“Pass,” Micah said. He’d started shedding his obligatory parental deference a lot earlier than I had. “I don’t do leaf water.”
“But you’ll drink bean water like you need it to live?” Caleb asked.
“Bean water is superior water that actually makes you feel human, you turd.”
“Fuck you?—”
“Fuckyou!”
“Boys,” Mom said in her annoying reprimanding tone.
“Can we just get this over with?” Micah asked from behind a sigh. “I have places to be. A game to get ready for. Dudes to fuck?—”
“Do you have to be so crass? I didn’t raise you like this,” she snapped.
That was what she always said. Usually, it was followed by some Bible verse about loving thy neighbor or…I don’t know, something about tongues—I never did pay attention, and considering the braille version of the bible was fifty billion volumes, it was a book I tended to skip.
There was silence, and I had a feeling she was looking at all of us, trying to gauge how well her announcement was going to go.
“I need you to know that I’m leaving the country.”
And, well, holyfuck. I didn’t think any of us were expecting her to say that.
I was the first to react, clearing my throat as I turned toward her voice. “You’re…leaving the country?”
“I met someone. A woman—and no, not like that,” she added when Micah sucked in a breath to say something that wouldonly piss her off more. “She and I are writing another book together.”
“Moms of blind sons part deux?” Caleb asked.
I only just managed to hold in a laugh as she made a disgruntled noise. “No, Caleb. Her name is Elisa, and she lives in the UK.” She overpronounced it “youuuu kaaaay,” like a goddamn game show host. “We’ve decided to write a joint memoir about love, laughter?—”
“Sex,” Micah said.
I bit both my lips.
“Family,” Mom corrected tersely. “I thought I’d get a little more support from you three, considering how hard I’ve worked to raise you over the years.”
None of us had anything to say to that. I didn’t know about my brothers, but my therapist had gently coached me into finally accepting that her hard work was only hard because she made it that way. And I needed to stop feeling guilty or taking responsibility for that.
“I’ll be selling the house,” she went on, “so I’d like you three to come by and go through your old things.”
“Toss whatever I have left,” Micah said. I heard him stand, then the click of him unfolding his cane. “There’s nothing I want.”
“Now, there might be?—”
“No,” he snapped, cutting her off. “There is literally nothing I want. I don’t know why we needed to be subjected to this fucking attempt at an emotional circus, but I’m done with being manipulated.”
“Micah,” she said softly. I heard her shift in her seat, and then Micah grunted and stumbled.
“Touch my fucking cane like that again and you will regret it,” he snarled.
She’d always been more…hands-on in her methods of discipline. She’d take away our canes whenever she was trying to teach us a lesson—force us to be fully reliant on her for a sighted guide. And Micah was the one in trouble more than any of us.
My therapist called it cruelty cosplaying as punishment. Micah had never really fallen for it. I was a little softer than him growing up, and she’d attempted to mold me into her little puppet—a malleable little people pleaser, which was something I was still trying to unlearn.
And it wasn’t easy. Or fun.
But her methods of controlling us had created deep scars. Mine were tender, but Micah’s still bled.
