Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
“Thanks, Ma.”
We finish eating, the conversation getting much lighter after that. I tell her about Gary and Travis’s upcoming wedding, and she’s thrilled to hear more about my friends and their lives.
When we’re done, I pay and get a box to take Evan’s dinner home to him. The moment we step out onto the busy sidewalk, Mom’s phone rings.
“Hold on a second. Let me see if this is Randall,” she says, pulling it out of her pocket before she frowns. “I don’t recognize the phone number.” She answers with, “Hello?” and then adds, “This is she.”
More listening on her part, and even though I can’t explain why, my gut twists coil-tight.
“Yes, I was.” Mom’s voice is soft, questioning.
Who is it? I mouth to her, but she doesn’t reply.
“Oh my God.” Mom’s hand moves to her mouth, covering it. Her fingers trembling, shaking like a twig in the wind.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my throat feeling tight. Her eyes pool with unshed tears that she tries to blink away.
Christ. Is it Randall? Did something happen to him? Reaching out, I put a hand to her arm, try to support her.
“I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why this is affecting me so much. I think I need to go. I’ll call you back.”
The second she ends the call, I ask, “Who was that? What happened?”
“Oh, Frankie,” she whispers, her chin trembling before she just lets loose. Sobs pull from the back of her throat as I hold on to her, slipping around the corner and down the alley where it’s quiet.
Mom cries into my chest, her body jerking as I hold her tightly. My mind goes a hundred miles a minute, unable to focus on one thing, possibility after possibility swirling around in my head until I feel swept up in a massive storm.
“What is it?” I ask when her tears slow.
She looks up to me and I can see the confusion in her eyes. “I don’t want to do this here. We can—”
“Tell me. Just tell me,” I interrupt. “Please.”
But I know, somehow I fucking know, what this has to do with as I picture the letter I’d recently torn up.
“Oh, Frankie,” she says again. “Your father…that was his lawyer. He passed away a couple of days ago. He—”
I hold a hand up to stop her and thankfully, she doesn’t continue. “I don’t give a shit about him. He can rot in hell for all I care.”
“I know how you feel about him. You think I don’t feel the same way? I know what he did to us, but he’s still your dad and—”
“And you forgave him. I didn’t.”
“I didn’t forgive him for him, I did it for me, for you. I can never regret him because that would be regretting you. And he’s gone…maybe it doesn’t make sense for that to affect me, but it does. In some ways, it has to affect you too, mijo. It just does, and I’m so damn sorry.”
My chest tightens, and I can’t place exactly why. It’s not for him. It can’t be for him. He hurt her; he could have killed her. There’s a large part of me that wants to scream, wants to walk away and find a way to sort through all the shit in my head, but I can’t. I’m pissed. Fucking pissed at him for hurting her, pissed at him for making me doubt myself, for the pain and self-hate I felt hiding in that closet.
But I hate him for dying too. How in the fuck can I hate him for that?
I’m angry at myself, for ignoring the letter, for being weak, which I swore I would never do, so I pull Mom close, hold her again, try to shut myself down from all the thoughts and questions and feelings.
“Come on. I’ll take you to Metropolis.” We shouldn’t be doing this here.
She nods into my chest. With my arm around her, we weave our way through the people walking the sidewalks, going about their business. Luckily, the lobby at Metropolis is fairly quiet. She hugs me, cries as we’re in the elevator, and I can’t figure out if I want to cry too or if I’m angry at her for feeling. I don’t want to feel anything except hate for him, and I don’t want her to either.
My fingers shake, actually fucking shake as I unlock the door to our unit. “Go ahead.” I nod for Mom to go in, stepping in behind her.
Mom stops abruptly, making me run into her. My eyes dart up and the moment they do, they lock on Evan, who must have fallen asleep on the couch. Evan who isn’t Evan right now, but Pup Runt, fully in his pup gear, harness and tail and all—the stuffed animal and bone I’d given him curled up with him.