Gazing into their Eyes_Ch. 1

“Gazing into their Eyes”
By Mendingausedheart
Beta’d by Layhe

“As we gaze upon their eyes, the truth will be revealed.”

Chapter One </u>

The stars glistened brightly on the cloudless midnight sky. The full moon shined its light over a secluded Texan town. The streets were deserted and tranquil as Emilia Espindola drove her truck, earnestly. She had been working all day with an uneasy feeling. A feeling that wouldn't go away, no matter how much she wanted to ignore it. She tried so hard to concentrate on her work, but the feeling did not want to subside. She sped through every red light and stop sign, keeping a look out for cops, other passing vehicles, and the rare appearances of pedestrians. Emilia knew she needed to get home, as soon as possible.

She hastily parked her truck in front of a yellow-canary one-story house. The front yard was brown and shriveled due to the lack of rain and the town's water regulations. The lights were visible through the curtains. The front porch light was already on. She stepped out of the truck-swiftly tying her long, wavy black hair into a ponytail. She reached over to the passenger seat, retrieving her briefcase. Emilia slammed the truck's door shut and fast walked toward the front door. She was caught by surprised as the door opened by itself.

“Hi, mom,” Emilia's fourteen-year old daughter, Milla smiled as she stepped back to let her mother inside.

Emilia suspiciously surveyed around the living room. Then she looked back at her daughter. Unlike her, Milla had layers of blood red curls brushing over her shoulders. She had dark brown eyes that she inherited from Emilia, but she was taller than her mother with an athletic figure. Milla had been a natural on the soccer field since she was five years old.

Emilia sighed in relief, believing that something horrible might had happened to Milla. Even though it seemed keen, she still felt her insides constrain like the worse was not over yet.

Emilia's paled appearance and her arm around her stomach caught her daughter's attention. “Mamí, are you feeling well?” Milla spoke in her southern accent mixed with a hint of her Mexican heritage..

“Huh?” Emilia squeezed her stomach even tighter.

“Mamí?” Emilia looked up at her daughter. “Is everything okay at work?”

“Oh, everything is fine.” Emilia released her grasp and followed Milla into the kitchen. “The same thing, every single day.”

Emilia worked as an administrator at an accounting firm. Both of her bosses acted like con-artists, asking for big commissions during tax seasons. She did most of the other employee’s work, including the secretary’s minimal tasks. The secretary spent most her time doing her nails and one of the married bosses. She had wasted ten years doing a good job without any promotions or raises.

“Why don’t you quit?” Milla suggested while she set the small round table in the middle of the kitchen.

Emilia pulled out the casserole from the oven, pretending to be distracted. “Your chicken and cheese broccoli casserole turned out great.”

“Well?” Milla placed her free hand on her hip just like her mother when she knew someone was avoiding the problem.

“Well, I can’t just quit.” Emilia handed Milla the casserole. “I have been working there for a very long time and it’s not easy to find a well paying job around here.”

“How about moving to a bigger city?”

“Out of the question.” Emilia snapped at her.

“Okay… then open up that bookstore cafè.” Milla proposed. “It has always been your dream.”

“No, it’s not that easy.” Emilia replied with doubt in her tone, “It’s full of risks and debt. Plus that big supermarket will put me out of business. Is this the third one that this city has built?”

“Actually, it’s the fourth one.” Milla giggled lightly. “You are always making excuses.”

“It’s true.” Emilia smiled, reaching up to retrieve two plates from the wooden cabinets. As she walked towards the table, Emilia noticed something laying a pile of magazines on the kitchen counter. The plates slipped from her hands, shattering on the tile floor. Emilia’s heart began to beat heavily against her chest, flooding anger through her veins.

Milla gasped in fright from the sound of the broken plates. She turned around to find her mother clutching a navy blue yearbook in her hands. She stared into her mother’s eyes. Eyes that were filled with anger. For a second, she swore she had seen her mother’s dark brown eyes change red.

“Where did you get this? Emilia angrily demanded shaking the yearbook in the air.

Milla was reluctant to answer her. “I…I found it in the basement in a box with a school uniform and a bunch of other things.”

“You have no right to take my personal things out of the basement.”  Emilia stated.

“No right?”

“My things are down there for a reason, Milla” Emilia couldn’t control her anger. She did not want her daughter finding out about her past. The yearbook contained too many secrets that she wanted to keep hidden. “You were never meant to see this.”

“Why?”

Emilia ignored her daughter’s question. “What were you doing down in the basement?”

“I was just looking for some old stuff to donate to the school’s rummage sale,” Milla immediately explained. “But why are you getting so angry-”

“Did you look through it?”

“Why are you-”

In the inside, Emilia’s heart was worried as she angrily scorned her daughter. She really needed to know if Milla looked through the yearbook. All this years of concealing the truth would be wasted with every turn of the page. “Did you or did you not look through this year book?”

Milla notice her mother’s eyes flash red again and she quickly stared away. She had never seen her mother glare at her with so much wrath. She felt like a little child, small and scared.  “I didn’t get a chance to. I heard you coming and left it there on the counter.

Emilia calmed down and rushed over to hug her daughter. “I am sorry.” She breathed in a sigh of relief. She was content for rushing over after work. Her daughter would have found out about everything.

Milla was dumbfounded at her mother’s behavior. One minute she was furious and now she was hugging her, as if she was relieved that Milla didn’t find out a secret.
After Emilia threw the yearbook in the trashcan, Milla helped her cleanup the fragments of the broken plates. She silently swept the pieces into the dustpan, wondering about her mother’s anger. Why would she get mad over an insignificant yearbook? Did the yearbook hold many secrets from her mother’s unspoken past life? She didn’t want to inquire to her mother, knowing it would only upset her even more.


In the late hours of the night, Milla woke up to the smell of burning charcoal. She quietly got out of bed and padded softly down the hallway, following the stench to the backdoor. Milla peeked through the screen door. She discovered her mother standing outside, in her light blue bathrobe.

Emilia stood in front of the charcoal grill, feeding the fire with pages she'd torn out of the yearbook.  One by one, each page turned slowly into ashes. The yearbook was almost empty. Emilia paused on the last page. She sighed deeply, stroking the page with familiarity.

“Mamí,” The sound of her daughter’s voice made Emilia drop the yearbook on the concrete pavement. It laid wide open for Milla to see. Emilia kept facing the grill and didn’t bother picking it up.

Milla went over and retrieved the yearbook from the ground. She caught a glimpse of her mother, wiping her tears on the back of her bathrobe. Milla stole a glance into the yearbook as she stood back up. The pages seem to be torn in an angry fury, but there was only one page left. It had a heart outline drawn around some scribbled words. The ink had slightly faded during the years in the humid basement. It was hard to make out the unknown signature below.

Emilia seized the yearbook away from her and tore the page out. Her daughter grabbed her wrist before Emilia had a chance to toss the paper in the fire. The piece of paper flew out of her hands and onto the pavement.

“Why does this yearbook make you so upset?” Now, it was Milla turn to demand answers from her mother.

“It’s nothing, Milla,” Emilia tried to smile it off.

“Those burning pages,” Milla pointed towards the fire, “do not look like 'nothing' to me. You’re hiding something from me?”

Emilia silently stared into the fire, hugging the yearbook tightly. “Why would I hide anything from my own daughter?”

“You are,” Milla snatched back the yearbook and waved it in her mother’s face. “And this proves it.”

Emilia didn’t react.

“Are you trying to burn every memory of your past?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Emilia replied in a toneless voice.

Milla jerked her mother around to face her. She couldn’t stare away from her mother’s eyes. They were red-orange like the fire and emotionless. “Maybe, if you tell me then I will be able understand what you are going through.”

Emilia blinked a couples times, like she was coming out of a trance. Her eyes were back to normal. “Did you try to look through my yearbook for clues about my past?”

“Yes, I did.” Milla thought if she was honest with her mother, maybe she’ll be honest to her too. “It took me all afternoon to search through all your boxes. Then I found your yearbook and realized that this could be the key to learn more about you.”

“Why now?”

“Well, when I was younger, I wasn’t too curious about your life. Lately, my friends would talk about their Quinceraneras and how happy they were that their family and friends were together to celebrate with them, especially their parents. I just sat there silently, getting angry because they have their parents... together. I didn’t want to blurt out and say “Hey, my mom got knocked-up when she was seventeen- ”

“Are you embarrassed of me?”

“No, mom, I am proud of you because you raised me without any help from…” Milla paused for moment. “It’s just that I knew you forbidden me to go down to the basement for some unknown reason. So, I wanted to investigate for myself what you have been hiding down there.”

“I don’t regret looking through your things and finding the yearbook.” Milla said. “It just that I am turning fifteen soon, which is a big deal in our culture. And it got me thinking about my father and how fathers should dance with their daughters at the reception.”

Emilia struggled with her heart as the words “my father” slipped from Milla’s mouth. She grasped her chest, pondering if she should tell Milla the truth. She continued to listen to her daughter speak about her father with a joyous smile on her face. Emilia didn’t want to shatter the ideal image of the father Milla might have created in her mind. Still, the rage was building up inside and she couldn’t contain it any longer. Emilia could not stand seeing her happy daughter as she spoke about her father like he was greatest being in the world.

“Sometimes, I imagine dancing with dad-”

“You father was the main reason I destroyed the yearbook.” Milla was thrown off guard by her mother’s sudden outburst. “Your father was the main reason I left England.</i>”

“My father’s picture was in the yearbook and you burned it?”

Emilia nodded her head softly and fell to her knees, crying into her hands. “I never wanted for my daughter to find out that her father was a bastard.” She clamped her mouth shut at the shock of the words that slipped out her mouth.

“What are you talking about?” Milla bent down next to her mother.

“Your good-for-nothing father dumped me the moment he found out I was pregnant.” Emilia cold-heartedly said. “That prick used me and broke my heart.”

Milla couldn’t believe her mother’s words, “Why would he do that to you?”

Emilia laughed to herself. “He probably thought just because he was rich and popular he could do whatever and whoever he wanted. No one could say no to him, not even the teachers, because his father was the all powerful MP of Shropshire.”

Milla did not comprehend how her mother could get involve with someone like her father. “Then how did you end up-”

“Sleeping with him?”

“Not really the words I was looking for.”

Emilia sighed in frustration and it was too late. She couldn’t stop herself. “I told myself a million times not to fall in love with him. Then I handed my heart to him, believing he would keep his promises, but he tore it into tiny little pieces.”

“Do you regret…”

“Yes, I regret it.” Emilia responded too soon.

“So, you regret having me.”

“No,” Emilia wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I would never, ever regret having you. You are my heart and my only reason for living. I love you so much, hija.”

“I love you too, mamí.” Milla cried in her mother’s arms. She knew in her heart her mother loved her to death. They were too close to let anything horrible come between them.

Emilia held Milla protectively in her arms. If she resumed the rest of her confession, the truth would damage both their lives and Milla might hate her and would try to find her father. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her daughter.

“Do I look like him?”

Emilia stroked Milla’s red hair and placed her hands on the side of her face. “You don’t know how much you resemble him, especially on the soccer field.”

Milla knew she should be happy, but felt disappointed that she was a constant reminder of the man who used her mother.

“Does it make you mad that I look like him?

“Milla, I don’t see the evil of your father’s heart in you.” Emilia reassured her and kissed her on the forehead. “I am really sorry I ruined your idol image of your father.”

“That’s okay. As long as you told me the whole truth,” Milla hugged her mother tightly and grasped the yearbook in her hands. “That’s all that matters.”

Emilia and Milla both stood up, giving each other reassuring looks that everything is going be fine and their lives will go back to normal. Milla handed her mother the yearbook and walked towards the screen door. She stared back as her mother, resuming the same position she found her in.

“What’s his name?”

“Who?” Emilia spoked again in a toneless voice.

Milla took a deep breath, “I want to know my father’s name.”

“His name…” Emilia tried not to show signs of hesitation. “His name was Logan Emerson.”

Milla quickly noticed her mother hesitation, but just smiled. “Good Night.”

Emilia heard the screen door shut and returned her attention to the fire. It was already dying out and the crisp white pages were now black ashes. She took the empty yearbook and ripped it in half, tossing them into the fire. The bright fire picked up momentum. Emilia decided to add a couple of other things to the fire. She slipped her hand in bathrobe and pulled out a single photograph. Emilia stared at her young self, happy and in love, in the arms of a young man.

“Why do I still love you?” She spoke to the picture. “Even after all these years, I can’t stop thinking about you. You haunt all my dreams and memories. If you stayed, you would have been proud of Milla. Every single day, I see all the love you gave me in her. Then you left me with a broken heart that can never be mended. Because of you I will never trust or love another man.”

Emilia ripped the photo into tiny pieces and sprinkled it into the fire. “Now, all of memories of you are completely gone. And I will forever protect Milla from the real truth.”

Milla leaned her head back against the cold surface of the refrigerator. She overheard everything her mother said to herself. She knew her mother was not being completely honest and she heard it from her mother’s mouth. Milla unfolded a piece of paper. It was the last page from the yearbook; the one with the heart drawn around a message. Even though the signature was faded and unreadable, Milla could tell it didn’t match the name that her mother told her. That was not the only thing that bothered Milla the most. It was her mother’s eyes and the way they changed colors when she spoke angrily about her father.

TBC