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Momcomingto the hospital to hold my hand while my face was stitched up.
And inevery one, she sang to me.
“You are my sunshine …”
I stared into the pot, watching all the tiny bubbles collect along the bottom, then fizzle out to make way for new ones. And I thought about her last moments.
“You are my sunshine …”
Had she known she was dying? Had she been scared?
“You are my sunshine …”
No, of course she’d been scared. Andof courseshe knew something was happening … or at the very least, she knew something was going to happen. She had called.
Jesus, she hadcalled, and I hadn’t answered. I had fucking woken up, I had heard the phone, and I had fallen back to sleep instead of answering.
“You are my sunshine …”
God, why hadn’t I just fucking answered?
“You’regonnasave me, right, baby?”
My lungs stuttered as I pulled in a jagged breath of air. I reached up to grip my hair in clenched fists, desperately fighting against the memories and that goddamn stupid fucking song that I wished so badly I could forget while being so, so, so incredibly sad that she hadn’t thought to sing it to me one more time. Just one more fucking time.
“You are my sunshine … you are my sunshine … you are my sunshine … “
“You’regonnasave me, right, baby?”
“Fucking bitch,” I found myself saying, drowning the sound of her voice from my head with the sound of my own. “You goddamn fucking bitch.”
“Soldier?” Ray called from the couch, cautious and hesitant.
But I ignored her.
“Fuck you,” I muttered through gritted teeth, clutching my hair and staring into the bubbling pot. “God, fuck you for doing this to me.”
Every twist of ill fate that had struck my life was directly related to her. And nearly every single one had been because of the pressure she’d put on me to protect her. Tosaveher. To rescue her from the demons she’d created for herself. And all she could give me in return wasthis. Abandonment. Guilt. An ache so deep, so heavy, that I had to force the air in and out of my lungs just to keep them working.
I didn’t deserve this. I never deserved any of it.
I never deservedher.
My body reacted before I could think as my hand wrapped around the empty jar on the counter and threw it against the wall. Glass shattered, and the remainder of the sauce inside splattered against the wall and onto the floor, making another mess that Diane Mason would never clean up.
“You are my sunshine …”
My chest constricted violently as a sob worked its way past my lips, and my body doubled over. Crumpling to the floor in front of the stove and the pot of bubbling water.
“Noah, go to your room,” Ray ordered with urgency as she hurried into the kitchen.
“But,Mom—”
“Listen to me and go to your room now.” She enunciated every word as she reachedoverme, turning the stove off before dropping to her knees.
Noah begrudgingly did as he had been told as Ray wrapped her arms around me, pulling my body against hers.
Then, I cried.
