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“My mom wasn’t a good mom,” I told her. Because, well, it was the truth. I didn’t have to like that fact. But I did have to accept it as fact. “She got pregnant with me when she was nineteen. My father seemed to know she wasn’t meant to be a mom, least of all at that age, so he’d suggested she put me up for adoption. I never really did find out why she didn’t.”
“Were they together?” Morgaine asked. “Your mom and your dad,” she clarified.
“No. My father was older. Twelve years older, I think it was. He ended up passing when I was six or seven. I don’t really remember much about him. I didn’t see him much. I always figured the child support he gave must have been decent though, because my ma didn’t work much. She moved us around a lot.
“I mean, it was good, but not survive without having to work good. So we lived in shithole areas where there were roaches in the cabinets and rats in the walls. Places where gunfire at night was practically a lullaby. That kind of shit.
“And, like I said, she wasn’t really much of a mom. She went out and left me alone in the apartment while she partied or did whatever the fuck she did.
“Every couple of years, child services would get called on her, and I would be taken away. Those were the good parts of my childhood, believe it or not. My paternal grandparents offered to take me in when my mom wasn’t allowed to have me. So I went to live on the res.”
“Res,” Morgaine repeated. “Like… reservation? Your dad…”
“Was Indigenous, yeah. My mom was a mix of things. German, Mexican, Asian, and Hawaiian mostly. Hence this,” I said, waving at my face that, on more than an acceptable number of occasions, people referred to me as ‘exotic.’
“Irish,” Morgaine said, waving at her pale skin and hair. “Both parents,” she added, shrugging.
She hadn’t mentioned a father. Which likely meant Morgaine was from one of her mom’s many boyfriends. Here one day, gone the next.
“I loved the res. I liked learning about that part of my culture, being in nature, all that shit. But just as soon as I got comfortable there, felt safe there, the state was coming in and dropping me back on my mom’s doorstep because she claimed she was getting her life back on track.
“Took me a long time to recognize she was using, that during some of my stays with my grandparents, she was in detox and rehab. Which was why things were okay at first when I went back home. And then, slowly but surely, it all went downhill again.
“No food. No lights. No new clothes for school. Bad neighborhoods. Shady characters in and out of our lives. All that typical shit. Around the time I was ten, my grandparents died. Both ran off the road by some hit-and-run fuckhead. Never found ‘em,” I said, gripping the wheel tighter until I remember to tell myself to relax.
It was a sore subject, even after all the years.
Shitty people getting away with shitty things.
Leaving innocent people to regroup and rebuild.
The only problem was, I didn’t have shit to rebuild with. Just a mom who was getting worse and worse with each passing year.
“I’m sorry,” Morgaine said, reaching to put her hand on top of mine that was still rested on her leg. Like it belonged there. Like she was mine or some shit like that.
“Long time ago,” I said, trying to brush it off. But brushing it off was likely the source of some of that dark shit going on in my head, in my spirit. Not all of it, though. No, that came along with the next part of my story.
“You can stop there,” Morgaine offered. “I get the feeling this is already more than you tell most people. And considering I’ve kind of been an asshole to you since we first met, I can’t really expect more.”
“You’ve been guarded,” I corrected, shrugging. “I get that. You only got yourself. You gotta be careful. But I’ve had to tell the next part a lot.”
To the cops.
To the court.
To Slash and the guys when we started to run together.
“When I was twelve,” I started, trying to focus on the road, but finding myself putting the car into park at a stop sign to finish the story of my ugly childhood. “When I was twelve, I woke up one night to screaming in the main area of the apartment.”
It wasn’t unusual.
“My mom had a strong personality. And the drugs tended to make her say some shit she had no business saying to people who didn’t want to hear it.
“I couldn’t count the number of places we had been banned from because she started shit with employees or customers there. Anyway, she was screaming. But then there was a crashing sound then that had me jumping out of bed. I thought maybe it was her dealer pushing her around.
