· DALTON ·
This was what Parisa had once seen in Dalton Ellery’s mind:
“Mama, look.” Seven or eight, opening his dirt-covered hands. A seedling cupped inside it. Energy still flowing through him. Power he didn’t yet know how to name. “Mama, look, I saved it.”
“My sweet boy, my clever boy.”
A warp, a loss, a wilting. His own stricken face when it died anyway, because things always die. It’s the crux of it all, beginnings and endings. There are some things you simply can’t save.
. . .
That was what Parisa had seen in Dalton’s mind because it was how Dalton remembered it. Certain memories made for stronger walls, more impenetrable foundations in the mind, and so they stuck.
Even when they happened to be lies.
. . .
“Mama, look.” In his mind he always turned her head, forcing her to see it. “Mama, look, I saved it.”
But now she wasn’t looking. She was too busy crying, and he was frustrated, jealous. Annoyed.
“Mama,” Dalton said again, but she still wasn’t listening.
“My sweet boy, my clever boy—”
Dalton had brought the sapling back on the same day his brother had died.
Coincidence?
Probably.
Maybe.
Statistically speaking, it was likely. One event did not necessitate the other.
Either Dalton forgot because to wonder was too painful.
Or he forgot because he knew better, and chose to bury it alive.
