“What?”
“This is the fantasy version of you.”
“Oh?” She snorted, turning back to the mirror. “Are pencil skirts and ugly blouses part of this fantasy of yours?”
I chuckled a gruff laugh, then cleared my throat of the lingering sleep while pulling myself up to sit in bed. “When I was a kid, I had it bad for one of my teachers—I think I told you about that. Mrs. Henderson, remember? She always dressed like that. You know, put together and nice and all, but also, like, every teenage boy’s wet dream.”
I watched her reflection shift from startled to amused in a matter of seconds. She laughed as she twisted off the top of her lip gloss.
“So, she set the precedent for every other woman for the rest of your life.”
“I guess.” I laughed with her as I reached for my phone on the nightstand. “It still blows my mind that she ended up being Harry’s daughter. She was the nicest person to me in school, and he was the nicest …”
What the fuck? I thought as I stared at the notifications on the screen.
“What is it?” Ray asked, caution and worry in her tone.
My heart slammed against the wall of my chest as I stared at the four missed calls from early this morning. The last one had come in around four thirty a.m. Three new voice mails. All from my mother.
“My mom called,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Jesus, why would she call? What does she want …”
I was already shaking as I stared at her name in my voice mail inbox, terrified of what she might have called about. Yes, I'd given her the number. I had been insistent that she call if something came up, if she needed me for anything. But had it been stupid of me to assume she never would?
Now, staring at those three messages waiting to be heard, I wanted to yell at her and say the gesture had been nothing more than a Band-Aid to keep my guilt from taking over. She wasn't actually supposed to use it. She was supposed to throw the damn number away, lose it, like she did everything else.
My hands were shaking so much that I thought I'd drop the phone.
How did she still have this type of control over me?
“Soldier,” Ray said, her gentle voice slicing through the shroud of panic and fear as she laid her hand against my bare shoulder.
“She left me voice mails.” I presented the phone to her.
“You want me to play them?” she guessed, and I nodded, planting my elbows against my knees and covering my face with my hands.
And then my mother's frantic, trembling, whispered voice filled the room.
“H-h-hey … I wasn't going to call because”—she cackled maniacally—“because the last thing you probably want in your life is to hear from your old j-j-junkie mom. But … but, Soldier, um … um … if you get this … um … call me, okay? Call me. I-I-I-I need to tell you some things. Okay? Call me.”
“You know … um … I-I-I never wanted things to b-be like this, you know? That night you were born … I thought you'd change things. I wanted you to change things. I wanted y-you to save me, and I think … I think that's where I fucked up, isn't it? Th-that I-I-I-I put so, so, so much on a fucking baby, and I never put a fucking thing on me. I never tried to save myself, and that's my fault, okay? I've spent a long time trying to own that, and th-that's what I'm doing now. Owning it. I fucked up. I fucked you up. I fucked David up, and your grandparents, and … and … everything. But that's on m-me, okay? It’s all on me. O-okay … b-bye.”
“W-when you were a baby, I used to sing that song … what the fuck was it called—oh, right. 'You Are My Sunshine.' D-do you remember it? Do you remember me singing that to you? Those were the best, best, best moments of my life. You are the best thing to happen to me, and y-y-you know, Soldier … I never thanked you. Y-you know … for e-everything, so … th-thank you. Thank you, baby. Everything I've done has been for you. Not at first, but … now … o-o-okay, um … um … I-I love you …”
The final recording of her manic, emotional voice faded into hushed static until there was nothing but the sound of my frantic heart.
Ray and I were quiet and still, holding our breath, as if we were scared to let new air slip into the room. Mutually scared of something neither of us was quite sure of.
Then, with a shaking hand, Ray put the phone back on the nightstand.
“Soldier …”
“Ray”—I shook my head—“please don’t.”
She sat down in front of me on the bed. “I just—”
“Rain.”
My voice cracked heatedly through the hush of hers, and startled, she looked at me, clamping her lips shut. Immediately apologetic for saying something at all. For thinking she’d even know what to say about a situation she knew nothing about. But I wasn’t supposed to make her feel like that, and I scrubbed my hands against my face, inhaling deeply until my lungs couldn’t hold anything more. Then, I dropped them down to my lap, already feeling exhausted after a full night of sleep.
“I’m sorry.”
Ray shook her head, her brows pulled together with sympathy. “No, don’t apologize. You’re angry and confused—”
“I’m not confused,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “There’s nothing to be confused about.”
Ray looked doubtful. Unconvinced. “But … why would she say all of that now? Why did she …” She shuddered, and I was sure she thought I hadn’t seen it, but I had. “God, why did she sound like that? She sounded so … scared.”
I didn’t want to be impatient with her. There were things she didn’t know about, things she had no reason to understand, and that wasn’t her fault. So, when I responded, I urged the anger and stress I only felt when it came to my mother to stay out of my tone.
“Ray, she sounded like that because she had probably popped too many pills and was having a bad trip.”
Disappointment seeped into my veins as I spoke the words out loud, and then I felt like an idiot for being disappointed at all. What the hell had I expected from my mother? Had I really thought that, one day, she’d clean herself up and get better? Had I really thought that she might have a change of heart?
No, I didn’t think I’d truly believed it would happen, but I’d be a liar to say I had stopped hoping.
I didn’t think anybody ever truly stopped hoping. Even for the things they knew to be impossible.
“Do you really think that’s all it was?” Ray whispered, her hesitancy obvious. “Because, Soldier, I don’t know. She just … she sounded really—”
“What? Desperate? Anxious? Terrified?”
Ray picked at her cuticles and nodded reluctantly.
“Yeah, I know. That’s how she always sounds when she’s on some heavy shit.”
Ray’s eyes met mine with more skepticism than I appreciated. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” I snapped, throwing the blanket off and climbing out of bed with enough haste that I nearly tripped over my own stupid feet. “I think I’m pretty fucking sure, Ray. More so than you are.” I glanced over my shoulder on my way to the closet. “No offense.”