Chapter 40
Gracie Mae
When I was a child, it was easy loving my mom.
It was easy to get lost in her dazzling smiles.
It was easy to join in on her infectious laughter.
Laughing so hard it would hurt your stomach and make your eyes tear up.
It was easy to hear her voice. How gentle and kind it was.
I found myself on multiple occasions trying to sound just like her but I could never quite capture her grace.
It was easy being held in her arms. Knowing that with every touch and embrace I had someone who loved me irrevocably. Someone who I could always turn to.
When I was a child it was easy being her daughter.
And I often find myself wishing it could be that easy again.
I find myself always holding onto hope that the mother I easily loved will one day return.
I would blame my own heart, for wearing it so naively on my sleeve. But I think it wouldn’t have mattered. Because deep down I know that a part of me, no matter how small and buried it may be, a part of me will always love my mother.
“You came,” she says with a hint of surprise. Her voice sounds rough, like sandpaper.
Connor wanted to be in the room with me but I talked him into waiting outside of the room with Alice and Snake.
I slowly nod my head, biting down on my lower lip. “You asked for me.” I give her an answer that sounds as if I didn’t have a choice.
But she’s still my mother. And she still knows me, despite it all.
She stares hard, eyes narrowing and finding the truth.
Sighing heavily she says, “You would’ve come anyways, sweetie.
” My heart flares at the nickname my mom and dad used to call me when I was a kid. I haven’t heard it since he died.
Tears burn at the back of my eyes as I swallow. “Don’t,” I warn her, my voice choked.
However, she doesn’t heed my warning. There’s a hint of a smile on her face.
Eyes filled with longing. “You remember why you got that nickname?” My heart pounds against the cavity of my ribs.
I fear it may break free and burst from my chest. “Your dad picked up on how sweet you were to everyone. Didn’t matter who, didn’t matter why, you were just that, sweet.
Ever since the moment you were born. So, instead of introducing you by name first he would always say-”
“This is my sweetie, Gracie Mae,” I finish for her hoarsely.
She nods her head, the faintest smile still on her lips.
“He loved you so much. He loved being a father. The moment I told him I was pregnant he broke down in tears of happiness. Honestly, I think he was happier than me.” She laughs softly at that.
“Your dad was always meant to be a dad. And when he held you for the first time. . .” She pauses, lost in the memory.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier.
That was until he held your brother. He was just as happy then, too. ”
“You never talked about him after he died.” I can’t help the hurt that laces my tone.
She grimaces. “I couldn’t.”
Thirteen years since his death and neither one of us has had the chance to grieve. She chose drugs to cope and I was forced to become an adult at eleven.
“You weren’t the only one who lost him. You weren’t the only one in pain. I was, too. I was in pain and I couldn’t even share the loss of him with you.” Tears betray me as the few escape.
“Do you think it was easy for me losing him?” There’s that word again, easy. “He was everything to me, Grace.”
“And what was I to you? What was Connor to you?” She flinches but I’m done past the point of not wanting to hurt her feelings. “Do we really mean so little?” My voice is small.
Her face contorts and I know whatever it is she’s about to say is going to hurt.
It’s going to take a hold of my heart and crush it.
“Not as much as him. You both don’t mean as much as him.
” I had always suspected it. If I’m being real with myself I think I’ve always known.
But hearing it, hearing the truth you always wanted to be a lie is heartbreaking.
And now I know why some people want to be told the beautiful lie instead of the bitter truth.
Connor and I will never mean enough to her. And that’s. . .that’s fucking devastating. I always held onto hope that one day she would come back. But now I’ve come to see I’ve held on for nothing.
“You never had any intention on getting sober, did you?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.” God, I hate her using my nickname now. A nickname that brought me nothing but joy but is now only causing me pain. “I think I’m too far gone for all of that.”
My bleeding heart on my sleeve says otherwise. “No one is too far gone, mom.” Her lips twists as I call her that.
“I really loved being your mom at one point in my life. I did. I really did.” I don’t know who she is trying to convince.
Me or herself. “But I think I only loved being one because of how happy being a dad made your father. And without him I realized being a mom didn’t fulfill me like I thought it did. ”
“You were still our mom,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
The pain she’s inflicting turning itself to anger.
“You had no right to abandon us like you did. Do you even realize what you’ve done?
” My voice gradually rises. “You made an eleven year old grieving daughter become more than just an adult. You made her become a mother. You gave her all the responsibilities as if she could hold the weight of the world upon her shoulders. How could you do that? How could you think any of that was okay?”
“I never said it was.” That’s her answer. My heart is fucking bleeding, I’m feeling nothing but pain and anger is flowing like lava in my veins. And that’s her answer.
I. Never. Said. It. Was.
“Why did you even keep us?”
“I saw how much you loved your brother, Grace. And with no family to claim you I knew there was a high chance you’d be separated from him if I gave the both of you up. They’d adopt him easily, being how young he was. You’d be harder finding someone to adopt you.”
I. . .I never thought of that.
I never thought for one moment in her own sick and twisted way mom was only trying to keep us together.
“Then why didn’t you sign over custody to me once I became legal?”
“Because at eighteen you wouldn’t have been granted it, sweetie.” There’s that nickname again. It feels as if she’s stabbing me each time she uses it.
“You didn’t know that.” I force out, voice as hard as steel.
“Of course I did. You were freshly graduated from high school trying to make ends meet on a minimum wage job. No judge would’ve given you custody.
” I want to argue with her but even I know she’s right.
“By the time you started making more Steven had been assigned as Connor’s social worker.
” And there is where I truly got fucked.
I didn’t see it when I first met him. His smiles were just as deceiving as his kind eyes.
By the time I caught on I was already under his clutches, his claws embedded deep in my skin. “He’s not a good man, sweetie.”
For once when I look at her I actually see emotion in her eyes other than desperation and fury. I see a hint of sympathy along with a greater dose of fear.
“Did he. . .?” I can’t even believe the words I’m about to say. “Did he give you the drugs?”
Silence greets me back. A heavy silence with the grit of her teeth and fire that burns in her eyes.
And it’s an answer without her saying a single word.
“Why would you take drugs from him?” Incredulously I ask her.
“What’s that saying?” She pauses, a cruel yet painful smile playing on her lips. “Like sticking candy in front of a baby.”
“Did you tell the doctors he supplied you the drugs? Mom, they were laced with fentanyl.”
She gives me a doubtful look. “You honestly think they’ll believe me? I’m a drug addict.” It’s the first time I’ve heard her say it out loud.
“I believe you.”
She sighs. “Sweet,” she says as if that explains it all. “Even when you have every right not to be.”
“What he did was wrong.” I feel so frustrated by the injustice of it all. Whether or not she willingly took the drugs he knew they were laced with a near fatal dose of fentanyl. He had every intention on harming her.
“And maybe I deserved it,” she says. I want to argue with her. Even open my mouth to disagree but she silences me with a single look. “Don’t be all sweet with me, Grace. You’re wasting that sweetness on me and we both know it.”
“You have to tell them,” I persist.
“I tell them and they’ll laugh at my face. They aren’t like you, Grace. They won’t give the junkie the benefit of the doubt. But I’m telling you because I know you’ll tell that man of yours about it, and I know he’ll eradicate the problem.”
If it wasn’t for The FBI breathing down his neck these past couple of months I know it would’ve already been done.
Steven sealed his fate when he made lewd comments about my body in front of Oak at the house.
Truthfully, Steven’s fate was sealed the moment I told Oak how he had me under his thumb.
All Steven is doing is living on borrowed time. And maybe he knows that. Maybe that’s why he chose to be so reckless with his actions.
“I filed a lawsuit against him.” I’m surprised I’m even telling her this but I feel as if she should know.
“How did he respond to that?”
“I haven’t seen him since the hearing.”
“Be careful, sweetie. Threaten power from men like him and they become desperate.”
“I’m not afraid of him anymore. He can’t do anything to me now.”
Her trembling finger points at me. “That’s where you’re wrong. You backed that man in a corner. I’m sure that lawsuit of yours had him let go and you’ve denied his advances. He has nothing now, Grace. Always fear a man who has nothing. He doesn’t have anything to lose.”
“You think-”
She barks out a laugh. “You believe in the best of people, Grace. And while that’s admirable it’s also going to be your end. If you don’t think Steven has a plan to get to you I want the drugs you’re taking.”
Fuck.
She’s right.
Because of the lawsuit I filed against Steven his job had let him go the second it came to their attention.
Sexual harassment, coercion, and endangerment doesn’t look good on anyone’s name.
And social services certainty didn’t want to have someone with those allegations in their employment.
It would look too fucking bad on them if they kept him.
Not only did he lose his job he also lost his leverage with me. He has absolutely nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to hold over my head and bend to his will. He has no power over me.
And he doesn’t have me.
I never gave into him. He never had a piece of me. The man was starving for it and I never gave him as much as a nibble. And then when Oak came in the picture, claiming me as his to Steven’s face, he knew he would never be able to take a bite out of me.
He’s a man who has nothing because of me.
Of course he’s going to want to retaliate.
I can’t believe I hadn’t even thought of it.
“Time is up,” I hear Snake announce as he opens the door to my mom’s room.
Connor comes running towards me, stopping just short of colliding into me. He holds out his arms, bracing his hands on my forearms as his eyes carefully study my face.
And he must see something he doesn’t like because he turns to our mom with a hard face and steel eyes. “What did you say to her?” He demands and mom looks taken aback.
“Connor, everything is-” I try to intervene.
“Is not okay,” he says with bite in his tone. I know it’s not towards me, rather towards her. The only time Connor gets heated is when mom is brought up. He’s never lashed out at her because of me but it seems as if he’s had enough. “Why can’t you do us a favor and just leave us alone?”
“Connor,” I reprimand him but he doesn’t back down.
He continues, the anger in his voice scathing.
“You don’t deserve her! You don’t deserve her kindness.
You don’t deserve her time. You don’t deserve her love.
And you don’t deserve her as a daughter.
You. Don’t. Deserve. Her.” Connor’s vibrating with fury.
His cheeks are flustered and his hands are fisted by his sides, his knuckles having gone white.
“So just leave her alone,” he says then, his voice softer but I can tell he’s holding back tears. “Leave us both the hell alone.”
A silence falls over the room. The only sounds being my brother’s erratic breathing and my mother’s accelerated heartbeat from the monitor.
Finished with our mom, Connor wraps his arms around me fiercely. It’s only then he allows the tears to escape. Soothing him I run my hand up and down his back until his breathing returns to normal.
Over the top of Connor’s head I meet mom’s eyes and I’m stunned to see the unshed tears.
She works on her bottom lip, a habit I must’ve inherited from her.
“You’re right. I don’t deserve her.” Her voice is shaky.
Connor lifts his head to look back at her.
He regards her with a heavy glare. “But you both deserve to be happy. And I know that doesn’t include me. It never did.”
Sometimes I hate having a heart that feels way too god damn fucking much. Because even though what she’s saying is an undisputed truth it finally feels as if I lost her for good.
This is her saying goodbye.
For the fist time in thirteen years our mom is putting her kids before her.
She’s the one saying goodbye because she knows that I wouldn’t have had the heart to.
And there’s a storm of emotions wrecking havoc inside of me. Too many to know how to really feel. Anger, sorrow, and heartbreak are all there, but the one I feel that wrecks me the most is relief.
I’m relieved my own mom, Vivian Vale, will finally be out of our life.
It twists me up inside. The guilt I have for feeling relief has me questioning if I am a good person.
But as I hold my precious brother in my arms, a boy who had to grow up just as much as I did, a boy denied the childhood he should’ve had, a boy denied the warmth and love of his mother, the guilt for feeling relief lessens.
The pain though, the pain I’m not quite sure will ever really go away.