She buried her face in his jacket as he did his best to comfort her.She buried her face in his jacket as he did his best to comfort her. "What did I say?!!!!" Alex asked Ally. Ally's breathing was slowing. She was regaining control. Good. Now she would listen. Alex pushed her ever so slightly away from him and looked directly in her eyes as he repeated, "Ally, tell me. What did I say that hurt you.". Ally took a hard swallow. Alex took that as a queue. He picked up Ally's half full glass of ice water and held it to her lips. She thanked him. She took a deep breath and gathered up a tiny bit of strength, just enough to make one last stand and clear the air. "Alex, you don't understand. My parents are dead. Didn't you read the newspaper? I really do have no one left. My mother, sister, her husband and her twin girls. They're all gone! I need to be taken away from all this. Please...." Memories dating back many years resurfaced in Alex's mind. The police coming to the door, the priest visiting him day after day, greedy lawyers giving him fairy tales of how rich he could become; they all came back to him. But the most vivid memory was of the caskets being lowered into the graves. "That's my family!" he remembered a seventeen year old boy saying to the priest. "Who's going to take care of me now?" he asked the father. |