“I’m clean now, Jade.”
I scoffed. “And how long has this stint lasted? A week or maybe you are going for a new record, a month? Did you make it to a month, Mother dearest?”
“Jade, I’m only trying to formulate a relationship with you. A relationship I would like us to establish before it’s too late.” There was sadness to her voice. “Time is something we are not all guaranteed, and I don’t want to waste ours.”
“Well, you already did waste our time, Mom. You had your chance to formulate a relationship with me before I left Riverroad, but you chose the drugs over me. I remember begging you to put them down. To finally get clean because I needed you. Do you know what you did?”
She bit down on her lip and looked away from me, ashamed.
“You said, ‘The drugs make me better. You just make me want to die.’ Those were your exact words, Mom, a week before I left. I tried for years to fix our relationship. You are the one that didn’t want to. Now after 12 years, you want to come back and play the role of mommy?”
“Jade…please. I’m only trying to make things right.”
“Well, you can’t!” I screamed. “Where were you when I needed you the most, Mom? Where were you when I was begging you to quit the coke? Where were you when I was hauling you out of big Al’s ‘cause you had one too many at the bar? Where were you when your dealer nearly raped me, Mom? I needed you then, but I don’t need you now.”
I could see the unshed tears glistening in her eyes. She was upset. Good. She deserved to feel a fraction of the hurt she put me through over those grueling years.
“I left Riverroad to get away from it all. I came here to forget the trauma of the past, so I could finally begin to live again. Now, here you are bringing it all back. I’m sorry you had to travel all this way, but I don’t accept your apology, Mom. It came too late.”
“I tried, Jade. I tried to write to you. I tried to contact you and somehow make a connection with you, but you shut me out at every corner.”
She was right. I had shut her out. I changed my email. I did get her letters, courtesy of Ethan but I never opened any of them. She sent one every two weeks or so.
“I know you never opened my letters, but I wished you had, Jade. A lot more things would have made sense for you. I explained so much in those letters. So many things I couldn’t say out loud.”
I didn’t care. I was too angry to care. She had shown up at my door uninvited and unannounced, and she expected me to welcome her with open arms? This woman may have looked like my mother, but she wasn’t my mother.
My mother had died a long time ago in a car crash that killed my father. I had no mother as far as I knew.
I could feel myself getting worked up, and I knew that it was time for her to leave. I stood from the armchair.
“It’s time for you to go, Mom.” I pointed to the door.
She stood from the couch and looked at me with hurt clear in her eyes. “Jade, I came all this way. The least you can do is hear what I have to say.”
“No.”
She stared into my eyes for a moment, searching for something. When she had found what she was looking for, her shoulders sagged, and she looked dejected.
“Okay, I will leave, but I just need to do this.”
Without warning, she crossed the small distance between us and took me into her arms. She held me tightly, but I started to pull out of her hold.
“Please, Jade. Just let me have this with you. If only for a moment, let me have this. I know I don’t deserve it but hug your mother back, Jade, just this once.”
Something within me told me to do it, and so I did. I wrapped my arms around her. She had looked skinnier when I first saw her outside of the apartment but now holding her I could definitely tell she had lost a substantial amount of weight. She seemed almost fragile, like I could drop her at any given moment.
When she pulled away tears were streaming down her face. She brushed them away, as she stared at me with a look that I couldn’t quite decipher.
“I want you to know how incredibly proud I am of the woman you have become. You had to raise yourself and be your own parent, but you turned out so beautiful, and I couldn’t be prouder to be your mom. I know you may not think of me as your mother, but you will always be my baby girl. Even beyond death.”
The sadness in her eyes had my heart clenching, but I kept my resolve. I had caved one too many times in the past and that had led to the endless toxic cycle that was Monica.
“Goodbye, Jade.” She turned and walked toward the door without another look back.
I waited for her to fully exit my apartment before I collapsed onto the couch.
Present Day