Page 22 of Jonny’s Redemption

Jonny leaned back and stretched his long legs out in front of him and let his head rest on the back of the couch.

He was staring at the ceiling when he told me, “I don’t know when it started. At least five years before I was born. My mom won’t talk about it. When my dad was alive, he sure as fuck didn’t talk about it.” That tingle started to grow. “I don’t think it ever stopped. I’ve thought on it a lot. My dad was an insurance broker; he didn’t travel for work, but he sure as hell had a lot of conferences he had to attend. Weekends away, sometimes a full week, others quick overnights. When I was growing up, it seemed he had something going on at least once a month. I reckon my ma knew. They fought about him being gone so much.”

I watched Jonny’s throat constrict as he swallowed, the sight so heartbreaking I decided he had the right idea. I slid my booty to the edge of the couch, mimicking his pose, and found a spot on the tongue-and-groove ceiling to focus on.

That was much easier than witnessing Jonny’s pain and I didn’t want him to see mine.

It sucked, but it would seem he and I were the same.

Not the products of our environments. But two people who’d been forced to survive a situation neither of us created.

We were survivors, but I didn’t think Jonny would see it that way.

“I was five when my mom took off. She never came back.”

The familiar taste of acid in my esophagus threatened to choke me. Of all the things I’d learned to get over, the abandonment wasn’t one of them. All these years later it was still raw, fresh; the ache still burned. The grief, the questions, the anger. I couldn’t for the life of me fathom how a mother could leave her babies. How she could turn her back and walk away. Never return. Never write, call, something. Before she left, my mom had neglected her children, she wasn’t a good mom, she hadn’t showered us with affection and love. But she was there. Then she wasn’t and the rejection didn’t sting. It didn’t burn. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t an open festering wound.

It killed.

Month after month, it built. Year after year, it gained strength. Until the feeling sitting inside of me was so big and powerful it felt like dynamite just waiting to blow.

A ticking time bomb constructed from a mother’s rejection.

I felt Jonny’s hand cover mine.

A touch that didn’t defuse the pain but made the spark recede.

Still so weak.

“I was five when Doug came to live with us.” Jonny’s fingers pushed between mine and I squeezed, hoping he’d continue. A few beats later, I heard a long exhale. Then I waited and I waited even longer until Jonny squeezed back. “The story was, Doug’s mother had cancer and while she was going through treatments he needed a place to live.”

God, that was horrible. I’d heard bad things about Jonny’s brother, all of them unfortunately true, but my heart still hurt for the little boy who went to live with the Spencers.

Wait, Jonny had said story.

“Was that not true?” I asked.

“It was true. Carla, Doug’s mother, had cancer. The part that’s never talked about though is, my parents didn’t take in some random boy who needed help. They didn’t take Doug out of the goodness of their hearts. They—or should I say, my father—took him because Doug was his son. His biological son.”

At least five years before I was born.

“Were your parents together then?” I asked gently.

“My parents met in high school. My granddad used to say he got off lucky that his only girl married the first boy she dated so he only had to clean his shotgun once. No parade of boys through his living room. Just my father.” Jonny paused and the next part was snarled with extreme hate. “Fucking laughable. Lucky. The worst day of my mother’s life was when she met that piece of shit.”

I should’ve known to brace. The earlier call with his mother, the bitter outburst. I absolutely should’ve battened down the hatches. I should’ve known Jonny had the same ticking time bomb in his gut that I did.

I didn’t brace.

Then Jonny exploded.

And it was agony to witness. But I forced myself to take in every second.

“That piece of shit went to high school with Carla, too. She was younger than them by one grade. I’d like to hope dear old Dad wasn’t fucking Carla when she was in middle school but he was fucking her when he and my mom were seniors and Carla was a junior.”

Oh, no.

“How do you know that?”