him.
I can imagine never seeing my parents again.
And I’m not sure what’s right or wrong or up or down anymore…
I get into my car and drive away.
I find Taz waiting in his truck for me.
When he sees me, he nods.
I drive by him.
I fight back the tears.
I’m doing what I want and need for myself.
17
MAC
I finish my cigarette as I grab for the door handle to Mama’s house.
When I open the door and smell food, it brings a smile to my face.
Mama turns around, a spoon in one hand, a gun in the other.
I show my hands. “Don’t shoot or smack me.”
“Mac,” she says. “You startled me.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“I’m finishing up a chicken,” she says. “I’ve been roasting it slowly for hours. The trick is to get the skin crispy but the body juicy.”
“Sounds like most of the girls I’ve fooled around with,” I say.
Mama shakes her head. “Where’s Jolie? I miss her.”
“You miss her?”
“Of course I do.”
“I thought she was a pain in the ass.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Mac, and I still want to see you.”
I laugh. “Good point. Jolie is, uh, talking to her mother right now.”
“Oh?”
“Handling some personal issues,” I say. “Her mother is in the clear of everything. So Jolie is trying to navigate what happens next. Her father is a real piece of shit.”
“We know that.”
“He cleaned up that cash, Mama. He put it all away in the drawers again. And he got himself two plane tickets. One for him… one for his mistress.”
“How do you know all of this, Mac?” Mama asks.
“Why don’t we sit down, Mama?” I ask. “We can talk.”
“I don’t want to sit down,” she says. “Don’t treat me like that, Mac.”
“Okay. Sorry. I just want to let you know we took care of Jeff. Jolie’s cover is blown. Which is good. It needed to be done. I took the cash from the drawers and Jolie gave it to him. That really scared the hell out of him. He’s not any kind of leader either. He’s working for someone. Probably debt related too. So whatever has to happen next…”
“You did that without telling me?” Mama asks.
“I saw an opening and I took it,” I say. “Jolie was losing her mind here. Then what happened with her sneaking out and the police showing up… it was getting risky, Mama.”
“That’s my decision to make.”
“I understand that,” I say. “There’s other decisions too…”
“Meaning?”
Mama puts the gun down on the counter. You know, just the normal stuff there… a spoon, some garlic, a gun.
This is my normal.
“You were are the doctors,” I say.
Mama quickly turns around.
“I’ll kill her,” she says.
“No you won’t,” I say.
“Mac…”
“Talk to me,” I yell.
Mama slowly turns. “Talk to you. About what? It seems you already know everything.”
“What I know is that I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to you. I don’t want you to get hurt. I also don’t want anyone I know to get hurt either.”
“So that’s why you just went and did your own thing, right?”
“No,” I say. “I saw the chance, Mama. You know you gave us the wrong color of the SUV. And then the wrong time to get to Jeff that first time. Whatever it was, it’s done and over with. You were focused here on Jolie. Protecting her. And you did your job. So I took a play from your book and did my own thing. And it worked.”
“You did it because of me,” she says. “Because you think I can’t focus enough. You think I’m losing my mind. You think I’m going to forget things. Right?”
I swallow hard.
She’s getting pissed and defensive.
I turn and put my hands to the counter.
I look out the window and take a deep breath.
“There’s something I have to give to you.”
“Great,” she says. “What now, Mac? Do you have a room picked out for me at an old folks home already? Right? Ship my ass out the door?”
I turn my head and feel like I could cry.
We both know the ending to this. We both know Mama isn’t going to get better. We both know she’s only going to get worse. We both know everything she’s saying… is true.
And for her, she just wants it all to happen now.
She would rather die right now in front of me than suffer for years, forgetting everything and everyone, waiting to die.
“I love you, Mama,” I whisper. “I’ll never give up on you. I’ll never stop being a pain in your ass. No matter how mad you