Fallon #2
“Look at your Daddy; he said he loved me, that we were gonna run away together, and instead, he ran right back to his wife the moment I told him about you.”
I stared at her, trying to process what she was telling me, confused, I wondered.
“I thought Daddy was an Army Ranger who died during service?”
Her laugh was more damaging than any slap could have been.
“Your naivety is why you will need a man to make you rich. Fallon, you will never get anywhere in life if you believe every story told to you. Your daddy was a mayor in a county over. He never served a day in his life.” She pulled her hair, which was still dark and not leeched of its raven color yet, into a top knot before continuing, “We met in a dance hall where Deloris and I were working. His wife wasn’t much to look at.
I’ll never understand why someone that handsome was married to such a cow.
” Her face scrunched with irritation before morphing into one of disgust. “He was as easy as finishing off a warm apple pie. All it took was a well-placed smile and the bat of my lashes. With the crook of my finger, I had him wrapped up in my sheets. For months, we were happy.” She stopped, opening a drawer and rummaging around in it.
Finding what she was searching for, she made her way to the fridge to grab a bottle of beer.
She waits until she’s popped the top of it before she confides in me.
“I thought poking holes in our condoms was the answer to all of my problems. If we were to have a child born of our love, that he would leave her and run away with me.”
I remember the icy sting of my tears sliding down my cheeks as I stood before my mother, her cruel words hitting without a flicker of remorse. She swayed drunkenly, unraveling every memory I had of my father, before tipping back the dark brown bottle and drawing a long, deliberate pull.
“Fallon, be done with these fantasies of love; it doesn’t exist. Now, be a good girl and make yourself pretty. We have a party to attend. There will be boys a little older than you there. If you play your cards right, one of them will be our future.”
“Momma, I’m dating Cyrus.”
“No, you’re not. You’re dating whoever I tell you to.” With those words, she left me standing there, devastated, to get ready for another night out on the town.
Cigarette smoke filters in the air around me, pulling me back to the here and now.
“I must have dropped you on your head as a baby. Good grief, girl, you’re letting all the cool air out. Shut that damn door.”
I do as I’m told, making my way to the less-than-extravagant kitchen, placing the bags down. I notice the barren fridge, three bottles of beer accompany a box of baking soda and rotten lettuce. I quietly close it.
The front door slams, so I square my shoulders, mentally preparing for another round of ‘how Fallon disappoints me today.’
“Word on the street is there’s a new chief of police.”
She waited longer than I had given her credit for before bringing up this sore subject.
Her waiting still does nothing to stop the raw ache it awakens deep inside of me.
All I ever wanted was to be a part of that family.
Cyrus’s family. They were good and kind.
I’ve spent years learning how to be enough.
“It has been mentioned a time or two.”
“A time or two? Ha! That man is all anyone’s talking about. He’s quite the looker these days.” She wheezes out between her smoker’s cough.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him yet.”
Surprise lifts her eyebrows.
“How did you find out that he’s back?” I ask, not sure if I want the answer.
“Deloris and I were playing slots at Rosie’s,” she says as she checks her reflection in a small mirror hanging haphazardly on a dusty wall.
“Momma, you don’t have enough food in this,” my hands splay, gesturing around the trailer, trying to find the right words not to be offensive, “house. Yet you have money to go gamble. To drink? Surely you can do better than this.” I gesture to the crumpling trailer around us at a loss.
She’s always been this way, no money for food, school supplies, winter coats, or new shoes for me growing up.
But her cup never emptied, lipstick never ran out, and I don’t have a single memory of her without a Virginia Slims dangling from those cruel lips.
“I have to go.” I’m almost to the door when she speaks, her tone cold.
“News on the street is he has a son. Does he know he has a daughter as well?” The words land exactly as intended. I whirl around. Panic flashes across my face—something she seems to enjoy, judging by the smug curve of her smile.
“I knew that’s who knocked you up,” she sneers.
Her hair shifts around her face like serpents instead of strands.
She steps closer, tall and unnervingly calm, close enough that I catch the sour edge of addiction on her breath.
“I’ve always admired how you act like you’re better than me,” she says softly.
“When you’re just like me, child. Everything you resent about me—lives in you. ”
The words hit harder than I want them to. Because some part of me knows she’s not entirely wrong. I have resented the idea of becoming her. A single mother. A life without structure, without certainty. I wanted the version of life I thought I was owed—steady, complete, traditional.
And then I built something different.
Brick by brick. Alone.
So no—I’m not her. Not entirely. I force the thought down, pushing her poison aside for later, and ask her, “How do you know Cyrus is Billy’s father?” Who else knows? Has she told people? Surely he can’t care about a child he never chose not to know.
All these years, Lani and I have been friends. I’ve never heard a whisper. She rarely even brings Cyrus up, and when she does, it’s brief. She’s suspected. She’s even asked me before. For a long time, I was convinced she only befriended me to get close enough to take Billy away.
“Oh, please. Give me some credit. That test didn’t leave the bathroom without me knowing about it. You never wanted options. Only that do gooder, now he’s a cop. I bet you love that.” Her reference to options being other men is not lost to me.
“You’ve had enough to drink for one day.”
With those parting words, I step out of the depleted trailer I once called home and quietly close the door behind me.
I know staying calm will unsettle her more. She wants a fight that I refuse to give her.