“I’m sorry she did that to you,” I say, the words feeling small. “I’m sorry I didn’t know… didn’t ask.”
“It’s not on you, Web. I didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want you to think I was like her.”
“I would never think that. You were just a kid.” I pause. “Did C know?”
He shakes his head. “I never told anyone. Not until I testified in court.”
That explains why he didn’t want us there, why he carried that burden alone. “Can you tell me about it now?”
He exhales. Long and deep. Like it’s the first real breath he’s let out in years.
“I was five, maybe six,” he begins, still avoiding my eyes. “She’d take me out of town, where nobody knew us. Said I was her ‘lucky charm.’ I learned how to cry on cue before I could tie my shoes. Learned how to lie. How to charm people. How to make them feel sorry. I put on that trained face and we raked in the money.
“She’d target busy mall parking lots, places with traffic. We’d hold signs begging for medicine money. Or say her wallet was stolen and we just needed a few bucks to get home. I didn’t understand all her plays, but I knew they were wrong.”
I don’t speak. Don’t sip. My whole body stills, locked on every word.
“When I was eight, she moved on to door-to-door scams. Selling fake raffle tickets. Told me if I didn’t do it, we’d go hungry. We’d have no place to live. But the real con was when she said if I wanted her to love me, I’d do it.”
My fist clenches under the table. That price tag she put on love was despicable. But this isn’t about me or my rage. I reach for his hand, and he lets me take it, though his fingers stay slack in mine.
“She got more sophisticated over time,” he continues, his voice hollow. “Phone and internet scams. Credit card fraud. Catfishing men online for money. My con was fake charities. She’d give me scripts. Called the targets ‘fishes’ and lit up every time we reeled one in. Cold as ice. She didn’t give a damn.
“When I stole that change from your dad’s car, it was the first time someone reacted to me. He was furious, but what really stuck was the way he looked at me. Like I was scum. Garbage. A real lowlife. I started thinking about all the other people I’d never see. The ones I’d lied to. Taken from. That’s not who I wanted to be. I couldn’t do it anymore,” he says, his voice breaking. “I hated myself.”
“Dice,” I whisper, my heart aching. But he cuts me off with a small shake of his head.
“She lost it when I told her I was done. She despised me, said it over and over again. That I was weak. A piece of shit. Unlovable. Your tent was my escape. The only safe place I had from her. But I still didn’t tell anyone. I knew it was illegal. I knew she was hurting people. I was twelve, old enough to know. And still, I didn’t stop her.”
Tears sting the backs of my eyes. “You were a child,” I say, steady and firm. “When you had the chance, you told the truth.”
“I was sixteen by then.”
“That’s still a child. And as fucked up as she was, she was your mother. It took guts to do what you did.”
“It didn’t feel brave. It felt like guilt. Not for her. For the people I scammed. She was going to serve her time. But what about me?”
“It wasn’t your crime. You were surviving. That whole situation was a prison. None of that was your fault. She was manipulative and cruel. But you still had the strength to say no. To testify. To stop her. That counts.”
He exhales again, his head still down.
“Dice,” I say softly. “Look at me.”
He lifts his head slowly, hesitantly, like he’s afraid of what he’ll see.
“You arenothinglike her.” I squeeze his hand for emphasis. “I knew the day you helped guide that spider back onto its web you were the most special boy I’d ever met. And I still think that. I might not be the best with feelings and all that sensitive stuff, but I mean every word.”
A flicker of a smile ghosts his lips, and he squeezes my hand back. “You did great, Web.”
“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”
“Happy to give it anyway.”
“How do you feel?”
He shrugs. “Lighter in some ways. But dredging it all up sits heavy as hell.”
“It’s always been heavy. Pressing it down doesn’t make it disappear. Just makes it bleed out in ways you might not even realize.”
