Page 19 of Someone Knows

“Well, if you’re just gonna sit there, can you at least hand me those?” She gestures to the coffee table, to a dozen orange prescription bottles sitting between us.

My gaze falls on them—the names are all twelve letters long, practically another language. But I do recognize one—oxycodone.

“Mom, you shouldn’t be mixing this with—”

“I know, I know. Heard it from the doctor. I don’t need another lecture, especially from you. Just give it to me.”

I guess I can’t blame her. If she’s dying anyway, why bother stopping a lifetime of trying to kill herself? I gather up the pill bottles and move them to where she can reach.

“Did you get a second opinion?”

“Got three. It’s too late. It’s spread all over.”

I swallow and try to imagine a world without my mother. It should be easy, because at this point, she’s barely part of my life. And yet the idea of her being gone, completely gone, and me unable to pick up the phone and call her . . . leaves me feeling unmoored. She’s all I have, even if we don’t really have each other anymore.

“Mom, maybe you should come up to New York. See some doctors up there?”

“Shut up, child. I don’t need any such thing. You think you’re better than me living in that highfalutin city of yours, that the doctors know more because they pay ten thousand dollars a month to live in a shoebox? You know what that makes them?Dumb.My doctors here—where we take care of each other—are just fine. I’m dying, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It doesn’t even bother me anymore, because I’ll be with Jesus soon, and then nothingwill hurt ever again. When was the last time you went to the Lord’s house, anyway?”

The God talk already.I’m all about people having their religion, but there’s going to church every Sunday, and then there’s being a full-on righteous zealot who preaches to everyone while not looking inward at your own behavior. It’s a good thing she believes God will save everyone, because she never did a damn thing to take care of herself—or her child, for that matter.

I went to church every week with her when I was little—wearing my best dress, helping my unsteady mom to a pew. The same woman who didn’t come home most nights because she was screwing every loser in town. Church seemed like a scam to me. A way of getting people to part with their hard-earned money.

The priest had a new house located on the manicured church grounds. Most of his congregants, meanwhile, lived in this sort of place. A tiny two-bedroom down a dirt road. Dogs chained outside. Porches falling apart. Kids in hand-me-downs that rarely fit properly. I didn’t see the priest caring if I ate, and God certainly didn’t save my friend when she needed saving in high school.

“I choose not to go to church, Mom.”

She shakes her head. “You’ll never have good in your life without God.”

“Really? Have you considered that your God made you an alcoholic? And is now letting you die alone in this house?” The words slip from my mouth before I can stop them. I’ve never been good at not speaking my mind. Being in New York, away from this place, has only strengthened that. New York and I are a good fit—there, people respect raw honesty. Here, though, it’s expected that you shut up and keep your thoughts to yourself. Unless you’re my mother, of course.

“You ungrateful little brat. God loves medespite my sins. He forgives me—Father Preston told me.Here, look!I wrote them all down so I wouldn’t forget to confess any.” She thrusts a ratty piece of paper into my hand. It’s written in clunky pencil, handwriting shaky like a child’s.

Drinking

Fornication

I stop reading right there. I’ve lived her sins. I don’t need the reminder. “Mom, look, I’m sorry. But—”

“Youshould be reconcilingyourwrongs, missy. Before it’s your time, so you can spend an eternity in heaven, too. Look at that list—look at all the things I’ve never shared with anyone. We all have secrets, don’t we?”

My body stills at the wordsecrets.

When I look up, she’s peering at me.Glaringat me.

“I know you’ve been a sinner, too. You never know when your time is. You should repent. Ask forgiveness. You never know when the past might creep up on you.”

Despite the old air conditioner keeping the house below eighty degrees, I go hot with sweat. It dampens my hands, makes my skin feel slick.

I’ve always sworn I never told anyone. But I did tell one person.

My mother, the night it happened. I came home shaking, in tears, and for once, she held me, hugged me tightly, and it spilled out. It’s one of the rare memories I have of her beinglovingtoward me. I was just a kid who had done something unthinkable, and I couldn’t help but confess. In the morning, I woke with a violent start, realizing the mistake I’d made. But when I went to check on her, she was passed out—still drunk. Which meant she’d been drunk the night before. I broached the subject when she got up later that afternoon. “About what we spoke about last night . . .” But she didn’t seem to remember a thing. That was normalfor her. Blackouts were a common occurrence. I never mentioned it again, chalked it up as lost to alcohol. It made sense. After all, she’d been drunk enough to pretend to love me that night.

Now, though, as I stare across the coffee table at her, as she suggests thatwe all have secrets—I have to wonder if she’s told someone my sins, too.

CHAPTER

10

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