Liv

Yesterday was the first time my mother kicked me. She’s hit me before—a few slaps, really. She and I have gone rounds with shouting matches, and I’ve said some things that have triggered her. I know where all of her buttons are, and I’m guilty of pushing them in the past.

It’s how I was raised.

The abuse, though—that’s on her. She’s the one who reacts like a monster.

My dad always pretended nothing was wrong. He would whisk in from somewhere else and call me princess for a day then ruin it all in the next twenty-four hours. When he was happy and here, my mom played the part of doting mother. When the luster faded, so did her fake kindness—every single time. Pretty soon, I started to call her out on it. That’s when she grew violent.

Now I’ve threatened her livelihood, though—her business. I know things, and she hates that. She doesn’t want me close to Memphis, because she believes I’ll poison him, but she’s doing such a great job on her own, all I have to do is watch. He deserves better than her and my uncle. He can mooch off their clout and then he needs to get out of here.

I need to get out of here.

Memphis had a hard time motivating himself this morning, and I don’t feel right about that. There’s a part of him—the respectable part—that doesn’t want to associate himself with Leo after yesterday. But he needs him for now. If anything, to get through next Saturday’s fight. My uncle may be a shit of a person, but he’s one hell of a corner man. He sees things, sometimes before they happen in the ring. He’ll know when the heavy rounds are coming. He’ll be able to tell Memphis when to hold back. More than any of that, though, my uncle is invested. There’s money in this for him, and I’m sure he has a buddy splitting money on the line somewhere too. He never bets against his man. Leo is Memphis’s best shot, and after a lot of persuasion, I convinced him of it, too.

My morning is a lot less predictable. I’m pretty sure I still have a job. As essential as Leo is to Memphis’s success, I’m kinda key to my mom’s taxes. At least for this year. The books aren’t done, and I still haven’t been able to bring the balance to black from the deep, bloody red it’s in. I’m not sure I’ll actually be able to, but my mom knows that her best shot at getting some of her questionable moves through an audit is by letting me turn them into legitimate business expenses. Anyone else would flag half of that office.

I take my time after Memphis leaves, showering in the small space that smells of him. I use his shampoo, lathering the musky scent in my hands and smoothing it over my entire body. My clothes are still on the other side of the alley, in a house I’m not ready to walk into again yet, so once I’m dry, I look around for more sweats and T-shirts I can thieve. The one he slept in is slung over the driver’s seat of his RV, so I pull it over my body and hold the front up over my nose, breathing in him. Pants seem a little trickier, and I eventually find a smaller pair of sweats tucked under the dining bench, a storage area hidden under its cushion.

I slip into the dark blue pants and begin to close the lid on the bench when something catches my eye. A shoebox marked with Memphis’s name bears familiar handwriting, an address scribbled on the corner of the lid.

It isn’t mine and I know I shouldn’t, but something nudges me to keep reaching for it until I’ve grasped it in my hands and held it close. I know before I admit it, and I use that as the excuse to sit down with the box in my lap and remove the lid. The things inside are exactly as he said they were. I’m careful with the old boxing wrap rolled neatly and bound by a band, the rubber brittle and ready to break. There are unsent birthday cards, and meaningless notes and receipts, a few from restaurants, mostly just junk. There’s a golden ring that I can tell isn’t real, and a green stone is embedded in the side. A birthstone for a pinky ring, I’m guessing. I find a stack of old photos at the bottom, pictures of people wearing styles from years ago—men in shorts that creep up high and Hawaiian shirts hanging open. The visual makes me smile briefly until I see his face and the earth drops.

The box falls to the floor, spilling everything and leaving me with nothing but this one photo in my hands. He’s on the bike, Memphis’s bike. I don’t know how I didn’t recognize it as the one Leo used to ride, and my young mind never considered that Leo could have borrowed it or that it was someone else’s. But it was. It was his.

My dad rode that bike, too. He rode it once—on a road trip from here to New Orleans with some guy who had been working out at the gym. Some wannabe fighter who was just getting started. Some guy who my dad took an interest in right after Charles left. He was one of dozens that they tried to groom, but nobody was Charles. Especially not in my dad’s eyes—or heart.

I remember answering the phone and getting my father’s drunken slurs when he called from the road. I handed the phone over to Leo, but I sat at the kitchen table and listened to his end of the conversation. He called my father careless. He told him he was weak. And then he hung up and forbid me from picking the phone up again when it rang. It did ring. It rang all night, and eventually Leo ripped the phone cord out of the wall.

Dad didn’t come home until days later. The bike was gone. He said he needed to sell it. I never thought about the fact that it wasn’t his to sell. I thought it was Leo’s, and my dad selling something that belonged to my uncle for cash wasn’t strange at all. It was exactly the dick-move they’d always done to each other. My father came home angry, and he started to box sloppy. Booze, women, men, drugs—inconvenient distractions. This was the beginning of the end—a golden career marred by ugliness. Though, I guess my dad was just finally showing everyone else how ugly he was while I knew all along.

I was fourteen then, which means Memphis was fourteen, too. There are some gaps in this puzzle, but my gut is filling them in, and I’m pretty certain that I’m right.

With numb and quivering hands, I scoop up the things that spilled from the box and put it back in its place under the bench lid, but I keep the photo. I stuff my feet into my tennis shoes and lock Memphis’s door from the inside so it’s secure when I close it behind me. It’s early still, which means my mother will be in her room. She’ll hear me, but not before I can ask my questions.

I grab the keys from the hook inside Leo’s house and unlock my parents’ front door, opening and closing the door as quietly as possible. I pause at the creaking sound and hold my breath, my heart hammering in my chest and my inner voice begging my mother not to hear me come in. I wait a full minute, at least, then lock the door behind me and take soft steps up to my dad’s room.

His bed is lifted when I walk in. He’s sitting up enough to look out the window at the traffic congestion below. His room is hot, and I wonder if he likes it this way or if my mom just forgets to check on him sometimes. The door clicks behind me, and my dad’s attention comes to me with the slow swivel of his head.

I didn’t want to come back in here, to see him or talk to him again. But this is too important. His eyes are heavy with sleep, his mouth drooping on one side where it’s been numb for years now. I move to the space next to his bed, standing between the chair and his mattress, near his head, and I waste no time getting to my point.

“You knew this man,” I say, holding up the photo of Memphis’s father, standing in front of the bike.

My father’s eyes stay on mine, the whites scarred with red veins, and deep wrinkles underneath, just above his high cheekbones. I hold his stare and leave the picture where it is, knowing he won’t bother to look at it. He doesn’t need to see it. He knows who it is, who Memphis is.

“Does Mom know?”

His eyelids close in a slow blink, so heavily I wonder if they’ll open again. His expression is unchanged when they do, not that he can express much anymore. I could always read his eyes, though. And the lack of anything in them means I’m right so far.

“The man in this photo is Robert Delaney, isn’t he? He was here—he was your friend after Charles left. You took him to New Orleans. I remember, Dad. I remember enough, and I think I can guess the rest,” I say, swallowing the surge of bile creeping up my throat.

I lift my father’s dry, frail hand in my own and curl his fingers around the photo, squeezing while my mouth bunches in frustration and anger. My father’s nails are long, in need of a trim, so they scratch and puncture the photograph as I force his fist to hold it on his own.

The entire time he leaves his gaze on mine, but the subtle changes I’ve been waiting for happen in his face. The right side of his mouth frowns, and he swallows hard, a short burst of breath coming out his nose and forcing his lips to part to help him get more air.

His eyes close again and this time open on the image that he’s balanced in his fist against his chest. He blinks several times, and the longer he looks at the photo the more his mouth curves downward until he looks sick.

“You were different when you came back,” I say while he continues to stare at the picture, holding it close and forcing his eyes to scan and take it all in.

“What’d you sell the bike for?” I wait, knowing he won’t answer. His speech is pretty much nonexistent; the sounds he is able to make consist of moans and grunts. He’s lost the ability to form words. “Did you have to pay someone off? Was it a trade to make a problem go away? Did you kill him in the ring? Or did you beat him up again after the fight, while you were drunk or high?”

My father’s lip ticks, and he struggles to keep his mouth from quivering, a slobbery breath shaking loose.

“It was in the ring.”

My mom has been standing behind me for a while. I heard the door click open, but I’m not afraid of anyone in this house, and I wasn’t going to stop asking questions just because she could hear them. They’re questions for her, too.

My dad’s hand falls flat against his chest with the photo underneath. I will take it back before I leave, but for now, he can suffer from the touch of it. I’ve grown so cold toward my parents, and I used to regret it and let it make me sad. Now it just is what it is. There are better people in my life, people worth my heart and effort. People whose lives have been forever changed by my parents just like mine have, unfortunately.

“How did you know where to send the box?” This question is for my mom. It’s her handwriting on the box. The Tennessee address I assume is the hotel where Memphis found the items when he was fourteen.

“Seemed as good a place as any,” she says.

My eyes fall closed, and I hurt for Memphis. He’s built a life around a lie my mom orchestrated on a whim.

“You just picked a random hotel and shipped away his things. Why didn’t you just send them right to his son? You knew he had one…clearly! How did you send the post card from Memphis? Why would you spend so much time on this?”

My mom remains silent, and my head swirls in frustration. I want answers, and Memphis deserves to know. I’m not sure when, but he deserves to know.

“You’ve known this entire time…that he is who he is. Did you know, Dad? Did she tell you?” I pull the photo away from him, and his eyes are swollen and redder than before. His forehead creases as he struggles to shake his head.

“Your dad didn’t need something like this out in the public. We were struggling to keep this place together, and his name was the only advertising we had. That name needed to stay whole, and that fight in New Orleans was just unsanctioned amateur shit. He was making that poor sap’s dream come true by stepping in a ring with him.”

The way my mom always tries to justify things is twisted. She applies logic to situations that call for compassion, and I wonder how I can feel so much when I come from a woman who never seems to feel anything.

“So why not leave it alone, just throw away his belongings and move on? Why did you have to torture a fourteen-year-old boy?” I twist to look her in the eyes as I ask this question, and her expression is calm and almost superior.

She folds her arms and leans into the doorway to glare at me. Her mouth forms a smug line, pulled tight at the corners. She isn’t wearing makeup yet, and everything she does to fool the world that she’s still young and relevant is still in a drawer. Her pajamas are old, and her hair looks thin, twisted in a bun on top of her head.

I don’t think she’s going to tell me, so the best I can do is guess and try to read her reactions. I think of plausible scenarios, and I begin to laugh at how outlandish they seem. My parents orchestrated it all to steal money from the man. They were trying to take bets on the fight and it went wrong. My dad is secretly a murderer. I begin to utter the craziest of my ideas out loud, until something I say suddenly strikes near the truth.

“Dad knew Robert a lot longer than anyone thought. He was a real friend.”

My mother’s eyes widen and her mouth pulls tighter. I’m close; I can tell by her discomfort. I stand, clutching the photograph, and begin to move toward her. She squirms a little but doesn’t move from her spot blocking the door.

“You didn’t like Robert,” I say, my head tilting a little with this sense of being right. I begin to smirk just as my mom begins to frown, her eyes dimming with angry shadows.

“You were glad he was dead. In fact…Dad didn’t kill him at all, did he?” I push my theory over the line on a gamble, and my mom takes the bait.

“Stop it, Olivia. Your dad killed that man accidentally. He knocked him out. Robert died of a brain hemorrhage. And your dad wanted Robert’s son to have his things…”

She slips, and I catch it.

“He knew he had a son,” I confirm.

Realizing we’re in this deep—and that I’m only going to make up worse stories—my mom sighs heavily then licks her bottom lip before rolling her eyes.

“Yes, Olivia. We knew he had a son. We knew his son was in Philadelphia. We’re the reason he sent him there when that woman showed up at my apartment, right from the hospital demanding money or a ring. She was just some junkie boxing-groupie looking to hitch herself to a fighter, and your dad and Robert were good friends. Robert was actually going to marry her. Can you believe that?” My mom scoffs, and my stomach begins to churn with a boiling sensation. “Your dad and I weren’t even married yet. Robert was being stupid, getting taken by her con. I threatened to call the cops because I just knew she was tweaking, and surprise, surprise…she took off.”

My mom’s eyes finally settle on mine, and she stops talking abruptly, as if she’s surprised she’s said so much. I knew she wouldn’t be able to help herself once she began spinning her version of the past. It’s probably mostly right, only the perspective is warped, per usual.

“You got knocked up on purpose, and dad was married to someone else. You were the groupie, Mom. Robert was just a dad. Or he could have been, until you had to ruin it. You wanted everyone miserable, though.”

I glare into her and search for the nugget of truth. It’s in there, and I’ve pretty much gotten it all. Just a few details remain.

“Who wrote the note in Philadelphia?” I match her slow breathing to prove I can wait just as long as she can in silence.

“Leo,” she finally says with a shrug.

“And the postcard, from the hotel…” I lead her.

“Leo,” she confirms.

I chew at the inside of my lip and nod, glancing down at the place where her fingernails are digging into her own arms.

I look up into her eyes when it hits me, and my lips part as my eyebrows lift and I suck in a quick breath.

“You left just enough of a trail for Memphis to find his way to you when he was ready,” I say, her eyes widening again. It’s all I need to know I’m right. “You were making an investment in your future. Dad was mourning an old friend. Just like you always do, you manipulated the situation. I’m not sure if it was just because Robert was a better fighter than you let on and you were betting on his son having the same talent, or you liked the idea of his presence reminding Dad and torturing him just a little. I think maybe it’s both.”

My mom almost looks proud hearing my retelling of the past. I’ve always known my mom was a psychopath. Her ability to remain calm and feel absolutely zero emotions while destroying others for her gain is pretty much the clinical definition. I didn’t have a name for it until I took psychology in college, but as soon as I read it, I knew. I just never thought the effects from her manipulation would reach beyond our family, would hurt others.

“If you tell him, you’ll fuck his head up and he’ll never have a chance against Morales,” my mom says. I don’t argue with her, because she’s right. But my stomach does sink with the sensation of free falling from a high-rise. My body rushes with tingles from a flash of panic. I didn’t know it would go this way until it was too late. I didn’t know this is what he’d hear. If I’d known, I would have told my mom Memphis has been standing behind her the entire time. Maybe he was looking for me, or maybe he came to talk to my father on his own. Whatever the reason, a fucked up coincidence aligned our paths and brought him upstairs seconds after me and put him steps away from hearing the awful truth.

I should have stopped this, but I was being proven right—my mom was being proven evil. I’m not much better than they are it seems, because Memphis has heard every word, and I let him take the bullet while I watched. I’ve ruined him and all of his hard work, because it was more important to me to hear her admit to her atrocities.

And now I have to live with the broken heart and devastation staring at me from just over her shoulder. I did that. Me…and me alone.