R. Lilley - Rock Bottom

Tristan and I stopped, letting the dogs roam on the far end of their leashes as the boys greeted their friends.

Tristan had the brunt of the leashes, so I had one hand free, and I was clutching my phone with it.  I couldn’t find words.  It seemed easier to express myself in pictures for this.

There was something so inherently nerve-wracking about breaking this news to him.  We’d talked about it endlessly.  And no one could say we hadn’t been giving it our best efforts.

Even so, my hand was shaking as I showed him the picture on my phone.

It showed the result of three pregnancy tests.  One had a blue cross, one read simply Pregnant, and the third contained two dark pink parallel lines, one line slightly more faded than the other.

Three positive results, by three different brands.  I was nothing if not thorough.

He didn’t react much at first, as though his brain wasn’t making sense of it.  Slowly, his brow furrowed, his mouth forming a question.  He grabbed my phone out of my hand, pulling it closer to his face, though his eyesight was keen.

“What the…?” he asked, his voice a croak.  “What on earth…?”

It shouldn’t have been a shock to either of us that we’d been successful, all things considered, but it had certainly been a shock to me.  Him as well, it was apparent by the slack-jawed surprise on his face.

Belatedly, I realized that he’d dropped the lone leash from his right hand.  The most troublesome one.

I gasped and pointed.  Coffeecup had taken off at a sprint and was nearly out of sight.

“Coffeecup!” I exclaimed.  “The chickens!”

“Shit!” Tristan shouted, handing me the rest of the leashes, shoving my phone in his back pocket, and tearing off after the hair-brained dog.

“Bad word, bad word!” Several of the kids in the yard pointed out.

I’d have smacked my forehead if I had a free hand.

I didn’t tear off after him, as I normally would have.  I wouldn’t be running through ditches, chasing after dogs again, any time soon.  Instead, I held onto the rest of the leashes and waited, my heart in my throat.

The boys approached me, looking concerned.

Mat tugged on my shirt.  His eyes were wide, his mouth shaped into an O.  They’d been talking with their friends, and hadn’t seen the initial escape.  “What happened, boo?”

“Coffeecup got loose.”

“Oh no!” Mat cried.

“It’s going to be a blood bath!” Ivan added, sounding a little too gleeful about the notion.

“Ivan,” I chided.

“It looks like chicken for dinner!” he announced loudly, with relish, sending the neighbor kids into peals of laughter.

I rolled my eyes.  Boys.

“Maybe he won’t kill too many,” Mat assured me, studying my face.  “Don’t worry, boo.  I think he ate right before we left the house.”

I couldn’t stifle a laugh at that, kissing the top of his head.

Tristan returned quickly, Coffeecup in tow.  He was running.  I studied Coffeecup, but I didn’t see any blood around his mouth, which was good.

“I caught him in time,” Tristan gasped as he stopped in front of me.  He handed Coffeecup’s leash to Mat, and handed off the rest of my leashes to Ivan, his grin so big it was blinding.

After the dogs were squared away, he approached me, finally meeting my stare.

His hands went to my hips, and he hoisted me up high, spinning me.

What I saw in his eyes then…wonder, joy, and undisguised longing.  It was all I could have hoped for.

He’d wanted this, truly wanted his, as I had.

“I can’t quite believe it,” he said softly as he lowered me.

My smile was tremulous.  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

His smile was as soft and tender as I ever could have hoped for.  “It’s wonderful.  Best news I’ve ever had.  What a joy you are for me, Danika.  A miracle.”

TRISTAN

I cut the engine, staring with trepidation at my mom’s house.

Danika gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulders.  This had been her idea.  My inclination had been to stay away forever, but I knew she was right.  This needed to be settled.  Whether I liked it or not, my estrangement from my mother had been weighing on me.

“You coming in?” I asked her.

“I’ll wait out here for a bit.  I think it’s for the best.  Don’t you?”

Did I?  I wasn’t sure.  If I was honest, I really didn’t want to deal with any of it.

I needed a drink, but I tried not to break out the booze at ten in the morning, when I was with Danika.

“Wish me luck,” I said with a heavy sigh, getting out of the car.

“Good luck,” she called out encouragingly just before I shut the door.

I knocked on the door, then rang the bell, waited a full minute, then tried again.  Finally, I used my key, dreading what I’d find.

The place was trashed, top to bottom.  Pictures were knocked off the walls, a colorful vase from the entryway table smashed to bits on the floor.  My mom was on a bender.  I wasn’t even a little bit surprised.

The kitchen was covered in filth, dishes with rotting food filling the sink.  I figured it hadn’t been cleaned since the funeral.  I had to cover my nose and mouth to keep from retching as I made my way through.

The rest of the house that I saw wasn’t much better, though none of the rooms were as ripe as the kitchen, they’d all been through hell.  I’d seen her do this before, after particularly bad break-ups, but never this extreme.

I found her in the living room, sprawled out on the couch, wearing sweats and a robe, an open bottle of tequila within easy reach of her open hand.

She was conscious, and just coherent enough to recognize me at a glance.  “You,” she began with a sneer, “you’ve got a nerve, showing your face around here.”

I had to remove a pile of clothes to take a seat in the armchair across from her.  I met her malevolent gaze squarely, though it was an effort.  “I came to check on you.  Danika thought you might need some help.  I see she was right.”

“Don’t bring her into this!  This is atween you and me!” she slurred.

I sighed.  I’d hoped giving her time would make her see some reason, but it was apparent it had not.  She was determined to blame me for this.  “What’s between you and me?  Go ahead.  Let’s hear it.”

“You killed my baby!  You and your friends and that stupid band.  Always out partying, always drinking, and whoring, and corrupting my baby boy.”

I shook my head, glancing around the room.  If she wanted to blame someone for her youngest child overdosing on a combination of drugs and alcohol, she hadn’t had to look beyond herself.  I tried hard not to tell her that, though.  I’d come to try to help her, not make her worse, but it went against every instinct I had not to go on the offensive when I was under attack.

“I loved Jared, Mom.  You think this isn’t killing me, too?  I’d do anything to undo what happened to him.  Can’t you see that?  I wasn’t even with him when it happened—“

She started sobbing.  “My baby boy was all alone when he died.  How could you let him die all alone?”

“I’d have been there if I could have.  I’d have stopped it.”

“You got him hooked on those drugs!  This was your fault!”  She grabbed the nearest object, well almost nearest.  I couldn’t miss the fact that she didn’t harm her precious bottle of tequila, instead going for the lamp, one of the few intact items in the room.

I dodged it easily, and tried to ignore her.

I ignored her vague curses.

I ignored her specific insults.

She began a diatribe about how I’d been the one to introduce Jared to drugs, and that I could not ignore.

I pointed across the room, at the huge bong that she’d left out in the open on the buffet that connected into the kitchen.  “Are you kidding me right now?  Are you really too drunk to remember who you’re talking to?  How old was I when you started handing me your joints?  How old was Jared?”

“Fuck you!  You’re the one that got him drunk when he was thirteen!”

I felt myself shaking with temper, and knew that I needed to leave, but unfortunately, I stayed.  “Are we pretending that’s the first time he had a drink?  Is that what we’re doing?  You, the mom who thought it was funny to get her little boys drunk at parties, you, are going to blame me for this?”

She was crying even as she started across the room, grabbed a glass vase off the floor, and threw it at my head.

I ducked.

She followed, pummeling my chest with her fists.

That I didn’t duck.  I let her beat on me.  I never had the energy to fight with her for long, because the sad fact was, none of our fighting would bring Jared back.  If hating her would have brought him back, I could have done it easily, and forever, but since it didn’t, I couldn’t hold onto it for longer than it took me to vent my rage aloud.

“You bastard,” she bawled between punches, over and over.

I took the abuse, over and over.

She’d always been a volatile drunk, but she didn’t hit that hard, so I’d never complained about it much.

This was the scene that Danika walked in on; my mother pounding on my chest and screaming curses at me.

She didn’t so much as pause, approaching us, pulling my mother off me.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned my mom in a low, mean voice.  I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she put her hands on Danika, but I knew that none of us needed to find out.

Fortunately for her, for all of us, she went with her quietly, turning and sobbing into the other woman’s neck.

Danika tugged her gently to sit on the couch, patting her softly on the back.  She shot me a sympathetic look, but I could see by the hard set of her mouth that she too was reining in her temper.  I knew how she felt about my mom, how angry it made her that she’d placed the blame on me for Jared.

Danika’s tone was kind but chiding when my mother finally quieted, and she could speak and be heard.  “You need to stop this, Leticia.  He is your son, the only person left on this earth that is your child now, and you must stop treating him like this.  He is not to blame.”

I had to turn away, fists clenched.  No one could make me so emotional with just a few words.  No one but Danika.

“He blames me, Danika,” Leticia sobbed.  “Why don’t you tell him to stop blaming me, while you’re at it?”

“He doesn’t blame you,” Danika told her, a world of patience in her voice.  I was glad she could say it.  I wasn’t sure just then that I could have gotten those words out.  “He’s hurting and you’re hurting, but you are his mother, and you need to stop this.  He came here to make peace.  Will you turn him away, and open all of these wounds you share even wider?  No, no, you won’t.  You need each other.  You can’t keep going on like this.  You’re killing yourself, Leticia.”

I turned back to look just as my mother pulled slightly back from Danika.  Leticia was not a large woman, was in fact a few inches shorter, but she dwarfed my tiny Danika.  It was amazing how much comfort my girl contained in those toned little arms of hers.

Leticia stroked her cheek, giving her a very affectionate look.  “Oh, my pretty girl.  I remember the words you spoke at my baby boy’s funeral.  You said just the perfect things.  You brought me such comfort.  I felt like my Jared was standing right next to me, when you spoke about him like that.  Where’s my comfort now, though, Danika?  I don’t know how to deal with this.  I can’t live with what’s happened to my poor, dear Jared.  Please, please, find some words to comfort me again.”

Danika pulled her close again, her eyes on me.  There was an apology in their pale gray depths that I couldn’t understand.  Not until she spoke.  “Not long ago, Tristan and I eloped,” she confessed to my mother, shocking me.  We hadn’t told a soul, until now.

Leticia sobbed and clutched her, naming her daughter, calling her our beautiful girl, finally sending a few kind words my way, admitting that I had good taste, if nothing else.  I’d take it.  There was nothing I was more proud of than having Danika love me.

And Danika wasn’t done.  “And, Leticia, I’m telling you this because I need you to work on getting better, okay?  I need you to be strong for me.  I need you to sober up, because I have a very important job for you.”

Leticia straightened, wiping her eyes, looking earnest, and finally, a little sober.  “A job?”