HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (116 page)

One of the EMTs smiled. “You remind me of my mother,” he said. “Never afraid to tell people what to do, especially when it concerned her children. This young lady’s lucky to have you, ma’am.”

Just that one statement, that simple kindness was enough to cut through my despair.

“I’d like to think I’m pretty lucky to have her,” I said. Without Jules, Marshall wouldn’t even tolerate the thought of me. I would’ve been thrown onto the streets after I was released from prison, and who knows what I would’ve done to survive. I probably would’ve had to kiss my sobriety goodbye. And I’d never have the chance to try to reconcile with my son.

In no time, the EMTs had Jules strapped to the gurney, an oxygen mask over her face. They were attaching sticky plastic discs to her chest, the wires curling to a little electronic box. Jules reached out and grabbed my wrist as they wheeled her past, and I gave her hand a squeeze.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, sugar,” I told her. “You’re in good hands.”

“I’m going to follow in the car,” Marshall said, walking behind the gurney, speaking to his wife. “I’ll see you at the hospital, honey.”

Jules couldn’t speak, not with the oxygen mask on, but she leveled a look at her husband, still holding my hand, and lifted her hand to show him just who she was holding onto.

“We’ll both see you at the hospital,” Marshall amended, glancing at me.

The car ride was silent, but I was thankful for it. It gave me time to think—and to pray. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Was my son’s attitude toward me something I could change? I used to think so, but now I wasn’t so sure. He hated me completely. I didn’t think there was room for any love in all that hate.

I had to keep trying, though. As long as I was staying in his house, I needed to keep trying to make those amends. Jules accepted me. Why couldn’t he accept me?

Despite the Serenity Prayer, I was still nervous. Would I ever be able to accept that he wouldn’t call me Mama? Even if it was something I couldn’t change? That was harder. And what about Jules’ health? I wasn’t a doctor. I couldn’t change that one bit. Where was my wisdom? How could I pick my way through this tricky situation?

“Marshall,” I began, but he shook his head sharply.

“I don’t think I can talk to you right now,” he said, his eyes on the road.

“Can you stand to listen?” I asked.

When he didn’t say anything, I took it as a good sign. “I was a shitty mother to you,” I said. “I know that. In fact, the only mothering I did for you was to push you out of my body and give you life. That’s the most essential, most basic, most visceral part of motherhood, and it’s the only thing I did right. I know that there were other, more pressing responsibilities that I didn’t even try to do.”

I took a deep breath. I hadn’t wanted my son to know all the gory details of my past, but it hadn’t done either of us any good so far keeping a lid on them.

“I became pregnant with you when I was fifteen years old,” I told him. “I don’t know who your father was. At the time, I was a prostitute. I had regular johns, so I could probably narrow it down, but I don’t think there’s any real hope of finding him. I don’t know, though. Maybe he’d be a better parent than me. Anything could be a better parent than me. Sharks. Flies. Monsters. There has to be a monster out there who’s a better parent than me. She’s gotta teach her baby monster how to grow up to do monster things. And I never did that.”

I knew I was babbling, but this was the hardest conversation I’d ever had in my life. It was worse than the first time I’d shared at AA in prison. There, at least, everyone had been supportive and receptive. Here, Marshall drove, his face pointed straight ahead, his hands gripping the wheel tightly, silent. He wouldn’t tolerate this if he could walk away from it. I guess having him trapped in a car made him the perfect captive audience to what I felt like I needed to say.

“What I said earlier about leaving you to help build a life for you,” I said. “Not true. I lied to myself a long time about that, but it took sobriety to help me face the facts. I left because of me. I left because I didn’t want to be a mother. I couldn’t earn money with you around. And that’s what I wanted above all. Money. That’s why I started the nightclub—so I could be my own pimp. I wanted the power, I wanted the control, and I wanted the money that pimps got. It’s as plain and simple as that. I didn’t care who I had to mow down to get what I wanted. I—it hurts me to say this, Marshall—I even forgot about you until I got the call from child services.”

“When you finally got the chance to be rid of me for good,” he said bitterly.

“Yes,” I agreed, choking on the admission. “Yes, that’s how I felt about it. The world I had built had no place for you in it. It had no place for anything innocent in it. I was a criminal, sugar. I was one of the bad guys, and I was bringing in more and more of them every day.”

“You have no idea what my life was like,” he said, the words spoken through gritted teeth.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “But I would like to. I would like for you to tell me. I want to know.”

We pulled up to the hospital, right behind the ambulance, and Marshall pulled aside and into the valet parking.

“I’m going in with her,” he said. “Stay close. She’ll probably want to see you and I don’t want her getting upset, thinking I left you at home.”

“All right,” I said, resigning myself to the fact that my son wasn’t ready to open up to me yet.

I thought Jules’ color looked better as they unloaded her from the ambulance, but it was hard to tell in the harsh lights of the emergency entrance.

I stopped in the waiting room and sat down as they wheeled her into the emergency unit. It was a long time before anyone else came out of that door. I watched the evening news on the television, watched the fish swim around in the aquarium there. I watched the people come and go, battered by whatever accident or incident had brought them to the emergency room in the first place. One woman had wrapped her bleeding head in a towel for lack of bandages for her wound, and it looked like she had just stepped out of a shower from hell.

Finally, the doors that Jules and Marshall had vanished behind opened again, and Marshal stepped out alone. I stood up.

“They’re going to keep her overnight for observation,” he said. “Run some tests tomorrow. Her heart rate’s back down to normal.”

“How is she?”

“Resting,” he answered, running his hand through his hair. “She was doing all right, though. Asking about you. Made me promise that I hadn’t left you at home with that whiskey bottle.”

I shook my head. “I’m glad you didn’t. Earlier, I wanted to prove to myself that it didn’t have the same hold over me. After tonight, I feel its claws sharper than ever in me. This is something I’m just going to have to cope with for the rest of my life.”

“Doesn’t it get easier?” he asked.

“I’ll let you know if it does,” I joked lightly. “Right now, though, it’s good to be around family, not the bottle.”

Marshall winced at that and I wondered if I’d taken it too far. All I’d wanted to do was tell him that I appreciated him and Jules. I knew that he didn’t want me there. All the same, he’d opened his life to me. That was a big step right there. I hardly deserved even that.

“Let’s go on home,” he said. “Jules made me promise that we wouldn’t spend the night in the waiting room. These chairs are awful to sleep in, if you were wondering.”

The valet brought Marshall’s car back and we set off, back home without Jules. I wanted to ask my son about his life, remind him that he could lay anything on me that he needed to, but I forced myself to stay silent. If it happened, it happened. I couldn’t make him open up to me anymore than I could force a flower to bloom. It happened at its own pace, in its own time.

We were perhaps ten minutes from home when Marshall finally cleared his throat.

“You really want to know how my life was without you?” he asked. “My life in the system?”

“I really do.”

He took a deep breath, the same breath I always took before I was about to do something painful.

“In the system, everything finally made sense,” Marshall said, keeping his eyes on the road in front of us. “There are lots of horror stories in the system, but mine wasn’t one of them. My horror story was when I was with you, when I was your son.”

My heart constricted at that, but I didn’t say anything. This was my son’s story. All I could do was listen.

“When child services found me, I hadn’t eaten in three days,” he continued. “It was the summer, so I wasn’t in school. When school was in session, I’d at least get breakfast and lunch. I’d called the girl who watched me ‘Mama’ once, but she’d slapped me to make me stop. She said I’d drive away her customers. She’d take them up to the apartment, and I’d hide in the closet. I never saw her with her customers, but I couldn’t help but hear the sounds they made. It was violent. Like animals. I couldn’t imagine what could be making all of those terrible sounds, and I didn’t want to know.

“When child services found me and told me that I was going to get a new mommy and daddy, I was relieved,” he said. “I didn’t really understand the concept, but I knew that my classmates had them. My classmates always picked on me because I didn’t have parents who came to conferences or who signed my report cards. It took school officials three years to even figure out there was a problem with my home life. I did the best I could to pretend that everything was normal, but when a kid wears the same three outfits week after week, and when he starts every school year undernourished, you start to put two and two together.

“My foster family was great. It was an older couple, and they were white, so that earned me even more bullying at school. I didn’t care, though. They fed me whatever I wanted to eat by the shovelful. In the first year, I shot up five inches. They were just what I needed, but I could never call them ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad.’ That hurt them, I think, and I wish I could’ve just faked it for their sake. They were good people. But the ideas of moms and dads were so foreign to me, and these people were so real, that I didn’t want to risk losing them to those fantasy parents. I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but that’s just how I thought. I thought that one screw-up by me would ruin everything.”

Marshall pulled the car into its spot in front of the house, but he didn’t make a move to get out. He simply pulled the key out of the ignition and sat, still staring straight ahead.

“They helped me get my education back on track,” he continued. “I would’ve never gone to college without them, and that would mean I never would’ve met Jules. I’m so glad she got to meet them before they passed away. They were my real parents, and they weren’t. They were something else entirely, something that a broken little boy like me needed. I only wish they could’ve come to the wedding. I really resented Jules for contacting you. My foster parents had been everything you never were, and I accused her of thinking they were somehow deficient. It was our first real fight. You.”

I blinked back tears. Nothing had really changed, had it? They’d just had another big fight because of me, and the stress of it had landed fragile Jules in the hospital. I was toxic. I was poison to everyone I touched.

“Sometimes, I wish you would’ve stayed gone,” he said. “I wished you would’ve stayed in prison forever and not come back here. I can’t deal with you. I don’t know how to deal with you. I don’t want to deal with you at all. I wish you would just leave.”

“I’ll leave,” I said quickly. “I’ll do it. Tonight, even. You never have to see me again. I don’t want to cause you anymore pain than I already have.”

Marshall shook his head. “You have to stay,” he said. “Jules’ orders. And what Jules wants, she gets. I can’t deny her anything.”

“She’s a good girl,” I said. “I’m glad you found her and married her.”

I would’ve been even happier if I’d been allowed to attend their marriage. Jules had invited me. I should’ve gone. But I was so wrapped up in my own little world that I’d never thought of it. I could’ve gone. It’s what a real mother would’ve done.

“I don’t think I can ever consider you my mother,” Marshall blurted out, turning to stare at me, to see what I’d do.

“What?”

“My mother,” he said. “I’ve always comforted myself with the idea that I’ve just never had one. And I don’t think I can ever consider you to be my mother. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It just hurts me too much. You’re basically a stranger.”

The knife twist in my heart hurt bad enough for me to flinch, but I didn’t cry out. I held Marshall’s gaze, unwilling to look away, unwilling to lose this moment or try to dodge away from it. This was it. This was the truth. This was my son showing me his bleeding heart, giving me something to work with. Before, his hatred toward me had been a blind, faceless thing. Now, he’d given it a name. That was something, I thought, even as a tear slid down my cheek. I could work with this. I had to try to have the courage to change this. I couldn’t simply accept the fact that Marshall couldn’t think of me as his mother. I was his mother, goddamn it. And I would have to find some way to prove it.

“Let’s just be positive for Jules,” I said finally, just to break the oppressive silence in the car. “She wanted us to reconnect. I know that it’s not what you want, and I know I can never make up for my mistakes with you, for my neglect, for my rejection. But I’ll keep trying as long as I’m around. Can you handle that?”