“What now?” I ask with an almost imperceptible sigh, though I could never be mad at her.
“Just stay out of trouble. Like, real trouble. Fuck who you want, but stay out of fights…for me. Don’t give him anymore ammunition than he already has.” Her gaze flits to our father’s closed door. “He’ll just make your life hell.”
I suck in my bottom lip and flare out my chest. “Don’t worry about him, Sab. I’ve got that shit handled.”
She frowns and nods, but doesn’t look convinced.
“You trust me?” I ask, moving toward her. I smile when she nods. “Then trust that I have him handled.”
I reach the bottom of the stairs and take her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the top of it as I look up at her.
“He hasn’t gotten where he is in life by being a pushover,” she says, her doe eyes drowning me.
I kiss the back of her hand and let it go as I start to walk away again. “Sab, am I not the great Samuel ‘The Machine’ Gunner?” I smirk. “Ain’t a man out there who’s a match for me.” I wink at her like the cocky motherfucker I am and leave, heading over to my car before sliding into the driver’s seat.
My car is a gun-metal grey Porsche Cayman with tinted windows and red and grey leather seats. She is the only other female in my life I give a damn about.
I start her up, loving the sound as she roars to life, then I speed down our long driveway, hoping I can outrun my demons.
Of course, you can’t really outrun something that lives inside you, and my demons are buried real fucking deep.
Soul deep.
Some might even say I’m the devil himself.
Ithrow my cigarette to one side and crouch on my haunches, running a hand across the smooth marble of my mother’s grave. My fingertips dip inside the indentations of her name, and I follow the lines from left to right.
LOUISA SAMANTHA GUNNER
You shall live forever.
I’ve read those words hundreds of times over the years, and I still don’t really get them. They don’t sound like something my grandparents would say, and my father isn’t exactly the sentimental type. Besides, love didn’t save her. Money didn’t save her. Nothing saved her.
My mother is dead. Has been since the day I was born.
Lucky fucking me.
I shake my head in annoyance. It’s all bullshit and doesn’t really matter, but still, that doesn’t stop me from coming back here at least once a week in my quest to understand who I am and who she was.
I hate her and love her in equal measures. She’s been apotheosized by my father, yet no one else in the family speaks of her. I’m normally a good judge of character, but it’s hard to get a feel for someone with such varied responses.
My father talks about her like she was the very embodiment of heaven, yet my grandmother, and anyone else in our family you might care to ask, despises her. They make that obvious by the sheer fact that they refuse to talk about her. And if you dare to even say her name, be prepared to catch shit for it.
I have no idea what my mom did to deserve such hatred, but it must have been real fucking bad for people to continue to hate a dead woman and her children after all these years.
I pull the wilting flowers from the heavy vase at the base of the large marble slab and replace them with new ones before sitting down on one of the three steps. I once overheard my father telling our maid daisies weren’t allowed in the house because they reminded him of her, so, once a week, that’s what I do?I bring my mom daisies.
My mom is buried away from the rest of the Gunner family, like they are ashamed of her—the shameful family secret. The grave had been in disrepair, unloved, unkempt, and I’d walked past it several times before I brushed the dirt off the marble and saw her name.
As usual, the thought only made me hate Maxwell more.
“I’ve got another fight later,” I say to her, the warm New Orleans breeze carrying my words away. “It’s a big one. A lot of cash, and a lot of credibility if I win.” I chuckle, and add, “WhenI win.”
I glance around, wishing she had a prettier view. She’s at the far end of the cemetery, away from prying eyes. Her grave faces someone’s backyard and their rickety, old, falling down fence. I wish she had a view of something good, something pretty. Not that it really matters. At least she isn’t in one of the popular cemeteries or our family crypt, with money-grabbing tour guides constantly snooping around and visitors taking pictures while they learn about New Orleans’ dark history.
Yeah, a shitty back fence was better than that.
“I’ve gotta go.” Sighing, I stand up. I grab a handful of the older daisies and take the short walk over to the grave next to my mom’s before placing them in the vase there. I dust off a couple of cobwebs that have formed, then head back to my mom’s grave. I don’t know when exactly I started doing that, but I hate that no one ever comes to see these graves. They were people once, and everyone deserves someone who cares, right?
