“Momma,” I beg. She looks at me through hooded, dazed eyes. A sort of demonic expression graces her face.
I have seen Momma like this a few times before but never paid it any attention. Now, with the urgent need to get the answers I seek, I swallow over a nervous lump in my throat and don’t back down.
“Momma,” I whisper. Her eyes resemble Satan. She stares wickedly into my gaze. No soul. No feeling. No remorse. “I need to talk to you.”
She huffs angrily, before pushing back in her chair and shoving my hand from her thigh.
“About what?” She asks, then picks up her pack of cigarettes on the table next to her and quickly lights one.
I don’t dare chastise her for smoking this time. Instead, I try to focus on why I am here, and what I need her to tell me.
“Who is Victoria?” I ask quietly.
My mother’s eyes grow wide. Her face pales. She stares at me like she has just seen a ghost. She looks as if I just sucked all the life from her body with just that one question.
“Who?” She asks bitterly. Squinting her eyes, she violently leans forward. It takes all my courage, but I don’t back down.
“She’s my age, Momma. Victoria? I think you know her, and …”
“You have no clue what I know, Rochelle,” she hisses as she pushes me from her side and stands.
I go to help her, but she shrugs me off, before stumbling a few times on her feet and grabbing a hold of the kitchen counter. She angrily looks back at me, on the floor, still kneeling by her chair, and I cower back slightly. The look she gives me makes me feel for the first time like she never wished I was born.
Scrambling to my feet, I follow her into the kitchen, relentless in getting the answers I seek and needing to finally know the truth.
“I know you know, Momma,” I begin. She shakes her head, attempting to remove me and this confrontation from her clouded mind. “I met Edward. Edward Cunningham.”
Momma’s eyes grow wide. She stops walking and looks my way. Anger fills her features. She pushes past me with her cigarette in her hand and walks into her bedroom.
“Momma, why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me the truth? Because I have a right to know…”
“To know what Rochelle? That the one man I thought I could count on, the one man I loved, more than life itself, used me, fucked me, got me pregnant, then refused to make an honest woman out of me? Is that what you want to hear? Because I don’t think it is. I think you’d rather listen to the lies that Edward Cunningham is still spouting over twenty years later. Well, let me tell you, his son, Hunter Alexander, the boy he raised that you fell in love with is no better than that lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch. He’ll never stick around, Rochelle. He will leave one day too. Leave you all alone and all you’ll have is me. All you’ll ever have is me. So stop fooling yourself running around after a man that will only destroy you and remember your damn place in life.”
She grabs an object out of her closet. It takes me by surprise. A bottle of whiskey. I look at it confused, before glancing back her way and trying to focus on what she just told me.
The lies. The whispers. The running.
I need to know the truth, and come hell or high water, Momma is going to finally give it to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, as she slowly walks into the kitchen and pours herself a glass. “Momma, I said I was sorry.”
She looks back at me over her shoulder and releases an irritated sigh. Shooting back the liquid, I muster up the courage to stand beside her and gently put my hand on hers once she lowers the glass to the counter.
“But why? Why did you split us up? Why did you lie?”
She spins around quickly. “I never lied to you, Rochelle.” A sick smile spreads across her face. “Except for one thing.”
She pushes past me and walks back to her chair. Snuffing out her cigarette, she takes the box and lights another.
“What thing, Momma?” I plead as I make my way back into the tiny front living room. “I deserve to know. Why? Why did you give up Victoria?” She glares at me viciously, but doesn’t say a word. “Okay, then what did you lie about? Tell me. I deserve to know, damn it.”
“Rochelle,” she scolds, taking a seat in her chair. She shakes her head in disapproval of the curse that just fell from my lips. “I did not raise my daughter to talk to me like that. And your foul language, I didn’t raise…”
“Raise what, Momma?” I say, standing my ground. “Or should I say who? Because we both know you didn’t raise the both of us!”
She looks as if I just broke her heart, and it takes everything in me not to take back what I just said.
“There is more to it than you will ever understand,” she whispers, as a tear falls down her cheek. She lets it ghost it’s way across her skin until it hides itself behind the shadows of her chin. She doesn’t wipe it away. Soon, another falls. Then another. I drop to my knees in front of her, saddened that it all has come to this.
