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She rolls her window down, lights a cigarette, and takes a long drag. I hate it when she smokes in my car. I wish she wouldn’t do it at all, but at the very least, I wish she would respect my belongings enough not to make them smell like the inside of her house. “Easy for you to say. You don’t have this massive glaring disability to feel insecure about.”
“Right, Mom.” Sitting at a red light, I stare at the bumper of the car in front of me, knowing that if I turn to look at her, I will lose my entire mind. My hands grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles have turned white. “I just have a whole past to live down. What do I know about struggling? I’ve had it so easy.”
Her non-laugh comes out as a snort. “Then maybe you should’ve been more careful. You could have just pulled him off me. You didn’t need to kill him.”
The light finally changes, and I peel out into the intersection and down the road. Every last attempt I could make to contain the blast has failed, and I find myself yelling more at the universe than at her. “That’s what I was trying to do! He stumbled! He was drunk! And I’ve been paying for it ever since. Who the hell beat you so bad in the head you needed a fucking hearing aid in the first place?”
“No one asked you to step in.” She waves her hand, ignoring my perfectly valid point so she can keep living in her delusions instead. All these years, she’s been writing and rewriting the past in her head, lying about it for so long that I guess she’s started to believe it herself. Which makes me the last living witness to what Joel was really like. For some reason, the dead are always placed on a pedestal just because they no longer breathe. What a ridiculous burden for me to have to carry.
“Because you were about to pass out and die. How many times do we have to go over this? How long are you going to make me pay for your bad choices?” Is that what all of this is? Has she just been trying to compartmentalize everything to insulate herself from the guilt it would bring? “I didn’t bring Joel into our lives. That was all you. And now just because he’s dead, you choose to ignore everything that was bad because he was alive. Consider that.”
I think about everything Elowyn said to Jesse the other night. As cowardly as I felt hiding from it all, her actions inspired me. She finally stood up to someone who had been making her feel so small for so long. Maybe I could take a page out of her book. Even if I blew my chances with her, I can still learn something. Maybe Elowyn came into my life to show me the way. A better way. Maybe this wasn’t all for nothing after all.
Pulling into Mom’s driveway, I put the car in park and square my shoulders against the cloth of the driver’s seat.
“I don’t want to hear about it again. If I do, you’re on your own. You can get to your own appointments. You can fund your own life. And you can sit around and reminisce about a guy who treated you like shit from the moment you met him until the day he died, and how he was superior to your son who did everything for you, who lost everything for you. How’s that sound?”
“I knew it.” Sucking her teeth, she shakes her head. While she’s trying to act tough, I can tell from the way her hand shakes as she fumbles with the seat belt buckle that my words got through to her. Whether or not that’s a good thing, I’ve yet to find out. “I knew this day was coming.”
Frankly, I don’t care anymore. I feel so much lighter now. A massive burden has fallen away from my shoulders, and I’m starting to see her for what she really is. And what she’s done to me all these years. Maybe she and Jesse can hang out. Go get a coffee and swap stories about terrorizing the people they supposedly care about. “What? The day I stood up for myself?”
“The day you’d leave me.” There’s a slight hitch to her voice like she wants me to think she’s about to cry. “She got to you, didn’t she? That little tart you’re fucking. She brainwashed you and turned you against me because she doesn’t like you spending any time with me. What kind of a selfish, brainless twit is jealous of a man’s mother?”
“You’re making yourself out to be a victim when you’re really strong. You’re being a martyr.” Now it’s my turn to shake my head. This entire situation is ridiculous. “Don’t do it. This isn’t about Elowyn. She’s been nothing but nice to you and has had nothing but positive things to say about you. She’s supportive.You’rethe onepushing me away.”
“If I don’t push, would you even push back? Would you stick around?”
There’s the truth. The unspoken thought process hovering behind every interaction she’s had with me the last fifteen years. The idea that all of this suffering she put me through was some ass-backward attempt at making me care is enough to make me want to pull my hair out. If I don’t do something with my hands, I’m liable to start dismantling the inside of the car. I settle for running my fingers through my hair instead, resisting the urge to scream into my hands. “You thought all these years that breaking me down and making me feel like shit would bind me to you?”
“Honey,” she says quietly, looking at her hands in her lap. “I don’t know how to do any better.”
Honey. I can’t even remember the last time she called me that. She’s so deflated and helpless looking that I can’t help but feel a stab of pity for her. Things have been hard on her, too. I just wish we could’ve tried to grow and heal together, instead of constantly tearing each other apart.
Placing a hand on her shoulder, I pull her into as much of a hug as the car seats will allow. “I would always stick it out if you treat me right. You have to be kind and supportive, Mom. You need to start healing yourself from the inside, whatever that looks like for you. Or you have to be okay being without me. Got it?”
She nods, putting her hand on top of mine. I’m proud of her and proud of myself. And for a fleeting moment, I can’t wait to tell Elowyn all about it. Then I remember the past few days, and it’s like a punch to the gut.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elowyn
I’ve been trying to be an adult about this. I don’t want to pine or wallow, like some scorned little kid. Weston was good for me for a time, and it was fun while it lasted. More importantly, I clocked some personal growth. But I can’t sit here and let another lapse in personal judgment ruin all of the progress I’ve made for myself.
In the mornings, I let myself watch as he goes back to doing his routine in the courtyard, peeking from behind the blinds so he doesn’t see me watching. A healthy fear of the embarrassment that would come with getting caught keeps me from looking for very long each time, but I get a small satisfaction from how distinctly unhappy he looks. If nothing else, he isn’t celebrating the way things have ended up between us. I don’t think he was trying to get rid of me.
Finding ways to fill my time that don’t make me think of him isn’t hard to do. I stop eating sweet things for breakfast, switching entirely to onion bagels with a thick smear of cream cheese and a hot tea. The thought of pancakes and orange juice makes me want to hurl the carton at the wall between our units. There are always extra hours at the pharmacy, where I know that neither he nor Jesse would dare to show up. Who would’ve thought I’d look forward to spending hours of my day directing people to children’s cough suppressants and at-home enema kits while they drone on and on about their hacking kids and impacted bowels? It’s safe in its routine familiarity if nothing else.
Beyond that, I’ve got enough orders for my business that my hands are full even when I’m home. I had already planned on cutting back on my shifts at the bar when I signed that last contract. The idea that it saves me from having to be around Weston for hours at a time is an unintended bonus. My heart still aches every time I see his car in the parking lot, but I’m determined not to let this crush me either. If he can decide not to care about me, I can do the same thing.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
“Honestly, I would do the powder over the capsules.” Mrs. Westinghouse and I have been standing in this aisle looking at the same five kinds of fiber supplements for the last ten minutes, debating the merits of the different delivery systems, and I can feel my brain starting to turn to mush. “I feel like it gets into your system better. And it reminds you to stay more hydrated while you’re taking it, which is definitely a plus. The human body is about 70 percent water.”
“She’s right, you know,” a voice interrupts us from behind, one I could recognize from a mile away. I’m so happy that she’s here to bail me out of this conversation. I was about to just give my nametag over to Mrs. Westinghouse and go rearrange the candy display. “I think they’re a better bang for your buck, too. Why mess with a classic? Got Elowyn here through a nasty bout of constipation when she started third grade. Was so nervous all the time about going to school that she just stopped right up. Even prune juice wasn’t enough to move those bowels.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I grimace, trying not to turn a profuse shade of scarlet. She’s never been one to beat around the bush. I guess that’s where Eden and Ensley get their own particular brands of bluntness. “I’m sure that your ringing endorsement here will do the trick.”
Mrs. Westinghouse laughs, grabbing two canisters of the powder and trundling off to the checkout line.
