Two Roads(29)

“Thank you for coming to see me,” she says, darting her eyes toward me before averting them to the floor. Pace. Turn. Pace some more. My resolve falters when I see a photo frame by her single bed, a frame of our little family in happier days. I must’ve been about four years old, and my mom was having a good run. I think she lasted a whole year that time. It was a good year, before it all went bad again. I haven’t seen a photograph of my dad in many months - I never got a chance to take anything with me when I left for Nebraska with Elliot, and the photographs adorning the clubhouse walls aren’t exactly family snaps.

I falter, and my mother sees that. She rushes to the photo, and holds it out to me. “Here,” she says. “Take it.”

I take it from her slowly, bringing it closer so I can study our faces. It was taken in the nineties, before digital cameras were cool, and so the focus is slightly off, the lighting too bright. But it’s something I never thought I’d see - us, together, and looking happy.

I swallow thickly, my hatred for the woman fading just a little.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a photo of your dealer next to your bed,” I say, before I can stop myself. Her face falls, but she doesn’t look offended. Good. She doesn’t have the right to be offended after the childhood she dealt me.

“It’s your fault they killed dad,” I blurt out suddenly, letting the photo hang at my side. “It’s your fault they almost killed me.”

She starts to cry.

“Don’t cry,” I say bitterly, backing as far away as I can from her. “You don’t get to cry.”

She nods, wiping her cheeks, trying to compose herself. We both stand tensely, neither one knowing what to say.

“Did I ever tell you about when you were born?” she asks finally. I shake my head. I’m not sure I want to hear what she’s got to say. She opens the dresser next to her bed and pulls out a small photo album, flipping to the first page. She holds it out to me but I don’t take it this time. I can see it’s a photo of a newborn baby in her arms. I know that nose. It’s the nose I used to have before Dornan broke it. Before the surgeon smashed it apart and rebuilt it into something else.

She studies the photograph, stroking the baby’s cheeks through the plastic film.

“When they handed you to me, I knew I was supposed to feel something. Love or affection or something inside that said I was meant to protect you, keep you safe. But when the doctor put you on my chest and I looked into your eyes, all I felt was dread. I was meant to love you, but I was terrified of you. I was seventeen years old.”

Her words cut into me deeper than I thought possible, as I remember the grief and love I felt when I was handed my own baby just eleven days ago. A baby I would have died for a thousand times to ensure her survival. A baby I would have killed the whole world to protect. Clearly, my mother had not experienced that.

“So, did you ever love me?” I ask stiffly. “Or did you hate me all along?”

She starts to cry again.

“When you died,” she whispers, “when Dornan told me you were dead, I realized for the first time you were my gift from God. You were given to me to make me a better person. You were a miracle, and I’d wasted fifteen years trying to forget you existed.”

Her words stab me deep, cutting criss-cross sections into my heart. I hate her, and that is the saddest thing of all.

“I think about you all the time,” she says, her entire demeanor so full of sadness, it’s as if she’s been devoured by it, completely and utterly consumed by every shitty thing that’s ever happened in her life. I try not to take it personally, try to see her as a victim. But hate still spikes deep in my chest at this woman who, for fifteen years, just wanted me to go away.

“What are you going to do?” she asks finally. “Are you going to kill him?”

Dornan. I know that’s who she’s referring to. I mean, apart from Donny, there’s nobody else left. I take a deep breath, steeling myself. I let my rage tamp down the sadness until the lump in my throat fades away.

“Yes,” I reply.

She cries harder. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I trusted him. I knew he was angry with your father that day, but I never knew he was capable of that.”

Of that. She can’t even say what that refers to. I nod slowly; none of us knew. Even at the very last moment, when I begged and Dornan wavered for a second, I had truly believed he would stop before he did what he did. My resolve breaks as I look down at the framed photograph I’m holding one last time. I look at the way my parents look at me as if they adore me. Maybe she did love me when this photo was taken. Maybe she was just as broken as I am now.