Page 11 of Rook

“Found a recipe for a quiche, but made with a potato crust. Been wanting to try it out. You heading to bed, or you wanna make yourself useful?”

I was no chef. I had no imagination when it came to what went well together or anything like that. But given my mom’s delicate mental health my whole life, I’d learned from a young age how to feed us.

I still had a nasty burn scar on my wrist from the first time using the oven. And this raised white spot on a fingertip from where I’d sliced it off while cutting up veggies with a too-dull knife.

“You’re pretty good with that knife,” Detroit said as I sliced up some bell peppers.

“My mom’s favorite meal was unstuffed bell peppers,” I said, remembering how much I learned to hate that meal when she would go through phases where it was the only thing she would eat. Now, fuck, I’d kill to be able to make it for her one more time, to let her know that I hadn’t completely abandoned her, that none of this was my choice.

“Sounds good. She was lucky to have you.”

“We were lucky to have each other.”

That was the thing with a loved one who struggled with their mental health. Outsiders only saw the bad. The manic episodes or the depression that made it impossible for them to work, bathe, or get out of bed.

But there had been good times. When the meds were working and my mom was stable. When I got to be the kid, not the caretaker. When my mother doted on me and did her best to make up for the weeks or months when I had to step up and be the adult.

I once came home from school in March to find she’d put up the Christmas tree, had bought and wrapped presents, had baked cookies. Because she’d been in such a deep depression all winter that we’d missed the holiday entirely.

For my sixteenth birthday, she’d somehow managed to scrape together enough money to get me the computer that I’d been drooling over for a year, all the while sure we could never afford it.

I’d learned sometime later that she could only buy it because she’d sold the diamond bracelet her own mother had bought her for her sweet sixteen.

The highs were as high as the lows were low. Long months when I was doing all the housework, shopping, and cooking while also making sure my grades were up and I behaved at school so no one ever had any reason to check in on my home situation and take me away.

I’d been placed in foster care twice when I was little while my mom was put away against her will to regulate her meds. I never wanted that to happen again.

More so than the work, or the caretaking, it was the loneliness that could weigh on me in those down times.

It was what first made me get into computers. Then through computers, hacking. And the whole hacking community that I learned so much from that would, after a lot of trial and error, allow me to provide a nice life for us. Even as a teenager.

There were no more worries that we were going to get evicted, or that the heat or electric might get turned off, or that my mom’s health insurance would lapse, making getting her very expensive meds impossible.

“Sorry you haven’t been able to see her, man. I know that’s weighing on you. Praying for you that Nancy finds that cold, shriveled thing she calls a heart.”

So did I.

Detroit was just pulling the quiches out of the oven when my phone started to ring in my pocket.

Everyone who would need to contact me was in the clubhouse.

Except, of course, for Nancy.

Or, as it turned out, the hospital.

They almost never called me, only gave me updates when I called directly, defying Nancy’s order to have no contact at all.

But there was a nurse at the facility who took pity on me and didn’t report it. She’d only called me once before. When my mother had somehow found a sharp piece of plastic and used it to try to cut a vein in her arm open.

My stomach was in knots as I swiped the screen and brought the phone to my ear as I strode through the common area and out the front door, needing quiet as the club girls started to wake up and talk about hangovers and coffee.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Rook. This is Amy from—”

“Is she okay? She didn’t try again, did she?” There was no stopping the panic in my voice.

“Your mom’s… okay,” Amy said, her voice careful. “Last night, she slipped back into psychosis. She’s dealing with delusions and hallucinations right now. I just… I thought you would want to know. The doctors are adjusting her meds to try to even everything out. But… I know you would want an update like this.”

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