She frowned and colored a fairy’s wing messily.
“What’s the monster that takes your mom away from you?” I asked. Kids were smart. They knew what was going on. “You can tell me. I know that you know. It’s okay.”
“I hear Pawpaw tell Gama it’s crystals. But crystals are pretty. How can they be monsters?”
Crystal meth. Of course it had to be one of the worst. “These are bad crystals. They’re black and ugly. Really mean monsters.”
“I hate them!” She hissed and stabbed the crayon into the paper.
“Me too,” I said solemnly. “My mother’s monster pretended to be fairy dust, but it was really poisonous ash. These monsters, sometimes we don’t know they’re monsters until it’s too late.”
She said nothing, just stared at her coloring.
“When I was your age I wished I could be a superhero so I could fly away from all the things that made me sad.”
“Like a fairy?” She asked with wonder.
“Yeah, like a fairy. But I didn’t have anyone like your grandmother and grandfather or Uncle Gabriel to protect me from the monster. It was just me for a long time. I don’t know what they’ve told you, but you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes the monsters steal those we love and we’re not strong enough to fight them. That doesn’t make it our fault.”
She came closer and offered me a pink crayon. “Help me color?”
“Okay,” I said.
I couldn’t help feeling protective of her. These wonderful people, as much as I liked them, couldn’t know what it was like to be a child with a drug-addicted mother. Gabriel was right. His father shouldn’t have told Amelia her mother was coming. The hope that my own mother would be home soon died a more painful death when she didn’t come home.
As we colored, my attention was drawn to my silly gift on the mantle. In the way I’d never fit into my mother’s life, I didn’t fit in here. Thankfully, Amelia had one heck of a support system. The whole situation made me want to cry and I didn’t know why.
Everything slammed into me at once. The waiting for my mother to come home with something to eat and the fear of asking because she might yell at me. The ever-revolving door of Johns and boyfriends that wanted to hurt me if I got in the way. The love from my aunt, quickly taken away because she didn’t have health insurance and the years of misery growing up in the system and not knowing where I belonged in the world. How could Gabriel ever…love me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GABRIEL
The streets were damp and shiny from a sprinkle that had moved on through this evening. Colorful holiday lights reflected off the cement, making everything sparkle with a strange sense of winter blues that made me want to cuddle up with the one I loved. Instead, I was searching the city for Bev. For the past few years, we’d spent our holidays worrying over my wayward sister that driving around at nine on Christmas night was normal. It was a family tradition at this point.
My father and I had just returned to the car after banging the door to Bev’s boyfriend’s apartment down after no one answered. She wasn’t there, nor was he, which suggested they were off somewhere getting high together. How could she do this on fucking Christmas?
When we were in the car, Dad touched my shoulder. I winced and rotated my arm in its socket. “I’m just bruised.”
“You should have known better running into that door. This is real life, not the movies.”
“Yeah well, someone had to do it and I didn’t want you breaking a bone, old man,” I grumbled. “Sorry, I’m in a bad mood.”
“We’ll stop by the center and X-ray it in the morning.” He blew out a big breath and buried his face in his palms. “I don’t know where else to look.”
The raw emotion in his voice pissed me off. We’d all thought she was getting better, and her habit of disappearing was behind us. “Time to start calling hospitals, I suppose.”
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and dialed home. My mother’s voice came over the car's speakers. The resignation inher tone was evident. She’d been through this too many times to care. Dad gave her the run down and she simply sighed.
“We’re going to start calling hospitals,” I spoke up.
“Okay—what? Hold on…” she said, and I could hear Jake talking in the background. “Are you sure? Here, dear, tell them.”
“Hello,” he muttered through the speaker. “Ah, you should check out a place under the ramp on Halsted and 16th. There is a dirt road that leads you back there.”
Mom came back on the line. “Did you get all that?”
“We will call you back,” Dad said and hung up. He stopped at a green light and just sat, gripping the wheel. He laughed mirthlessly. “What an impression we’ve made on him, huh?”
