unbroken (unexpected series)

Chapter 21

After cleaning off I went to find Nora, we still had her with us, in the main house with us, easier to keep track of her that way. The recording in my hand, I knocked on the door to her space, “Coming,” I heard her shuffling about, and opening the door widely, revealing her two little children behind her. Mattia and Nicolas, “Hi babies,” I said kneeling to their level, Tia’s wild curls framing her face, her blue eyes, identical to Coles, identical to their fathers – Walter.

Cole, shyer of the two children, hid behind Nora’s leg while Tia came forward, “Are you guys settling in okay?” I stood, focusing on Nora, she nodded quickly, “Yes you all have been so accommodating,” she stepped back, letting me enter her little space, two bedrooms, and a small sitting area.

“We need to talk,” I said bluntly, not beating around the bush here, nodding slowly Nora blinked, maybe she can help me find Walter… she thought and I smiled inside, little did she know. Sitting her kids went to the toys at our feet, “I need to know if you recognize this voice…” I said pulling out the recorder, pressing play “Look what we have here… Elder Bellamy – or should I call you Anya?”

“Albert…” 

“Where are the Violins Elder Bellamy?”

“What Violi-” the tape clicks right after the gunshot, all the blood drained from Noras’ face, her hand shook and her mind. Blank. Nothing. It was unnervingly to watch, as she seemed to become fear reincarnated. Her heart pounding, her eyes glazed over, as she heard the voice, “Nora,” I whispered eyeing her children who seemed to in tune with their mother that they came near her.

“Mama…” I watched this interesting behavior of these two children, so bonded with their mother, pulling her out of this trance she went into. With shaky hands she lifted her son, “It’s nap time guys,” she cooed, a complete transformation from the shocked near catatonic mess she was seconds ago. “Can – let me just put them down for a nap and we can talk,” she croaked and so I waited patiently, until she returned to the sitting area, but she brought back a camera bag with her.

“I – first I know you probably won’t believe me, but I’m nothing like that man on that recording, I know that he’s biologically my father but – made life so hard – I – I never knew him,” I nodded, my mind focused on her words and her thoughts.

“The violins the ones he’s asking about, I’ve had them-”

“Had? As in you don’t anymore? How did you get them?”

“I never knew my father, but my mom she had them, and Albert he knew that she did, tried getting close to her. At first she didn’t know that he knew she had them, all she knew was that they were important, expensive. They were in her family for nearly three generations, she taught me to play on them. But Albert he played her, by the time she realized that he wanted them, that the only reason he was with her, was because of them, she was already pregnant with me so she left... the first eleven years of my life, I lived it as a boy. Mom was so paranoid that even though she named me Eleanor Rodeney, I lived as Brett Craven, Dylan Craven and for a month, as David McGee,” a small young child, with a buzz cut and hazel eyes flashed in her mind. That’s why her name came back with little to no information… I grasped.