Mother Dearest(9)

She dropped the cloth. “I guess I’m not sick, Mother.” She carefully stood, “You shut your mouth you insolent little…”The sentence caught in her throat, but didn’t choke her.“You’re the one who is sick. Real sick.” He leaned up on thecouch, trying to push back the squealing of his skull as he sat up.The lump on the back of his head was easy to feel; he could feel itrising slowly. “You just shut up.” Rumbled out of her. “Why? What’s the matter, Mother?” “Stop it…” “You’re sick. You kidnapped Trisha, stole from me, clocked me andthen lied to me? How much else is there I don’t know? What aboutthe box? What were all of those articles in there?” “Stop it…” “Lemme guess. Your past victories?” “STOP IT!” “No! I will not, Mother!” She swore, “You just shut up, Thomas, right this very instant.” “How many more did you take? Did you just kill them?” “You are just like your father.” She said with ice dripped fromher words. She stared at him with that hot furnace growing evenhotter, he could see the red rising in her face like thermometer. Thevein in her forehead announced her accelerated heart rate. Tom paused. “What about him?”

She smiled, a devilish smile, “Didn’t piece that together? Ithought you were better than that, smart guy.” He thought of the articles. “You did kill him.” A nod, barely detectable, “Him and that whore he was going with.”She backed away another step. Her eyes glowed, cutting into him. Tom remembered the one article, the stand-alone article in the entirebox. The murdered prostitute, the one that nobody really cared about.Mother had killed her too. “He thought he could really play around like that? I knew what hewas doing from the start, I just had to catch him at it…then I hadto make sure he would never do it again.” “So you sabotaged his car?” She thought a moment, “I think ‘modified’ would be a betterword here.” The question sputtered out of him, a tired old question that had beenthere since he had first looked into the photo album and found thoseawful articles in the first place. “Why?” Mother paused, looked at him, measuring him, testing him. A look ofsorrow and mingled pleasure hovered over her expression. “I did itfor us.” He paused. Didn’t say a word. “You didn’t deserve a father like that, and I didn’t deserve ahusband like that. He was scum. I love you and I knew that youcouldn’t have a father like that.” “So you…killed him? Was that supposed to make everything better?”“It seemed to fix the problem some. You didn’t have that terriblerole model your whole life. I can see that it did little good though.You decided to do the same thing, run off with that little whore…”

Heat flared in his ears, and his words, through the white-hot pain inhis skull, “She is not a whore, Mother. Don’t talk abouthere that way…ever…” He looked around Mother, trying tocalculate a way around to her to get to Trisha who was still lockedin the closet upstairs. “You were going to run off with the little whore, Thomas! Just likeyour father you were going to take off with her and leave me herealone!” “Stopit, Mother.” “You were going to break your promise just like your father!” The room suddenly felt hotter, more suffocating. The rising anger inboth of them was making it sticky and humid. Tom didn’t think he’dever been that angry before, and as he stood there it burned more andmore. As he thought of Trisha, tied up in the closet, waiting forsomeone to come to her, someone to rescue her. Waiting for him to save her. The dam within broke. Heat flared through him, consuming all thoughtsthat had before caused him to hesitate. “JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP YOU STUPID MANIAC!” Mother glared at him, sharp teeth lined up like daggers in her mouth.“Fate has a way of keeping promises, it just needs a little helpnow and then.” He took a step forward. Wobbly though it was, he knew that it sentthe message clearly: the conversation was over. He took anther step forward. “I wouldn’t do that, Thomas…” “Get out of my way, Mother.” She didn’t move, and he took extra care to walk around her and bumpher arm with his shoulder as he went by, his footsteps echoing thewhole way. The hallway announced his departure from her and towardthe stairs.

“I wouldn’t do that, Tommy!” She never called him Tommy. Dad had called him Tommy, but neverMother. He did not stop but continued on, his step wobbly and loose.It was the clocking on the head he had taken that had him down,whatever Mother had hit him with—the injury had to be messing withhis balance…something like that. The stairs were in front of him and he began to mount them, trying tomove as fast as he could without falling back down and furtherwounding himself. Mother would be sure that he didn’t get back up,he knew that much. His feet felt like they were stones, but he managed to pull them upthe stairs, taking them one by one, trying to stay balanced. He could hear Mother behind him, grumbling with anger, going into thekitchen, doing heaven knew what. Air filled his head a moment and he stopped to let the suddendizziness pass. His eyes couldn’t quite focus, and he knew that hewould probably have to get to the hospital after all. Trisha first. He thought. I’ve got to get Trisha out ofhere. I’ve got to take her to the hospital. He started up the stairs again, his mind becoming much foggier as hepulled himself up the steps.He could hear Mother behind him, only a moment ago she had been inthe kitchen; he wasn’t sure where she was. Another step, he was so close. He was almost to the top. He couldmake it out; he knew he could make it out. He had to get her out—hehad to save her. A hand locked down on his shoulder, slimy and meaty. He knew whosehand it was and shook it off.

The hand locked down again, the brutal fingers slicing into hisshoulder, and he pulled her off again, not without effort, and madeit to the top of the stairs. Thankheaven, oh, thank heaven. Mother was behind him, he turned around quickly to find himself faceto face with her, her eyes scanned him and her hair that was so neatwas thrown around, as if she had just run her beefy fingers throughit. Her mouth was curled in a wicked snarl—or, good heavens wasthat a smile—her entire face was screwed up tight to match theinferno in her eyes. “I’m gonna kill you and your little tramp.” He began to turn when she grabbed on to his arm. His free arm shotout in response and gripped her forearm, his own grip, slightlyweakened, dug into the hamburger flesh of her arm. “Get off me.” He began to push away and saw the briefest of flashes, quick, likelightening, and suddenly felt very, very weak. The grin on her face twisted tighter. He looked down to see her other arm plunged forward, clenched in afist, the knuckles suddenly speckled with shining dots. A small blackrod protruded from her hand, and a metal sliver was extending fromthat. He felt the blood before he saw it, a hot river pouring down hischest. Then he saw the crimson fountain form against the white of hisT-shirt, forming a wicked grin as it pooled at the end of his shirtright at the waistband. Then came the pain. A gray pain drifted up into his head from the hole in his chest.A hot poker was shoved in his stomach, and he could feel the coolnessof the steel buried inside of him, wriggling against the flesh thatwas so warm, so very warm.

A scream emitted from the wound, and traveled slowly up his body andrattled in his brain, but he could find no way to articulate it, thepain was so exquisite, something that could not be expressed in a cryof any kind, but only by the ever poetic silence. A tiny whimper escaped, for it was all that his clenched throat couldmanage, a faint echo of the cry that was demanded of his condition,but the only thing that he could produce. Slowly, the terrible poker was taken from his body, and Mother’sgrin darkened as she looked down at the knife. “Now look what you’ve made me do…” He couldn’t speak but he wanted to say something—anything, butall words had been strangled by his silent scream. He pulled her arm off of him again, her grip having weakened with theglee of wielding the knife. “It’s for your own good,” she whispered, looking down at theknife. He felt his insides twist, ever so slightly, but ever so painfully,looking at the chef’s knife. “She tried to escape, you know.” Mother told him, staring intohim with her green eyes that had always been so welcoming before.“She was trying to take this knife, and she was going to kill me.It was left on the counter after I got it away from her. She broke aglass that day, you found part of it with your foot, I believe.” Oh manoh man oh man. The knife was plunged forward again and found its place lodged ahalf-inch away from his other wound. This time a yell escaped, one of pure agony as the knife locked intoplace among the other organs and innards that were hidden beneath hisfragile layer of skin, the cry echoed in the room and Mother’s facewent to a neutral state of vacant expression.

He tried to focus the pain, the gray-blue pain, and waited for thefinal moment, hiding it all away inside for when he needed it most. “This is hurting me a lot more than it is hurting you.” Fatchance, you monster…She began to retract the knife, and he could hear in his head thescraping of the metal against the soft, warm flesh of his abdomen. Hetried not to focus on it, he knew if he did he would pass out and itwould all be over. He tried to focus himself, focus on the pain, he had to use it, usewhat it gave him for that single, split-second. The blade squealed against his bones.She finished pulling out the knife. He used all of the pent-up agony to fuel one final burst and pushedbackwards for all he was worth, thrusting his arm against Mother’ssternum with the heel of his hand. Tom could see the surprise register deep down in her eyes, thosegreen oceans of deceit and evil. It was then that she slowly began towobble, ever so slightly—then not so slightly. Oncemore…oh for crying out loud….He shoved again, this time he thrust harder, just a little lower,catching her just above her stomach, blasting the wind right out ofher. She began to fall backwards, her mouth opened in shock and the knifefell from her grasp as she began to swiftly and violently rollbackwards down the stairs. It was a lot like watching a car wreck in slow motion, watching herarms trying to grasp the rail as her overwhelming girth pulled herbackwards and built momentum, the crashing sound she made turned hisstomach even more and he realized as he was watching that he wassliding down the wall until he was seated on his rump—watching thewreck.

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