I think about Tegan, up in that massive house on the beach. Alone. My heart clenches with self-loathing, and anger, too. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, I built her up in my mind into something that wasn’t even real. I knew she had secrets, I just never imagined they’d be as dirty and broken as this.
I’m not judging her. I just can’t be the one to take that risk.
“What did she want?”
I pause, distracted by my thoughts of Tegan. “Who?”
“Mom. She must have wanted something. How did she even find you, anyway?”
I weigh my response. I don’t want to lie, but the truth is messier than she’ll ever know. “I guess she felt bad, about how everything turned out. She wanted us to have this place, if it was any use.”
“You’re welcome to it.” Brit sounds bitter. “I don’t need her payoff.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You’re defending her?” Brit challenges.
I sigh. “No. I just mean… It’s something. This place is a fresh start for me. That’s more than I ever thought I’d get from that woman.”
“I wonder why she reached out to you.”
I give a vague shrug and take another gulp of beer. “She probably knew you guys wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“Well, she was right.”
Brit sounds so final, so determined, but I know she’s not as tough as she looks. We’ve all had to deal with the damage of our fucked up childhood; she’s got scars, just the same as me.
“Does Hunter know?” I ask, curious.
“About Mom?” Brit nods. “He knows everything.”
She says it quietly, but there’s a certainty in her expression. No shame or regret. For the first time, I envy her, having someone to share the burden. Emerson too. They have partners now, to bear the weight of the past, ease the load somehow.
I thought for a crazy, stupid moment that Tegan might be that person for me, one day. Now I know I couldn’t have been more wrong.“He’s a lucky guy,” I say, nudging her. Brit rolls her eyes, but her lips finally quirk into a smile.
“Damn right he is.”
I laugh. “My baby sis, modest to a fault.”
She shrugs, self-conscious. “I spent long enough thinking I was worthless. I guess I’m making up for lost time.”
She finishes her beer and then gets to her feet. “C’mon, I’ve got a fridge full of food and a guest room waiting for you.”
“You go ahead.” I get up too. “I want to work for a while.”
“OK.” Brit gives me a warning look. “But I mean it, you can’t sleep rough like this. That tent looks like it’s about to fall down.”
I chuckle. “Believe me, I’ve slept in worse places.”
I see her back to her car, then head inside to start ripping out the rotten wall struts. But our conversation weighs on me. My lies repeating in my mind.
The truth is, that wasn’t the first time I’d heard from our mom. Not even close. Ever since I left Beachwood Bay, she found a way of tracking me down. Every time she got in trouble, when she needed some cash, or a place to stay. She’d show up out of nowhere, full of the same cheap lines. “Just a few nights,” she’d tell me, her eyes smudged with makeup, a fresh bruise on her face. “Just a couple of hundred dollars, that’s all I need. You can help your momma out, can’t you, baby boy?”
And I always did.
I wish I could have been stronger. Sometimes I thought it would make the difference, sometimes I just wanted her to go away. I never thought about telling Emerson or Brit; I barely spoke to them, and besides, I didn’t want them to have to deal with her bullshit. It would only cause them more pain.
No, this was the price of leaving. My way to make it up to them, even if they would never know. I could keep her from showing up on their doorstep, from blowing their fragile peace wide open all over again. A town like this, people talking all the time, it could wreck things for them for sure. I didn’t know what kind of lives they were building here, but I knew our messed up druggie mother would only bring them down.
Besides, she was getting worse.
You haven’t seen what rock bottom looks like until your own mother is shaking in spasms on the bathroom floor, clawing at her own skin, begging you to fetch her purse and bring her just a little fix. It killed me to see her like that, not just once, but a dozen times over, each one more wretched and degrading than the last.
Brit doesn’t know how bad it got. Emerson and I shielded her as best we could when we were younger, but even then, looking back, Mom kept it together most of the time. Sure, there were skeevy boyfriends and public fights, but Brit never saw her high, or out of her mind on some cheap, shitty fix. She never saw her pleading with her dealer, or found the stash of pills hidden under the mattress.
She didn’t take a beating for flushing them down the toilet that same day.
After growing up like that, I should have been able to slam the door in her face. But something always stopped me, every time she came back around with another promise that this time, it would be different. This time, she’d make it work.
I wanted to believe her. Such a simple, basic weakness. I wanted to make everything OK. She was still my mom, and deep down, I couldn’t help but hope she would pull herself together this time. Kick every last bad habit once and for good. Be clean, healthy, a parent to us again.