Prologue
Hamilton
My mother used to tell me that death was just a monster she couldn’t figure out how to conquer. At eight years old, I didn’t understand what she meant. I just thought monsters were the creatures that hid under my bed and in my big brother’s clenched fist. The day she died, Mom learned how to best the beast. I found her writhing on the floor with armor made of fentanyl while clutching a needle-like sword in her palm.
I remember how I pleaded. “You can’t die.” I clutched her hand while sobbing over her soft skin. Her hair was soaked with salty sweat and clung to her forehead. “You can’t.”
I refused to believe that she’d done it at her happy place. This was supposed to be the one place where the monster couldn’t catch her. The place where she used to put Band-Aids on my scraped knees and bake my favorite pies. Not where we used to build her pillow forts in the living room and eat chocolate as she cried. Even though her moments of motherly affection were few and far between, they were special to me. This place was special to me.
I’d sometimes catch her sliding down the wall while biting her fist. She used to find the darkest corner of our house and settle there for a week or a month or my entire childhood. Dad said she liked to play hide-and-seek. We made a game out of her depression.
“Mom!”
She didn’t answer me. She was too damn high—too lost—to make her mouth work. When I found her passed out on the ground and foaming at the mouth, I called an ambulance. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to do this. Young boys shouldn’t have to know the right things to say to a 911 operator. Young boys shouldn’t have to know words like overdose. She loved things that damaged her. She loved to kiss death on the cheek.
She loved to make me feel terrible for existing.
Oh, she loved me, too. In her own special way. I was one of those damaging addictions she forced herself to love. It was the worst kind of love. Love wasn’t meant to be forced.
“Mom?” She started seizing. “No!”
I did this crazy thing where I almost laughed. Because I was so fucking scared—so terrified of losing her that the adrenaline cracked my mouth into a manic, terrible, nervous smile. I wouldn’t know until much later that the weakness in my expression would seal my fate.
I clutched her to my chest. “Don’t do this,” I pleaded as I shook her frail body.
She died in the arms of the bastard son she never wanted.
1
Vera
“I love you,” Mom whispered in a voice that lacked conviction. Although her new husband ate those words up like apple pie, I wasn’t sure if it was her affection that made him smile, or the idea of owning someone.
“Love you, too,” he whispered back with equal yet still impossibly lackluster enthusiasm. He leaned over and grazed her lips with his mouth. It was a satisfying sort of sadness, watching my mother kiss the love of her life on her wedding day. Her smile caused a pang of remorse to creep up my throat and settle on my tongue. I swallowed away emotions like I was drinking bitter, unsweet iced tea, and cheered at all the appropriate times. It was the right thing to do. I always did the right thing.
Lilah Garner—sorry, Beauregard—looked stunning. She was beautifully aware of her appearance and wielded it like a weapon. She poised herself like a goddess in the middle of the room, daring you to look at her until your eyes bled. Mom was rough around the edges. Her makeup was a bit too thick for her conservative husband, her dress a bit too revealing on her thin frame. This wedding was her grand performance. Romantic love was nothing but theatrics for the woman who birthed me. I’m sure in her own special way, she cared for Joseph. But it wasn’t the sort of love you read about in books. It was a love born out of opportunity, and everyone knew it.
“Introducing, Mr. and Mrs. Beauregard!” the announcer said as the happy couple walked onto the dance floor. I politely clapped along with everyone else watching.
My mother and I were close. Only fifteen short years separated our ages, and we fought for our place in this world. She always wanted a comfortable life. I suppose spending all your existence clawing your way through bullshit made you wish that you didn’t have to try so damn hard. Her new husband offered comforts neither of us had dared to even dream of, but the privilege of peace came at a price.
The smile stretched along my face felt sore and forced. I’d been wearing it all day, and the happy mask was just as foreign to me as the three-thousand-dollar designer lace dress clinging to my thin body, and the heels strapped to my throbbing feet. My light brown hair was swept into an elegant updo, my full lips lined with mauve liner and matte lipstick. I had red paint on my nails. My tan skin was buffed and shined to perfection. My brown eyes lined with smoky makeup.
I didn’t want to be here. Not really. The makeup caked onto my skin had all but sweat off in the September humidity, and the lashes expertly glued to my eyelids earlier this afternoon by Connecticut’s finest makeup artist, were now hanging by a thread.
But my mother wanted an outdoor wedding.
She wanted the fairy tale.
She wanted everything her unplanned teen pregnancy had been denying her all these years.
The only thing that could make her special day more perfect was if I weren’t here.
No. That was an intrusive thought orchestrated by my deep-rooted insecurities. My mom loved me. She wouldn’t have worked so hard to give us a good life otherwise.
The happy couple walked around the room, shaking hands with their guests and greeting attendees with wide, practiced smiles. When they got to me, Joseph awkwardly patted me on the shoulder, his lips pressed into a thin line as he stared at me.
“I love you,” Mom whispered before kissing me on the cheek. Her glossy lips left a sticky residue on my skin.
“Love you too, Mom. Congrats, Joseph.”
Ignoring me, my new stepfather cleared his throat, pressed his hand to the small of Mom’s back, and whispered, “There are more people to see. The Vice President is here.”
With a gracious nod and a pleased grin, Mom squeezed my hand and followed her husband off to a group of guests to my right.
She looked happy, with her vintage dress and petite body gliding across the ground. The setting looked straight out of a fairy tale. Twinkle lights woven like thread and strung from poles towered above us and made the sweat on her face glow. Her breasts were spilling from her dress, giving onlookers a tease of what was underneath the sixteen-thousand-dollar gown she wore.
She wanted to feel like a princess today.
Don’t get me wrong, Lilah Beauregard deserved to feel like a princess. We hadn’t had an easy life. The day she realized she was pregnant with me, was the start of her misery, and she had earned the right to a happily ever after. The tenacious woman paid in blood, sweat, and tears. Lilah worked three grueling jobs while getting her GED. She also made sure I had food on the table, and I never really felt unsafe. Her creepy boyfriends never slept over. There were times we feared not making rent, but she didn’t purposefully go out of her way to make me feel like a burden. My mother loved me. She wasn’t abusive or cruel. She was just human, a fact that I had slowly realized over time.