The smirk slips from his face, and in its place, a shimmer of rage appears.
"Our lives will go on. We will raise our children and prosper in your absence. Your family will be my family. Your sister, my wife. Your father, my father. The dark days you created will be long behind us. And when we gather for every holiday, there will not be an empty seat at the table. It will be as if you never existed at all. Your memory will be wiped away, forgotten. And I think, perhaps, that is the greatest gift you have given us. An apathy so pure, we can no longer harbor hatred for you. Nor sadness, nor loss. There is nothing, and there will always be nothing as far as you're concerned."
"You aren't their family," he snarls under his breath. "You never will be. And they will remember me. They will never forget—"
I unfold the note from Ivy, holding it up for him to see, and he goes rigid.
"You should know better than anyone, Abel, what it means when someone forgives. It means they have made peace with who you are. They have accepted the truth, and they have let you go. The cord is severed. It is the very reason your own father provided the evidence against you. There is nothing worth saving in you, and he understands that, perhaps better than any of us."
“No,” he growls. “You are wrong. He will grieve for me. You’ll see. You will all see. Nobody can ever replace me. Least of all you.”
A dark smile flickers across my face as I offer one last sentiment to carry him to his final breath.
“I already have.”
We turn to go, and Mercedes halts me, glaring back at Abel, steeling her strength as she stands taller. When she pulls away from me, I am not certain of her intentions, but I do not intervene as she approaches Abel. She pauses only when the tips of her heels bump against his bare feet, and for a moment, she stares at him with such unwavering strength, it reminds me of who she is at her core. She is determined to let Abel know it too. That she will rise from the ashes of her destruction. That his actions will not ruin her.
Without warning, she whips her head back and hurls spit in his face and then slowly curls her lips into a poisonous smile.
“I will do the same to your grave. Enjoy your death, you miserable bastard. You’ve earned it.”
When she returns to me, taking note of the surprise on my face, she offers the slightest of nods, and I escort her back down the stairs, returning her to Judge who’s waiting at the bottom. He seems to be hypervigilant this evening, his eyes scanning her face through the mask. Looking for signs of distress. Weakness. Something I can’t quite identify.
We move through the parting crowd together, rejoining the other families at the back. A gong sounds, and the guards take their positions at the gallows. The women all turn their backs, including Mercedes, while the men watch on.
I squeeze my sister’s hand as the guard at the top of the platform makes his preparations, adjusting the noose on Abel’s neck and checking the ropes on his ankles and wrists. He is not offered a bag for his head. Tonight, we will all witness the gruesome sight of his writhing face until nothing is left but his bulging eyes and gaping mouth.
His transgressions are read against him one final time, the names of the dead called out before the guard steps to the side and silence settles over the crowd. There is a restlessness in these final moments as I watch him, and strangely enough, it is my face he seeks in the crowd. His eyes fall on me, face tight, with my final words undoubtedly lingering in his thoughts.
He knows them to be true.
It is the last peaceful thought I have before the guard pulls the lever, and the floor beneath Abel drops out, his body falling through, swinging wildly as he gurgles for a few brief moments. Fleeting panic is the last earthly expression he wears on the mask he called a face. And then slowly, it fades to nothing.
A blank slate.
A man who never was.
“Is it done?” Mercedes whispers over the sound of the creaking rope.
“It is done,” I answer solemnly.
* * *
“Eli?” My voice is gruff, barely audible behind him.
He turns slowly from his pew in the chapel, and I’m not certain how long he’s been here, alone in the darkness. Waiting for the news of his son’s death. The confirmation since he was unable to bear it himself.
Again, it hits me how difficult this must have been for him, and the respect I once had for him shines brighter than it ever did.
“Santiago,” he murmurs, dragging a tremulous hand over his white hair as he rises. “I suppose you have come to deliver the news.”
“No.” I lift my jaw, struggling to get the words out. “I came to tell you… thank you.”
There’s a long moment when we study each other, his eyes shining with tears, and mine with… well, I suppose much of the same.
“I was blinded by my grief,” I confess. “I couldn’t let it go. And I believed the worst in you. For that, I am sorry.”
“You believed what any man would have in your position,” he answers solemnly. “For that, I cannot fault you.”
I dip my head in acknowledgment, and silence settles between us. I’m not certain who takes the first step, but I suspect it is Eli. Slowly, we close the distance between each other, and I extend my hand, an offer of peace. Eli glances at it and shakes his head, pulling me in for a hug instead.
“We are family now,” he says softly. “And I am proud to call you my son, Santiago. You are becoming the man I always knew you would.”
My
