“He had PTSD.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “That’s what they call it now. But back then, he didn’t understand what was going on. He’d black out sometimes and get so anxious he couldn’t leave the house.
“It was too much, Lexi. I couldn’t cope with his mood swings. I did what he wanted, and I left.”
“But you did tell him about me?”
She sighs and chooses her words carefully. “You’ve got to understand I was terrified of his mental illness, and I didn’t want it to hurt you.”
“Mom, he needed help. It wasn’t his fault he was like that.”
“I know that now, but when you’re a young mother on your own, you put your child first.”
I almost laugh. I can’t remember the last time Mom put me first in anything.
“Eventually, I realized he had a right to know, so I got in touch and told him about you.”
“What did he do?” I whisper.
She goes silent. “I didn’t want him to be near you.”
“What did you do, Mom?”
“I promised I would send him updates about your life if he promised never to contact you. To forget you existed.”
I rub my chest against the pain. I had a chance to know my father, and my mother denied me that.
“Don’t you think I might’ve wanted to know my father?”
“He might’ve taken you from me,” she wails. “It was better this way. We got the money and no heartache.”
“Wait, what money?”
Mom goes silent, and I have to prompt her.
“What money, Mom? I want the truth. All of it.”
“He sent alimony payments until you were eighteen.”
The bottom falls out of my stomach. I went to work at fourteen to pay for our food and electricity. As far as I was aware, we had no money. But now I know the truth. Mom drank away the money my father gave us.
A new rage boils up inside me. This whole time, I’ve been putting other people first. Working my backside off to keep her out of debt. But she never did the same for me, even when I was her responsibility.
It shouldn’t be that way; a child looking after their parent. She had the means to change it, and she didn’t.
That stops now.
But this anger is not just about the money. I could’ve known my father, the troubled veteran who liked to watch the birds on his land.
My chest aches even as I shake with rage.
“You took something from me, and I’ll never get it back.”
“Sugar plum …”
“No. I don’t want to hear any more shitty excuses. We are done. I’ll pay for you to go to rehab if you want to, but then you’re on your own.”
I hang up the phone, cutting off whatever excuse Mom was about to give me. I’ve spent too long making excuses for her. It’s time to live for myself.
