Page 3 of Chosen Road

At the time, it made a sick sort of sense to me. Looking back through adult eyes, I could see it was all kinds of fucked up, but in my mind, it was normal. I was her mini me. Our relationship was special, she’d be back for me.

For weeks, I waited.

As time passed, I accepted that she was gone although I continued to look for her. Even now I searched for her every time I looked in the mirror. Only now, I worried that I’d find her.

With Yiayia and Pappou gently pushing me, and Ruby holding my hand, I carried on with the business of living. The shock of her betrayal slowly receded into the background to lay dormant inside me. When triggered, it was a terrible thing.

My mother snuck into my thoughts more and more often lately. I wasn’t so obtuse that I did not understand the reason. Alex was the age I was when my dad died, which also marked the beginning of my mother’s withdrawal.

And this girl. Mallory. The one who was destined for the cracks. Mallory was a projectile slamming into my brittle heart, sending ripples and streams of spiderweb-like cracks along its surface.

And all along those fissures leaked thoughts of my mother.

Alex’s stockinged feet hit the bottom of the staircase. Taking a running leap, he slid across the wood floors towards me.

“Momma! Are you going to play Lego with me and Dad?”

“Yes, agori mou, of course I am.” He continued on down to the basement without waiting for my answer, confident that I would be right behind him.

Gus was already down there, turning on the overhead lights and plugging in the lighting around the Lego table. Two years ago, when we accepted the fact that Lego would never, ever, leave our home, Gus built a giant U-shaped table with shelves and built-in lighting along three walls. It was a Lego lover’s dream.

“I turned the gas fireplace on for you, beautiful,” Gus murmured in passing, dragging his hand along the back of my hips. “Do you want to build today, or relax and watch?”

“I can look after myself, you know. I don’t need you to cater to me all the time,” I muttered.

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes narrowed as he studied me. “I’m sorry?” he asked, taken aback and more than a little pissed.

In the old days, he would have crowded me even more and told me that he was born to take care of me. He would have wrapped me in a blanket and tickled me until I peed or begged him to stop. In the old days, he would have turned me over his knee, spanked my ‘sassy ass’ and finger-fucked me into submission. In the old days he would have pushed, I would have laughed, and we would have gotten past the blip in my normally polite persona and carried on.

Momentarily chagrined, but then, against my own judgement, I doubled down. “I don’t need you to baby me. I can look after myself.”

These were not the old days, because he simply closed his eyes in disgust and muttered, “Have at it.”

Gus

We played with Alex, and God help me, I touched Amber every opportunity I could though I knew it irritated her. It seemed I could do no right in her eyes. She denied that anything was wrong, begged off going to counseling, but had been pulling away from me by infinitesimal degrees for the past two years.

Since she got that damn job.

I’d known from the beginning that I would always come second to Yiayia and Ruby. I understood that you don’t go through what those three ladies went through together and not come out of it bonded as a unit.

I understood it, was in awe of it, accepted it, even supported it.

When Alex came, I willingly slipped into third place. It was okay because we were a team. Amber and Gus, rooting together for Alex.

Then her work picked up. Contract after contract, bigger and bigger projects, and longer hours. I stepped up as much as I could. I made dinner, arranged to pick up Alex whenever possible, got Yiayia to her appointments, and occupied Alex on the weekends for several hours so she could work. And she brought home lots of work, coming in the door barely in time to sit down for dinner, balancing her purse and her laptop and the ever-growing clutch of files.

I tried, many times, to talk to her about it to no avail. The last time was over three months ago. Alex had gone upstairs to have his nightly shower and I approached her.

“I’d like to talk to you after Alex goes to bed,” I stated calmly.

She looked at me with barely repressed impatience. “I don’t have time tonight.” She indicated the files on her desk with a sweep of her hand. “I’ve got too much to do.”

“Amber, is it possible you could hire an assistant? You barely have any free time.”

“Maybe Jacqueline would be willing to step up. I’m sure she’d love to spend more time with you,” she snapped.

The sudden souring of her attitude towards Jacqueline bewildered me. Jacqueline was a happily married woman with a child. She had no interest in me. “What does Jacqueline have to do with this? Although, you’re absolutely right, someone like her would be excellent.”

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