She doesn’t lie about what she drinks, how much she drinks or when she drinks it. She’s so casual it’s almost like she embraces the addiction.
“Momma?” I shake her shoulder gently, trying not to startle her. “Momma, wake up.”
She shrugs me off and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. Her dull eyes glare up at me surrounded by smeared make up. “What?” she spits.
“You need to go to bed. You’re sleepin’ at the table.”
She stares at me for a second, so coldly it gives me chills. I know that look. The narrow eyes, the pursed lips, the clenched hands. It’s the look that says she blames me for everything I don’t understand, the one that makes me feel two foot tall.
“Go to bed. Right.” She snorts, and her eyes catch the bottle. A shaky hand reaches out, unscrews the cap, and pours another glass. “Because sleeping alone is so appealin’.”
I take a deep breath in as she downs the glass, not even flinching at the inevitable burn of alcohol against her throat.
“Goodnight, Momma,” I say, turning around. “I’m going to bed.”
“Runnin’. Runnin’ runnin’ runnin’! Just like your Daddy, you are. Always runnin’ when shit gets hard.” The glass slams against the table. “Fuckin’ useless!”
I pause at the bottom stair. My fingers curl tightly around the banister, and I squeeze my eyes shut tightly.
“Always turnin’ your damn back. Just like him. Neither of you give a damn about me.”
“You know that ain’t true,” I throw at her. “I care.”
“Right. That’s why you go to school in New York and not Alabama.” She snorts again, and the scrape of her chair against the stone floor indicates she’s standing up. “Fuck.” She smacks the fridge. I turn, and she’s leaning against it for support with the bottle still in her hand.
She doesn’t even care for the glass anymore.
“New York has better schools,” I offer lamely. “You know that.”
“Right.” She draws the word out and smacks her lips together. “But you still ain’t never come back, have ya? Na, you just damn well stayed up there in the big ol’ fancy city, livin’ the life.”
“Or I was working my ass into the ground to keep up my grades, so I still had my partial scholarship for next year.”
“And here I am… All alone. Because you both damn well run.”
“I didn’t run from anythin’,” I lie. “I was walking toward a better life.”
“Funny!” She swings around and looks at me, her smile anything but happy. “That’s exactly what he said.”
“I’m not Daddy. I came back, didn’t I?”
“Took you long enough! But then… I never expected you to. Dunno if I even wanted you to.”
Her words sting even though I know it’s the vodka talking. But, as Jay always says to me, “Drunken minds speak sober hearts.” Mom swigs from the bottle, chugging it back. She all but drops it onto the table, and it rocks before settling. My eyes focus on the bottle, not willing to meet her gaze. I know exactly what I’ll see there.
It’ll be the same old anger, dislike, and bitterness I see every time she gets like this. We’ve been here and done this too many times for it to be anything different.
And I still listen to it.
“I’ll be gone again soon enough, don’t worry.” Sadness-tinged anger creeps into my voice, and I step onto the bottom stair.
“Maybe next time, you won’t come back. Maybe next time you’ll keep your ass up there in New York just like he has.”
What?
My chest tightens. I turn my head toward her slowly, my eyes meeting her wide ones. “What?” I whisper.
“Nothin’. Nothin’. Fucking nothing.” She yanks a cupboard open and slips, only just steadying herself on the side.
“No, what did you mean? “In New York, just like he has?””
“Nothing!”
“Is Daddy in New York?”
She says nothing, just stares at the wall.
“Is he there?!” I yell, holding onto the banister to steady me.
“Yes!” she shouts back, still not looking at me. “He’s been there the whole damn time!”
I feel sick. Nausea is swirling around in my stomach, and the tightness in my chest isn’t letting up. For the last eleven months, I’ve lived in the same city as my father and she never told me. Maybe it wasn’t even in the same city – maybe it was the same district, the same area, the same block.
Maybe I passed him in the street and I never even knew.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I can’t help the accusatory tone in my voice. “Why?”
“You didn’t need to know.”
“I was eighteen! I had every right to know where he was!”
“Why?” Momma looks at me now, her eyes hard. “He never bothered to find out about you. Never bothered to contact you!”
“How could he contact me if he never knew where I was?”
“He knew you lived here for five years after he walked out. Remember that, Kia? He walked out. On me and on you, girl. Even if he knew you were in New York, he probably wouldn’t have cared.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “I can’t believe you never told me! That wasn’t your choice to make. Even if I did find him, and he didn’t care, shouldn’t that have been my choice? Shouldn’t I have even been given that option?”
“I was protectin’ you!”
I push off from the stairs. “No, you weren’t protectin’ anyone other than yourself, and you know what, Mom? You can’t even protect yourself – you say me and Daddy run, but runnin’ is better than hidin’ behind the rim of a bottle or a glass! The only person you think about is you – if you thought about me you would have told me where he was. You would have told me if you even knew!”
“Kia!”
I yank the back door open. “No. Don’t Kia me. Don’t anything me. The only thing you care about is the bottle you’re reaching for even now! You could have torn my heart out and stomped on it, and you’d still reach for the bottle instead of me! And not that you care, but you have. Congratulations, Mom, you finally succeeded in what you’ve tried to do for the last few years. You’ve finally made me hurt just as much as you have been, because now I have two parents who betrayed me. The people whose job it is to protect me failed miserably so you can have the damn bottle for all I care!”