Chapter 2 Gracie Mae
Gracie Mae
It’s incredibly hard to watch someone you love slowly deteriorate.
Wasting away until all that is left of them is an empty vessel.
My mom used to be a beautiful woman. One with warm blood and porcelain skin. Eyes a vibrant shade of sky blue and a smile that could melt all hearts.
She was kind. Wore her heart on her sleeve and believed that people were meant to be good.
She was the best of our family. She was the best until the love of her life, my father, died unexpectedly when I was twelve and my brother was one.
The mother who I adored, the woman who I aspired to be slowly begun to change.
And with each day that passed I knew that Connor and I were never getting her back.
It took until I was fifteen, when I found my mother strung out on heroin on the couch with the needle still lodged in her bruised arm, that I came to realize we didn’t just lose my father that day, we lost our mom, too.
They used to call me little Viv.
You see, even when I was young, I was a spitting image of my mother.
The same voluminous sandy blonde hair that looks sun kissed. Our eyes the same vibrancy of sky blue. Skin as pale as a porcelain doll. Lips perfectly plump and a natural shade of nude-ish pink.
And as I grew older, well into my teens and now my early twenties I’m everything that my mom used to be.
Full of life, high spirited and vivacious.
There are times where she looks at me with those same eyes of mine but different now and it feels as if she’s staring at her past self.
Those days are the hardest.
Because when she looks at me and recognizes the woman she was before the drugs she resents me.
The same way when she finally takes the time to get a good look at Connor, she resents him for looking like the the man she loved who died, dad.
Neither of us can help how we look but we know every time the fog clears the sight of us brings her an immense pain.
“Is she passed out again?” Connor asks with a mouthful of his cereal. Once a week I go to the grocery store and when I do I spend the extra money to get him his favorite brand instead of the store brand. The family size Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries are all his.
I join him at the table with my two slices of toast and butter. “For now,” I reply before I take a bite. There’s a satisfying crunch when I bite into it.
Connor scoops another spoonful. “Hopefully she stays that way before we leave.” It’s a sad truth that I unfortunately agree with.
When mom comes down from her high it’s not a pretty sight.
I always try to keep Connor away from it by telling him to go in his room and locking the door.
Mom has been known to be aggressive. Not just with her words but with her hands, too.
I would rather be the punching bag my mom uses than him.
“You ready for that math test today?” He’s in sixth grade but the boy is wicked smart with numbers and equations.
He gives me a closed lip smile because of his mouthful of cereal. After he’s done chewing, he tells me excitedly, “I’m so ready! It’s all too easy.”
The funny thing is he isn’t lying. Ms. Henderson, his math teacher, told me she would like to see him placed in Algebra 1 next school year. The standard level math student takes that class in ninth grade. Connor will be taking it in seventh.
That’s if his parent authorizes it and signs on the dotted line.
Thank god I’ve known how to forge mom’s signature for years.
I smile at him, one that is full of heart and lights my eyes. “Too easy or not I still hope you studied.”
“I did. No surprises for me,” he says proudly.
Leaning back in my seat I finish off one of my pieces of toast.
He shakes the box of cereal, and the sound of weight reminds me I’ll be needing to pick him up another box. “You sure you don’t want some?” He eyes my toast as if the sight of me eating it bothers him.
Taking a bite of the other piece with a smile I wave him off. “You know how I prefer toast.”
Scrunching his nose, he sits his spoon in the rest of his uneaten cereal. “There’s enough for you, sis.”
A tug happens on my heartstrings followed by the familiar ache.
Connor has always been too perceptive for his own good. And I hate lying to him, absolutely so but if I have to eat toast every day for breakfast so he can enjoy his favorite cereal then I’ll do it.
I’ll sacrifice everything for him without ever being sorry.
“I don’t like it.” Lie. “You’ll have enough for another bowl tomorrow morning.” Another bite of toast. This time I don’t even taste it nor admire the crunch.
He pushes his bowl towards me. Half of it still in there. I raise a brow at him. “You can have the rest of mine,” he says.
I know most would consider that disgusting but there has been many of times when we were younger and had to share food. It’s not uncommon for us.
But it’s different now.
We had to when I was younger because we could only eat the food mom could afford. That left us sharing majority of our meals.
Ever since I’ve begun working at sixteen, we have only had to share on rare occasions.
I push the cereal bowl back towards him. “This is good, champ. Really.”
He frowns. “You’re eating cardboard.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Nonsense. It’s bread and butter. It’s filling.”
He folds his arms over his chest. “Sounds no different to me.”
“Well, it is.” I finish off my toast and make a sound of appreciation.
Then patting my small stomach because yes, it’s not perfectly flat I say, “See, I’m all full.
” Rising from the chair I walk over to him and place the bowl back in front of him.
I ruffle his hair. “Now eat the rest of your cereal before we have to leave.”
Picking up the spoon with more berries than Cap’n Crunch he sighs and then begrudgingly eats it.
As he finishes his cereal, I go back in my room to grab my purse, keys and my textbooks for college.
When I return, I find Connor cleaning his bowl. Once he puts it in the drying rack I ask him, “Ready to go?”
“Yes, mom,” he answers teasingly. I ruffle his hair again and he ducks away from me. He sends me a look while he’s fixing his shaggy hair. Except we both know that he secretly loves it. He’ll just never admit to it.
I throw him the keys to my car, and he catches it with one hand. “Start it up and pick your favorite station.” His face lights up like the Fourth of July. He runs out of the trailer but doubles back when he realizes he forgot his backpack.
As I make my last rounds, tidying up and making sure everything is off I take one last look at our mom passed out on the couch.
Her sandy blonde hair framing her face is dry and terribly thin. The same could be said for her as well. The drugs aged her far more than her own age has. She’s sickly thin. Bones pultruding creating a ghastly sight. There’s nothing beautiful about her anymore. The sight of her is haunting.
A metal spoon lays on the cheap coffee table I bought. I guess today she decided to give her heavily bruised arm a break.
Either way she still got what she wanted.
And Connor and I are still suffering the consequences.
Locking the door behind me I close my thoughts of mom and focus on the day ahead of me.
Opening the car door, I hear the soft sound of alternative rock.
“Seat belt on?” I ask as I click mine on.
He puts his on and gives me a thumbs up.
Connor’s school isn’t far from where we live. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive. He could take the bus, but I prefer to drive him.
It’s the little things, like driving him to school, letting him listen to his music, picking him up after, and giving him his favorite foods that make him happy.
And that in turn makes me happy, too.
My brother is my pride and joy. I can say truthfully that he is the best thing to happen in my life.
It’s how our mom should feel but I’m feeling it instead.
Our bond is greater than any other brother and sister.
I raised Connor.
Changed his diapers and made sure he was fed. I was there when he spoke his first word and when he walked his first step. I potty trained him. Taught him so many things.
When he got hurt, I kissed his boo-boos better. When he cried, I wiped his tears. When he had nightmares, it was my room he ran into. And I would hold him throughout the night and tell him that the monsters weren’t real.
He thought that I was his mom.
He would call me that when he was a little kid.
It was his first word.
Momma.
And it was to me.
It was only until he was old enough to understand that I explained to him that I am his big sister not his mom.
But I feel like a mom.
All I ever want for him is the best in life.
And I will make every sacrifice without complaint to make it happen.
My phone rings from the cup holder I placed it in. Keeping my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel because I will not jeopardize his life, I ask him to see who it is.
“It’s Alice,” he says happily with a smile on his face. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that he has a little crush on her.
Alice, my best friend. One I view as a sister. I still remember the day she started working at Hell’s Gates. She looked way too innocent to be in a joint like that and I made it my mission to protect her.
We bonded although it took her awhile to open up to me.
Whereas I wear my poor little heart on my sleeve Alice had hers guarded and for very good reason.
But I managed to chip her walls down and we became a pair ever since.
“Answer it for me and put her on speaker.” Connor does as I tell him. Before she can say anything, I answer with, “Snake still treating you right or do I have to shove my six-inch heels up his ass.”
Soft laughter fills the phone followed by a masculine grumble. “Hello to you, too, Grace,” Snake answers back.
I roll my eyes, but I have a smile on my face. “It’s still Gracie Mae to you.”
Friends and family only are allowed to call me Grace. Snake is accepted upon that list but like I said I still like to give the man some shit.
At least we both know at this point it’s all in good fun.