A familiar voice

“Do you think it will be worth it in the end?” I heard Mr Grigor’s voice behind me. 

I was still sitting out on the back porch long after Kan had left for his appointments of the day.

I turned to look at him, blinking in surprise.

“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what he meant. 

“Do you think you would like what you have become by the time you are done with Turner's granddaughter?” My father said quietly, as he gently crossed the floor, walking up to sit beside me.

“Did you even hear any of the things I told you yesterday?” I said with a confused frown, trying not to get angry at him.

How could he say this after all I told him? 

It’s not like I was expecting his protection, or wanting him to share in the consequences. 

He most likely planned to return to the US anytime soon. So why would he even say what he just did? Like I was a monster for wanting to beat my enemy at her own game and protect my son.

“I heard you clearly. I agree that you have to bring her to justice, but revenge?”

“Justice?” I gasped in disbelief. “Which prison in the country do you think is big enough to hold the daughter of the National leader?” 

“Justice may be slow, but no one is above the law anywhere in the world.” He said gently, “Not even in Asia.”

I was watching him now in disbelief. 

This was his country, he should know more than anyone how things worked here. 

He could not possibly have forgotten the reality of things because he had been gone too long from the country. 

He saw the way I was looking at him, and reached his hand out to cover mine on the couch. 

I should have flinched, I wanted to, but I didn’t.

His touch was calming, and I wondered whether this was why he had always been able to easily handle Oliver. 

And watching him now, I realized I must have gotten my past calmness from him, because my mother was far from calm.

The same calmness I had to discard the day she died unjustly, just because a brat did not want my children to be born.

I stood up, as anger suddenly seized my heart, and made my blood begin to steam. 

“I have to show you something.” I turned away from him. “I will meet you in the garage in twenty minutes.” I said over my shoulder as I crossed into the arched hallway and re-entered Kan’s mansion.

I changed into a cream-colored lightweight silk suit and pants. Grabbed a purse and headed out. 

My father was waiting by the car when I arrived in the garage. A guard bowed and pulled the door open for me.

We did not say a word to each other after I had communicated my destination with the chauffeur. 

I stared out of the window, wondering whether we would get back in time for dinner.

As we drew closer to the high-walled buildings, I checked the monitor connected to my phone to see Oliver was up from his nap and playing with his nanny in the nursery.

When I looked up, I caught the disapproval in my father’s eyes before he looked away meekly. 

I frowned and dropped my phone back in my purse.

Would the man criticize every single thing I did then? 

I hated the word "helicopter parent", because what else did people expect mothers like us to do when we knew our children were not really safe with anyone?

If my father was correct with his speculation about Blaine, he was on to me, and as soon as he found my son, I did not need a fortune-teller to know we might begin a bloody custody battle. 

There was his witch of a wife who would not even hesitate to hurt my son.

We stepped out of the car finally after we went past the gates and high walls. 

“Is it OK to ask what this place is now?” My father looked at me.

“We’re already here,” I said, and began to walk into the reception hall. 

I nodded without a pause as I walked past the receptionist, smiling and bowing behind her granite desk.

I continued walking down the hallway, past the general elevator that every other person took.

It seemed my presence had been radioed, because doctors and the lab directors began to conveniently appear and ‘coincidentally’ bump into me on their way to lunch, their cars or whatever excuse they came up with on the spot.

“This is Mr Grigor, my father,” I said, and the surprise was the same every time. 

Although they quickly mended their expressions, the shock and then disbelief in their eyes were the same.

They bowed again and again and then hurried away because they possibly feared they might mistakenly say something that would offend me.

As I stood still in an elevator with my father, with all the guards staying back upstairs, because no one except Kan and I came down here, he glanced at me severally, and I knew he was aching to speak, but I did not turn.

I pressed my lips together, the emotions already beginning to overcome me at what we were about to see. 

The elevator door chimed open, and I stepped out, my father following behind. 

The air here was different, colder than the middle of winter.

We were many feet below now, in a real rock that had been chiseled into a building. The place would have been completely dark as there were no windows, but bright halogen bulbs littered the halls.

I walked down the familiar hallway I visited every few weeks, and stopped outside a nondescript frosted glass door. 

I positioned my face in front of the door scanner and a red light appeared and scanned my eye.

When the door opened, my mother’s voice said “Welkəm”

That obviously startled my father, but I did not stop, even as a tear dropped my down my cheek at that familiar voice.

At this moment, I did not care about my father or feel sorry for him. 

Of course, he should feel startled, and maybe it was as well that my mother’s voice haunted him. He had largely contributed to the rough life she was sentenced to.

I heard him continue to walk behind me and when we took one last turn, we found ourselves facing my mother.

My father gasped behind me, and as I stood still he walked past me, slowly, as if in a trance. 

I watched him, his legs shaking as he edged closer and closer till he was touching the blue-tinted rectangular-shaped glass, sitting on top of a perfectly hewn rock bed.

“Ariel.” his voice was a pained whisper as he turned back to look at me, his hand still on the glass.

“That’s Ophelia’s handiwork. Do you think I am still the devil for fighting her?” I asked, maintaining a steady voice, although my heart broke to watch my beautiful mother lay there like that.

She was in a transparent plain satin dress, as her body floated in the liquid inside the tightly shut glass box.

She lay face up, floating in the water, and it was almost like she could push the glass cover up any moment and climb out.