Page 10 of Marriage Ever After
I buried myself in cases as soon as I got to the office. There was nothing else for me to even try and concentrate on that wouldn’t bring me back to thinking of Mila. I huffed as I sat back in my chair, picking up my cell and I pulled up her name. I began typing something but then I erased it, this had been happening for the whole weekend before I even came up with the simple text of just calling her nickname. I didn’t know what to say that would bring her back to me. I loved this woman like something crazy so why was this happening to us.
When I first met Mila, there was nothing that could’ve stopped me from pursuing her. She was the most gorgeous woman in my eyes and even when she told me a million no’s I couldn’t stop wanting her. She didn’t say she didn’t want me, she said no because she wanted to concentrate on what she was doing. She wanted to get ahead in life and make a difference for herself. So that one day she could look her children in the eye and tell them that she did it. She made it against all odds. My uncle Graham, the hopeless romantic helped me out when it came to me proposing to her and when I married her, he walked her down the aisle.
My father wasn’t very fond of me being with her because of her mother but I didn’t care. I wasn’t listening to any advice he ever gave me. I’ll admit that my career choice was his doing but I ended up loving it. At first, with him, it was always, oh lawyer this then Judge that… At one point I thought I could regurgitate the constitution word for word but after the case with Mila’s mom, I became much more determined than before. When I married Mila, I told my father to get the fuck out of mine if he was going to be hateful. It was odd to me because he treated me like shit growing up, hating on the fact that I liked science fiction instead of finding whatever the fuck the othernormal kidsfound interesting.
My father never physically put his hands on me instead he just threw verbal punishment at me. Making sure to let me know that my mother chose to walk out of my life because she didn’t want me. Every single day it was drilled in my head until I became old enough to drive and I went to go see my mother for myself. My father never kept my mother’s information hidden from me so when I drove to that address, it was a fucking mental asylum. At first, I was so convinced that my mother was put there by my dad but when I visited her and learned that she actually was checked in by her family, I insisted on seeing her. The doctor there told me that she was diagnosed with Factitious disorder or FDIS. The memory of seeing my mother, the one that birthed me yet shared nothing but cheekbones and facial structure in resemblance.
I had walked in there, sixteen years old and ready for answers.
“Mom?” I called out to her.
Which I should’ve never done. We were in her bland, yet colorful room full of her drawings. She was drawing roses with blackthorns with her crayons on the floor then she looked up at me.
“Wrong room, kid.”
She didn’t even bother saying anything else as she went back to her drawing.
“Are you Dawn Jamison?”
“Yep. What of it, Kid? I’m busy and who let you into my room anyway?”
“You don’t remember me? It’s me, mom. Kash. I know you don’t have a memory problem or out of your mind so why are you pretending like you don’t know me?”
My mother huffed, dropping her crayon on the floor as she stood up to look at me. She sized me up. Then she looked me in the eye,
“I don’t have a fucking son. I tried to kill that fucker a million times yet here YOU are! What do you want from me! You nearly put me in jail. Your stupid ass father saved you every time.” She narrowed her eyes at me then began laughing. “Aww, are you going to fucking cry, little Kash?”
She walked up to a frozen me. She held my face in her hands and I didn’t know what to do. We were the same height at that time.
“If you fucking cry, I’ll kill you this time. Your worthless father has nothing to give me except money to blow. Does he know you’re here? Get the fuck out before he cuts me off. You don’t have a mother. I never wanted you, but your father made me keep you and now, look at what that cost the both of us. I bet you’re a piece of shit just like him, huh?”
At this, I snapped out of it and yanked her hands away from my now teared up face. She continued to laugh at me.
“Fuck you,” I said to her, full of anger and emotion. “You’re just like him. You two deserve each other.”
She laughed harder then she controlled herself.
“For what it’s worth, you were dead, drowned in the tub for a minute or so when Rick found you and gave you CPR at five years old. After that I never saw you again and so to me, you’re dead. Get the fuck out and don’t ever come to see me again. I am not your mother.”
She gave me a cold, calculated look and went back to drawing as if I wasn’t there.
After that, the rage, the hurt, and the pain intensified. Every time I looked at the world, I saw red until I got help for my rage.
****
A knock on my door snapped me out of the memory that I never should’ve conjured up. I shouldn’t have been thinking about my mother. She didn’t want me so she wasn’t my mother but that little hurt boy inside of me will always call her that. I looked up from my cell with the unfinished text to see Graham leaning on my office doorway with a smirk on his face.
“You look like shit, Neph.” He chuckled as he walked into my office. “You also need a better receptionist.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled.
“I have seen better days, Unc and she’s an intern and temporary. Dad wanted her to learn the ropes since she’s one of his judge buddy’s daughter. She’s not that bad, is she?” I shook my head at the realization that Janine sucked.
Graham sat at the chair right across from me.
“She’s horrible. If you weren’t married, I’d be convinced that she was fucking you for this job that doesn’t pay much on her end.”
My eyes widened.
