Page 1 of Blood and Beauty (Owned by The Don)

1

Esmeralda

The house is dark,but I hear the faint buzz of the television echo quietly onto the porch. As I place my fingers on the door handle, I steady my hand and inhale the cheap metallic smell from the fake plating. I take a deeper breath and prepare myself for what's inside, though my feet stay firmly planted on the ground beneath me.

It's like this most times.

Every time I decide to come home, whether from a friend's house or college, it's always a preparation. A steady brace for the war that awaits me in the living room.

She's there most times as well. Although there have been a few occasions where I've picked her up from the bathtub or kitchen floor, it's almost always the cheap blue couch that sits in our tiny living room. Television blaring and a cigarette dying in her hand, while I'm left wondering if she's actually dead or not.

Twenty years of my life have been composed of these moments, these deep breaths and planted feet. I should've taken the chance when I first went away for school to wash my hands clean of this woman, but she is blood and I'm beginning to think I have a savior complex.

I run my nose along the crack of the front door, trying to catch any other scent besides old metal. Maybe weed, maybe the biting fumes of meth, or maybe the silent stench of blow. It's mysterious, this house. Much like the woman who owns it.

I'd like to say it wasn't always like this. I'd like to say I'm the typical bastard child that had a single mother who gave everything she could to her daughter, but I'd be lying. And if that woman has taught me anything, it's to not be a shitty liar. And she's made me nothing but a bastard child by both her and my absent father. She's made me a single mother since my birth.

I catch my reflection in the window, the shades are down and I stare absently at the woman before me. She is young, but tired. Her green eyes bright, but haunted. Her dark hair is a veil of shadows around her.

I guess you could say it's a blessing that I don't look like her, my mother. Though we share the same eye color, I am the exact replica of a man I've never known. Which is my curse. One of many to be exact.

I've never asked her the story of this shadow man, this hole in our lives that is always gaping and pulling her into its abyss. If I've ever even tried to mention this mystery sperm donor, it's a swift smack to the jaw or a missle of curse words that billow out with stale cigarette smoke.

She sounds like a ray of sunshine, right? A queen in her own castle of misery. I'm not a slave to this house, not its keeper or ghost. I'm not even its caretaker. I'm hers. As much as I hate to be, I've been hers and I always will be hers. Her captive, her child, her mother, her blood. As much as I try to escape and rid myself of her, I can't. Because she's the only thing that's ever been mine.

I look away from my reflection and decide against my better judgement to open the door, waiting to see what new hell awaits me.

Immediately I'm overwhelmed with the smell of both bleach and Marlboro lights, a stench I've spent months trying to forget. The living room is empty, its small and dark corners vacant except for a couch, a couple of end tables and an old television that's set to the local news station. I drop my keys on the table by the door and set my bag on the couch, walking through to the kitchen while my ears pick up the news report.

"Welcome back Los Angeles, today on News channel nine we have a special report on the ever-present drug epidemic."

I look over my shoulder to the chubby man on the screen, he is grey and balding, but his voice sounds like he could control a room within seconds.

"Local authorities have seized control of a building on the fifth block of Skid Row in downtown LA today and the findings are enough to attract even the attention of our beloved President."

I linger for a second longer to finish the report before I continue the search for my mother.

"Yes, today at around three in the afternoon, the LAPD arrested over twenty-five fugitives and obtained almost four million dollars in contraband that included several pounds of cocaine, heroin and over two hundred firearms."

The camera pans over to a blond woman in a red blazer, her cherry lipstick matching it almost too well.

"Yes, Joe, that's right. Our local authorities completed one of their biggest operations yet against the ever-growing battle with the Columbian drug cartel in over a decade. The authorities are saying that they may even lead to finding the head of the illegal operations, none other than the notorious El Oscuro."

She looks smug, proud even, as if she was a part of the crew involved in the bust. I roll my eyes and find the remote on the floor next to the couch, noting ashes on top of the buttons. I turn the volume down and set it on the cushion that's filled with both my mom's cigarette burns and my soda stains from when I was a kid. I still feel the sting of her palm on my shoulder from the incident and it was nearly ten years ago.

I hear the back door slam open and brace myself for the headache that is my mother.

"EMMIE!"

Her speech is slurred, but her movements to me are quick. I see a flash of red hair and then I'm being choked by both her clumsy hug and the stench of vodka. She pets my hair and starts humming enthusiastically.

For a moment I let myself fall into her. For a moment I let myself feel like a normal kid coming home from school to a mother that missed her. For a moment I let myself lie.

She pulls back and grips me by the tops of my shoulders. She's smiling but it doesn't reach her tired green eyes. I notice that more wrinkles have formed since I last saw her over six months ago. She's only thirty-six, but both the drugs and liquor have aged her another ten years.

I swallow the lump in my throat and put on a tight smile, trying to not let my annoyance show.

"Hi, Mom. It's good to see you. Have you eaten?"

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