I had nowhere to go when I left Frank. I couldn’t face Uncle Joe after what I had just witnessed. What I almost did to Monti. I couldn’t go back to that shitty motel. And I couldn’t go back to the cabin without being reminded of everything I’d lost—Grams, Gramps, Mom, Luna. It was too much. So, I settled on heading back over to Mom’s house and I hadn’t left since.
Joe had been to the house since we found her, and he cleaned a little bit of the mess before I got there. He went through her photo albums for the memory board they put together and displayed at the funeral. I didn’t miss the fact there were hardly any pictures of us together. She could never stand being near me long enough for Grams to snap a picture of it, and when she did, Mom always looked miserable next to my smiling face.
When I stumbled in from witnessing Monti’s murder, I avoided the living room and bedrooms altogether, beelining straight to the kitchen for a glass of water and heading downstairs to my room in the basement like I had so many times before. It was weird to not see her sitting in her chair like she usually was, but I didn’t allow myself to dwell on it. The last time I was here was in a daze, unable to process the fact this was the scene of my mother’s murder. Now, I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind.
I threw my body onto the bed in the basement and drowned myself in the silence of the house. I wasn’t even sure how long I lay there, falling in and out of sleep and reliving memories I had shoved down and closed-off years ago. It was like the loss of Mom and the shock I was put into left me vulnerable, opening the floodgates to everything I spent years blocking out.
●
“Grams, we don’t have to move my stuff back upstairs. I like it down here now.”
I swung my legs, banging them against the washer I sat on as she folded towels on the table next to the dryer. It had been two months since Mom had visited the hospital. I was glad she was finally talking to me again, even if it was just one-word answers. She moved my things downstairs five months ago, but it felt longer.
“Mmm and what changed your mind?” she asked, keeping her eyes trained on the perfectly folded towels.
Grams and Mom fought a lot about her moving my things to the basement. A couple times, Gramps brought my things back upstairs only to find that Mom moved them back down while I was at school, and he was at work.
“I’m just not scared anymore,” I lied.
I was still kind of afraid most nights, I just didn’t like seeing them fight all the time. I could get used to the creepy basement if it meant everyone would get along again.
Grams turned toward me, holding a blue towel up. “Are you sure?” she asked, folding it in half.
Her face was pulled into a frown again. Lately, she frowned more than she smiled. I couldn’t even remember the last time she and Gramps danced in the living room. They used to do that every Sunday after church.
“Uh-huh,” I assured, flashing a fake smile I mastered years ago. I hopped down off the washer and hugged her middle. Grams wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight like she always did.
“Can I go play with Niko?”
She nodded, grabbing the basket of freshly folded towels before we both made our way up the stairs. Mom sat on the couch watching TV, and I waved as I passed by, but she didn’t bother waving back. I figured she was too consumed by whatever was on the TV.
Eventually, I learned to befriend the ghosts and monsters lurking in the shadows of the basement. They always met me on the worst nights, comforting me when no one else was around to do so. I was lucky that they did, because when Grams and Gramps died, they were the only family I had left.
●
“Hand me that ¾ inch socket,” Gramps commanded from beside his old truck.
We’d spent half of the afternoon on the old girl and still hadn’t even put a dent in the work she needed. Gramps always said a car was a lot like a woman; it was a long-term commitment that required a lot of love and care, but she’d make sure it was worth your time in the end. He always had funny analogies like that.
Handing him the socket and grabbing the one he set on the ground to put it away, I asked, “What kind of car do you think I’ll drive?”
Gramps considered his options for a minute, always careful with his words. I liked that about him. Mom always said everything she was thinking, even if it was hurtful, and Grams told her she needed to filter herself better.
“I think you’d have fun with an old Jeep, or maybe a Bronco. We could build it up for you and take it out on some trails,” he finally said, cranking the socket wrench.
I liked that idea. Uncle Joe had a friend who owned a lifted truck and they took me out to one of the abandoned plots of land up north. It was a lot of fun.
When Gramps finished, he had me put the wheel back together before we headed inside for dinner. Today was my twelfth birthday, so Grams made my favorite mac n cheese dish and I saw her sneak a Dairy Queen ice cream cake into the freezer yesterday.
“Where’s Karla?” Gramps asked while we scrubbed our hands in the kitchen sink.
Grams hated when we did that. She would throw fits, saying it got grease all over her dishes, but Gramps would just smile and kiss her, and then we’d do it again the next day.
She shook her head. “She just left about an hour ago. I told her when dinner would be done.” Peeking into the boiling pot of corn, she lifted her shoulder into a shrug. “I’m not sure when she plans on coming back.”
Mom loved corn, so I asked Grams if we could pick some up at one of our favorite vegetable stands. I figured that even if she didn’t want to have dinner with us, at least there was something she could enjoy. Grams made it just the way she liked, and I silently hoped she would show up in time to eat it. I secretly hated corn, but I would suffer through it if it meant Mom was there.
“Happy birthday, big guy,” Uncle Joe yelled as he entered the kitchen from the back door. He pulled me into a tight hug, messing up my thick, overgrown hair when we pulled away.
“Is that a gray hair?” he teased.
I smiled and shook my head before pushing his hands away and taking a seat next to him at the table.
After we ate, Uncle Joe, Grams, and Gramps stuck thirteen candles—twelve for my birthday and one for good luck—into my Oreo ice cream cake and sang happy birthday. Mom still hadn’t come back from wherever she was. I wanted to wait, but Grams said we could save a piece for her and tell her all about my gifts later. When I blew out my candles, I wished she would make it to my next birthday.
●
Busting open the front door to the shitty shotgun house, I wasn’t surprised to see her sitting in her usual spot, her eyes drooping from the amount of alcohol she had already consumed. Of course, she wasn’t fazed by my dramatic entrance.
“Look who decided to show his face,” she slurred, her gaze barely capable of meeting mine before sliding away.
“What the hell are you doing, Mom?” I walked right in front of where she sat, standing over her sunken form.
“I’m not doing anything,” she stubbornly challenged, raising her brows as she lifted the cup of clear liquid to her lips, barely making it into her mouth.
I could tell she was at the point in the night that she graduated to drinking straight vodka without a mixer.
“Don’t try to play dumb with me. You’re trying to fuck everything up, so I can’t get out of this deal with Frank.” I angrily pointed a finger in her face and she pushed it aside, struggling to pull herself out of the chair.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. How can you do this to me? I’m your mother! We’re family—we’re supposed to be looking out for each other,” she screamed, the vodka in her cup sloshing around as her body swung from side to side. Her response was so scattered, I wasn’t even sure she understood what I was saying.
“I have been looking out for you, and it’s done nothing but bring me down. How long am I going to have to pay for his sins, Mom? How long are you going to punish me for what that asshole did to you?” I screamed back. I didn’t care if the words never reached her. They still needed to be said.
My hands were flying around frantically while my legs paced back and forth in front of her just to burn some of the pent-up energy that was bursting through my tense muscles.
“As long as I want to!” She stomped her foot into the ground, creating a quake in the house that had her beer cans falling off the coffee table between us.
“You’ve ruined my life! You’ve stepped in the way of every positive thing that’s ever been put in front of me and destroyed it! Bringing you into this world has only served to extend the damage your father created in my life, and I regret it every day!”
It should have shocked me.
A mother shouldn’t ever tell their child they regret bringing them into the world, and a child should never have to live with the reality that they were the ruination of their mother’s life. But it was my reality—the bedtime story she whispered into my ear when no one was listening on the rare occasion that she tucked me in at night. I was used to being seen as the bad guy in every story, and it shaped me into the hard, unlovable man I was today.
“You don’t think I regret it, too? Do you really think you haven’t made my life a living hell for the past twenty-four years? I wake up every day wishing I hadn’t, because all it means is that I have to live another day knowing how much I’ve ruined everyone’s lives.”
Mom’s eyes remained hard, stubbornly trying to follow my form while I moved around the room, tugging at my hair. It felt like my skin was on fire and I needed to rip it off for some relief.
“Why can’t you just let me go? I’ve never asked anything of you before. I went along with the bullshit deal you made with Frank behind my back, putting myself at risk to pay back your debts. I’ve sat back and watched as you drowned yourself in alcohol and popped pills, and I’ve dealt with every asshole you’ve had coming through here because it helped you get past the pain—pain you convinced me was there simply because I existed.
“Over and over, you chose those things over me. You chose to see me as the villain in your story instead of your ally—your son. You wanted to be my enemy, never realizing that maybe, just maybe, I needed you as a mother more. So, why won’t you just let me go? If all I represent to you is suffering, why won’t you give me a chance to start over and find happiness, so you can find your own?”
I was out of breath, finally speaking the words that always burned my throat. Flashbacks of birthdays, holidays, and special events where Grams and Gramps took on the role of parent while Mom took on the role of my jealous sister, constantly comparing our lives and selfishly taking any attention away from me flew through my head. Their passing was more devastating than anything else, because I knew I was being left behind with no one to raise me at the ripe age of fourteen.
“Because you don’t get a happy ending when I’m still suffering. You took everything from me, Liam. My future, my parents, my brother; everyone was so concerned with you, they never bothered to consider how I was feeling as a teen mother whose life was destroyed. After you were born, I became a ghost, useless and unseen,” she screamed through tears I hadn’t seen in years. Tears I wasn’t even sure she was capable of shedding.
“And now, you’re trying to ruin things for me all over again, fucking up the good thing I had going with Frank, all so your little girlfriend can sleep at night. Well, that’s too fucking bad! You belong to me!”
Once again, the jealous side of her reared its ugly head, only this time it was vying for my attention.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I needed the end this with Frank because Monti was getting too fucking cocky about the drop-offs and involved too many people in on it. You’re never going to stop borrowing from them if you aren’t the one responsible for paying it back,” I spat, storming toward her.
We were nose to nose when she finally let out a bitter laugh, raising her eyebrows at me in a challenge. My phone rang in my pocket, pulling my attention away from her and allowing just enough time for her to smack me across the face, blood filling the space between us and landing on the wall next to me. Luna’s name flashed across the touch screen, and I ignored it.
I couldn’t take any more. We couldn’t keep going around in the same circles, falling into the same patterns. She hated me, no matter how desperately I tried to get her not to. My attempts to stop her from destroying herself were only destroying me in the process, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Fuck this, Mom. I’m done falling into your traps. Congratulations, you’ve completely isolated yourself. You can drown in your fucking sorrows.”
Without turning back, I walked out the open front door and started my car, driving too fast to my new home. I didn’t care if I never saw her again.