| Subject: Chapter 20 |
Author:
Kate
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Date Posted: 16:31:32 03/31/01 Sat
In reply to:
by Kate
's message, "Things My Mother Taught Me" on 19:49:51 03/29/01 Thu
********************
Truth suffers, but never perishes.
Twenty minutes later, Michael, Nikita and Sam came to the interior courtyard, where Milla had set up dinner. David and Dulcie had already eaten and were back in the lobby helping guests find restaurants or nightclubs for the evening. The bartender finished his meal and put his plate in the kitchen and returned to his post, and Milla cleared off the table and she and Sara reset it.
Michael came through the door last, carefully closing the courtyard to anyone else who might wander through. When she saw Sam still clutching ice to his head, Sara cried out, her hand to her mouth.
"Sammy! What happened?"
Sam and Michael exchanged a glance and Michael said apologetically, "I opened the door too quickly and knocked him out, I'm afraid."
"An accident," Sammy said. "I'm fine."
Sara fussed over him for a few minutes and Milla and Nikita brought out plates of pasta steaming with fresh clams and shrimp.
"This looks great, Milla. Thanks for getting dinner," Nikita said.
"Welcome. Sure you're okay to eat?" Milla asked.
"I feel much better."
Dinner was strained. Michael pushed back his plate and said politely to Sara, "Sam has offered to talk with us about Nikita's illness. Would you please excuse us?"
"Of course. He's the nerve expert," Sara smiled. "I can do the dishes, if you like."
Before Milla or Nikita could protest, Michael said smoothly, "That would be wonderful. I know Milla will want to hear what Sam has to say."
"Of course," Sara smiled.
Milla rose to help Sara clear the table, but Michael said, "Milla. Sit. Please."
Milla dropped back into her chair and Sara smiled and quickly cleared the table. Milla could hear water running in the kitchen sink and knew Sara wouldn't be able to hear whatever it was Michael had to say.
She started getting a sick, sinking feeling in her stomach. Her mother looked pinched and white and Michael had a funny look in his eye. Sam looked angry and irritated. Milla swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay calm.
"Please understand," Michael said quietly to Sam, "I don't object to your wife knowing any of this. But you might."
"I understand," Sam said, his voice tight and angry.
Michael reached over and took her mother's hand. "It might be easiest if you told us a little bit about yourself."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "Not much to tell, really."
"Just begin at the beginning."
"My birth father died when I was four. My mother had a nervous breakdown. When she recovered, we moved back to London. She grew up there. But you probably know that," Sam said, his voice hard.
"We had friends there," Michael said softly, his fingers lightly tracing Nikita's.
"She enrolled me in school. The kid behind me was Adam Michael Sanderson. So I went by Samuelle and he went by Sanderson. Everyone shortened it to Sam and Andy. Made it a lot easier when our parents married a few years later."
Milla's stomach clinched and she said, "I don't understand. Your last name is Samuelle, too? I thought it was Sanderson."
Michael's hands stilled.
"He adopted me and Mum adopted Andy. We have a sister. Indira. And that's all I'm telling you." Sam folded his arms across his chest.
"Fair enough," Michael said softly. Then he started talking, his voice calm and sure and soothing. Then her mother began to talk. The words cascaded over Milla.
... antiterrorist ... secret organization ... no choice ... Elena ...
Horrified, Milla stared at the two people she'd loved all her life. Michael had been married before. Sammy was his son. A son he'd abandoned.
He had never married Mami. It was a lie. Everything was a lie.
Mami ... and Michael ... had killed people. A lot of people, because when Sammy asked, the look on their faces said it all. They didn't even know how many people they'd killed.
Breathe, Milla thought furiously. Just breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Milla thought of all the blood that must have poured out of the people Michael and her mother had killed. Liters of it. Rivers. Oceans.
She clapped a hand over her mouth and raced for the bathroom.
"Milla!"
She heard her mother coming after her, and Milla was so ill she didn't even move away from the cool hands that held her head as she threw up every bit of dinner she'd eaten.
"Poor baby," Nikita crooned, holding a cool wet towel to her neck. "Poor sick baby ..."
Milla gagged again and reached blindly for the knob on the toilet.
"Come on, sweetheart, let's brush your teeth and get you into bed ..."
Milla threw her hands out to ward her mother away. "D-d-don't touch me."
"Milla?" Nikita frowned, blue eyes dark with worry, the towel forgotten in her hand.
Milla swept a sweaty hand across her clammy forehead. "You lied to me."
"I know." Nikita looked miserable, but Milla focused on her own pain, not her mother's.
"You t-t-told me you worked for the Peace Corps."
"It was all I could think of at the moment," Nikita said quietly, struggling for the right words. "I don't expect you to understand. But the minute I found you, everything changed. I saw a way to make up for the awful things I'd done. I was alone. So alone, because I couldn't get in touch with Michael, and when I found you crying in that little cottage ... I couldn't leave you. You needed me, but Milla, oh, I needed you more."
Milla grabbed her toothbrush and furiously attacked her teeth.
"Darling, not so hard, you'll hurt your gums."
Milla spat in the sink and her stomach twisted when she saw her mother was right: the foam was tinted pink. She quickly rinsed and stalked out of the bathroom.
"Milla -- please --"
"No." Milla slammed the door to her room and twisted the key in the lock. "Go away."
"Milla --"
Milla heard a soft thump and imagined her mother standing on the other side of the door, her forehead leaning against the thick wood. "Everything was different then," Nikita said, her voice pleading. "Please ... The minute I saw you, I knew I had to at least save you. I never thought for a minute I'd be able to keep you. But when things worked out ... you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You and Michael."
"I don't want to hear about Michael," Milla said furiously. "He's just like you!"
Silence, except for Milla's sobs. Or were they her mother's? Milla couldn't tell, and she was so miserable she didn't care.
"At least ... at least let me in to clean your hand," her mother said.
"No."
"Milla --"
"Go away!"
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