2. Levi Graves
LEVI GRAVES
My mother may have survived, but I lost both my parents that night.
After my father's rival destroyed my family and killed my father, the Feds claimed whatever fortune we had left. A plea deal was offered: snitch on everyone my mother’s ever known and they'll put us into Witness Protection so we can survive.
And now, here we are, in sunny Key Largo, Florida—having gone from riches to rags with new identities, and yet the record player is still singing The Inkspots, ‘I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire.’
It’s the second anniversary of my father’s death, and my mother is no closer to healing from her grief. Her gaze is despondent, eyes fixed on the oceanic horizon as the sun dips low to kiss its watery face.
Glass of water in hand, I urge it towards her dry lips.
“Have some water, Ma.”
She lifts her head of dark, unruly curls up at me as I push the glass into her hand. “Thank you, tesoro.” Treasure.
“I wrote you a riddle...”
And prayed to fucking God it would cheer you up.
Even if only for a fleeting second.
A corner of her mouth curls with the shadow of a smile.
Victory.
I raise her smile with one of my own.
“I sate hunger. I sate thirst. I soften even the most rigid. Those who fly are destined to land in my depths. What am I?”
She hums, gaze drifting to the Atlantic.
“Is it... the ocean?”
My grin widens.
“Soup.”
Her head tips back with laughter—full-bodied and true. The sound is an immense relief that I can only equate to that first blessed breath of air after nearly drowning.
I chuckle, watching her laugh, even as my eyes burn.
Please, be okay.
Please, let’s go back to how things used to be.
It’s okay that Dad isn’t here.
I’m enough.
Please, see that I am enough.
My thoughts can’t reach her mind, but her heart seems to hear them. No matter how hard I try, things will never be the same.
Her laughter calms, and silence returns like the closing of a coffin.
Her gaze shifts to mine, now swollen with tears. “I love you so much.”
My throat works around a knot of emotion, words little more than a rasp.
“I love you too, Ma. More than anything.”
The tears teetering on the precipice finally spill as she scans my face, and I get to witness her heart break further.
For my mom, there’s no escaping my father’s ghost because I know I look just like him. If you were to look at side-by-side photos of us at the same age, the only way you’d be able to tell who’s who is by the style of our clothes.
Squatting down by her chair, I take her hand in mine, squeezing it.
“Why don’t we go do something for New Year’s? Even if it’s just walking on the beach... Dad wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself. He would want you to live.”
My mother’s chin wobbles beneath the weight of her sorrow as she gives a slight shake of her head and whispers her tremulous reply. Her hand grips mine with surprising force.
“Sal, one day...”
Her mouth snaps shut, and she struggles to swallow back the sob crawling up her throat. A moment passes between us as she draws in a deep breath, and the backs of my eyes begin to burn. My jaw works furiously to push it back.
“One day, I pray to fucking God you find a love like me and your father’s because anything less just isn’t worth it.
When you do, you’ll understand why finding happiness without him isn’t possible.
I know I haven’t been the same. I won’t ever be, but it doesn’t have to be that way for you.
You have your whole life ahead of you. You have... ”
My mother chews her cheek, searching for words that aren’t there... because what do I have?
Rage.
Grief.
A burning hunger for revenge.
She and I both know my dreams of studying quantum physics have evaporated.
The Feds confiscated and seized all of my parents’ assets during their investigation.
Even my mother’s jewellery. The only thing they didn’t take was the wedding ring on her finger because she managed to hide it and was smart enough to replace it with a decoy.
While I did well in school, after my father’s death and my mother’s transformation into this waning shadow, my grades weren’t strong enough to qualify for a scholarship.
My mother’s grip on my hand loosens, but I tighten mine.
“I have you. Don’t worry. We have each other, and that’s all that matters.”
The words feel undeniably off as I say them. Like a tree gone hollow with decay. The trunk is still there, but it’s nothing more than a rotted-out husk, branches bare and void of verdure.
Her pained, tightening expression tells me she feels it too, along with the accompanying guilt that she’s no longer able to be the same mother I once had. Throat working, she conjures a sad, watery smile. “I’m sorry, baby. So fucking sorry.”
The stinging in my eyes heightens, lighting a fire beneath me to escape the fucking heartbreak of this moment.
Of what has become our lives.
We can’t both lose our shit. I need to be her rock. My father was the cornerstone of our lives—one I’ll never be able to replace, but I can at least be this.
Strong.
Stable.
Calm.
Standing, I press a kiss to the top of her head, even though I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin with this suffocating need to escape.
“After work, we’ll go for a walk on the beach.”
My mother grips my arm to stop me before I can walk away, expression revealing that there’s a little determination left in her.
“I don’t like you working with those people, Sal.
They don’t have your best interests at heart.
Your father wouldn’t approve of it either.
He wanted you to get out of the business, not dive headfirst into it. ”
Despite how it looks, the scowl on my face isn’t directed at my mother. It’s at our morbid fucking circumstances. “He would want me to take care of you.”
Her frown deepens into a scowl of her own. “Not like this, he wouldn’t.”
“What choice do I have? A minimum wage job? Five dollars an hour isn’t gonna keep a roof over our head.”
She doesn’t have an answer to that. Her throat struggles against another ball of guilt. “I can get a job too?—”
“Oh, great, so we both work for minimum wage. Ma, you and I both know that our combined ten dollars an hour before tax isn’t going to pay our bills either.”
My mother’s never had a job. Never had to get one. She and my dad met in middle school, and by the time they were in high school, she was pregnant. She dropped out to have me, and because my dad was the heir to a kingdom of organized crime, she wanted for nothing.
Now, we have exceedingly few options. About six months ago, I went looking for a job at the local bars, but, still being underage at the time, they all turned me away.
One night, out of sheer desperation, I followed a man into the parking lot after the gold Rolex on his wrist and bulging wallet in his pocket winked at me.
When I pulled a gun on him, he’d only grinned and chuckled before offering me a job.
His crew is based in Miami, but their main entry point for the smuggling they do is at an abandoned marina just a few miles north of us.
My mother’s voice cracks as she looks up at me with pleading eyes.
“I can’t risk losing you, too.”
“You won’t. I’m careful. They’re careful. We have each other’s backs.”
Even as I speak the words, they feel weak and too close an insult to my father’s death. His words still echo in my mind.
“Don’t follow in my footsteps because they’ll only ever lead you to an early grave.”
My mother gives a rueful shake of her head, eyes swelling with fat tears demanding to be shed.
“You know how many times I heard your father say those very words?”
My throat struggles against the emotion clawing its way up my throat. Defeated, I turn away to face the momentarily docile Atlantic Ocean a few stories beneath us. The soothing murmuration of its lullaby is a mocking antithesis to the storm raging inside me.
Her whispered words at my back carry the weight of an anchor on my chest, sinking me into cold, dark, suffocating depths.
“I won’t survive it a second time, Sal. And you know it.”
Restrained panic and desperation—like that of a caged animal—burn through me.
“Give me an alternative.”
After several moments of silence, I finally turn to lay a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly.
Hesitating.
Trying to find words that won’t come.
Something deep inside my soul—that soft voice in the back of my mind, whose whispered words are somehow always louder than all the rest—tells me to stay.
Stay with her.
Don’t go.
It’s at war with the panic inside of me. The desperation to escape, to be free, to be liberated of the fucking misery that has bled into every waking and slumbering moment of our lives since my dad was murdered.
So I leave.