Page 53 of The Bargain

I knocked before I used my key to unlock the door. “Mom? Are you awake?” I called into the dimly lit house, even though I’d heard her shuffling through the kitchen and the clink of glass bottles. Hot, stale air laced with the lingering scent of old beer hit me square in the face. “I brought a friend for you to meet,” I continued when she didn’t answer.

“What the hell you want?” she demanded, followed by the telltale scrape of her slippers across the linoleum.

She appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, where she glared at me and Sebastian. A loose ponytail held her dark brown-and-gray hair. The old T-shirt she wore was stained and hung on her awkwardly, making her look even more skeletal. Little holes riddled her black jogging pants. I’d triedgetting her new clothes that fit her frame better, but she never wore them. Instead, she opted for the same two or three T-shirts and the same couple of pairs of sweat pants.

“I wanted to stop by and see if you needed anything.”

“Who’s that?” she snapped, her eyes locked on Sebastian. She seemed more lucid than my last few visits, but I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“This is my friend, Sebastian.”

“Friend? What kind of friend?” Her nose wrinkled at the last word as if it were something disgusting.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Graham,” Sebastian chimed in. “Your son and I are work friends. He was kind enough to invite me to hang out with him this weekend.”

An ugly scoff jumped from her as she continued to shuffle into the living room, where she dropped onto the sagging cushion of the ancient brown couch. “Hang out? Is that what you call it when you’re fucking my son?”

In a flash, my face felt like it was on fire, but I held my tongue. I’d learned the hard way that arguing and reprimanding her only made it a hundred times worse. It was smarter to not engage at all.

“I’m going to check the fridge and pantry before putting in a grocery order for you,” I said as my hands snatched up old soda cans, empty beer bottles, and half-eaten food containers from the coffee table and took them into the kitchen. Thankfully, Sebastian followed my lead and didn’t speak.

“Did you know my son is one of them fags?” she announced as if she couldn’t stand that we were ignoring her incendiary remark. Usually her digs flew right past me, but today each word was a bullet finding all the chinks in my armor.

“His father and I didn’t raise him to be like that. They say they’re born that way, but that’s a lot of bullshit. He picked itup at college. He paid all that money to turn himself into a dirty whore. Turned his back on God.”

I rolled my eyes. Same old song and dance with her. Nothing new in her routine, which allowed me to tune her out.

“Are you originally from this part of Kentucky?” Sebastian asked, bravely attempting to change the subject to something different and less controversial. “I grew up across the river in Ohio.”

She answered his question, but her voice was low and mumbled, like she didn’t have any interest in what he was saying if it would not upset me.

It took only a glance to see what she needed. I pulled up the grocery delivery app on my phone and clicked off a lot of the usual suspects from previous orders. This was one of the few times my mom’s limited menu worked to my benefit. She didn’t like most things and refused to do more than simply boil water.

“Mom, why’s it so hot in here? Something wrong with the air conditioning?” I shouted as I submitted the order and started checking her usual hiding spots for alcohol.

“It’s busted. Been broken for three days. You left me here to cook in this fucking oven,” she complained.

I clenched my teeth as I poured out the two half-empty bottles I’d found in the trash. That was pretty sneaky for her, thinking I wouldn’t check the trash as a hiding spot. I would have fixed the AC if she’d told me there was a problem. Surprise, surprise! I wasn’t a mind reader.

The linoleum creaked behind me, and I turned to find Sebastian standing in the middle of the kitchen.

“Where’s the thermostat? I can look at it,” he offered.

I pointed at the hall off the kitchen. “On the right. Down the corridor.”

I was closing up the trash bag to take it out when I heard the air kick on. Sebastian returned a second later, wearing a smirk.

“The temperature was set at eighty-five. I lowered it to seventy-five,” he whispered.

“Perfect.” I exhaled. There was no telling why she’d jacked up the temperature. I was grateful I didn’t have to pay for a repairman to come out to fix it. “Let me throw in a load of wash for her and we’ll get out of here.”

Sebastian winked at me as he turned toward the living room. “Take your time. I’m fine.”

After dealing with the trash, I darted into Mom’s bedroom and gathered up the clothes scattered about. I was taking them to the washing machine as she began her shit, ignoring all Sebastian’s attempts at polite conversation.

“You should stay away from him or he could infect you too,” she admonished.

“Homosexuality isn’t a disease.” Sebastian’s voice was low but firm. My hand tightened on the detergent bottle for a moment, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was always proud of Sebastian for taking a stand for what was right, but there were some people it was pointless to argue with. They heard nothing and couldn’t be reasoned with. My mom was one of those people.

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