The Way Back

I had heard the news a few days ago and it all still seemed surreal; I had considered going back home that day that I heard, but I thought better of it. I had taken my mother's creativity and went to college to study creative writing and literary analysis in the hopes of landing an editorial job in one of the coastal states. It had been several years since graduating from college, and that same number for the time it has been since I have been in Mable.

It was home for 19 years of my life, my mother--Ashley Williams--had raised me and my sisters with only herself and a great number of now ex's. I have 3 sisters: the second eldest is Marisha at 24, the second youngest is Valerie at 20, and Amari who had just turned 18 a few months ago.

Now, I was 26 years old and I had not seen my mother in 5 years; I always wondered whether my absence had been the cause of her drinking habits. But ever since she acquired them, time around her felt meaningless and benign. I couldn't handle any more, so I left. That meant that my sisters would be left alone with her, but they were becoming older and more efficient, they could handle themselves if they stuck together, which they did. Years after I left, we remained in contact, but even that began to wane. Amari is the only one I speak to on a regular basis now, but it is only once a month that we chat online.

I found a job I like, at least well enough, for me to enjoy it and the money it provides me. Most of all, I found a girl I admire--she's...younger to say the least and I don't know quite how well my sisters or anyone back home would accept her. It's been two years since we met and from the moment I met her, fireworks could be seen from the sky at all times. She's ambitious and probably has a better path for success than I do, as long as she sticks her nose in the right crowds. Her name is Penny Lewis and one of these days I'll marry that girl.

Now, its currently Thursday and the news I received on Monday of my mother's : she had heart problems within the past few years and I almost always wondered if it was because of my absence and dismissal that these problems began to occur. When we fell apart, she, nor I, was very accommodating or kind to one another. But the funeral would be on Saturday, by order of my mother's current (late?) girlfriend. She was about my mother's age at 48 and she seemed to hold herself with a tremendous amount of confidence and I would be lying if I were to say that I did not get the appeal.

Her name was Eliza Thaymen and she was every ounce one of those desired Milfs you would watch in porn videos; it was almost shocking when I first heard that my mother had managed a woman like that, but then I learned more about the situation. Unfortunately, she was not a prostitute or pornstar--she was another woman with money (less than my mother of course) but she also came with a daughter that was Amari's age. I had never met either of them, but from Amari's reports they were both wicked and devious, but they sucked up to Marisha. The dynamic looked messy between my sisters and Eliza's side of the equation, but I would only find my answers as soon as I arrived, which would hopefully be later on today.

It was at that point that I heard a ring from my phone, I normally wrote my notes in a physical journal, not on my phone like many would these days. But what would be the notification I got?