Teddy
MARCH
The rideshare drops me off right in front of the house, and I have to double-check that I am at the right address. It looks completely different from when I was here in July.
The usually manicured lawn is unkempt, as are the shrubs lining the walkway. My father’s truck isn’t in the driveway, which isn’t completely uncommon, but the lack of lawn care is a big red flag. This isn’t days or even weeks of neglect, this is months.
The sun has started setting, but all of the little candle lights my mother has in the windows are knocked over, or the bulbs are completely out.
All the lights are off inside, and as I step onto the porch, I notice all of her precious potted flowers are knocked over or dead.
I look next door toward Colleen and Lily’s house and briefly wonder if my mother is over there…
and what Colleen thinks of the state of the house.
And what the neighbors think. Because that’s what truly matters to my mother, but if she’s allowed the outside of the house to fall apart like this…
What the hell has happened in the last eight months?
I don’t knock—she doesn’t deserve the fucking courtesy—and find the door unlocked anyway.
Reaching for the switch beside the front door, I turn on the light and find it flickering and weak—something wonky in the electrical. Something my dad would have fixed immediately.
“What the fuck?” I whisper once I get a good look at my childhood house. It looks like a tornado tore through this normally immaculate space.
The picture-perfect family photos my mother made us dress up for, the ones she showed off to every guest who walked through our door, are hanging crooked or smashed on the floor.
Broken glass crunches under my boots. The expensive decor that my mother cluttered every available surface with is either broken or gone. Though I find that ugly gold pregnant figurine she treasured half-buried in the wall like someone threw it.
From the foyer, I can see into the dining room, where my mother’s good china is broken on the floor and the table. The family photo is torn down from the wall and smashed to the ground. A tear goes right between my parents, my sisters, and me. How fitting.
The floor is dirty, covered in leaves and dirt and god knows what else, looking like it hasn’t been cleaned in months.
“Well, I finally have your attention.”
The voice makes me jump. Turning, I startle when I see my mother in her sitting room, which is as trashed as the rest of the house. That’s not what startles me, though.
My mother’s normally perfect hair is flat and straggly. Her face is completely bare of makeup, with dark circles under her eyes, deep lines in her face. The color of her skin is sickly and sallow. And she’s—what the fuck—wearing stained gray sweatpants and the baseball mom t-shirt.
A half-full glass of wine is in her hand, and an open bottle on the table next to her, the same brand as the numerous empty bottles scattered on the ground.
I came here to try to maybe see if there is any sense of humanity left in her. But as I look at her, all I feel is years of pent up rage and resentment.
I lose control.
“Yeah, that’s all you ever fucking want, isn’t it?” I snarl, slamming the front door closed. “Attention.”
“Theodore! How dare you—” she snarls, but I cut right through it.
“How dare you!” I roar, making her jump and spill some of the wine.
I just had to hold the love of my life in my arms as she completely broke down, thinking that years of work were for nothing.
Months and months of disrespect toward Indie that I allowed. Months wasted after Indie left me, missing out on spending the vacation together, all because I saw too late that my mother was pulling strings I was too scared to cut.
“You… you are fucking creepy, overbearing, parasitic, and vile,” I snarl at my mother. “You are the most pathetic woman alive.”
“Oh, that poor girl has her claws in you deeper than I realize,” she says, having the audacity to sound concerned for me, to still place the blame on Indie.
I laugh helplessly. “And every fucking word out of your mouth is bullshit! I know you reported Indie to the board.”
She sniffs, haughty still, even now.
“I brought up concerns,” she shrugs, but her voice shakes. “That’s all I did—concerns any sane person would have!”
“You are trying to ruin Indie’s career!” I roar, my voice so furious it rattles the broken glass everywhere.
“Something you’ve never respected, so I guess you can’t feel the weight of what’s at stake.
To actually work for something so fucking hard, and have some selfish, insignificant, greedy person try to take it all away. ”
She scoffs. “You think this is my fault?”
“Cut the bullshit, Dawn.”
Her eyes widen comically, and she presses a hand to her chest, scandalized. “Theodore!”
“Why?”
She looks perplexed by my question, and it only makes my anger burn hotter.
“Why couldn’t you just accept Indie? What did she ever do to you? What did she ever do besides love me?!”
“She’s…” she starts, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. “Because she’s….”
“She’s….” I jab, yelling now. “Come on! Spit it out! You had so much to fucking say a year ago? What’s wrong?”
She snaps her mouth shut, her lips pressing into a mutinous line as she raises her chin in defiance.
I laugh, “You don’t even know, do you?”
She doesn’t say anything, just picks up her glass and gulps down another big sip of wine.
“Here, I’ll tell you,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “Because Indie is everything you are not. Indie is strong. Indie is kind. Indie is caring. Hard-working. Accomplished. You wanted me with someone like you—useless.”
Dawn laughs, the sound empty and dry.
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard all about Saint Indie for a lifetime.”
“That’s the thing, though. Indie isn’t a saint,” I smile proudly and shrug. “And I still love her more than anyone on this earth.”
My mother flinches at those words, blinking rapidly like she’s pushing back tears.
Abruptly, she stands, grabs the bottle of half-filled wine and hurls it at me. I turn away to shield myself as the glass hits the wall right next to me. I feel the bite of broken glass splitting open my cheek and temple, and the wetness from the wine splattering on my shirt.
My body freezes in shock for a second, and when I finally glance back to her, she looks at me like she’s waiting for me to back down. To roll over, to obey like I used to.
I scoff, pressing two fingers to my cheek and seeing them come away red.
“Yeah. There you are,” I shake my head.
“That little bitch was included in the will, but not me! ME! The daughter who let that old bat live with us because I knew what she was sitting on!” she shrieks, before blinking as if realizing how unhinged she sounds.
Clearing her throat, she smooths down her hair.
“Your Nana clearly wasn’t in her right mind at the end! ”
“Because she had pneumonia,” I say, my voice low. I scoff at my mother, who doesn’t look guilty, still defiant. “She was sick. But she made the will before she was sick, and Dunk said she was coherent. Competent. Sure of what she was doing.”
“And what does he know?” she mutters.
“He knew Nana! More than you did. Indie knew Nana more than you did, too. Because she loved Nana and Nana loved her.”
“Love,” she sneers. “If I could go just one goddamn day without hearing about such nonsense. What does love do, Theodore? Does love put dinner on the table? Does love keep the gardens growing? Does love wash the laundry? Will it clean the floors?”
I just stare at this woman in front of me, teeth bared, eyes wild, truly unhinged for the first time. She gestures wildly around the messy room as if proving some point. The state of ruin of this house, of this life, of my mother. Miserable and empty.
“No. You know who does that? Me. Your mother. I kept this house running. I kept your father fed. I kept you little brats fed. I did everything for this family, and what do I get?” she shrieks, slamming her glass of wine on the ground. “Your father left me!”
I blink, shaking my head at that information. “What?”
“Your father has been having an affair—oh, but get this—not with some hot receptionist or some whore from the bar, no, your father truly outdid himself—” she cackles, pantomiming a drumroll. “With your uncle Jerry!”
I freeze as she cackles, the sound manic.
“They’ve been together for years—since you were a kid, apparently, right under mine and my sister’s noses!
Now they’re gone—oh! And Robin hates me like it was my fault.
And—this is the best part—is that your father had the nerve to tell me he’s finally his true self! He’s so happy! Isn’t it great?!”
“What the fuck is this family…” I whisper, feeling my world go off-kilter.
My father has been having an affair with my aunt’s husband for years. Suddenly, every sissy name he called me, every homophobic slur he spat at me when I showed an inch of emotion, is painted with a cruel irony.
Projection.
Pathetic.
“So, the house has gotten a little dirty,” she says, fluffing her hair.
“But who do I have to clean for now? No one! Your father is gone, you kids are gone, both my sisters hate me, my parents are dead, and my friends think I’m a leper.
All that planning…for this,” she holds her hands out and spins in a circle. “Look at my life.”
“So, you’re miserable, and you decide to ruin the one that actually matters to me. Indie,” I shake my head, sneering. “You just decided that she wasn’t right for me—”
“She isn’t right for you,” she snaps impatiently. “SHE ISN’T!”
“Because she isn’t you?”
“Yes!”
She slaps her hand over her mouth when she realizes what she just said.
I don’t even feel disgusted, because all she’s done is confirm what some part of me already knew.
“You’re sick,” I say, and the worst part is that I don’t even sound angry anymore. “You don’t love me. You want to own me.”
“I am your mother,” she says, as if that’s all the explanation she needs.
“You are Dawn,” I say. “That’s all you are to me now. That’s all you’ll ever be. The beginning, but never the end.”
“You ungrateful little bastard,” she screams, picking up things, trash, anything she can get her hands on to throw at me.
She used up all her aim on the bottle, though, or maybe she’s just gotten drunker as time goes on because she misses wildly.
“I gave you everything! Everything! And this is how you repay me! You were supposed to be with Lily! You were supposed to get married and buy a house in this neighborhood! You weren’t supposed to leave me! ”
Her scream echoes off the walls.
I just look at her, this woman who gave birth to me—my abuser—and I feel nothing but pity.
“One day, you’re going to look around and realize no one is left, Dawn. No one cares about you. You’re going to be all alone, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. And I…” I huff a laugh and shrug. “I feel sorry for you.”
Her eyes widen.
She opens her mouth, and she screams at me, “Get out! You are worthless—just like your father—worthless man! Get out! Get out!”
Nodding, feeling as though I got what I came for, I turn and storm out of the house, slamming the door shut. I walk down the street, down the streets I used to run down with my friends, and I feel free.
The sun has set. The cool, early spring air blows through my hair, soothing my heated skin and the stinging cuts on my face that Indie is no doubt going to fret over.
I smile thinking of my sweet Indie, my true home.
There are many reasons to be happy, just as there are more battles to fight. Tomorrow is a big one. But with Indie, for Indie, I’ll face anything and everything. I’ll do anything and everything for her.
For the first time, I’m proud of how I handled my mother. She’ll never get that close to Indie again. She’ll never have that kind of hold over me again. I received confirmation that she was the one who reported Indie, so I can call Dunk and discuss the next steps with him.
Even if it was more for me, it was a severing that was needed.
A cancer being cut out of my body.
I don’t feel healed, but I do feel free.
“I’m coming, baby.”