“Josiah, stop! You’re going to kill him!”
CHAPTER 1
The social worker’s state-owned Suburban pulls to a gentle stop, waking me from my Codeine-induced, six-hour nap. I wipe the drool from my mouth and glance out the window. My eyes are still black and blue and they hurt when I squint, but I’ve learned over the years to ignore the pain; eventually, it goes away.
“We’re here, Jensen.” Her voice is annoyingly soft and sweet like cotton candy. Judging by all the photos on her work desk, she is one of those Mother Teresa types, only she’s married and she and her husband have adopted a whole orphanage-worth of system children. Brad and Angelina would be proud. Guess they didn’t have room for me. “Is that your mother?”
Standing on the front steps of a picturesque yellow colonial is a woman who resembles my mother. She’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater, and her hair is long and pulled back. It’s still the same shade of shit-brown I vaguely remember.
“Come on,” the social worker coaxes me with her voice, like it’s some kind of magical lullaby. It probably works on little kids, but not grown-ass eighteen-year-olds. “She’s excited to see you.”
Bull-fucking-shit.
I sit up, raking my hand through my dark hair and combing it into place. I don’t know much about my mother besides the fact that she left my father when I was seven, and she never came back for me. Dad told me all sorts of salacious stories, none of which I fully believed. None of what he said mattered, anyway. Her actions spoke for her.
The social worker—who I think is named Mercy, or some shit like that—climbs out of the Suburban and waddles to my side, pulling open the door until I melt out like liquefied boredom.
I glance up at my mom again. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and her mouth keeps dancing into a reserved smile, which fades and reappears like it’s on some kind of loop. She’s nervous. I just want to get this whole awkward reintroduction thing over with, be shown to my new room, and walk a straight line for the next few months.
Then my life can finally fucking start.
I just need to graduate from high school in a few weeks and crash here for the summer, and then there’s an apprenticeship waiting for me in Los Angeles with one of the best tattoo artists in the world. He called me himself the day he received my unsolicited drawings and told me there’s a spot for me in his shop this August.
I amble up the sidewalk, the earth a little unsteady from my Codeine-stupor, and approach my mother for the first time in eleven years.
“Hi, Kath,” Mercy says to her. They shake hands like they’re conducting a business deal and my mother gingerly approaches me. At least she’s willing to meet me in the middle, because this is awkward as hell.
“Jensen.” She stares at me like she’s looking at a goddamned ghost. Her trembling hand rises to my cheek and grazes the spot where my father’s gaudy wedding ring cut into my flesh during the last beating. Kath pulls her hand back quickly and covers her mouth. Her eyes well.
She cares.
I think.
“Oh, my goodness. That man is a monster.”
“Shall we head inside?” Mercy eyes the front door and Kath scans around like someone’s watching. “It’s standard procedure. I just need to ask a few questions, make sure Jensen has his own room, gets acclimated, and then we’ll sign a few things and I’ll be out of your hair for the foreseeable future.”
Kath releases a breath and nods. I’m willing to bet living with my father from age eighteen to twenty-five made her submissive and agreeable.
We head inside where two tow-headed kids are zoned out to public television cartoons. They sit cross-legged in front of a small flat screen in the living room. The walls are decorated with crocheted art knitted into sayings like “Bless This House” and “Home Sweet Home.” Not a speck of dust resides on the floors, and judging by the lack of clutter, there’s an OCD-grade cleanliness thing going on—it’s almost the exact same way Juliette kept our house in Arizona.
Must be another one of my father’s persuasions.
“Welcome to our—my—home.” Kath’s words are robotic and carefully chosen, tinted with a slight tremor.
What the fuck is she so scared of?
It’s dusk now, and the curtain-covered windows let in little light. Maybe in the shadows I remind her of my father. I can only imagine the horrible shit she had to endure. I could cut her some slack.
But then I remember she left me there to be raised by that monster and never looked back.
She saved herself from a lifetime of hell and no one else. She deserves no slack.