Chapter 10 Gracie Mae
Gracie Mae
“Mom, wake up.” I grab ahold of her shoulders and shake her again. Her bones digging into my palms.
Steven, the social worker assigned to Connor, is making his once a week visit today and I need mom to wake the fuck up and look somewhat presentable. Enough to fool Steven to give me another week.
“Mom!” I shake her shoulders harder and I swear I hear her bones rattling. “Wake up! Wake up!” I’m practically screaming, my voice bouncing off the walls.
Still, she doesn’t stir. My heart beats wildly in my chest as dread hits the pit of my stomach. With shaking fingers I press them against the pulse point at her throat.
I wait with bated breath for a pulse.
One second goes by.
Followed by two and three.
And by the time I count to forty-five I release my trembling fingers from her neck and run to my bedroom.
Throwing open my door it bangs off the wall leaving an indent from the knob crashing into it.
However, I don’t have the time to care because I’m diving underneath my bed and grabbing the locked box I keep there.
Grabbing the key I keep underneath my throw rug I fumble with opening the box.
After another try I open it and find what I’m looking for.
Narcan.
My last one.
Fuck.
Dashing out of my room I go to mom who still isn’t breathing.
Removing the Narcan from its packaging I insert the applicator into her nostril spraying the entire container.
I then wait for her to start breathing but she doesn’t.
Damn it. Titling her head back I breathe into her and then begin chest compressions.
After a minute of chest compressions I breathe into her again starting another round.
“Come on, mom! Wake up! Wake up!” I cry out in between chest compressions.
She’s so thin and her bones so brittle that I hear a crack in her ribs. It’s inevitable given her condition but I hate the sound it makes under my palm. I hate the fact that I’m hurting her.
Round after round of rescue breathing and chest compressions I feel my arms beginning to grow weak. And I’m afraid, terribly afraid that this will be the time that she won’t recover.
And if she doesn’t recover. . .
If she doesn’t what will happen to Connor?
“Please, mom,” I beg of her, hoping that someone she can hear me. Hoping that somewhere in that heart of hers she cares. “Wake up!”
In the middle of chest compressions, my eyes blurred with tears, she comes to life beneath me.
She draws in a huge breath that’s loud and ragged. And then she begins to choke. Quickly I move her on her side and she immediately throws up on the rug I had replaced last month.
The smell is putrid. The sight wanting to make me gag myself. It’s only another thing I’ll never get used to.
She continues to vomit until all that’s left are dry heaves. As she’s hunched over I can see her spine sticking out from her back. Her shoulder blades digging against her skin. All the bruises that mare her skin in nasty colors.
How did she let herself fall this far?
Once upon a time she was such a beautiful woman. The most gorgeous I have ever laid my eyes upon. When I was little, before dad died, when things were good, I wanted to look exactly like her when I grew up.
And I do. I look exactly like my mother before the drugs took over her life.
If only she could see that when she looks at me. To want to go back to the person she was before instead of hating the sight of me because I’m everything she once was.
Which is why when she finally looks at me through her thin greasy unkept hair do I brace myself for what’s to come.
Her lips twist angrily, her eyes throwing daggers at me. “You stupid bitch!” She spits in rage. I back away from her just in time as she swings her arm out. “Why couldn’t you just let me die?! Why do you have to ruin everything?!”
She lunges at me and this time she doesn’t miss. My head hits the edge of the wooden coffee table before she tackles me to the ground. Taking my hair in her fists she begins to slam my head against the ground.
Feeling like my brain is being rattled inside my head it takes me a moment to get my whits about.
Not wanting to hurt her but knowing I have to I thrust my hips upwards and with my hands on her shoulders throw her off me. She lands with a cry that sounds more like a scream.
Head heavy and my vision a bit blurred I begin to raise myself up from the floor.
Deep breaths, Grace. Deep breaths and everything will be okay.
In the middle of taking a deep breath mom comes for me again. Except this time she’s attacking me with her hands. Her nails scratching my skin leaving behind shallow cuts.
She reaches as much exposed skin as she can. My chest, my arms and even manages to get a scratch on my cheek before I forcefully push her away.
I quickly get up before she can do more damage. “Mom, stop. It’s me. It’s your daughter, Gracie Mae.”
Her eyes glare at me. “My daughter, my fucking bitch of a daughter.”
They say words can’t hurt you but I’m screaming with pain on the inside. Her words hurt far more than any physical assault.
I swallow pass the ever so large lump in my throat. My hand curling into a fist by my side. “You know what today is. You know today is the one day when you can’t use.”
“I don’t have to do shit. And I don’t have to fucking listen to you,” she spews.
I keep my voice calm although I feel anything but. “Mom-”
“Stop! Stop fucking calling me that! I hate it!”
Don’t break, don’t break, don’t break.
“Vivian-” She scoffs. “What would you like me to call you?”
She narrows her eyes at me. Those glassy dilated drug filled eyes.
“I don’t want you to call me anything. I don’t want you to talk at all.
” I go to open my mouth and she silences me as she continues, her voice rising with anger, “I don’t want you around.
I don’t want your brother here. I want you gone! I want you both gone!”
That rusty bloody blade of hers she pierces again in my heart.
“Your son, Connor,” I acknowledge him as who he is and she snarls. “Your baby boy. Your only son.”
“Don’t say his name around me,” she snaps and I flinch.
“How dare you?” I seethe.
“Give me a break, Grace,” she says my name with disgust.
“A break?” I echo loudly. “You’ve had far longer than a break!
” The anger takes ahold of me. My voice vibrates with fury.
“News flash, you haven’t functioned in over a decade!
You’re here but you’re not. What do you do?
What have you done for us? Nothing! Absolutely fucking nothing.
You’ve been taking a break ever since dad died! ”
Before I can blink she slaps me hard across the face.
I can feel the imprint of her hand as it stings my cheek.
And that, that erupts the volcano.
All I see is a maddening red. I go to raise my own hand but stop last second when I see the smirk on her face.
No, I know what she’s doing.
I lower my hand and hold it in front of me to keep me from punching her.
If I assault my mom then everything I’ve been working for amounts to nothing. She’ll tell Steven, I know she will and then I’ll never gain custody of Connor.
God, I want to cry. Let the rivers of tears stream down my face and crumple to the floor.
But I can’t.
I can’t.
“You think you’re better than me don’t you?” She asks me rhetorically. “You aren’t. That’s my blood running in your veins, which makes you a part of me.”
“And I also have my father’s. The kind gentle man who persevered. The one who had faith and believed in a better tomorrow. I’m not you, mom. I may look like the spitting image of you many years ago but I am not you.”
“So you do think you’re better than me.”
I shake my head, tired of this game already. Tired of her. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I’m trying to be the best version of me. Why don’t you want the same for yourself?”
“The best parts of me died when your father did.”
“And you won’t even try to bring her back? Not for me? Not for Connor? Not even for yourself?”
“Why should I?! There’s nothing for me here. Nothing!”
“How do you always fail to see it? How can you be so blind?” My voice cracks. “You have us. Connor and me. You have us. Aren’t we enough?”
She doesn’t answer me but she doesn’t have to.
“All I ask is one day for you to not use. Just one.”
“And you’re asking for too much.”
“Yes, I can see that, very clearly. But whether you like it or not you have a son. And I have a brother that I don’t want to lose because unlike you I love him.
He’s my entire world. So I need you to act sober one day.
One. Fucking. Day. That’s the least you could do for us.
I’ll be damned if they take him away from me because of you. ”
“Why do you fight so hard? Aren’t you tired fighting other people’s battles?”
“I fight because nobody deserves to be alone.”
“How noble,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “All this out of the kindness of that heart of yours? It’s going to kill you. All these battles you’re fighting and you’re going to be the one dead.”
“Steven will be here within an hour,” I tell her, actively dismissing what she said. “Will you be ready or am I going to have to cancel?”
She laughs. The sound grates my ears and gets on every one of my nerves. “Still fighting. Dead. You’re going to end up dead.”
“Well, I am alive right now and that’s all that matters. Now are you going to get cleaned up or am I going to have to force you?”
She bristles. “I’m not a child. I can clean myself.”
I snort at that. “You could have fooled me.”
“Fuck you. I hate you. You ungrateful bitch.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Her eyes narrow into tiny slits. “What have you ever given me to be grateful for?”
Pointing at me she then threatens, “Watch your mouth, Grace. Or I’ll fuck up everything today. You keep forgetting it’s me who keeps your brother with you week after week.”
I hate the fact that she’s right. Connor’s my weakness and she knows it. And she uses it. Without her once a week cooperation he can be easily taken away from me.