“How dare you judge me! You’re not better than me! You’ve got no room to snub your nose at anybody, Mr. Perfect… so self-righteous! Like you never made a goddamn mistake!”
“Stealing a piece of candy as a child from a store is a mistake. Getting the wrong answer on a test in a mistake. Catching the wrong bus is a mistake. Getting drunk for over twenty damn years is not a fuckin’ mistake! You’ve lost your home, and you almost lost your job. You lost your sons, and you’re still drinking! I didn’t turn Perry against you. You turned Perry against you! You wanna hear the truth? He moved in with you not because he needed to, but to babysit your sorry ass, and then he found out real fast he couldn’t take it! He said he wasn’t strong enough. He thought, if he lived with you, you’d stop drinking, because then you wouldn’t be lonely anymore. Bull!”
He saw the unmistakable look in her eye, the one where the truth hit her hard and knocked the wind out of her.
“No one can love you enough to make you stop, can they? You’ve taken us for granted, and when I looked at you in the police car, I knew that was it.” He threw up his hands. “No more running every time Perry called about Mom being in trouble. No more cleaning up the broken glass. No more threats of leaving you to your own devices. Nope, empty threats help no one and I’m in the business of making promises that I keep… and I’m keeping this one.”
“I’m a functional alcoholic, all right?” She huffed. “I’ve tried rehab in the past. It doesn’t work, and I’m fine! As long as I go to work and—”
“Fine? Fine on what planet, Mom? What are you, a mere hundred pounds?! You’re 5’5 and a hundred damn fuckin’ pounds!” He pounded the table, causing her to jump in her seat. “You’ve had dentures since you were fuckin’ thirty! Your health is in the trash, your damn kidneys are shutting down, and the doctor said you’ll need to be on dialysis if you don’t stop cold turkey. Your liver is fucked, you have stomach ulcers, you black out… it is more than apparent to me that you wanna die. Well.” He got up from his seat. “I tell you what. I have already called the funeral home and made arrangements. At the rate you’re going, Perry and I will be puttin’ you in the ground by the end of the year. I can go through this life not knowing the guy who made me… but you… you are the one who has done the most harm!” his voice trembled.
“Here we go again. I love you, Aiden. Isn’t that enough?”
“Love is how you treat someone, Mom, not just what you say. You asked why I brought up my father, well, I’m bringing him up again for a reason. There’s a deadbeat father out there who doesn’t care about me. I get it, Mom. I have a mother who I’ve seen multiple times a week until recently, and she’s absent, too! You both are the same! He checked out physically, you checked out emotionally. Every child deserves at least one stable parent!” He yelled so loud, his voice rattled. “My father, my mother… so many dreams gone up in smoke.”
“I never made you do anything, Aiden.”
“You’re right. But you made it so hard for me to say ‘no’. You stole my voice! I couldn’t speak! You reached inside me and ripped my vocal chords out. You ignored my advice; I wasn’t heard. That’s all I could afford to give you that was worth anything: sound advice. But, all I heard were your needs! Not once did you say you were sorry or regretted anything while sober. While drunk, you were subdued, even agreeable. Once in your sober mind, however, you act like the world is peachy keen and we owe you. That’s actually worse, that you could care more about me and Perry while intoxicated and not give a shit while clearheaded… kinda like now. Your indifference is amazing.”
The woman dramatically rolled her eyes, but it was obvious from the twitching of her nose his words were getting under her skin.
“Regardless of what you’re saying Aiden, to get back at me I guess, I love you and your brother.”
“You don’t love me! You don’t even know who I am. All you know is only what I can do for you. You came here for one last try, one last ditch effort to manipulate me, but it’s not going to work, Mom. The jig is up. I can make it if I don’t ever get promoted and end up in the same ol’ routine for the next thirty fuckin’ years because I love what I do and I met the love of my life doing it. I can rest easy with the fact that I could have had an entirely different future if I’d gone on and got my Masters degree like I’d planned to, stayed out of town and ignored your selfish calls for help. But what I can’t do, Mom…” A tear cascaded down his cheek. “What I can’t do is play a role in your demise.”
His world crashed around him as he watched her silently cry now, too. “Since you’re happy being dead, you just let me know what type of flowers you want on your casket. I haven’t picked them out yet, but my girlfriend’s sister can give me a discount. I’m certainly interested in saving a little money since I am finished trying to save you!” And with that, he turned and walked away…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Confessions and Obsessions
She sat there at that picnic bench for at least four hours.
She couldn’t stop shaking or crying. A mound of crushed cigarettes lay in a makeshift ashtray someone had constructed from a soda tin can. She’d reached out from her hole to receive the love and attention she craved, but no one came to her rescue. She’d tried to contact Perry, but once again, her calls went straight to voicemail. When she’d left the hotel the other day, determined to change her life, she’d ridden in that Uber to a rehabilitation center.
As soon as the driver pulled up, she had him pull off and drive her to the liquor store instead, then back to the hotel where she got sloshy drunk to try to kill the fear within her. Aiden was right; she was riding on the Grim Reaper’s back and sooner or later, he was going to shake her off and she’d succumb to the long overdue death she so deserved. Or maybe death was too good for her. It was an out, after all. A way to end it all. Suicide was an option. She’d considered it a time or two but then she thought about her boys and discarded the matter once and for all.
The boys. Were they better off with her dead or alive? She was no longer certain.
He has no voice? I stole his voice?
She kept repeating those words in her mind. Such strange words that rolled off like rain drops on the curved back of her emotions. She thought she could handle all of it, but now, these pesky emotions gathered at her feet like blessed oil, reminding her that he’d cried for her, because of her, and yes, in her own way, she’d already died. She couldn’t escape his stare. It was burned in her brain… the way Aiden’s green eyes were filled with unsurmountable sadness then tapered with such heated rage within a flash. His coldness chilled her to the bone, the way he could divorce himself from her within a blink of an eye. Of course she knew it wasn’t true, that he still cared, but he was playing the role. He had to cope, right?