He gives me a quick nod and I know better than to try and text him when I’m out of sight so I send him the addresses I want to visit before I get in my car. One is for a possible spot for Sweet Rose and the other is a coffee roastery in Brooklyn. They do good work and their product was always my favorite when I was bouncing from shop to shop. The nice thing is that I spent so many years cycling through coffee shops that I’ve worked with just about every machine and product available.
In all those years I spent taking on gig work I never thought it would help me like this, but all that time I was laying the foundation for something so much bigger than I could have ever dreamed. It’s only fitting that I get to do it with Law at my side. Everything is bigger now, like all the limitations I carried around with me are gone. I’ve put them down and realized the world can be just about anything I want it to be.
Feeling this kind of freedom is disorienting, but it’s good. I’m not worried about losing my way with the people in my world. There’s no way they would let me. I’m in good spirits when I leave the last appointment and head home with coffee samples packed away in a bag that I’ll make Law try with me. He won’t be able to tell the difference, but I’m going to make him do it anyway.
I’m smiling when I park and lug the samples out. I don’t know where to start, probably somewhere easy like a dark roast or a french roast, something mellow and chocolatey to unwind with after today. But my thoughts about coffee and whether or not Law will let me have more than a cup or two before he forces me to switch to water are interrupted by a scream.
“You fucking bitch!”
My head whips to the side and I almost drop the bag I’m carrying when I see my mother. She’s running at me and the look on her face makes my blood run cold. I’ve seen my mother look at me in anger before, certainly in disgust and annoyance, but this is different.
She wants to kill me. I can see it in her eyes. There’s a light there that I’ve never seen and that’s when I see the glint of metal. She has a knife in her hand and even though she’s holding it awkwardly, I can tell she has a firm grip on it. I can also tell that she intends to fucking use it on me. As if my mother hasn’t tried to fuck my life up from the very beginning, she’s here to demand even more from me?
“I’m going to kill you!” Spittle flies from her mouth and she doesn’t stop running at me. I know she means what she’s screaming at me. I hear another shout and the squealing of tires before a car door slams open. It’s Marco, no doubt.
Anger wells up in me hot and sudden. The thought that I had a family who begged and cried for me. Tried to keep me with them in that rose filled place but she refused to let me stay. That she wouldn’t even let me have the memory of it to cling to.
She had to take it. And now she wants to take my life?More.It’s always more with her.
She raises the knife above her head and lunges at me and I know I should move back. I know Marco is about to take her down when he yells. “Mrs. Sokolov!”
I don’t move back. I’m so mad. Fiery hot rage pours through me at everything I’ve lost because of her. We don’t get to pick our parents and the shitty thing is that even when we try to leave them behind, sometimes they refuse to let us go.
The bag in my hands is heavy so I do the only logical thing anyone in my position would do. I step forward and swing it at her. It catches her by surprise and sends the knife flying from her hand. It hits the pavement and clatters as it slides away from me.
“No!” I scream at her and swing the bag again. The handles give, sending coffee samples everywhere, but it does the job of forcing her back a step. Marco’s there before anything else can happen and so is another one of his men, Peter. He tackles her and holds her down while she continues to struggle and scream at me.
“You ruined my life!” She screams from where Peter has her pinned.
I don’t answer her. I think about the time in the club when I wanted her ruined. When I wanted every last thing taken from her. It felt fitting after the destruction she’d laid to my world but I don’t feel that anymore. My eyes sweep over her and I see that she has, in fact, lost everything. Her hair isn’t perfect anymore and the flawless makeup I always remember her applying carefully no matter what is absent. Her clothes are rumpled and I’m shocked when I see her in cheap sweats. Something I’ve never seen her wear. Not even once. She has on a baggy sweater too and cheap looking sneakers. Another thing she never wore. She was always after the best, at any and all cost. She never settled, but I can see Zeus made good on his promise to take everything from her.
“Are you all right?” Marco asks me, he’s got his phone out. The cops are no doubt on the other line. “She was fucking hiding under the car next to your spot. She rolled out before I got to your side of the car.”
It’s not his fault. “I’m okay, Marco. I-”
I open my mouth to answer him but my mother is talking again. “You think you can ruin my life and get away with it? Missus Sokolov?” She sneers at me. “I’ve seen you all over the fucking papers living the life that should have been mine. You don’t deserve it! You think you’re better than me now?!”
There it is. The jealousy that I knew she had inside of her for me is showing itself. She always thought it should be hers. Whatever was the best. Even my life. Bile rises in my throat. How can anyone be jealous of their child?How?
Only a monster would feel that.
I find my voice and step around Marco who's giving the cops the details they need to get to us. “What happened to my grandmother?”
She goes still when I ask that, her eyes narrowing into slits. “Who told you about her?”
“I said, what happened to her? Where is she?”
She smiles and it’s mean. “I’m not telling you.”
I almost lose it at those words. I think about grabbing the knife, I think about grabbing Marco’s gun from the holster that sits against his side. I don’t do any of that, though.
“Tell me where she is and I’ll give you five hundred bucks.”
She laughs and I hear the real her come out. The one I know well and was afraid for so many years as a child.
“You think I’m going to be bought for that little?”
I stride forward and squat in front of her. I want to claw her eyes out but I won’t lift a finger against her. I can hear voices in the parking garage, the telltale whoop of a cop car echoing against the walls. People are coming, this will be all over the news and I’m not going to let her control how people see me.
