Saving Rain(107)

“I just want to cook dinner and go to bed,” I told them, heading for the kitchen.

“Oh, I thought we could just order a pizza,” Ray suggested.

“Nah.” I opened a cabinet and pulled out a box of pasta. “I don’t mind cooking.”

“Are you sure?”

I flashed an exasperated look over my shoulder. “Ray, if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t suggest it.”

She barely bobbed her head in a nod as her cautious eyes danced over my face. “Okay.”

In silence, I went through the motions of getting out a jar of sauce, a pot to boil water, and another smaller pot to heat the sauce. I opened the jar, dumped it into the pot, and put it on the stove to simmer. I dug through the spice rack, added a dash of this and a dash of that to liven the sauce up a bit. I filled the pot with water and put it on to boil. All while a tidal wave of memories hit. One by one, each punching me in the gut harder than the last.

Mom talking to me on the phone from rehab on Christmas.

Mom waking me up on my eighth birthday.

Mom coming to the hospital to hold my hand while my face was stitched up.

And in every one, she sang to me.

“You are my sunshine …”

I stared into the pot, watching all the tiny bubbles collect along the bottom, then fizzle out to make way for new ones. And I thought about her last moments.

“You are my sunshine …”

Had she known she was dying? Had she been scared?

“You are my sunshine …”

No, of course she’d been scared. And of course she knew something was happening … or at the very least, she knew something was going to happen. She had called.

Jesus, she had called, and I hadn’t answered. I had fucking woken up, I had heard the phone, and I had fallen back to sleep instead of answering.

“You are my sunshine …”

God, why hadn’t I just fucking answered?

“You’re gonna save me, right, baby?”

My lungs stuttered as I pulled in a jagged breath of air. I reached up to grip my hair in clenched fists, desperately fighting against the memories and that goddamn stupid fucking song that I wished so badly I could forget while being so, so, so incredibly sad that she hadn’t thought to sing it to me one more time. Just one more fucking time.

“You are my sunshine … you are my sunshine … you are my sunshine … “

“You’re gonna save me, right, baby?”

“Fucking bitch,” I found myself saying, drowning the sound of her voice from my head with the sound of my own. “You goddamn fucking bitch.”

“Soldier?” Ray called from the couch, cautious and hesitant.

But I ignored her.

“Fuck you,” I muttered through gritted teeth, clutching my hair and staring into the bubbling pot. “God, fuck you for doing this to me.”

Every twist of ill fate that had struck my life was directly related to her. And nearly every single one had been because of the pressure she’d put on me to protect her. To save her. To rescue her from the demons she’d created for herself. And all she could give me in return was this. Abandonment. Guilt. An ache so deep, so heavy, that I had to force the air in and out of my lungs just to keep them working.

I didn’t deserve this. I never deserved any of it.

I never deserved her.

My body reacted before I could think as my hand wrapped around the empty jar on the counter and threw it against the wall. Glass shattered, and the remainder of the sauce inside splattered against the wall and onto the floor, making another mess that Diane Mason would never clean up.

“You are my sunshine …”

My chest constricted violently as a sob worked its way past my lips, and my body doubled over. Crumpling to the floor in front of the stove and the pot of bubbling water.

“Noah, go to your room,” Ray ordered with urgency as she hurried into the kitchen.

“But, Mom—”

“Listen to me and go to your room now.” She enunciated every word as she reached over me, turning the stove off before dropping to her knees.

Noah begrudgingly did as he had been told as Ray wrapped her arms around me, pulling my body against hers.

Then, I cried.

I cried because nothing I had done was good enough.

I cried because I had failed.

I cried because she’d never possessed the ability to love me enough to get herself out of the shit she was in.

And finally, I cried because she was gone and there was nothing I could do to save her from that, nothing I could’ve done to stop it from happening in the first place. Because, for the first time ever, I had put myself first.

***

“Jesus Christ,” I croaked, my voice scraping against my raw and gravelly throat. “I feel like such an asshole.”

Ray was on her knees, gingerly picking up pieces of glass, when she turned to me abruptly, startled. “Why would you feel like an asshole?”

I shook my head and wiped a hand against my face, sticky from the deluge of tears. “Because I fucking lost it for a little while there. I didn’t mean to. I just … I dunno … it just happened.”

“Brawny,” Ray replied in a soft, soothing tone, standing to dump the broken shards of jar into the garbage. “Your mother died. She was killed. You’re allowed to lose it.”