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“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask.
She stops, frowns, and then smiles. “Sorry. No. I’m ok. I was just excited to share that the LACMA has a new exhibition I really wanted to go check out, and I just had to tell you about it.”
“Oh. Right.” I chuckle slightly. Fran immediately goes into detail about this new exhibition and how we have to go soon because she doesn’t think she can wait another day to see it. It’s at this moment I lose my nerve to tell her about the bet. She’s just so happy right now that I can’t ruin that. We’re making progress in our relationship. I can see myself actually being happy as a married man. I don’t want to ruin that.
So, I keep my mouth shut and let Fran gush about this new art exhibition we have to check out this weekend.
* * *
I wasseventeen the day my mom died. Almost an adult. I was ready to get out of that damn apartment and leave my parents’ messed up relationship behind. My mom had tried to come to me for help in the past, but I couldn’t do it. I kept turning away from her. If she refused to leave my dad, there wasn’t anything I could do. But whenever my dad hurt my mom, he would always apologize, and they’d make up, and things would go back to normal until he hit her again and rinse and repeat.
I became numb to it after a while.
Until the day I came home and saw my dad beating my mom. It wasn’t just one hit. Or one kick. Or one punch. This was blow after blow to her face. At first, I didn’t know why he was home early. And second, my first thought was what did my mom do to deserve such a bad reaction from him.
All I could do was watch in horror as he rained down punches on her. She wasn’t even making a sound.
Finally, he stopped. He was breathing heavily as he pushed her away from him, and she slumped to the ground, not moving. Her face was a bloody mess. I could barely recognize the woman who raised me, the woman who shared secret smiles with me when Dad wasn’t watching, who put herself between my dad and me.
He jerked back when he saw me standing in the doorway. “Leo.” His hands were covered in blood. “What are you doing home?”
“What areyoudoing home?”
“I didn’t have work today.”
I dropped my backpack onto the floor. “What did Mom do this time?”
“Oh, that.” He spared her a quick glance before looking back at me. “She washed my red shirt with my white one, and it turned the white one pink. I was angry.”
“I can see that.”
A flash of guilt went through his eyes before he composed his expression. “I’m going to take a shower.” I watched him walk away, then I slowly approached my mom. She still hadn’t moved.
I kneeled down next to her, taking in her bloody, puffy face. It was a horrible sight, one that stuck with me for years after that day. “Mom?” She didn’t answer. “Mom?” I shook her shoulder. Her head flopped to the side. “Mom?” I became frantic and starting shaking her, trying to get her to wake up.
But she didn’t.
I checked her pulse and found she had none.
My mom was dead.
All the years I spent mad at her for not getting us away from my dad vanished. I began CPR, telling her to wake up as tears spilled down my face. But she never woke up again.
It was after five minutes of CPR, listening to the water run while my dad took a shower, that I stopped. She wasn’t alive. There was no bringing her back.
And it was my father who killed her.
My first instinct was to grab a knife from the kitchen and kill him while he was in the shower,Psychostyle.
But instead, I just gave my mom a kiss on the head, stood up, picked up my backpack, and left.
I never returned again. I finally got my wish—my dad was a thing of the past, even though it meant my mom paid the ultimate price for it.
CHAPTER16
Francesca
“My favorite painting is “Study of a Young Woman” by Johannes Vermeer,” I tell Leo as we lie in bed together after spending some timeexploringeach other. “I love how humble the girl is in the painting. It always gave me a sense of hope, you know?”
