I’d forgotten about her.
Perhaps that was the wrong way to phrase it, because it sounded like I never thought about my mom — and I did. I thought about how I couldn’t wait to introduce her to Giana, how delighted she’d be when I told her we were coming home for Christmas. I thought about her cooking in the kitchen with G, teaching her how to make our favorite salmon croquets, and pulling out old photo albums of me as a kid while I pretended to be embarrassed.
But I’d forgotten about her quitting her job because she thought her ex would take care of her.
I’d forgotten how beat up she was mentally and emotionally, how she was having trouble doing more than getting out of bed, let alone looking for a job. I’d forgotten about her using, about the way I could tell by her words slurring over the phone.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t called after the last time, when I took out a student loan and sent her enough money to get through at least a month, if not two. Maybe it was because I wanted to assume the best, that she was okay, that she was working on getting a job and finding herself. Maybe it was because I was so caught up in Giana that I simply hadn’t thought about anything else.
Regardless, the fact that I’d forgotten about her struck me like a frying pan to the head when her face lit up my screen after practice on a Thursday afternoon in early November.
My stomach dropped, veins running icy cold as I stared at the word Mom and felt the phone vibrating in my hand. It was selfish, how I didn’t want to answer because I didn’t want to face her misery, her pain, her tears.
And the fact that once again, I’d have to find a way to help her.
I was running out of ideas.
My heart was heavy, a sandpaper knot in my throat as I slid my thumb across the bottom of the screen and plugged my headphones in, setting my pace toward my dorm room.
“Hey, Mom,” I answered. “You okay?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she answered on a sniff, the words garbled by crying.
I braced myself.
“I’m more than okay.”
Something more like confusion, rather than relief, found my next exhale, especially as Mom continued to cry as I waited for her to explain.
“We’ve been blessed with a miracle,” she said. “The Lord has shined his almighty light upon us.”
I stopped walking. “Holy shit, did you win the lottery?”
“Language!” She chastised with a laugh. “And I guess you could say I did.”
“Mom, what’s going on?”
I continued walking, hiking my bag up over my shoulder.
“It’s Cory.”
I frowned, and though I had no reason to be anxious, something inside me was on high alert. “Cory? As in Maliyah’s dad?”
“The very one,” she confirmed. “I don’t know what happened. I mean, Maliyah called me last night to catch up — which was so nice, by the way. I haven’t really talked to her since you two split up, and it was just so lovely to hear from her.”
My lips flattened. “Mm-hmm.”
“Anyway, so we were talking, and you know how close we are. She’s always given me such great advice when it comes to men.” She paused. “Should be the other way around, ages considered.”
“Mom,” I said, dragging her back to the point.
“Well, I was telling her about the restaurant, and about… about Brandon.” Her voice cracked a little with his name. “And she was just so sweet, listening to me being all heartbroken.” She sniffed. “And I guess she must have told her dad about the whole thing, because he called me earlier today.”
I waited, heart picking up pace in my chest like it knew well before I did that something was wrong.
“He’s going to help us, baby,” she said, all joy through her tears. “He came by this afternoon with a check for ten-thousand dollars.”
“He what?!”
“I know! I know,” she said, like I was excited when the truth was I was fucking appalled. “He wanted us to have enough to get through the holidays, so I could focus on getting better instead of getting a job. Oh, I can’t tell you the relief it brought me. I feel… I feel… loved.”
She choked on the word, all while I tried to force a calming breath.
“He’s a good man. A good father,” she added. “Much better than your own. If I’d have been a smarter woman, I would have gone on a date with him when they all came into my diner that night.”
“Mom.”
“Oh, I’m only teasing,” she said, and I could picture her waving me off even as we both knew she wasn’t joking, not even a little bit.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What… why did he do this?”
“Because he’s a good, Christian man,” she said, almost defensively. “And because he saw someone who needed help, and he happens to be in the position of helping.”
I swallowed.
Cory was a good man. Hadn’t I just argued that point to my father? Hadn’t I wished the very same thing Mom had, that it was Cory in our life instead of Dad?
So why was my stomach curdling like bad milk?
“This is a good thing, sweetheart. And I can pay you back for what you sent, so you can pay off that loan before it even has time to accrue interest. It’s all working out, don’t you see?”
But I couldn’t see anything but red.
Because I knew that while Cory had the means to help many people, he rarely ever did without wanting something in return.
“Mom, I need to go.”
“Okay, honey. I love you. It’s all good now. I’ll be sending you a check, okay?”
I couldn’t even manage to acknowledge her further before I was hanging up with shaking hands, and immediately thumbing through my contacts for Maliyah’s number. I typed out a text.
We need to talk. Now.
The bubbles bounced on the screen, then went away.
I gritted my teeth as I marched the rest of the way across campus, and I’d just swung through my dorm room door when my phone buzzed.
I have class until six. Meet after?
I only responded with a thumbs up emoji and my dorm number, although I was pretty sure she already knew it, and then I promptly threw my phone down, dragging my hands back through my hair as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. It was only four now, and I was going to drive myself insane trying to piece this all together in the time I had until Maliyah could meet.
I was just about to hop in the shower — a cold one — when my phone rang.
Cory Vail was the name staring back at me.
My throat thickened, and I forced a breath before answering. “Hello?”
“Hello, son,” his deep voice echoed back. “How are you?”
The emotions that warred inside me then were too much to bear, a cross between familial pride and the wariness of a cornered animal.
“I’m having an interesting afternoon,” I answered, leaving the ball in his court.
He chuckled. “I imagine so. Your mom said she called and told you.”
“She did.”
The line was silent.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you, sir, for… for helping her.”
“You don’t sound particularly happy that I did.”
I sighed, sinking into the old couch from 1972 that was assigned to each athletic dorm room. “I am. Truly, I am. I just…”
“You’re wondering why I did it.”
“Frankly? Yes.”
“You’re a smart boy,” he assessed. “Smart man, soon to be. You know nothing really comes for free.”
The hair on my neck prickled.
“Here’s the truth of it, son — Maliyah has been miserable this last month or so. I know you can tell. I know you know as well as I do that it’s because she misses you.”
“She broke up with me,” I ground out.
“I realize that,” Cory replied, calm as ever. “But young women do a lot of things they regret. And as she’s my daughter, it’s my job as her dad to try to help her undo those wrongs if I can.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. I take care of your mom,” he said. “And you take care of my girl. It’s as easy as that.”
“No.”
“No?” Cory’s question back to me was incredulous.
“It’s not easy, for more reasons than one. I don’t want to take care of Maliyah anymore,” I answered honestly. “And she made it clear that she doesn’t want me.”
“And clearly, she lied.”
“Well, that’s on her. I’ve moved on. I’m with someone else now.”
“I think whoever it is you’re with can’t possibly have as much of a connection as you and Li now,” he said, laughing like I was a child trying to explain something I knew nothing about. “You two grew up together. You were in a relationship for years. You can’t have been with this new person for more than, what… a few months?”
“What Giana and I have is none of your business, respectfully.”
My neck burned with anger, but I held my voice steady and as calm as I could.
“Fair enough,” he said after a moment. “Well, my boy, the choice is yours. But if I were in your shoes, I know what mine would be.” There was the sound of papers shuffling before he continued. “You can take my offer, or you can continue putting yourself into debt to haphazardly patch up a hole in the boat without actually fixing the problem.”
I frowned.
“She needs rehab, Clay,” he said, his voice lower, more serious.
I closed my eyes against the tears that seared my eyes at his words, at the truth in them that I’d hoped to deny until my dying day. My next inhale was stiff and full of fire.
“I don’t expect you to know about this at your age. Hell, I don’t want you to know about it. I don’t want you to have to think about it — which is why I’m trying to…” He paused, like he caught himself rambling. “She’s a functioning addict, son, and she needs real help. I can get her that. We can get her that.”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me, no one could see me. But I had to non-verbally communicate to the fucking universe that I couldn’t do this.
“I know it’s not fair. I know it’s hard. You’re too young to have to make decisions like this. But trust me when I say this is just the start of hard choices that will line your life. And what you decide to do with this first one will define you as a man.”
I choked on something between a laugh and a cry for help.
“Don’t turn your back on your mom, Clay,” he continued, his words hitting their intended target as my chest cracked open. “I watched your father do it, and I can’t watch you do it, too. She needs you. And this is as easy as it’s going to get to help her while also being able to keep what you want.” He paused. “Football.”
I swallowed, eyes glossing over as I stared at the floor.
“She hasn’t cashed the check yet,” he said quietly. “I just want to remind you of that.”
Ice seared my veins. “So, you’re blackmailing me.”
“I’m making you a fair offer,” he countered. “One you should take.”
My nose flared.
After a long pause, Cory continued. “Think on it. I’ll give you the night. Oh, and let’s not tell Maliyah about this, okay? No need to involve the women we love in how the sausage gets made. We can handle it. Yes?”
I didn’t answer, but he took my silence as affirmation.
“That’s my boy. Alright, I need to run. We’ll talk in the morning.”
With that, the line went dead, and I collapsed into a heap, mind racing with everything that had just unfolded in the last hour.
And in that quiet dorm room, the weight of responsibility crushed me like a boulder.
He was right.
In so many ways, he was right.
I couldn’t turn my back on my mother, but I also knew there wasn’t much more I could do to help her. I wasn’t there to help her get clean the way I had many times in high school, nourishing her as she went through all the ugly stages of withdrawal before finally feeling more like herself.
And I didn’t have the financial means to help her, either.
I wasn’t pro yet. I didn’t have a job, didn’t have time to get a job. And without the help from my dad, taking out more loans was the only answer — if I could even get approved for them.
Panic seized my chest, but it was a muted stress, like I was already dying and someone just told me as if I didn’t already know. I felt eerily calm inside that overwhelm, as if I deserved this punishment, as if it was my own fault that Mom was an addict, that she was in the trouble she was in.
Even if I could convince myself it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t do that if I walked away from her now, if I turned my back on the opportunity to quite literally save her life.
I closed my eyes, heart squeezing so painfully I doubled over as the cost of this weighed in on me.
Giana.
It would be her on the other end of this fake relationship, now — one I would never be able to tell her about. Maliyah would never know it wasn’t real, either.
To her, to Giana, to everyone, it would be real — it would be me getting back together with my ex just like they thought I’d do all along.
Like I once thought I’d do.
Now, it made me sick to even think about.
I longed to have my own father there, to have him tell me what to do and actually be able to trust it. But he wasn’t a man I admired, a man I wanted to be like.
Cory was.
My head spun, heart cracking more and more with each devastating blow.
I had no choice.
This was my mother. My mother. The woman who stayed with me, who kept me in the face of every odd, who provided for me and supported me and believed in me and loved me.
I couldn’t leave her to fend for herself.
It didn’t matter if Giana would never understand, if no one would. This was the choice I had to make not only as a man, but as a son.
She depended on me.
And unlike my father, I wouldn’t let her down.
No matter the pain and hell it would cause me.
