I waited, my ears throbbing from how hard and fast myheart beat the blood around my body. “Why are you calling me?”
“I …” The line crackled as she let out a shaky sounding exhale. “I wondered if you would … I mean, we can talk here on the phone, but I wondered if you would meet me.”
“Why?”
“I have some things I’d like to explain.”
I squeezed my eyes closed because she sounded like how she used to before her addiction got so bad she could barely string sentences together. Her speech was so greatly abused by the heroin. But here she was on the other end of the line, sounding sober and clear.
“That newspaper thing … it wasn’t … that bastard edited out so much of what I said and … and he made it look like I was blaming you, and that was not my intention.”
I gritted my teeth. “Why talk to him at all?”
“I want to explain in person.” At my lengthy silence, she continued, “I’m not … I’m not expecting a relationship with you, Maia. I’m not after anything. But if I were you, I’d be feeling a certain way right now, and I … a long time ago, my sponsor told me that I should make amends with you first and foremost, and I couldn’t do it. I don’t even know if you care or if anything I do affects you or affected you … but I owe you amends. Now more than ever.”
It was hard for me to reconcile the voice on the other end of the phone with the woman who had put me in danger, who had left me to grow up and take care of myself, and whose negligible and abusive actions had pushed me to the point of running away.
I could hold on to that resentment and let it eat me alive with all the unanswered questions between us … or I could face her and try to find as much closure as was possible.
“Where doyou want to meet?”
I heard her wee harsh intake of breath. Her voice shook as she replied, “I could come to you, or you could come to me. I live in West Lothian now.”
My God, she was physically closer than ever, and she’d never bloody reached out! That heartbroken fury rose its ugly head, and I knew I didn’t want her in my home. I wanted to be able to leave if I needed to. “I’ll come to you.”
I stared at the small bungalow, a wreck of emotions. Mostly I wondered what my childhood might have been like if I’d instead grown up in this house on this quiet street where people looked after their gardens and neighborhood watch signs hung from the lampposts.
“Are you sure you want me to stay in the car?” Baird asked from the driver’s side.
It was the day after the call with Maryanne, a sunny Saturday morning, and Baird had driven me to the well-looked-after development on the outskirts of Blackburn, a town in West Lothian, less than fifty minutes from the city center.
I didn’t know how Maryanne had gone from the worst area, worst tenement in Glasgow, to this nice wee house, but part of me needed to know.
Baird’s frown was deep between his brows, and I knew he was worried about me facing my mother. We’d talked about it at length last night because for Baird, he genuinely didn’t desire or need closure from his birth father. He was at peace with the idea of never knowing him because he felt so strongly about his abandonment. I think he found it hard to understand why I needed to talk with my mother because he didn’t think she was worth it, but I wanted thedoor on this painful chapter in my life to close for good. I didn’t know how it would close, what that looked like, but I needed to walk away from this discussion having gained clarity about who she was.
“I’ll be okay,” I promised him, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “Knowing you’re outside waiting for me makes it easier to walk in there.”
He reached over to brush his mouth over mine in answer.
My answering smile was shaky with nerves, so I shoved open the passenger door and got out before I caved into my fears.
Walking up her front path was surreal. Part of me still didn’t believe she lived here.
But the door opened a few seconds after I pressed the doorbell and … it was her.
Not the skinny, decaying mess of a human being who used to slap me around when she was agitated and in need of a hit.
This was an older version of the Maryanne from my early childhood.
She was a healthy weight now that she wasn’t injecting heroin into her body. When her lips parted in a strained smile, I was surprised to see white veneers. The last time I saw her, her teeth were wrecked. Somewhere along the line, she’d gotten the money to fix them. Her dark hair, while still quite thin, was shiny and styled poker straight around her face. The T-shirt and jeans she wore were clean and quality. The only giveaway to her past was her skin, which had a weathered look beyond her age.
Her dark eyes roamed over me and to my surprise, they brightened with tears. She stepped back. “Come in, Maia.”
My legs shook as I stepped into the hallway of the smallbut modern home. It was well-decorated and nicely furnished. And it didn’t smell like human waste, which was how I remembered our flat in the end.
She gestured for me to follow her into the living room, and I could tell by the way she kept crossing and uncrossing her arms that she was nervous too. “Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, water?”
I shook my head and stared around the space, taking in the good furniture and the large TV. There was framed artwork … and photographs of her … with a man and two kids. The more I looked, the more I realized that there were photographs of those kids everywhere.
