And I want to deny it. I want to call bullshit and tell her she’s done a few too many recreational drugs over the years, but somewhere in a dark recess of my heart, I believe her. Choked sobs turn to panicked cries as I wrap my arms around my legs and curl into myself. Every stupid fucking thing I used to care about ceases to matter. My ears pound, my face heats, my arms and legs go numb, and my chest strains under the heartbreak.
My mother didn’t die in my father’s bedroom seven years ago. No, my mother abandoned me nineteen years ago. Michael. Why didn’t she save Michael from my father, too? Does she not love him? Is he not important to her? Revulsion sets in as I disentangle myself and move to stand on shaky legs. I have to catch myself on the arm of the sofa so I don’t fall right over.
“You left me there,” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I let my voice rise, strangled and more painful the louder I get. “You left me in that house. You left Michael. Oh my God, Michael!”
Ryan and Ian, who are both watching me like hawks with matching sorrowful expressions, dart their eyes away when I look at them. “How could you let me grow up in that? Never having a choice? No chance to ever go to school? Nothing!”
My anger is diluted only somewhat by Jim’s hulking frame rising from the sofa. With narrowed eyes and a firm expression on his face, he comes to stand before me. I try to back up and find I’ve hit the fireplace.
“You gotta be mad, fine. Be mad,” he says. Wrapping his big hand around the back of my neck, he turns me so that I’m facing Ian. “But if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at that bastard you call a father. Look at your brother’s face. Look at it!” Jim gives me a slight shake, and despite Ian’s obvious discomfort, he doesn’t break from his position on the sofa, facing me head-on. Hearing Ian being referred to as my brother makes me want to freak out all over again, but I don’t dare. Not with Jim’s grip on my neck, gentle or not. Sniffling, I stare at Ian, wondering what he has to do with any of this. He moves just slightly, giving me a better view of his scar. The rolling sickness swings back into full force, and I have to count my breaths so I don’t get sick all over the hardwood.
“What kind of sick bastard cuts a six year-old’s face open and threatens to kill him in front of his mother if he sees her again? Tell me, what choice do you think your mother had? You and Michael were safe. Ian wasn’t.” Turning me to face him and holding me by my upper arms, Jim crouches down to my level.
“Have you ever asked yourself why I risked the life of every one of my men to get you out of there safely? Because there is only one thing that woman—” He jerks his head to Ruby. “—has ever asked of me—to promise I would make sure her children were safe. And after watching her spend fifteen years raising my boy, crying herself to sleep on your birthday, and waiting desperately for Gloria to call once a year for an update on you—the only thing she ever asked of me was to keep you safe. If that’s not being a mother, I don’t know what is.”
My legs give out on me, and just as I think I’m going to sink to the floor, Jim wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into his chest. I’m no longer angry with Ruby, but now with my father, with Gloria—with all of them. Every ounce of misery makes me kick at Jim and try to push him off of me. But he holds tight, hugging me, propping me up. Screaming into his chest, my lungs fight to keep up, my voice cracks, and my eyes feel swollen from the dramatics of it all. The combination of the sorrow, betrayal, and even the guilt at the relief of having a mother, when I’ve been without one for so long, boils over. Jim lets me cry into his chest as the panic suffocates me and every emotion I’ve tried to keep in check over the last two months escapes. All of the fear, outrage, confusion, and anguish over feeling lied to and protected, used and loved and so very out of place leaves my body and, in its wake, all I’m left with is this all-consuming feeling of being numb that I can’t shake.
Chapter 21
Ryan
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
Frank Herbert
I’VE BEEN WATCHING her for days. When she speaks, it’s barely above a whisper. It’s been days that she’s walked around like a zombie. Days that I’ve watched her like some sick fuck who’s been recently paroled.
Rolling my shoulders, I grunt at the discomfort. I’ve been standing in the same fucking spot for the last five hours. I could move around—it’s not like I can’t sit or something. I just don’t want to. Twisting a little to the left, I have a perfect view of Alex through her open glass door. I don’t think she even realizes we’re out here, and we’ve been out here since Ma’s call with Gloria.