“Where the hell are you going?” I heard a man say as the door creaked open.
It was Levi.
Afraid he had seen me, I glanced toward the apartment door, only to see not him, but my mother with her ratty, old purse slung over her shoulder.
“I'm going to get some cigarettes. You have a problem with that?” she snapped, her voice rough and hoarse.
“Grab a few six-packs too,” he called just as she closed the door behind her.
My mother began to walk in my direction, her eyes on her hands as they rifled through her purse. “A few six-packs … yeah, okay, 'cause I wanna deal with your drunk asses all—”
Her sunken gaze lifted to see me, standing two steps down into the stairwell. She froze, nearly dropping her purse from off her shoulder.
“Hi, Diane.”
“W-w-what …” She swallowed and blinked rapidly, then licked her dry, cracked lips. “What are you doing here?”
As if I'd forgotten entirely about my fear of seeing her, I leaned against the wall and tucked my hands inside my jeans pockets. “I came to ask you a couple of questions.”
Her nostrils flared as her eyes widened … with what? It wasn't anger or irritation. No, there was something else there.
Fear.
She's afraid.
Of what? Me?
“You shouldn't be here,” she said, her voice trembling and hushed. “You need to get the hell out of here.”
“Not until I talk to you.”
She huffed, taking a peek over her shoulder toward the door, then gestured with a frantic hand down the stairs. “Go. Go downstairs. Get outside.”
My brows pinched as I eyed her warily. “Are you going to talk to me?”
She clenched her jaw. “I said, go.”
With a roll of my eyes, I did as she’d asked, descending the three floors two steps at a time with her hurrying behind me, her flip-flops slapping all the way. I barreled through the entry hallway, beneath the flickering bulb, to burst through the front door that no longer closed. The warm breeze hit me, and I was grateful for the fresh air as I turned around on my heel to face the woman I'd once been foolish enough to hold on a pedestal.
“I'm not letting you leave until you talk to me,” I said, keeping my voice low and menacing.
But she was already walking away in the other direction, digging out a pack of cigarettes from her bag.
“Diane,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Stop—”
She shot a hardened look over her shoulder. “Will you keep your goddamn voice down? Get over here.”
A cigarette was pulled from the pack and placed between her lips as she led me to the other side of the building. We were secluded by a cluster of trees, but I had a clear view of Harry, sitting in his car. My escape route.
She flicked her lighter and set the flame to the end of the cigarette. “You want one?” she asked, holding the pack out to me.
I glared at the four remaining cigarettes with raised suspicion as if they might be laced with arsenic or cyanide. But reason quickly told me she’d had no idea I was coming, so she’d have no reason to poison her pack with anything and risk losing her precious smokes. So, despite not having smoked since high school, I accepted her offer, slid one out, and held it between my lips.
“Now, you can't say I never gave you anything,” she said with a condescending curl of her lips as I took the lighter and lit up.
I snorted and rolled my eyes to the clear, happy sky as I filled my lungs with smoke. Then, I sputtered through an exhale and coughed, pinching the cigarette between two fingers and pulling it from my mouth.
“Yeah, thanks for the cancer,” I choked out.
The side of her mouth twitched, and I thought she might actually give me a real smile.
But before she could give herself the chance, she cleared her throat and asked, “What did you want to say to me? And keep it down. I don't know who's listening, and—”
“Who do you think is listening?” I watched her skeptically.
Was she really that scared, or had she completely lost her mind?
She squinted her eyes in the sunlight as she stared up at me. “I think you already know.”
And with that, understanding cleared the suspicion from my mind, and I slowly shook my head. “What the hell did you get yourself into, Diane?”
“Nothing I wasn't already into,” she countered with a defeated shrug and a puff of her cigarette. “What did you have to say to me?”
I wanted to ask her more about Levi. How long she'd been involved with him, if he was living with her, if she was working with him or simply keeping his bed warm. But my time with her was limited, and my focus had to be the reason I'd come.
“Was David Stratton my father?”
Her eyes widened at the unexpected question, and her startled gaze met mine. “H-how do you know that name?”
“I read an article.”
She blew out her held breath, cigarette smoke permeated the space between us, and she shook her head. “I don't know.”
“You don't know what?”
“I don't know if he was your father.” She shrugged like it all meant nothing and lifted the cigarette back to her mouth.
“How do you not know?”
“What do you mean, how do I not know? Soldier, do you even know how many guys I was fucking when I got knocked up?”
I didn't want to cringe at her language. I wasn't a child, and I knew damn well my mother had fucked more than her fair share of men. But she was still my mother, and the idea of her fucking anyone made me recoil a little.
“But the article said he was your boyfriend.”
She pursed her lips and slowly nodded at the cigarette as an unexpected wave of sadness clouded her eyes. “Yeah … he was.”
“And wasn't he …” I hesitated, clearing my throat and questioning how much I should actually say. I didn't want to allude to talking to Billy's mom. I didn't want to get anyone else into trouble. “Wasn't he tall? I … I saw a picture, and …”
She slowly exhaled. “He was.”
“So”—I waved the forgotten cigarette in my hand, trying to put the pieces together—“isn't it possible that he—”
“Jesus Christ, Soldier,” she hissed impatiently. “It doesn't fucking matter, okay? Why the hell do you even want to know? Knowing won’t change anything, okay? It’ll just make shit worse.”
“I … I don't know,” I answered stupidly. “I guess I just want to know—”
“What? You were hoping both of your parents weren't pieces of shit?”
That wasn't at all what I had wanted to say, and I winced. “I've never called you a piece of shit, Diane.”
She wagged the burning end of the cigarette at me, ash falling to my feet. “You didn't need to say it. I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice every time you call me by my name. Diane,” she mocked, her nose wrinkling with disgust. “I know you hate me, kiddo, and that's fine. Whatever I gotta do to keep you the fuck away from here. But”—she shook her head, chuckling with something like bitterness—“you just keep coming back, don't you?”
I opened my mouth to reply, to ask what she was talking about, when the sound of a door slamming shut echoed through the air. Her eyes widened, the way they had upstairs, immediately full of fear and worry, as she looked over her shoulder. Staying still. Staying quiet. Listening.