I pull in front of my house rather than around to the back alley where my garage is. My mom’s car isn’t here, but she said someone dumped her, and I look around cautiously as I exit my vehicle.
Scurrying up the porch steps, I slip my key into the lock and push through the door. I turn, flip the dead bolt, and do a quick perusal of the street through the glass. I don’t see anything suspicious.
“Mom,” I yell out as I turn around but immediately see her sitting at my kitchen table with a rag pressed against her eye.
I drop my bag and rush toward her. Squatting at her chair, I almost cry at the blank look in her eyes. Reaching up, I pull the rag gently away and gasp as I take in the rest of her face.
She’s been hit more than a few times. One cheekbone is swollen and bruised, both eyes are already turning purple, and blood is crusted around both nostrils.
“Is it that bad?” she mumbles, giving a wry smile that shows me her teeth are coated in blood.
“Who did this to you?” I ask, raising a trembling hand to touch her cheek, but I pull it back, afraid I’ll hurt her.
“Don’t know their names. Never saw them. They jumped me outside the grocery store, threw me in their car. One guy was in the back seat, beating on me. They didn’t want to take me back to the grocery store, so they asked me where I wanted to be dropped off. I gave them your address.”
I’m appalled and pissed they—whoever the fuck they are—know where I live, but I’ll worry about that later.
“They said far worse would happen if I don’t come up with the money. They said—”
My hand goes to her shoulder, but I don’t squeeze because I’m going to assume she took punches to more than just her face. “Okay, we’ll talk about that, but first, I need to take you to the hospital.”
“No. They’ll call the police, and that’s a sure way to get me killed.”
“Mom… you’re really hurt.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I know. Just… patch me up as best you can?”
She shifts in the chair and winces from the movement.
“Mom… did they…”
Blinking back tears, she shakes her head. “No… they didn’t touch me that way. Just their fists, but I’m going to have bruises all over.”
Sighing, I straighten up and hold out my hand. “Okay… no hospital, no police. But I need to go upstairs and get some medical supplies. I don’t think you should be walking up the stairs.”
My mom nods and then dips her head to stare blankly at the table.
I shoot up the stairs and into the bathroom to rummage through the small pantry for what I need.
Back downstairs, I attend to my mom’s injuries, first cleaning away the blood as gently as I can from her nose. The inside of her cheeks have been shredded by her teeth from a punch or slap, which I’m betting is the same hit that bruised her cheekbone, and I have her rinse with warm salt water. There’s nothing to bandage, but I pull a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, crush them up until the bag is malleable, and have her hold it to her face. “Move it around after a few minutes,” I instruct. Bruises are blooming in several areas. “Do you need me to look at your body?”
She shakes her head. “No. Nothing’s broken or bleeding. I can tell.”
“I’ll make some tea.”
I put on a kettle, content to sit in silence watching it rather than asking my mother for more details. She’s content to keep the peas on her face and stare at the table.
When I have the chamomile brewed for her, she sets the peas down to curl her hand around the warm cup.
“Why did you have them bring you here?” I ask as I take the adjacent chair.
“I don’t know,” she says, her hands trembling as she holds the warm cup. “I knew I needed help, and I was scared.”
“What did they say about the money?”
“Just that this was a taste if we don’t pay up, but honestly, Stevie.” Her eyes fill with tears again. “I think they’ll kill us. Ten thousand dollars isn’t anything to these people—which is why we thought we could get away with it—but I got a bad feeling that either we pay the money or we die.”
I rest my elbows on the table, bury my face in my hands, and squeeze my eyes shut to prevent the torrent of tears threatening to break free. This has become far too real, and now I’m truly frightened.
Sighing, my hands fall away and I ask my mom, “When is the money due?”
“Two weeks.”
“I can get two thousand right now off my credit card. Will they accept that?”
“As payment in full?” she asks with a mirthless laugh. “Stevie… wake up. I think they’d rather kill us. It would send a nice message to their other minions.”
I push out of my chair and pace the kitchen. “I’ve got my car listed for sale, but no one wants to pay what it’s worth. I can lower the price and get maybe another three thousand.”
At the sink, I lean on my hands to steady myself while staring at my backyard. I hadn’t realized how gray and overcast it was today. I’d felt happy and joyful at breakfast and didn’t even notice the dreary weather.
Now I feel it in my bones.
“You could meet with that reporter,” my mom says, and my entire body tenses. “He said he’d pay ten thousand for some inside scoop on the Titans.”
It was just over a week and a half ago my mom presented me with this option, and I shut her down swiftly. I was furious, and my first and only response was no.
And yet… I don’t say that now.
Turning to face her, I ask, “What exactly does that mean… scoop on the Titans?”
She shrugs, then winces in pain, which squeezes my gut. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem skeezy or anything. I think he just wants more of a personal look at the players.”
I keep quiet as I’d never trust my mother’s definition of skeezy. She just got beat up by goons for stealing money from a money launderer.
“Mom,” I say as I move back to the table and sit down. I rest one arm on top and lean toward her. “I really care for Hendrix. I can’t do anything to hurt him.”
“I’m not asking you to. But maybe just talk to the reporter and see what he wants. You don’t have to commit to anything. And he did say he protects his sources, so no one would ever know it was you.”
Again, I maintain my silence. Hendrix told me things that no one else knows, but those are secrets I’d never give up, even at the risk of my mom’s life.
Still, maybe I know something so benign that the reporter would be interested in it but that wouldn’t blow back on me. Maybe I’ve seen or heard enough the last few weeks that would suffice.
If that reporter pays the money that will get my mom out of trouble, and I can do so without being discovered, it could all work out.
Even as I think about it, deep in my gut, I know it’s wrong. So fucking wrong I’m nauseated, but I find myself saying, “I’ll meet with the reporter, and that’s all I’ll commit to. Tell him I’m not giving him any information, but I’ll hear what he has to say.”
My mom straightens, smiles, and then moans in pain. She presses her hand to the side of her face, rising from her chair. She moves to the sink and spits blood. I rush over to help her, preparing more salt water for her to rinse with.
When she’s done, she turns to me. “It means the world that you’re helping me. I wish I could take even a little credit for what an amazing young woman you’ve turned into, but that all goes to your dad. I wish I could have been more for you.”
“You’re here now,” I say, testing the truth of those words. It should be enough for me, but I still can’t help but want more. “Mom… you have to promise once this is over, you won’t do anything illegal again.”
She shakes her head, looks me in the eye, and says, “My crime days are over, I promise.”
♦
Randy comes and picks up my mom. She tells him I’m going to talk to the reporter, which pleases him.
After they leave, I grimace at the time. I should be heading to the bar. I’m working a solo shift, but it’s a Thursday and shouldn’t be overly crowded during the day.
But my journal sitting on the coffee table calls to me. I can actually hear it saying, “You need to purge some of that shit before you leave.”
And it’s right.
I had a beautiful morning with Rory but my mom poisoned it. While I’m so very grateful my mom wasn’t hurt worse, and now I’ve got a potential solution, all kinds of noxious thoughts continue to race through my head.
I walk into the living room, grab the journal, and bring it to the kitchen table. I open up to the next page, quickly uncap the pen, and start scribbling, a messy outpouring of pain.
December 17, 10:25 a.m.:
I hate you, Mom.
Not really.
But I despise you sometimes. Not just for leaving me when I was little, but for leaving me over and over and over again now that I’m an adult. You show up, acting like you want to be my mom. You’re present. Then you do something that no mother should ever do, and you’re gone again.
Please, please, just be someone who I can like. Stop putting me in untenable situations. Just for once, can you put me first?
I read over it, analyze my feelings, and consider it complete. I can’t think of anything else to say right now.
I then tear out the sheet.
Grabbing a lighter from a drawer, I walk outside and set the paper on fire. I place it on the sidewalk and watch it burn to ash, freeing myself from those dark thoughts. It’s what I did when I was a kid—with the help of my dad in lighting the paper on fire—to learn to let those things go.
When I’m back in the house, I sit down at the table again and start a new journal entry.
December 17, 10:32 a.m.: Hendrix is coming to dinner tonight. So is my dad. I’m so excited about it that I know today will drag by.
I tap the pen against my chin and glance at my watch. I have more to say. I could write for hours about Hendrix and what he might represent to my future, but I can’t be late for work.
I toss the pen in the journal and close it.
