern.
I don’t answer her. I’m really not okay. The memory of my last exchange with Mother plays through my mind:
“Francine, come closer,” says Mother, her body weak on the hospital bed. Her voice is barely audible, a wisp of sound escaping from cracked lips. Her skin looks like tissue paper stretched over bones. Tears flood my eyes.
I don’t want her to die. Not now. Not ever.
The antiseptic smell of the hospital burns my nostrils, the beeping of machines counting down the last moments of my mother’s life.
“I’m here, Mother,” I say, my chair scraping across the floor as I lean in.
Her fingers clutch at mine, surprisingly strong for someone so frail. Her eyes, once sharp with intelligence, now cloudy with medication, fix on my face with sudden clarity.
“I need to tell you something before I go,” she whispers. “Something I’ve never told anyone.”
I nod, expecting some final motherly wisdom. “Yes, Mother?”
“I killed your fathers.”
What?
The words hang in the air between us. She really said that. My heart stops, then pounds painfully in my chest.
“What do you mean?” I ask, thinking I misheard. Maybe the medicine confused her. “You told us they ran off with another omega.”
She shakes her head, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “No. I set their workplace on fire.”
“How? Did you know they were inside the building?” I ask, still unable to believe this new reality. They weren’t just alive somewhere.
“Yes. I needed the insurance money.”
They’ve been dead this entire time. Not hating me, like my mother always told my sisters and me.Ice floods my veins.
The monitor beeps behind her, suddenly sounding loud and deafening in my ears.
“You’re confused,” I say, my voice strained. “That’s not what happened.”
“It’s the truth,” she says, her grip tightening on my hand. “The fire burned them beyond recognition. No one questioned it. I was so selfish. So desperate.”
