Page 37 of Fight

Perfect.

She looked perfect.

At least at first glance.

But I’d learned to look below that perfect surface. So I saw the small tear at the seam of the T-shirt, the way the capris were faded due to countless washes. The slight tremble in her fingers.

That was what always got me. It was easy—so, so easy—to pretend that she was what she had been, and not the ravenous, insatiable monster that she was now. And that made me hate myself. I often wondered, on quiet, lonely nights, whether I would be able to leave her if things were different, if she lived in squalor, bore no resemblance to the woman she had been before.

Was I so shallow that the fact that she still looked like her, that I could almost convince myself that she was her, let me continue to torture myself this way? I was afraid to answer that question, so I rested on the lie that I was doing this for love.

She had given me life, had at some point given me protection, have loved me even though I was nothing like her, even though I had never been the dainty delicate, beautiful little girl she had always wanted. She had loved me anyway. I couldn’t forget that. Couldn’t forget her, no matter how much easier doing so would have been.

“You look good,” I finally said.

“Thank you. I wish I could say the same,” she said, frowning as she looked at my face.

I should have waited longer, until the bruises had faded more.

She walked over and reached up to grab my chin, tilted my face so that surprisingly bright sunlight flashed across it. I looked into her frowning eyes, saw the disapproval there.

“So it’s true, huh? Heard you were running around with some shady folks,” she said.

“Ma, you’re the shadiest person I know,” I said, ending on a little smile that she didn’t return.

She dropped her hand, looked at me, and she shook her head.

“Patricia Elaine, you know better. How many times did I tell you not to let a man beat on you,” she said, her voice brimming with disdain.

Disdain that sparked my own anger. “What you say and what you do are two different things, Ma.”

She didn’t respond, but how could she?

There had been a time when she’d told me I deserved only the best, that I should accept no less. But that was a teeny drop of time, a fleeting moment that was soon lost with one boyfriend, then another, then another, each a little bit worse than the one that had come before him. And with each of them, those lessons had been chipped away into nothingness.

“So people have been gossiping about me?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

“Word gets around. They say that you got hooked up with the mob, Markov and now some Romanians. And I said no, not my Patty. Looks like I was wrong,” she said.

Wrong about so many things, but I chose not to say that. Chose not to say that this was her fault. That it was her debt that had become mine. I couldn’t say that, though, so instead I said, “Ma, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Have you been taking your medicine?”

“When I can,” she said stone-faced.

She didn’t even try to hide her bullshit anymore.

“What does that mean?” I asked, that wariness coming over me again, even though I had known what to expect.

“It means when I can,” she said, voice sharp.

“Meaning when you haven’t sold it,” I said, frowning. “The purpose of the medicine is to keep you off the drugs, Ma!”

“Patricia, I don’t need you trying to run my life,” she said.

“Well somebody needs to. You sure as hell can’t,” I said angrily.

She looked so hurt, I almost wished I could take the words back, felt guilty for saying them, but not nearly as guilty as I was angry. Angry that she couldn’t see how much she hurt me. How, no matter what I did, she never did as she promised.

I poured all the patience, love, money that I could into helping her, and every time she let me down. She never got clean, never really seemed to try. It wasn’t fair of me to think that. I knew she had a disease that she couldn’t control, but it was hard to remember that when it seemed like she did nothing to get better.

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