I pat the couch next to me. “Let’s have a movie night.” It’s the same tradition I do every year. I usually do it alone, but I want Karessa to watch them with me. “Please,” I add when she doesn’t move.
She studies me for a beat, then acquiesces. “I know you did something to my keys, but I’ll let it slide for now.” She snuggles in closer to me and settles the blanket across our laps. “What are we watching?”
I don’t have to look because I have the lineup committed to memory.
“Two Weeks Notice, 13 Going on 30, You’ve Got Mail, How to Lose a Guy in 10 days, and Monster-in-Law.”
Karessa stares at me for a second, then presses her palm to my forehead. “Are you feeling okay? You know those are all considered chick flicks, right?”
“I know. They were her favorite.”
I’m glad I don’t have to elaborate. She looks at me with eyes full of sympathy, but she doesn’t speak. Instinctively, she gives me the silence I need. It’s the anniversary of the worst call of my life. Around this time twelve years ago, I found out I’ll never see my mother again. I remember rushing to the hospital praying that it was a clerical error. Surely they’ve gotten the wrong Bethany. In no way could my brain process life without my mother.
The same numb feeling I’d felt that night carried me through the first movie, anger through the next, the pain I’d felt once they covered her with a sheet and rolled her out of the room hit me in the middle of the third movie. I’m so lost in the melancholy the memory brings that I don’t realize I’m crying until Karessa pulls my head onto a pillow in her lap. She remains silent and just runs her fingers through my hair while I breakdown. Twelve years and this day still squeezes my soul out of me, beats the hell up, then shoves it back inside. The only love I’ve felt left that day. Maybe, if I had love from another source, it wouldn’t hurt so much, but the demon that killed her was all I had left. He wasn’t diagnosed, but I feel Elmer is a sociopath. I’ve never seen the concern, sadness, or empathy he’s supposed to feel since her death. While they were married, he took from her until her natural sunshine dimmed. I wish she’d never found him.
My mom was born in the United States, she’d visited Founders Island where my dad fed her with lies until she had a vacation affair with him. She’d found out she was pregnant with me when she returned home. She’d seen enough bad in him to not tell him. We weren’t rich, but we had each other and those were the best years of my life. When I was thirteen, she found out she had lupus, a condition she could live with for a long time, but treatment was more money than she had.
After some negotiations, she moved to Founders Island where she introduced me to my sperm donor. He wouldn’t acknowledge me. He referred to me as the boy until the DNA results confirmed my mom was telling the truth. He seemed nice at first, artificial, but nice. Slowly, he began to show his true self, calling her lazy when she had flair ups, and he acted like a victim in public. He was successful for a few years. People believed my mom was some con artist who hid a child to get a big payday. They believed my dad had to marry her to avoid going bankrupt from her demands.
My mom hated to leave the house, and he’d drag me to the events to be around the other children. Jagger and I hit it off immediately and have been inseparable ever since. As two early teens who had deep-rooted issues with our fathers, we had a lot in common.
Eventually his lies unraveled and my mom was more accepted. First by the LeClaires, then the rest. My mom and I would get invited and Elmer by proxy, but I never truly felt like one of them. One night we’d returned from an event and he tried to choke her for stealing his spotlight.
He was a big man, but I jumped between them and told him he’d have to fight both of us. Elmer likes to bully and intimidate, then use his charm to control. He doesn’t do well with being challenged. He found other ways to hurt my mother like “losing” her medication so she’d get a bad flare up and not want to leave the house because it was too painful. It’d taken me a while to figure it out because she only wanted me to think happy thoughts. We’d hang out watching romantic comedies because she was still a hopeless romantic who believed in love and the goodness of others despite being married to the worst husband in the world.
People asked for at the events we’d missed and Elmer hated our still being preferred over him even in our absence. He’d give her medication conditionally in exchange for housework, sex, or whatever else he wanted. I was pissed when I found out she was keeping this from me. He’d fucked around with her medication so much, she’d gone into kidney failure. I wasn’t a match, and she waited on the transplant list. It’s harder when you have a condition that causes it. But that asshole was messing with her dialysis appointments. I took over, and started taking her, but she kept pushing me to learn the family business and finish college. After I fought her on it, we’d gotten on a regular schedule. Jagger would assist when I needed him. She was looking and feeling better.
The night she died, I’d just checked on her. She had a cold, but she learned not to take medications because most of them had pain medications she couldn’t have. Instead of giving her warm water with lemon, Elmer gave her a flu relief tea. She never woke up.
We sit in silence after the third movie; the tears drying on my face makes my skin feel tight.
“Don’t think about it and tell me the first happy memory that comes to mind.”
Crap, her similarities to my mother messes me up sometimes. I have a lot of happy memories with her.
My voice is shaky and raw when I respond. “I don’t have a specific moment but a series of moments. Like when we’d dinner cook together, she’d call me her Sous Chef. She’d asked me about my day, which was code for, tell me all your secrets. She wanted to know it all. What I learned, who’s my favorite teacher, what girl I liked that week… everything. Aside from Jagger, she was the only person I could just talk to about anything.” I wipe my face with a tissue. “More than that, she was my confidant, advisor, cheerleader, and number one fan. I miss her so damn much. When I had issues I didn’t want to discuss, she’d sit me down and do a crossword, a puzzle, or play a game of scrabble until I worked it out in my head or was ready to talk. I don’t have that now.”
I press play on the next movie, not wanting to talk anymore. We’re reflective through it and I feel some of my fog clearing. When the last movie of the night begins. I can feel myself smiling. Monster-in-Law is about a mother having issues letting go of her only son when he gets engaged, and now I’m watching it with my wife. I look up at her.
“You know, my mom threatened to be like Jane Fonda when it was time for me to get married. She said she’d try to like my wife but couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t give her hell.”
Karessa smiles at the thought. “She’d be proud because you give me enough hell for both of you.”
I’m surprised that I’m laughing. “Just for that, I’m not helping you find your keys.”
“You mean the keys you hid?”
Turning back to my side, I continue to watch the movie. “I cannot confirm or deny that.”
“Don’t worry. Tomorrow when our truce is over, I will shave your eyebrows.”
“Haven’t you learned by now? I’m good at battling.”
She pats my head like I’m mistaken. “And you, sir, forget I have two sisters. I trained my most of my life for this.”
Chapter 15
Oran