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Now I feel it in my bones.
“You could meet with that reporter,” my mom says, and my entire body tenses. “He said he’d pay ten thousand for some inside scoop on the Titans.”
It was just over a week and a half ago my mom presented me with this option, and I shut her down swiftly. I was furious, and my first and only response was no.
And yet… I don’t say that now.
Turning to face her, I ask, “What exactly does that mean… scoop on the Titans?”
She shrugs, then winces in pain, which squeezes my gut. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem skeezy or anything. I think he just wants more of a personal look at the players.”
I keep quiet as I’d never trust my mother’s definition of skeezy. She just got beat up by goons for stealing money from a money launderer.
“Mom,” I say as I move back to the table and sit down. I rest one arm on top and lean toward her. “I really care for Hendrix. I can’t do anything to hurt him.”
“I’m not asking you to. But maybe just talk to the reporter and see what he wants. You don’t have to commit to anything. And he did say he protects his sources, so no one would ever know it was you.”
Again, I maintain my silence. Hendrix told me things that no one else knows, but those are secrets I’d never give up, even at the risk of my mom’s life.
Still, maybe I know something so benign that the reporter would be interested in it but that wouldn’t blow back on me. Maybe I’ve seen or heard enough the last few weeks that would suffice.
If that reporter pays the money that will get my mom out of trouble, and I can do so without being discovered, it could all work out.
Even as I think about it, deep in my gut, I know it’s wrong. So fucking wrong I’m nauseated, but I find myself saying, “I’ll meet with the reporter, and that’s all I’ll commit to. Tell him I’m not giving him any information, but I’ll hear what he has to say.”
My mom straightens, smiles, and then moans in pain. She presses her hand to the side of her face, rising from her chair. She moves to the sink and spits blood. I rush over to help her, preparing more salt water for her to rinse with.
When she’s done, she turns to me. “It means the world that you’re helping me. I wish I could take even a little credit for what an amazing young woman you’ve turned into, but that all goes to your dad. I wish I could have been more for you.”
“You’re here now,” I say, testing the truth of those words. It should be enough for me, but I still can’t help but want more. “Mom… you have to promise once this is over, you won’t do anything illegal again.”
She shakes her head, looks me in the eye, and says, “My crime days are over, I promise.”
?
Randy comes and picks up my mom. She tells him I’m going to talk to the reporter, which pleases him.
After they leave, I grimace at the time. I should be heading to the bar. I’m working a solo shift, but it’s a Thursday and shouldn’t be overly crowded during the day.
But my journal sitting on the coffee table calls to me. I can actually hear it saying, “You need to purge some of that shit before you leave.”
And it’s right.
I had a beautiful morning with Rory but my mom poisoned it. While I’m so very grateful my mom wasn’t hurt worse, and now I’ve got a potential solution, all kinds of noxious thoughts continue to race through my head.
I walk into the living room, grab the journal, and bring it to the kitchen table. I open up to the next page, quickly uncap the pen, and start scribbling, a messy outpouring of pain.
December 17, 10:25 a.m.:
I hate you, Mom.
Not really.
But I despise you sometimes. Not just for leaving me when I was little, but for leaving me over and over and over again now that I’m an adult. You show up, acting like you want to be my mom. You’re present. Then you do something that no mother should ever do, and you’re gone again.
Please, please, just be someone who I can like. Stop putting me in untenable situations. Just for once, can you put me first?
I read over it, analyze my feelings, and consider it complete. I can’t think of anything else to say right now.
I then tear out the sheet.
Grabbing a lighter from a drawer, I walk outside and set the paper on fire. I place it on the sidewalk and watch it burn to ash, freeing myself from those dark thoughts. It’s what I did when I was a kid—with the help of my dad in lighting the paper on fire—to learn to let those things go.
