Right Now
I can feel Rae’s shock. It’s so strong, it’s got its own smell, like burning rubber. Denial stinks.
Me, I’m not shocked at all.
For one thing, the woman had stage IV cancer. It barreled through the chemo, right from stage IIIB (she was always stressing that B, like a badge of friggin’ honor) to the last stop, a locomotive that was going to reach its destination no matter what. Those cells were unstoppable. You could almost admire cancer. It’s a thing of beauty, that kind of determination.
Rae thought our mother was the thing that was unstoppable. It’s like Rae didn’t even know Mom was human. What do you say to a person who just doesn’t get it, at all?
I’ve been trying, though. To talk to Rae. To get to know her. To feel her out. To see if she’s ready to get it. She’d be better off. Does she even register the fact that I wasn’t always the best brother but I’m trying here and now? That when Mom is gone, we’re what’s left?
It wasn’t right, what went on in that house while we were growing up—me being so close to my mother, being her confidant from way too far back, before I could even understand much of what she was really saying. You hear all kinds of shit you never should have heard, things you wish could be unsaid, rewound, could travel backward through the air in slow motion, Matrix-style, back into her mouth. It’s unnatural, that kind of closeness. But I put up with it, for all different reasons. Sometimes because I liked it, being the chosen one; sometimes I liked her, how she’s feisty and funny; sometimes I felt sorry for her; sometimes I needed her help and I was willing to be as phony as it took to get it; and sometimes I was a dick to her and she didn’t even care, she still kept talking, like she couldn’t control herself. That’s what must have happened four years ago, a bout of verbal diarrhea, but that was it for me. She couldn’t tell me something like that and expect me to keep sleeping under her roof, eating her food, listening to her nasty mouth. That was the end.
Well, it was supposed to have been the end. Then she had Rae do her dirty work and bring me back into the fold.
Rae doesn’t get the most basic information about how my mother works. Mom thrives on Rae’s insecurity. She thrills at Rae’s need for her approval. Meanwhile, Mom’s always wanted my approval. Male approval. It was this fucked-up triangle and Rae just kept playing into it, playing her role, giving Mom what she fed on, like a vampire with an inexhaustible supply of fresh blood. I played my role, too, but I made sure to get something out of it. Poor Rae, I’m not sure she ever got anything but heartache.
There are lots of secrets, but the one Rae needs to hear first is this:
A mother is just a woman who gave birth to you. You don’t need her to like you; you don’t even need her to love you, not when it comes with that high a price. You just need to live your own damn life and find what makes you happy. Because a mother’s just another person.
She was. And now she’s dead.
I’m okay with that. I’m going to be a good big brother and make sure Rae is, too.