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I would like to think I argued some more, but I know I didn’t. The timbre of his voice left no room for arguments.
It was the trip that changed it all for me, and I think I’ll remember it as long as I live. I stayed silent most of the weekend, only mumbling a quiet “Happy Birthday” when he woke the next morning.
He allowed me the silence which I was grateful for. Later, around the campfire, he took two bottles of beer from the cooler and handed me one. I gawked at it for what felt like forever.
“Best you do it in front of me than come home every weekend in the states you’ve been in.”
There was that feeling again, the sting in my throat that his disappointment conjured, but I swallowed it down with the beer.
Elbows on my knees, I stared into the fire, watching the sparks fly into the air.
“Your mother loved camping.”
My head snapped to where he was sitting on his chair, but he never looked at me, choosing to keep his focus on the flames.
“She was always a little wild. Like you, I guess.”
On the inside, I was screaming for him to stop. Talking about her hurt, yet somehow, hearing about her before she became a shadow of her former self eased the burn.
“She always wanted to see the good in people even when they didn’t deserve it. She always fought so hard to find the good in my brother. But people like that will only drag you into their darkness instead of allowing you to share the light.” When he looked over at me, his eyes were glazed over, lost in thought somewhere I’d never know. “She was a good mother. She doted on you when you were born.”
A sting prickled the back of my throat. Memories that seemed buried came back to life. It was only me and her for so long. My father was in prison. She was clean. And Skip was right, she did dote on me. I was a momma’s boy, and I knew it.
Images of her singing like she had a tune and grabbing my hands just to dance in the middle of the kitchen. She did that a lot. Her crazy bedtime stories that never came from a book, but her own imagination. Sometimes, she got so invested, she acted out the scenes until my stomach ached from laughing.
When my father got out of prison, it all changed in an instant. He promised her the sun, moon, and stars. He blinded her with hopes for the future and visions only he could see.
He ruined her.
The beatings started long before Archer and Jaxson were born. With three children to look after, a husband that treated her no better than the dirt at the bottom of his shoe, and pain I will never understand, she wanted to numb.
So, she did.
She numbed until she couldn’t feel.
She couldn’t feel the love for her children, or the hope she always had.
She numbed until she took her final breath.
I found her after school, needle still in her vein. She was breathing but barely. Archer and Jaxson were down for a nap.
I’m thankful for that much.
After I called the ambulance, I turned her on her side just as they told me to, and I held her hand. I was so scared. I don’t think I ever felt fear quite as potent.
So, when Skip turned to me and said, “She loved you, Logan. You did her proud,” the anger I was holding onto opened like a dam.
“Then why the fuck did she leave us? She didn’t give a shit about anything but her precious drugs. She had a choice, and she didn’t choose me, she didn’t choose us. She chose him. A fucking monster, and she chose a needle. Fuck her, Skip,” my voice broke with his name, and I hated it. I hated myself for letting it show. “Fuck her.”
“And what are you choosing, son?”
“What?”
“What are you choosing?” he repeated, turning toward me. “All this bullshit you’re doing. You’re trying to hide and it’s only going to lead you down one path. The end of that path looks like this: you end up like your mother, or you end up like your father.”
I flinched.
Turning out like my father was a worse outcome than death.
