She would come shuffling in with greasy hair, purple circles under her bloodshot eyes, looking somehow thinner than she had been when she left. She'd fall into bed, shaking, crying, throwing up. Then she would get up and be gone again.
And then in a room in the social services building, we met Auntie May. Our mother's older sister who had washed her hands of her well before we were born. There had been no appearances on holidays, no birthday cards on birthdays. In fact, we hadn't been aware our mother had any family until she came into that room, her low heels clicking on the worn linoleum floors.
Auntie May was what our mother might have looked like had she lived an easier life, had she not spent all her money on drugs instead of food. Where our mother was rail thin, all sharp angles poking out of skin, Auntie May was softly rounded in the chest, butt, and belly. She dressed in a way the principal in our school did - straight and pressed slacks, a silky shirt underneath a tailored blazer, with oversized jewelry.
She looked like our mom in the face, though hers was much rounder. And, sure, while our mother's eyes were often sad or bloodshot, there was a warmth there. Auntie May's eyes were cold. The kind of cold that made us all huddle closer together.
I didn't remember the exact conversation, but the social worker had asked her if she would be willing to take us on.
Her response?
I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?
From that day, our fates were sealed.
Free of the responsibility to care for us, whatever self-control our mother had evaporated. From what we knew, she spent the next several years in a cycle of drug use - using, running out of money, tricking herself out to get the next hit, overdosing, swearing she was recovering, then not. By the time I was twelve, she got hauled in for her first prison sentence.
Disgraceful, Auntie May had hissed after the call had come through. Embarrassment to this family was another of her favorite things to say about our mother. To our faces.
Auntie May did, on paper, all she was meant to do. She kept a nice roof over our heads. She made sure we ate, showered, did our homework, took us to doctor appointments, hired tutors if we were falling behind on work. Because Auntie May had the money for things like that - having spent her life working her way up the ladder in a big energy company, affording her a life full of luxuries but empty of a partner, her own children, friends.
What she didn't do was genuinely care. Maybe she loved us in her own way. But her love came with strict conditions. Like never embarrassing her by being unkempt, never talking back - especially in front of company-, never having her need to leave work to come pick us up from the principal's office, never doing anything that might in any way reflect poorly on her.
Not surprisingly, I never heard from or saw her again after I got locked up.
"Please," Colson said with a snort. "We all know how I have brought shame on this family," he said, putting his left hand - free of a wedding band - on his daughter's little shoulder. "She doesn't send cards anymore."
"Not that kind of card," Thad said with a smirk. Thad had handled Auntie May's rejection with the ease he handled everything. And maybe he had been more prepared for it, knowing that once he came out, she would want nothing to do with his godless ways. "It was technically from her attorney, I guess. About us getting cut out of the will."
"Who is she going to leave it all to then?" Colson asked, shaking his head, his gaze going to his daughter, knowing the opportunities he could afford her if he got even a small piece of her estate when she passed.
"Some scholarship for girls."
"Well, at least it is going somewhere decent," I figured. Since she hadn't been willing to help me get something more than a public defender for my case, I always figured I was out of her will years back.
"We don't need it," Colson added. "I am already working on a savings for Jelly."
A savings that would likely have a lot more in it had he not helped put money into my commissary.
Guilt flooded my system, stealing my appetite, making me push a plate of previously mouth-watering French toast away so I could rest my forearms on the table, hands cradling my lukewarm coffee cup.
I would make it up to him, to her, before I went back. I would get a job, sock it all away, put it into a trust for her. Or leave it with Thad with instructions to give it to Colson for Jelena when she needed it.