Mom’s declaration that I was awake wasn’t a completely observable fact. My eyes were barely open, and my body remained curved around the vine/sheet that was no longer there. In truth, I’d hardly moved except to dip involuntarily toward her as she sat down on the mattress next to my hip.
“You’re not taking drugs, are you?” Her thumb lifted my eyelid, and I hissed and jerked away like a vampire confronted with sunlight.
Her hands settled on me again and more shaking commenced. “I wanted to see you. Would it have killed you to wait up for me?”
One eye opened and I glanced at her. “What time is it?”
“A little after two,” she said without a trace of remorse.
“Then, yes.”
Mom was sitting all prim and proper on my bed, her brown hair sleek and shiny on her shoulders. The neckline of the tank she wore was a little low, and I could see the outline of her sternum in addition to her muscle-shredded, olive-toned arms. Was it possible that she’d gotten skinnier in the past two days? My eyes said yes.
Her brown eyes gleamed a little too bright, but even without that visual clue, I could smell that she’d been drinking and I clutched at the corner of my pillow. These middle-of-the-night chats tended to happen only after a little help from Captain Morgan, and they never went well.
She always started with the same question. “How’s your father?”
“Fine.”
“And the home wrecker?”
“Mom.”
“What? Am I not allowed to ask about the woman your father chose to co-parent with? Is it not within my rights as your mother to want to know that she’s treating you well? Is it not—”
“She’s fine. Everything is fine. No one beat me or starved me or forced me to join a cult. No, Dad didn’t mention you. No, I didn’t get the sense that he and Shelly were splitting up. No, I didn’t find a secret bag of money marked Hide from Helen. I don’t know anything. I never know anything. Now, can I go back to sleep?”
But I couldn’t. Because she started to cry. So I had to hold her. Because she never held me.
“Tom says I should be getting more money.”
“Who’s Tom?” I asked, several minutes and a completely soaked shoulder later.
“Tom. You know Tom.”
I did not know Tom.
“I met him at the gym, and he says there’s no way Robert’s disclosing all his assets.” She lifted her head, and after I stopped focusing on the black smears all over her face, I realized she was looking at me like I was supposed to say something.
I sighed and dropped my arms. Just once, I’d like her to wake me up because she actually missed me instead of for what this was: an attempted guilt-trip debrief. I was pretty sure Dad was putting money away somewhere in Shelly’s name. Mom thought so, too, but so far she hadn’t been able to prove it. Her attempts to get me to spy for her had failed. What did I care which one of them got to enjoy his money? As long as this charade went on, neither of them did.
It was the little things in life.
“I told you I don’t know about any money.”
Mom snorted and jerked back. “He’s hiding it somewhere. You know I’m right.” A finger waved in my face and I brushed it away. “Why else would that tart stay with him?”
I no longer thought that either of my parents was especially lovable, so I didn’t comment.
Mom rested her head on my shoulder. “Couldn’t you just—”
“No,” I said, tightening my grip on my pillow and hunching my shoulder to dislodge her. She was trying to play nice, play sweet, but my heart beat erratically from the falseness of it all. “I’m not going to riffle through his stuff. How many times do I have to say it?”
She abandoned my shoulder. “I guess you want me to be homeless.”
“You have a huge house.”
“What happens if he claims he needs to pay less? I could lose everything.”
“Mom, stop. You’re getting worked up over nothing.”
“Why, because I’m the only one who’ll be homeless?” She made a scoffing sound in the back of her throat. “You’ll go gallivanting off to your father’s like you do every other weekend—”
“I am known for my gallivanting.” I refrained from commenting on the visitation schedule, because she knew—at least, sober, she knew—that I’d had no say in that arrangement.
“—and I’ll be in an alley somewhere selling my body for drugs.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed at her. “You turned into a crack whore pretty quickly in that scenario.”
When she slapped me, my face flamed hot.
“Oh!” Both hands covered her mouth. “Jolene. Honey, I didn’t mean that. My Jolene.” Then she was hugging me again, rocking and shushing me as if I was the one crying. I wasn’t. I never did. My heart limped in my chest, and my face stung, but my eyes stayed dry. “You are the only good thing in my life, do you know that? I love you so much, so, so much...” Then she made me lie down, and she pulled up my sheet and tucked me in.
The last thing she did before leaving was kiss the cheek she’d slapped.
ADAM
I waited in the car while Jeremy and Dad hugged goodbye, opting out of any farewell beyond a single uttered word: bye. As a result, Jeremy and I didn’t talk on the way home. It was a thirty-minute drive, so the silence took considerable effort from both of us.
We turned off the main road, and even with my eyes shut, the crunching sound accompanied by the vibration of Jeremy’s car let me know I was almost home. The graveled road stretched for a half mile before our house came into view and Mom came dashing down the porch, her jaw-length auburn hair fluffing out around her fair-skinned face.
I let Mom hug me as tightly as she needed. Jeremy was next, obediently hugging her and then kissing her cheek as directed. She clung to both of our hands and drank us in with blue-green eyes that were a little too red-rimmed to completely sell the smile she wore.
“You’re taller. I swear both of you are taller.”
“Don’t go giving Jeremy ideas, Mom. Short people are just as good as the rest of us.”
Jeremy swore at me, right in front of Mom, but she didn’t reprimand him. That, more than anything, killed the fight always simmering between the two of us.
“Who’s hungry? I made fried chicken, and there’s apple pie for dessert.” We both responded eagerly and let her precede us into the house. We exchanged a glance. No smiles or mouthed words, but I knew that we’d both do everything we could to make her forget that she’d been alone all weekend. Jeremy wasn’t inclined to place blame on either of our parents, and right then, being half-right was all I needed from him.