Finding Strength

The house, the yard, the two other people with us, all of it fades to a ghostly gray. Only one thing had focus and color. My mother, my true mother, had appeared in my life again like an iceberg out of the fog.

My mother had dressed up in a brand spanking new purple button-up shirt and tight gaudy pink slacks. Brown, heeled, faux-leather boots round out the ensemble. She’d done herself up, her face was a mask of paints and powders, but it did little to hide the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. The years had not been kind to her. Though not yet even forty-five a neutral observer would think she was pushing sixty. Thin and gaunt and graying she is a withered version of the woman I remembered, and even more horrifying.

“There’s my boy!” My mother says with a big ingratiating smile, her teeth were yellowed from decades of smoking. “My, how you’ve grown Donny! So handsome!”

“Mama?” Without meaning to my voice had gone soft and supplicating.

“Yes. It’s me Donny. It’s your Mama.”

Pain does not even come close to describing the hurt I feel inside. Fear cannot convey the terror that grips my soul. I was face to face with Evil itself. The fact that I once loved this woman, and possibly still did, gave this devil a power over me that hatred never could.

‘Go away!’ Is what I wanted to say…but my voice stays silent. I didn’t want to be hit. I didn’t want to hurt. Every instinct inside of me screamed to run and hide, to hide in the smallest darkest hole I could find until Kiki came to drive back the monster and keep me safe for another day. Instead I stand looking at her through teary eyes unable to speak or even move.

Mistaking my dewy eyes as a sign of joy her yellow jagged grin widens and she holds her arms wide. “My boy.”

“D-don’t touch me.” I whisper, my arms held tight to my body and my head down.

She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care as she steps forward and takes me into a firm embrace. For such a small woman she was strong, just like her daughter, and her hug feels like a constricting Boa around me. She was not soft and nice, like Evelyn, but hard and wiry. More bone than flesh. Her cheap perfume burns my nostrils. Her clammy hands feel like acid against my skin.

As I stand being hugged I look across to Diane, my hurt gaze asking just one question of her. Why? I see nothing but cruel, vindictive amusement coming back the other way. Even Lamar, who I’d once thought to be a pretty cool guy, seemed entertained by this family drama unfolding in front of him.

Mother steps back from me and holds me by the shoulders as she looks me over. “Damn boy! You’ve become a man.” Looking off toward the house and then toward the pool she laughs. “You and Kiki live here? Doin pretty good for yourselves, huh?”

I just stare at her. My dry mouth and throat unable to even make a squeak. Though I try to hold it back a tear rolls down my cheek and my bottom lip begins to tremble.

“Hey. Don’t cry. Hold it together Donny.” She says as she wipes one of my cheeks. Glancing over her shoulder she says to the others. “He always was a weepy little guy. Isn’t that right Donny? Cry over spilt milk this boy.” She steps back from me. “It’s okay Donny, Mama’s back.”

At last I find my voice. “Wh-why’d you go away? Why’d you leave?”

“Aw Donny. Don’t you understand? Didn’t they tell you?” She asks, giving no indication who this mysterious ‘they’ were supposed to be. “I didn’t want to leave you and your sister, but I had to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. You were just a child. How could you understand?” She says. “Kiki knew. She didn’t tell you? Didn’t she explain?”

I shake my head.

“Fuckin Kiki. I shoulda known. Made me seem a heartless bitch I bet, like she’s so fuckin pure.” She sighs. “It wasn’t my fault. I had to go Donny. Get my head on straight. I was no good to you two back then. Kiki was always better looking after shit, even then. I stayed long enough to make sure she could provide for ya. It’s all I could do. Best thing I could do for you after that is get out of there. You can’t blame me for that. I had to look after myself first before I could look after kids. And I did! I’m better now son. I got my shit together.” She tilts her head, studying my reaction closely. “Do you understand what I’m sayin?”

I shake my head again.

“You will.” She assures me. “Someday you will.” She takes a breath and looks around again. “Looking around here I can see I made the right choice. I taught you two how to be strong, how to pull yourselves up, and look at where it got you. Wow.”

How dare she! How dare she take credit for this. A tiny ember begins to glow inside. “Why? Why are you here? Why now?”

“I was back in town and I went to find you two…”

“No you weren’t.” I say, my voice gaining in strength and volume. “Don’t lie.”

Her eye twitches at my interruption but she maintains her grin. “Donny, don’t make this hard. Okay? I’ve been through some shit.” She takes out a smoke and lights it as the heel of her right foot shakes up and down. After a long drag she says. “Life ain’t all cupcakes and rainbows ya know.”

I close my eyes and take in the acrid smell of cheap tobacco then slowly let it out. “Sometimes…it is cupcakes.” I say, the vision of the special cupcake my Mommy made me held firmly in my mind. “Sometimes it is cupcakes.”

“What are you talkin about?”

“Why are you here?” The ember now shone orange. I open my eyes and raise my chin to stand tall. “Why did you think we wanted to see you?”

“Cause I’m your fuckin…” She stops, takes a breath, and starts again. “Because I’m your mom and I was worried about you. I wanted to see you again. You can’t know how hard it was for me to leave you Donny.”

“Brings a tear to your eye, eh Lamar?” Diane says. The pair of them chuckle at our expense. I could tell the mockery bothered my mother but I just ignore them.

“How hard it was for you?” I say, aghast. “For you!?”

“You think it was easy for me? Huh!?”

“I don’t know! You weren’t there!”

“It’s a fuckin hassle being a mother, specially when you don’t have you’re own shit sorted.”

“You couldn’t have at least tried!?” The ember had lit and a fire now burned inside me.

“Calm down kid.” She huffs out cloud of curling smoke just like the dragon in my dreams. “Okay, you want the truth?”

“Yes!”

She swallows and glances behind her, annoyed at Diane and Lamar’s presence. “Give us a minute?”

“No way Lexie. This is way too good.”

“Fuckin assholes.” She mutters. “Fine!” She locks eyes with me. “I’m here cause I got nowhere else to go, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

“I just want the truth!”

“Well I told you!” She shouts. “Donny, listen to me. Ain’t nobody want a whore my age. I been workin as a Lot Lizard but even that’s drying up. Ain’t nobody want me son. I’m all used up. I got no money and nowhere to go.” Her voice lowers. “When Diane got a hold of me and told me that you and Kiki were doin good…” She sighs and reaches for me. I recoil from her. “You’re all I got kid.” She begs. “Your mom just needs a hand. I need you son.”

I stare at her in disbelief. Could she even hear herself? After all of scars she’d left on my sister and I…she comes to me now to beg for help? In her brown eyes, the eyes she’d passed down to me, I see not a whiff of repentance or guilt. She truly felt that SHE was the victim here. Right then I knew that her life had only ever been about her. There was only room for one in that shriveled black heart of hers.

Face to face with the devil and her demons with nowhere to run and my savior Kitty unable to shield me this time I am **** at last to find the strength within myself. And what I find…is Mommy. I think of that first awkward day at the front door when I messed everything and how Evelyn let me start again. I think of the food she cooked me and the warm bath that followed. Oh how I remember the feel of her soft hands on my body. I remember that first hard cry and how she held me though I was only a stranger then. I remember the presents and the laughter and how she told me to dream big. I remember how she came to me that night back in the city to check on me and sing me a lullaby. I remember how nervous I’d been when I introduced her to Kitty and how she’d accepted my sister with open arms because it was important to me. I remember her reaction to the mug and her even better reaction to my first painting. How proud she’d been. I remember the starry night and her warm arms around me. The kind words, the gentle snuggles, the tender gazes, the abiding love. I remember it all…and through new eyes I see my monster for the pitiable wretch that it truly was.

Sensing the rush of courage come over me my mother changes tack. “Listen Donny, you got some dough I could have?” She motions to the house. “Some jewelry you could nick? Just something, anything, and I’ll get these two outta here.”

I knew this type of bargaining. I’d heard it many times from Kitty back in our old life. “I thought you were clean.”

“I’m tryin, okay?” She says, not even bothering to try to cover the lie I’d just called out. “It ain’t easy.”

“I know.” I say, flashes of the hospital and my bedside vigil with Kitty flickering through my mind. For my mother that seat would be empty. “Life’s a bitch, huh?” Her eyes narrow in anger but I do not shrink. Her power over me was gone. “So…you come here…to ruin all that we’ve built up…for a hit?”

The smiles was gone now and her upper lips trembles with rage. “You ungrateful little shit. I’m your Mom Donny, your MOM!”

“You are NOT my Mom!” I shout. “You might have shat me out that rotten fucking cunt of yours, but you are NOT my Mom.”

“Ohhhhh damn!” Diane laughs.

“Donny…”

“I’m glad you showed up.” I say as I step toward her. “It gives me the chance to tell you that I hate you straight to your face. I hate you mother. I HATE YOU!”

My words, no matter how good they felt to say, were impotent against her impenetrable narcissism. Throwing her cigarette to the side she points at me. “There it is. Strength! I gave you that to you Donny. I did that. You were such a weak little sissy boy growing up. You never coulda made it. But my boy grew into a man because of me!”

I shake my head in utter revulsion. She was beyond hope. “You’re right Lexie.” I say, my face and my heart closing off to her. “You’ve got nowhere to go. Least of all here. Now get the hell out of my home.”

Smack! With a snarl she snaps a stinging slap hard across my cheek.

I stand, my cheek glowing hot and my fists shaking at my sides, and glare back at her unbowed. “Go away!”

Smack!

“Hrrrmm!” I snort and ball my fists tighter as the other cheek now stings too. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again!”

“Or what?” Lexie sneers. “You ain’t doin shit Donny.”

“Ha ha ha!” Diane chortles. “That’s it kid. Give’er a pop.”

“Fuck you.” I say to her. “Fuck you all!”

Just then the back door opens and a deep booming voice bellows. “What is going on back here?”