Letto di Morte

More backstory for Aspasia Aleron; occurs before Senza Paura.


Aspasia couldn’t recall ever seeing her papa’s face so ashen. Antony, on the other hand, looked more than a little green. She didn’t have a clue what she looked like, and she knew that was probably best. Having stumbled home around 3:30 that morning, a wicked headache that only a hangover could cause pounded through her skull as she stared hard at the sanitized white tile floor. She picked at an ever-growing hole in the knee of her pants. Next to her, her sister shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic chair. They all tried valiantly to ignore the TV blaring cheerfully from a corner.

A young doctor entered the waiting room with much less pep in his step than the last time she had seen him. Aspasia watched her papa wearily lift his head. He didn’t bother to stand anymore.

“How is she?” he asked, his voice thick and tired, his accent heavy and choked with fatigue.

The doctor bowed his head, looking at the manila folder in his hand as if wishing he could hide inside it, protect himself with dispassionate technical jargon and forget that Celestina Aleron was dying and leaving a very lost, very hurt family behind.

“She—It doesn’t look good.” He met Mr. Aleron’s eye. “The cancer is spreading. She’s been unresponsive to the last round of treatments. I…” He cleared his throat, clearly struggling to remain professional. Aspasia bit her lip. “She has a few weeks left. Two months at the most.”

Aspasia felt like she’d been struck. “Isn’t there anything else that can be done? More chemo, or…” She trailed off; the doctor was shaking his head, his face sympathetic. Tears seemed to glisten in his eyes as he looked at each of them.

“I’m sorry, Aspasia. And Alessandra, Antony, Alonzo. But… There’s nothing else we can do.”

Aspasia didn’t bother to hide her tears as she vaulted from her seat. She was sick of hiding. She began to sprint down the sterile hall. “Pacie!” Her papa’s voice echoed around her; she flinched at the pain in his voice but kept running.

She stopped, panting, outside of her mother’s room. Through the window in the door, she could see her, thin and helpless against the cancer that was destroying her and all of them with her.

Choking back a sob, she quietly opened the door. Her shoes tapped softly on the cold tile as she approached the bed. Machines around her mama beeped and whirred, measuring this, regulating that, but on the whole failing to do the one thing that mattered. Aspasia reached out and tentatively brushed a hand across her mother’s forehead. Her skin felt cool and dusty. She looked so peaceful… She knew the doctors had had to up the sedatives to keep the pain away.

“Oh, Mama,” Aspasia whispered, grasping a cold, limp hand—hands that had held her, nursed her, loved her through her life. The tears poured down her face. “Mama, no…” Without thinking, she carefully, gently slid her mother to one side of the bed. The tears spilled onto the hospital sheets as she climbed in to the bed next to her, curling up against her, resting her head on her stomach. She longed to be wrapped in her mother’s arms again, soothed by her heartbeat as she had been years ago, whenever a scraped knee or a fleeting nightmare had upset her world. Now, she knew that the one monster neither of them could slay was slowly destroying her mama, the strongest person in Aspasia’s world. She clung to her, crying, shaking, shuddering, for a long time, and she swore she could feel her mother slipping farther and farther away from her, from all of them.

Alonzo Aleron was a shattered man as he plodded toward the room he feared would be the place his wide of so many years would know. But he was proud. His pain was etched deep in his face, but he didn’t cry.

Until he looked in the door and his youngest child, fourteen-year-old Aspasia, curled in the bed, hugging her mother close, her body shaking with the force of her sobs.

He hit his knees on the cold concrete floor and wept. He felt as much a lost child in this strange world of pain and abandon as his own children.