“Listen to me, Mom. Are you in danger right now?” I want to know exactly what I’m walking into.
“No,” she whispers.
“Did you—” I can’t even get the words out. “Like last time?”
“No, he just left.”
“Okay, I’m on my way. Don’t move.”
“You don’t have to come?—”
“Mom!” I scream. “Lock your door and do not go anywhere.”
“Alright,” she finally relents, and I end the call, not bothering to say goodbye.
I speed down the dimly lit back roads, praying that I don’t get pulled over, and breathe a sigh of relief when I finally arrive at my mom’s house. It’s been months since I’ve been here, and it never gets any easier. Everything in the yard is in disrepair. The small fence around the perimeter is rotted and falling over. The grass is overgrown and littered with weeds. Even though our house was small, she always kept things nice growing up, but I guess she stopped caring after I moved away for college. She may not have taught me how to cook like I told Theo Aldridge all those months ago, but she did teach me how to grow my own flowers and vegetables. Now when I pass by our little garden, neglected and decomposing, I’m reminded of the thought I had earlier.All good things come to an end.
I knock on the old wooden door, dusty pink paint chipping off the edges. We painted it together on one of her rare days off from work when I was ten. She comes to the door, and I have to hold onto the frame to keep my knees from giving out. Her face is blotchy from crying, her lip is split and bleeding, and there’s a purple bruise blooming over her right eye.
“Mama.” I can’t contain the tears anymore. They fall freely down my face as I wrap my arms around her, and she winces. Stepping back, I notice another bruise forming on her collarbone. It’s in the shape of fingerprints.
“He thought I was cheating on him,” she whimpers, and my hands ball into fists. “I wasn’t. I was talking to the realtor to see how much I could get for this house. Mark asked me to move in with him, but I wanted to have a little of my own money set aside in case…” she trails off.
I walk into the house and motion for her to sit on the couch. I’m relieved to see the house is in much better condition than the outside, but I do notice glass all over the floor in the small kitchen area.
“I was talking to a realtor in secret,” she goes on. “Mark thought something was up and went through my phone. He misunderstood our text conversation and thought I was meeting up with the man to cheat. He confronted me about it at his house and raised his voice at me, so I stormed out and took a cab home. He didn’t follow me out, so I thought he was giving us both space. I was even relieved that maybe I had finally found a man who was capable of doing that.”
My heart breaks knowing she had hope, only for it to be crushed.
“I was such a fool.” She shakes her head, her blonde waves brushing her shoulders. “A few minutes after I got home, he stormed in here, and it startled me so bad I dropped the glass I was holding. It turns out he had been following me the whole time. He started demanding answers, and it scared me, so I threatened to call the police if he didn’t calm down. He didn’t like that. He smashed my phone on the ground, and then he…”
“It’s okay, Mama,” I assure her, rubbing my hand over her hair and wiping a tear from her eye with my thumb.
“He grabbed me by my throat and shoved me against the wall, and then he backhanded me. I was crying so hard I could barely see him. He punched me in the eye, and I braced myself, thinking he was going to keep hitting me, but then I heard his phone ring, and he just walked out.”
I bring her closer to me, holding her in my arms and rocking her back and forth like a baby while she sobs. “I’m such an idiot. How could I let this happen again? After last time?”
“He won’t get away with it,” I tell her.
“No, Allie. I can’t go to jail again. And you—” My heart breaks all over knowing that she thinks the only way to makesure he pays is to resort to violence that would get her locked up again. After all, the justice system failed her once. Why would she have any faith in it now?
“No, Mom,” I say. “You’re not going to prison. He is.”
It’s almostnine o’clock by the time we pull up the stamped concrete driveway. I held my mother for hours while she cried in my arms. Then I got up and made the only thing she had in her kitchen—boxed Mac and Cheese—which she barely ate. She was never a good cook. If it didn’t come from a can or a box, she didn’t know what to do with it. I guess I was only half lying when I told Theo my mother inspired me to cook. She didn’t teach me how, but it was her lack of skills that led to mine. At some point, I got sick of frozen TV dinners, and I decided to learn how to do it myself. I took out cookbooks from the library, and that’s when she agreed to grow a garden because seeds were cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables.
I come to a stop, putting my car in park in front of the house. I thought about taking my mom to my cottage first, but I didn’t want to leave her alone, even there, and I needed to see Ashton in person.
“Where are we?” my mom asks.
“A friend’s,” I say vaguely. “He might be able to help us.” She nods and we get out of the car. I ring the doorbell and he answers right away, like he was standing close to the door or something.
“Hey.” His eyes light up when he sees me, but his face falls when he looks over at the bruised woman beside me.
“Ashton, this is my mom, Jennifer. Mom, this is my friend, Ashton. He works at the paper with me.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jennifer.” Ashton schools his features, extending his hand.
“You too,” she says, taking it while looking down at the ground. I know she must be mortified by how she looks, and I wouldn’t have brought her here if there were any other way, but Nate’s out of town on business and I can’t bother Emory when she’s about to pop.
