Give… #2
“Pfft. You think they’re hilarious, and you know it.” His fingers continued to play with her hair. “But seriously. I know you were recruited in college, but what made you accept the CIA’s job offer?”
She was silent for a long time. Her eyes studied the material of his shirt, where her fingers alternately plucked and smoothed it.
He could tell she’d gone somewhere deep inside her head.
While he wouldn’t force her to talk about it, it didn’t take a genius to understand that this choice had forever changed her life.
Whatever had motivated her might well be as bad as what she’d endured as an operative.
When she finally spoke, the room was dark, the only light coming from a weak ceiling light a few feet down the balcony walkway.
“For five years, I was an only child. My parents wanted a large family, but my mother struggled to get pregnant a second time.
When she finally did, both my parents were ecstatic.
Even I was thrilled I was going to have a little brother or sister.
“Unfortunately, the pregnancy became fraught with medical issues, to the point my mother was bedridden for most of it. She convinced herself the baby would die before she gave birth, and she obsessed over its arrival. Her worry spread to my father, and all their energy went into making sure she and the baby were healthy. Their daughter became an afterthought.”
Not the first time he’d heard this type of story. Concern for the impending child often left others born previously to feel neglected.
“When Joey arrived, all that concern transferred to surviving every day, even though he was as healthy as could be. My mother’s paranoia knew no bounds, and my father did whatever was necessary to reassure her.
From the day he was born, he was the favorite child in every way.
Their love for him consumed them, and that left very little for me. ”
There was no bitterness in her response, only fact.
“So while he became the center of their world, the expectation was that he would be the center of mine as well. When we were little, and he was naughty, whatever he did, I was blamed for it. They never questioned what he told them. If he got hurt, it was my fault because I wasn’t paying attention.
If I got something and he didn’t, I was forced to give it up for him.
It didn't matter what it was, even for something like receiving an invitation to another little girl’s birthday party.
The fact that I wanted to go despite my brother not being invited meant I was being selfish.
And because I was too young to know differently, I believed what they said.
“It got worse as we got older. When he had homework he didn’t do, I was expected to complete it so he wouldn’t get in trouble.
Then it was my fault when he got bad grades because I didn’t help him learn the material.
If he needed to go somewhere, I was expected to drop everything, no matter how important it was, and take him. ”
So far, nothing she’d said warranted joining an international spy organization, but he sensed the worst was yet to come. “That had to be frustrating.”
“Yes, it was. I bailed him out of more trouble, gave up more of my personal time, and basically was his real parent. Not that he listened to me any better than our actual parents, but the fact remains. I was essentially the mom and dad in one.
“By the time I got through my undergrad program in college, I’d had enough. I set down simple rules. If they called while I was working or in class, I wouldn’t answer the phone. I love my parents, despite their neglect. I loved my brother.”
Her voice cracked, and it wasn’t lost on him that she spoke of him in the past tense. Now he knew something bad was coming, and there was really only one possible conclusion for how her life got on this track.
“But I rarely got anything for myself. Straight A’s? Full-ride scholarship? Perfect SAT score? Prestigious schools competing for me? None of it mattered to them. Joey was all that mattered.”
Without thinking, he kissed the top of her head.
“I’m sorry, little spy. I have two younger sisters, and while sometimes it felt like they were favored, I knew in my heart it was that my dad was old-fashioned, and he wanted to protect his girls.
He worried they didn’t get enough attention, especially without a mom in the picture. ”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Joey had serious issues.
It was the typical story. He got into a bad crowd that had absentee parents.
He wanted to fit in and be seen as a cool kid, but he had parents who actually gave a shit about him, so he started acting out.
Drinking in middle school. Shoplifting. Tagging.
Trespassing. By high school, he was into drugs, and he was running pot and other stuff for some guy who couldn’t get to the high school kids as easily as Joey could.
“One day, I finally snapped. My mother found rainbow fentanyl in his room.
He spun some story for her, which she wanted to believe, but when they fought and he disappeared, once again, it was my fault for filling her head with awful lies about her golden boy because I was jealous.
She believed I planted the drugs in his room to try to make him look bad.
“She insisted I go hunt him down and bring him home. I refused. It was midterms, and I was in the middle of exams. I couldn’t go on a wild-goose chase looking for my dumbass brother, who was legally an adult, and maybe he needed to figure out the hard way how to get himself out of trouble.
I did something for me, for once, and I refused to go look for him until my exams for the day were finished. ”
“Did you find him?”
“Eventually. He called me, begging me to bring him the drugs Mom found. He was in trouble with the dealer, and if he didn’t produce them, the guy threatened to kill him. He swore he’d go to rehab if I helped him just one more time.”
Triumph shut his eyes, his heart hurting for Glennon. The story was just as bad as he’d feared. Gently, he rolled onto his side, facing her. His arm pulled her a little closer, and he placed a hand on her hip. He squeezed reflexively in commiseration, letting her know he understood her pain.
“You couldn’t have helped him. He wasn’t ready.”
Fuck, did he know about that one. Tripoli’s addiction after being discharged from the military.
Tilly’s inability to recover after her kidnapping.
Francesca’s never-ending guilt over her family’s part in it.
Elyxandre’s struggle with an abusive father and husband.
You couldn’t help people until they were ready, no matter how much you wanted to.
“I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier most days.
” She sighed, long and loud. “The story ended the only way it could, really. I brought him the drugs, but some gang members came and shot up the drug house he was delivering to. One of his friends survived, but everyone else in the house, including Joey, died. They never caught the gang members who did it. All they could figure out was that they were under the umbrella of a cartel out of South America.”
“The Colonels,” he guessed.
“Yes. After my professor made the introductions, the CIA wooed me into taking a job with them with the promise that I could help them root out the cartel responsible for my brother’s death, and I took the job.
I thought maybe, if I could catch Joey’s killers, my parents would forgive me for my part in his death. ”
“That’s not fair. It wasn’t your fault Joey got involved in drugs or dealing. You couldn’t have saved him from the fate he was dealt.”
“Didn’t matter,” she said tiredly. “They didn’t see it that way.
Somehow, I was supposed to keep my brother off the drugs.
Save my brother that night. Stop those men from killing him.
I have a sneaking suspicion that even if I brought down the cartel, it wouldn’t be enough for them.
Joey would still be gone, and I, the worthless older sister, would still be to blame. ”
Framing her face again in his hands, he stared into her eyes with a grave expression.
“You listen to me, and you listen good, Glennon. You are not to blame. Not even a smidgen. The timing sucked since it was the one time you stood up for yourself, but Joey put himself on his own path to destruction, not you. Your parents should have seen the mess it was making of you and him, and they chose to bury their heads in the sand. They failed as parents, but it was easier to put the blame on someone else to ease their own consciences. You didn’t fail Joey, you didn’t fail your parents, and you sure as shit didn’t fail yourself. ”
“Part of me knows that’s true,” she admitted. “But part of me will always wonder if they wished I’d been killed that night. Even if Joey had died, their issue of a disappointing daughter would also have been resolved.”
Her quiet admission, rife with pain, delivered a painful blow to his heart. She truly believed that.