My mom sighed. She wasn’t crying anymore but there was a sadness in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before. “Clark,” she said, “There’s a lot I need to tell you. There are things I couldn’t tell you before, but now that you’re here, I can actually be honest with you. I know you must be angry with me -“
“Oh, really?” I spat out, “Look, I’m glad that you were able to get clean and pull yourself together. Really, I am. And if you had to drop me off at dad’s for a little while to do that, I would’ve understood. But that doesn’t explain why you never came to visit or bothered to call. You just disappeared from my life! You abandoned me.” Now that I had opened the floodgates, it felt like every bit of anger and resentment I’d been feeling these past seven years was pouring out of me. My mom sat there in silence but flinched at my words. “Clark,” Steve piped up, “You don’t understand -“
“Please,” I cut him off, “You didn’t check on me either. You were like a father figure to me for eleven years, and then you disappeared just like her. Did you ever care about me at all or were you just trying to impress my mom?”
I stood up, and Steve and mom watched me with wide eyes. “I thought this was the best place for me to go…that it might actually be good to see you after all this time,” I said, “But maybe coming here was a mistake.” I pushed the half-eaten food aside and took a few steps toward the door. All I could feel was anger and rejection. It didn’t matter if she was my mom. If that wasn’t enough for her to pick up the phone for the past seven years, so it wasn’t enough for me to stay and hear her out now.
“Clark!” She shouted after me, “Wait!”
Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Listen to me, honey,” she said, “I know you’re angry, but my lack of contact all these years? It wasn’t by choice.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Your father wouldn’t allow me to contact you,” she said, “Not to visit, not to even call you on the phone.
When I dropped you off all those years ago, he made me promise I’d never reach out to you again.”
“What?” I asked, “I don’t understand…why wouldn’t dad let you contact me?” @
She sighed again. “It’s a long story, and if you sit down, I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
Although I was still angry and resentful, I wanted answers. If there was a missing piece to my mom’s story, some actual reason as to why she abandoned me, I wanted to know.
I hesitated for a moment and then I took a seat.
“Growing up happens when you start having things you wish you could go back and change.”
Cassandra Clare I *
Steve had brewed herbal tea for both mom and me, but none of us had taken a sip yet. She stared at her hands, wringing them together and I watched the steam rise from my tea. I knew she was gearing up to tell me something big, so I didn’t rush her.
I was still trying to make sense of what she had said about my dad just a couple of minutes ago. He had stopped her from contacting me ~ could that really be true? I didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t help but think of every time he’d brushed me off when I asked about my mom.
I knew she – and the fact that she’d hidden my existence from him for eleven years was a sore spot for him. But had he really told her never to contact me?
“I guess I’ll just start from the beginning,” mom finally spoke, and her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, “You remember when we were living out of that dingy little motel on Burke Street? When you were eleven?” “Oh, definitely,” I smiled, “I remember that old little TV in our room. It only got, like, two channels and you had to keep the satellite in the perfect position.”
My mom smiled ruefully. “God,” she said, “I can’t believe we really lived there – that I let you live there for so long.”
“Mom, it’s okay,” I said, “It wasn’t that bad. We had food and electricity
“Oh, Clark,” she cut me off, “It was that bad, honey. You were just a kid, and I was doing my best to hide it from you, but I was spiraling. My drug addiction was getting worse. I could hardly keep food on the table for you. My debt was so bad that the only places I could live were off friends’ couches or dingy motels like that one. And it was only going to get worse from there.”
I sat in silence and let her talk.
“Steve was the one who finally got through to me,” she said and placed her hand over his. They exchanged smiles.
“When I called to borrow money from him for the thousandth time, he finally gave me a bit of tough love. He told me I couldn’t continue on like this, and if I did, he couldn’t watch me do it. He told me I needed to get help. Real help ~
rehab.”
“All I knew,” Steve added, “Was that I was watching the woman I loved hit rock bottom and drag the kid I love down with her.” “Well, you were the first one to get through to me,” she told him and then turned back to me, “But the only problem with rehab was that I couldn’t take you. Most programs were six months and that was too long for me to let you stay with a friend I trusted – even Steve. I needed someone that could be your actual parent, your legal guardian while I was away. It only left one option.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “My biological father.”
“I didn’t want to, Clark,” she said, practically pleading. “You have to know that I never wanted you to be involved with his world. With werewolves.”
I looked up at her in shock, glancing at Steve. He looked completely unfazed. I had been pretty sure my mom knew about the existence of werewolves, but I had no idea that Uncle Steve was also aware.
“Don’t look so surprised, kid,” Steve said, chuckling, “Your mom has told me everything. I’m well aware that your biological father shapeshifts into a giant furry dog.”
I cracked a smile at that.
“and if you have to know,” my mom continued, “Had I known what your father was going to do, I wouldn’t have brought you to live with him. I’m not sure what I would have done, but I would’ve figured something else out. I wouldn’t have just let him take you like that.”
At that moment, she looked fragile and broken in a way that couldn’t have been faked. “I don’t understand,” I said, “Why did he just take me like that?”
It was definitely a question best saved for my dad but I wasn’t here with him. I was here with my mom.
“Well, you’ve been around wolves,” my mom smiled bitterly, “You know what they’re like. Possessive and territorial. They want to be in control of everything – including their kids.”
“You’re telling me,” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
“Pm sure it didn’t help that I kept your existence from him for eleven years,” she said, “He was incredibly angry with me. I think cutting off contact was his way of punishing me for keeping you away so long.”
A tush of anger flooded through me. “Punish you?” I repeated, “You’re my mom! And it wasn’t just you he was punishing.
Keeping you away punished me too.”
My mom nodded and I watched her close her eyes, like this conversation physically pained her. “I know. Trust me, you have no idea how much I wanted to talk to you all these years. How much I just wanted to hear your voice. I even made
Steve drive me to the border of your dad’s pack a few times, but the guards would never let us past the entrance.”
My heart constricted. How could my dad do that? How many times had I been within a few miles of my mother and not even known about it?
“Thave to ask,” I said, “Why didn’t you tell him about me? Why wait eleven years?”
She sighed. “I guess you don’t know much about the night I met your father.”
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