Killian
TWENTY-ONE
The only reason I’m standing outside this shithole with a bouquet of flowers is because it’s Ma’s birthday and I’m trying to be a decent son.
A couple times a year, I make the dreaded trip to my parents’ place with flowers in hand and a knot in my gut. It’s become something of a tradition, though not the kind anyone writes greeting cards about.
I show up, Ma pretends she’s happy to see me, and we both ignore the elephant in the room ’til one of us snaps and I leave feeling worse than when I arrived.
Good times all around.
The bouquet is a mix of yellow roses, white lilies, and some tiny blue flowers I don’t know the name of. The florist down the block assured me mothers love them, and I took her word for it because what the hell do I know about flowers?
There’s also a card with a few thousand dollars tucked inside, which Ma will probably refuse because she’s stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery.
Jhene asked to come along when I mentioned where I was headed this morning.
I tried to talk her out of it. Told her it wouldn’t be pretty and could even turn downright ugly. She simply peered up at me with her large, dark eyes framed by her glasses and swore she could handle it.
So here she is, standing beside me in the grimy hallway of my parents’ apartment building, about to witness the Rourke family dysfunction in all its glory.
As she once stated, she’s the luckiest girl in the world.
I give her one last chance to bail before even knocking.
“You sure about this? It’s not too late to wait in the car.”
“I’m sure.” She slips her hand into mine and squeezes. “I want to meet them.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I knock on the door of apartment 13C and wait, listening to the familiar sounds of shuffling footsteps and muffled cursing from inside.
A moment later, the door swings open and Ma appears, looking older and more tired than the last time I saw her.
Mary Rourke’s never been a glamorous woman, but the more time passes, the less she takes care of herself.
She’s got more lines bracketing her eyes and creasing her brows, and she’s stopped bothering with the dye she used to use to color her hair.
It’s almost exclusively gray, with only a few blonde threads remaining, the stringy tresses twisted back into a loose bun.
The housedress she wears swallows her frame up and reminds me that her idea of a meal consists of a cigarette and a few bites of a ham sandwich.
She squints at me through the crack in the door as if I’m some salesman trying to scam her.
“Killian,” she murmurs a second or two later. She opens the door wider but doesn’t move to hug me. “I wasn’t sure you’d come this year.”
“It’s your birthday, Ma. I always come.”
I hold out the bouquet, and she takes it with a brief nod, bringing the flowers to her nose for a quick, unimpressed sniff before lowering them again. Her gaze slides past me to Jhene. Her expression shifts from weary to guarded.
“Who’s this?”
“This is Jhene.” I rest my hand on the small of Jhene’s back. “My girlfriend.”
Ma’s sparse eyebrows jump. “Your girlfriend?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Since when do you have a girlfriend?” she grills. Her blue eyes sweep up and down Jhene, hardly disguising the scrutiny in them. “You’ve never been much for dating, Killian. Too busy with your... other activities.”
For her part, Jhene handles it better than I thought she would. She’s been honest about not exactly being a people person and preferring to avoid any situation involving socializing.
But she simply smiles politely and extends her hand. “Hi, Mrs. Rourke. It’s great to meet you. Happy birthday.”
Ma stares at Jhene’s outstretched hand before giving it a brief, limp shake. “Mmhmm. Well… come in, I suppose.”
The apartment’s as depressing as I remember. It hasn’t changed in the last fifteen years since I got the hell out of here and went to live on my own.
Cracks zig-zag down the walls. The carpet’s stained and matted and some weird brown-gray color signaling how much dirt it’s infested with. Stenches like cigarette smoke and fried food cling to the air. The cigarettes courtesy of Ma. The fried food smells a marker he still lives here.
A couple footsteps inside, my gaze pans the living room and finds him parked in his usual spot in front of the TV.
Colm Rourke sits slumped in a worn-down armchair, his vacant eyes fixed on the TV screen where a rerun of The Price is Right plays at a low volume.
He doesn’t look up when we enter. He probably doesn’t even have the ability to process that we have.
My father’s as good as braindead.
He can only string together a handful of sentences and often drools on himself because he leaves his mouth hanging open for too long (slobber Ma happily wipes up).
I’m the one who made him like this. Beat him so badly his brain never fully recovered. Yet even so many years later, I don’t feel an ounce of guilt about it.
“Sit down if you want,” Ma says, gesturing vaguely toward the sagging couch. “I’d offer you something to drink but I haven’t made it to the store yet this week.”
“We’re fine.” I pull the card from my back pocket and hold it out to her. “Here. Figured this might help.”
She opens the envelope and peers inside. The lines on her brow deepen, and her nostrils curl as if catching whiff of a repugnant smell. You’d think I handed her an envelope full of dog shit the way she reacts.
She slaps the envelope against my chest for me to take back. “I told you before, Killian. We don’t need your money.”
I heave an irritated sigh, grabbing the envelope before it slides to the floor. “Ma, will you just take the damn money? Buy yourself something nice. Get the carpet cleaned. I don’t care what you do with it. It’s yours.”
“We get by just fine on my salary from the drugstore. We don’t need charity.”
I catch Jhene’s eye and shake my head to express my frustration. She gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze though she remains silent and stays out of it.
She obviously gets these family dynamics are complex.
One glance around the apartment—at the fucking water stains and mold and occasional roach that scuttles by—and anybody with sense would agree Ma’s delusional.
They need all the help they can get.
They’re already receiving some of it, even if they don’t realize it. I pay half their rent and have for years. Every time their landlord raises it, I discreetly make up the difference and more. Otherwise, they would’ve been put out on the street a long time ago.
I gesture to the ancient refrigerator humming like it’s on its last lifeline. “This is just fine? You’re living in a dump, Ma.”
“We live like this because your father can’t work,” she snaps. She glances over at the armchair where Colm sits staring at a car insurance commercial. “I do what I can on what the drugstore pays me. It would be different if he could still contribute, but he can’t, can he?”
“Things weren’t any better when he could work,” I point out. “We were dirt fucking poor then too, remember? Only difference is he was also beating the shit out of us.”
Ma flinches as if stung by a wasp. “That’s enough.”
“You sure? ’Cuz from where I’m standing, nothing’s changed. You’re still making excuses for him—”
“Don’t you dare speak on your father!” she snarls, her shrill voice rising. “You don’t have a right to disrespect him after all the harm you’ve caused!”
“I seem to remember the harm he caused us first!”
“Your father did the best he could! He tried to do right by us, but you were a hot-headed hoodlum looking for a fight!”
“Looking for a fight?” I scoff out of disbelief. “He was beating your fucking ass—did you forget that part?”
“We want nothing from you!” she shrieks, a couple stringy hairs falling loose from her bun. She jerks a finger at the door. “Get the hell out of our home and take your lady friend with you!”
My usual scowl returns to my face, my hands flexing open and shut at my sides.
This isn’t the first—and probably won’t be the last—time I’ve been thrown out like this. It’s happened at least twice when dropping by for Christmas.
Ma usually reaches out at a later date to make amends.
But glaring at her now, the frustration inside me finally reaches a boiling point. I’ve had enough of trying to do right by her, simply out of guilt I haven’t done right by her as a son.
She may not ever agree… but I did what I did out of protectiveness. Out of the love a son has for his mother and sister.
“Alright,” I grit out. My tone’s cold. Final. “Keep the flowers. I’m done.”
I scoop Jhene’s hand in mine and head for the door.
We make it all the way to the curb before I draw my next breath. It comes out raggedly as I let go of Jhene’s hand and stride around to the driver’s side door. She slides in on the passenger side, quiet as a mouse. So quiet I assume she won’t weigh in.
Then she surprises me by doing just that.
“So…” she says slowly. “That was... intense.”
I let out a dry, humorless laugh. “That was nothing. You should see Christmas.”
She winces. “There’s a Christmas version of that?”
“Just about every year. Same argument. Different wrapping paper.”
I grip the steering wheel tight and lean forward to brace my brow against it for a second. Pausing for a moment to allow the last remnants of anger and frustration—and even some guilt—to pass.
“You should know,” she says softly, “I think she’s wrong.”
My head lifts from the steering wheel, my gaze sliding over to her. She goes on.
“Your heart was in the right place when you did what you did. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Killian, it’s that you’re a protector.
You’re not the kind of guy who stands around and lets somebody else get hurt if you can stop it.
You love your mom and sister—of course you got in to defend them. ”