Page 20 of Jonny’s Redemption

No pain. No remorse. No love.

Just nothing.

How could a son feel nothing for the woman who raised him?

“Don’t call Macy,” he told her in an effort to wrap up the call. “The kids are not going to the cemetery, neither am I. You wanna go to keep up appearances you do that. You wanna go stare at the headstone of the man that betrayed you, destroyed our family, lied, and cheated you do that alone. You wake up and want help, call me. Until that happens, Ma, I’m sorry to say I’m done with this. I didn’t make this mess, but you and Dad sure did make me live it and I’m done with that, too.”

Suddenly and surprisingly, Anita no longer sounded intoxicated when she spat, “You wouldn’t dare.”

Jonny’s hand flexed in Bobby’s and tightened until he heard her whimper in pain. Christ. He tried to disengage their hands but Bobby held fast and refused to let go. The conversation needed to end. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted to ease his woman into the topic of his fucked-up family. He’d wanted time with her with no outside distractions, and that had included the past. He’d wanted a week of mellow, then on the last day before they left to go home, he would’ve told her everything. She deserved to know. But he just wanted a few days of peace, with his Bobby. Then his mother had called and blown his plans to hell.

Typical. So goddamn typical, nothing in Jonny’s life was his own. It was a series of days, months, years where he was expected to toe the line of dysfunction.

Fuck that.

He was done with that, too.

“I wouldn’t dare to do what?” he asked.

“You can’t tell anyone. You know how the town is, they’ll talk. Think about Aurora and Caleb. What would people say to them?”

That was a low blow using his beloved niece and nephew against him. Since the day Caleb had come into this world, Jonny had done everything he could to shield his nephew from the Spencer lies.

“The man is dead, yet you’re still choosing him over your son.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Anita scoffed.

The ugliness in his mother’s voice broke Jonny’s heart. Not because he hadn’t heard it before, the way her tone turned hard. The nasty sneer, however, the snarls and biting words had been for her husband and only when she thought her children were asleep.

That part of his life was a lie, too. Anita and Calvin didn’t argue in front of their children. They did that behind closed doors. The rest of the time they pretended nothing was amiss.

“And you’re a drunk, Ma. Who needs help. You’re also a mother and I suggest you start acting like one or you’ll find yourself not that anymore. I’m ending the call,” Jonny warned. “But before I let you go I’m going to tell you one more time—do not call Macy and the kids. You do, you won’t like what happens.”

“I am your mother!” she screeched.

“Then start acting like it.”

With that, Jonny took the phone from his ear while his mother was shouting. He couldn’t make out the words but he knew they were utter bullshit.

Further, he knew he was a shit son.

And worse, Bobby being privy to the whole disastrous conversation knew it, too.

He hadn’t put his phone away before Bobby announced, “My mother was an alcoholic.”

Woodenly, because his body had turned to stone, Jonny shoved his cell in his pocket and looked over at Bobby. “Come again?”

“Of course, no one called her that,” she went on. “Not because she wasn’t one, it was no one thought anything of her drinking because it was normal where I grew up. Kathy Layne was the life of the party, or so I’ve been told. Only time she was happy was when she had a bottle in hand. And I do mean a bottle. She’d sing and dance and smile and tell me and EJ how she was gonna be one of those showgirl types. The problem was she was so drunk all the time she was delusional. Not only could she not carry a tune in a basket, she must’ve forgotten she sounded like a dying rhinoceros. Not that she was ever sober long enough to remember anything. This included making the two children she’d pushed out supper. Then one day she’d totally forgotten she was a mother at all and she took off cleaning out my daddy’s best shine.

“To this day I’m not sure what my daddy was more upset about, Kathy taking his booze or his wife leaving him. Though he wasn’t upset for long and he didn’t have a mind to the two children who were left living with him and what they might need. Hell, he didn’t notice us at all until EJ was old enough to make him money and I was old enough to clean his house.”

Jonny stood, his body locked tight, breath caught in his lungs, and he stared at Bobby. Unable to formulate words. Unable to process all that she’d told him. And finally unable to picture this beautiful, kind, smart, loyal, honest woman not having…what didn’t she have? A good mom to show her the way, a dad who loved and praised his little girl, good role models.

How in the hell had Bobby Layne become all that she was all on her own?

Because she’s smart, kind, and determined.

“I’m telling you that,” Bobby continued. “Because I won’t be apologizing for not giving you privacy to speak to your mother. I’m telling you so you’ll know I understand. But also because you said we were starting something, so you should know who you’re starting with. So that’s me. My daddy’s a criminal. My brother’s no better. My mom is…I don’t know what she is because I haven’t seen her in over twenty-five years. But when I had her, she wasn’t much so I don’t think she’s much now.”