Page 114 of Mommy

I hadn’t truly asked her for any of those things, but they had always been in the room. And I had never really considered her feelings or her opinion. I had made all the decisions and Ivory had just gone along. This is the first time I actually asked for her opinion and when she didn’t react how I wanted her to, I got angry. I lost my temper and I yelled.

Fucking fuck.

I had never wanted to yell at her again. Not after the tears she cried the last time I raised my voice.

I just fucked up on so many levels. I can’t even blame her for being upset. I should’ve asked for her opinion a million times, and I didn’t.

And now all the anger I built with that, stares up at me through tear glossed eyes.

“Honey, I⁠—”

I want to apologize, but she doesn’t let me finish. She’s already shaking her head, her eyes not leaving mine. The anger in them is still so potent.

“I hope you’re fucking happy now, Derek.”

I’m not happy.

I’m anything but happy. And I want to tell her, but she’s turning away. My mind is still racing to find the right words, to explain to her that I didn’t mean it, when I hear the front door.

She’s gone.

My heartbeat slows and my thoughts stumble to an abrupt halt.

She left.

And I did nothing to stop her. I didn’t even manage to apologize, let alone make her look at me with anything but anger.

As a child I didn’t understand why my mom left. I only realized that she did. All I saw was that she chose pills over her family.

Over us.

Over me.

I understand it now. I can finally see why she left.

She was unhappy. And there was nothing my dad ever did about that.

It’s not that he was a bad person, but looking back, I can see that that didn’t make him a good husband.

That’s something I didn’t understand when I was just a boy. And not being able to do anything to keep my mom from leaving us had turned me into an adult that is desperate to keep my partners shackled to me.

As if marriage and children kept my mom from leaving my dad.

It was an illusion that these things would ever be enough to keep someone who wants to run away from doing so.

No matter how much I wanted it to be the truth, no matter how much that little boy inside of me wanted to be enough to make her stay… The adult part of my brain knows that a child would never be enough to keep someone around forever. To keep a woman from leaving a man she no longer feels safe with. Not a child, not a marriage would ever be enough.

It takes much more than that to keep a woman.

Too bad I didn’t really see that until now.

Chapter fifty eight

Ivory

I didn’t take anything with me. I just tried to hold on to my dignity as I made my way out of that house. Neither my clothes nor my heart have made their way back into what used to be my home.

The muscle that is pumping blood through my body has turned into nothing more than a lump of tissue that keeps me functioning.