Chapter Twenty-Seven
Taylor
I sit in my driveway, trying to find the strength to go inside. My mother’s car is here, which means she is too, and as much as I want to be there for Emma, I don’t have the wherewithal to deal with our mother as well.
I decide to text my sister to meet me outside so we can go to a coffee shop or somewhere to talk when a loud crash comes from inside the house. I hurry out of the car and find my mother in a heated chase with Emma.
“You come back here right now!” Mom yells, but Emma isn’t listening.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“What’s going on?” Mom shrieks back. “I’ll tell you what’s going on! Your sister went and got herself pregnant!”
She might be answering my question, but her attention remains on Emma, who is pinned against a wall, tears streaming down her face as she sinks to the floor.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Emma says, her voice trembling.
I reach out, intending to pull Mom away from Emma, but I’m shoved back. The overwhelming scent of alcohol fills my senses, and I realize there’s no reasoning with her.
“That means nothing to me!” Mom waves her arms around. “I will not have my daughter pregnant in high school!”
“What’s done is done!” I step between them. “You need to stop right now—Emma doesn’t need this! The baby doesn’t need this!”
“Who do you think you are? You think you can waltz in here and stop me? Is that your plan?” Mom spits at me. “What did I do to deserve you two as children? One’s a fucking slut and the other—”
“Don’t you dare talk about Emma like that,” I say, cutting her off—I don’t need to hear what she thinks of me.
“Right, I dare you to stop me.” She laughs in my face before walking away, and I turn back to Emma, still crumpled against the wall. I want to lift her up and take her away to avoid another incident while Mom is conscious, but the rattling in the kitchen distracts me.
I round the corner and watch Mom pour herself a glass of wine as if she hasn’t had enough already. “Why don’t you just drink it out of the bottle? It’d save you from dirtying a glass.”
She ignores me, downing it.
Blood whooshes in my ears, and I can’t take it anymore—she needs to be stopped.
Leaving Emma in the hallway, I march into the kitchen, grab the wine bottle, and start pouring it down the sink. It takes Mom a moment to realize what I’m doing, but when she does, she lunges for it, knocking it from my hands.
I watch, a slow smile spreading across my face as it shatters on the floor, wine spilling everywhere.
“Now look what you’ve done!” she wails. “I just bought that!”
“Obviously, since it was still full!”
She stalks past me, ignoring my response, and grabs her purse from the kitchen table, searching for her keys.
I sigh. “Mother . . . Mom . . .”
She looks at me, her eyes unfocused. “Get out of my way.”
“No,” I reply, snatching the purse and keys from her. “You’re not going anywhere in your condition.”
She stomps her foot like an incorrigible child. “You can’t do this to me!”
“What I can’t do is allow you to drink and drive.”
She lunges for the purse, but I hold onto the keys. After a brief struggle, she gives up and storms away, door slamming behind her.
“Where is she going?” Emma asks, appearing in the archway. Most of her tears have dried, but a few stray ones are still trickling down her cheeks.
“She can’t go far—I took her keys,” I reply, tossing them onto the table. We face each other, and I can’t help but notice how vulnerable she looks, arms wrapped around her stomach. “What happened, Emma? Why did Mom come after you like that?”
She rubs her nose. “She found out I’m pregnant.”
“You told her?” I put my hands on my hips. “I would have thought you were smart enough not to tell her when she’s drunk.”
“She found the test in the trash,” Emma snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. “Contrary to what you may believe, Taylor, I’m not stupid.”
I rub my forehead. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“It sure feels like you do! You’re constantly telling me what to do—Emma, go to school! Emma, do your homework! Emma, it’s a school night!”
“Well, someone needs to take care of you!”
“It’s not your job to take care of me!”
“Well, whose job is it, then?” I shrug. “Mom sure isn’t going to take responsibility.”
“I can take care of myself.” But even as she says the words, we both know they hold no weight.
“Emma, you’re barely an adult.”
“So are you!”
I drop into a chair. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to leave me alone!”
“I thought you wanted my help?”
“Yeah, well, obviously I was wrong,” she replies, turning on her heel and stomping upstairs.
My head falls into my hands, my skull thudding into my palms. The house is finally, blessedly, still, but every surface still vibrates with the residue of rage, and the faint, vinegary tang of spilled merlot.
I stare at the puddle of wine bleeding across the tiles, dark and viscous.
Legs trembling, I force myself upright and grab paper towels to start mopping up the mess.
Everything feels heavy, like my muscles are made of wet cardboard, and at some point I realize I’m crying—so quietly it hardly counts.
I use the back of my wrist to wipe my cheeks, then toss the soaked towels in the garbage can along with the biggest shards of glass.
The work is mindless and therefore perfect: my brain needs something to do besides replay the last twenty minutes.
Eventually, I move numbly into the living room, following the path of destruction.
Shattered against the wall is a picture frame containing the only photo of us as a complete family.
It was taken at Chase’s graduation from MSU.
My dad and grandparents came in from St Louis for the occasion.
Despite our mother’s protests, she posed for the picture with us, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think we were a happy family.
But if you look closely, the cracks are evident.
Chase is the only one showing a true smile, and he has every reason to—he’s holding his diploma, his ticket out of hell.
I stand next to Chase, while Emma stands next to me, not even looking at the camera but at whatever or whoever has caught her eye.
Our parents stand behind us, side by side, but not touching, their expressions far from content, but Dad masks it better than Mom does.
I clean up the shattered remains of the frame and toss the photo in the trash; Chase will understand that I don’t need ugly reminders of our broken family around.
I debate whether I should try again with Emma or head back to Crestwood when my cell phone rings.
I don’t recognize the number but answer anyway, hoping and dreading that whoever is calling has news about my mother.
“Hello?”
“Taylor—thank God . . . Look, I need you to pick me up,” my mother’s voice slurs on the other end.
“Where are you?” I ask, grabbing my car keys.
“The police station,” she replies, and I stop dead in my tracks.
I take a deep breath. “How’d you get there?”
“That doesn’t matter—all I need you to do is pick me up.”
“Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
She hangs up on me, having gotten the response she wanted, and I head to my car.
A million scenarios run through my mind as I drive.
I try to convince myself that it doesn’t have to be bad—they could have just seen her stumbling down the street and decided to help—but that doesn’t stop my stomach from churning.
When I arrive at the police station, I walk straight to the middle-aged officer sitting behind the front desk.
“Excuse me, my mother just called me . . . I don’t have all the details, but I think I’m supposed to pick her up.”
“Oh . . . her,” the officer replies, reaching for the phone, and I assume he’s going to call someone to bring my mother out.
“Wait!” I exclaim louder than I mean to. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . could you tell me why she’s here?”
He puts the phone down and taps on the computer in front of him. “It says here that she entered the convenience store and acted belligerent toward the clerk when he refused to serve her.”
I nod slowly—it sounds exactly like something my mother would do.
“Did you want to talk to the officer who brought her in?”
“Could I?”
“Sure, sweetie, take a seat, and I’ll get him for you.”
The lobby is oddly quiet, every sound amplified in the sterile, echoey space. I try not to squirm as footsteps approach from the back corridor—a purposeful stride, not hurried but not lazy either. The younger officer who appears in the doorway is probably a decade older than me.
He checks in with the desk sergeant, who only tilts his chin toward me. Slowly, we make eye contact. There’s no smile—just a steady, businesslike gaze. I start to rise, but he gives a subtle hand gesture, so I stay seated, the thick vinyl chair creaking beneath me.
He drops into the chair directly to my right. “Hi, I’m Officer Curtis. You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yeah . . . I just wanted to know what happened exactly.”
“When I arrived on the scene, your mom was knocking things off shelves and yelling at the clerk. When I tried to detain her, she resisted, so I had no choice but to take her in after that. Drunk and disorderly is only a misdemeanor—and that’s only if the store owner decides to press charges.”
I swallow. “What could happen to her if they do press charges? Could she go to jail?”
“That would be an unlikely possibility. While I can’t speak for a judge, I think he’d give her probation and possibly enroll her in a rehabilitation program for addicts,” he replies but the reassurance barely touches me.
“Is she still drunk?” I ask, wanting—no, needing—to know what to expect.
“Yes . . .”
I bite my lip, wondering how long I can put off seeing her.
“We can hold her for up to twenty-four hours if you want to get her sobered up,” he says, obviously sensing my hesitance.
“Could I see her and then decide?”
He nods and ushers me forward, leading me through a door to the room that houses the cells. My mother is the only person occupying one.
“Hi, Mom,” I say quietly, approaching the bars that stand between us.
“What took you so long?” she asks, looking between Officer Curtis and me, waiting for him to open the door. “Well, come on, let’s go home.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
She squints against the dull lighting in the room, and I know she is suffering the beginning stages of a hangover. “Now is not the time to play games with me—take me home.”
“I’m not here to play games—we need to talk about what we’re going to do about your drinking problem, and I’d prefer to do it while there are bars in between us and a witness present.” While my words could be construed as humorous, my tone insists I am not to be messed with.
“I don’t have a drinking problem.” She attempts to straighten out her appearance but fails—her hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days, and her shirt smells like the wine I spilled at home. “Just because I might have had one too many today doesn’t mean I have a problem.”
“Today’s not the first time you’ve had one too many.” My head falls, and I’m overcome with the dizzying urge to both scream and run as far as my legs will take me. I fix my gaze on the cracked tile between my sneakers, seeing spots of dried something and try to breathe.
Suddenly something in me cracks, like a bat splintering on impact, and just like that, the sadness curdles into fury.
“I’m done enabling you, Mother—you’re going to stop drinking somehow, someway.
It ends today.” I turn, walking toward the door I came in with Officer Curtis behind me, but before I make it to the lobby, my mother screams my name.
“Taylor! Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!”
I turn to Officer Curtis, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. “I’ll be back tomorrow to pick her up,” I say, leaving my mother behind.