Page 78 of Push & Pull
Petra furrowed her brows as she lay across the bed and reread that.What’s the point of telling me this?Hailey wasn’t the kind to text someone out of the blue. If she texted Petra, it was to either invite her to something or to ask for help. The last they communicated was yesterday morning when she told Petra to stop seeing Simone, as if the heiress would attempt to drag Petra down into a wild, dark world of substance abuse.
Nothing made much sense today. Petra supposed that was a side effect of everything turning on its head around her.
This time when she received a call, it wasn’t from her uncle. Instead, it was from the penitentiary where her mother was imprisoned.Isn’t it a bit late for her to call me?The few times Nicolette called, it was usually before dinner time. Petra always assumed that was the designated time for inmates to get in their weekly calls.
“Do you accept the charges?” the automated voice asked when Petra asked.
“Yeah, sure. I mean… yes.” Petra enunciated the word. While she waited for the call to connect, she unearthed the pack of cigarettes that had last been in her permission when she and Simone split. “Mom?”
“Petra, honey, I’m so glad you answered.” Relief was expelled from Nicolette’s voice. “I know it’s super late, but I got permission to call you after what showed up on the news tonight.”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t been watching TV. World ain’t ending, is it?”
“Oh… well, never mind that. Since you came to visit me, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things I haven’t told you. Remember when I said you had always been too young to know some truths about your uncle?”
Petra lit the cigarette and grabbed the ashtray off the nightstand. “Guess so.”
“Are you smoking? You shouldn’t be smoking.”
Smoke blew out of Petra’s mouth, away from her phone. “Nope, Mom. I ain’t smoking.”
“You’re lying to me. Guess I have your uncle to thank for that, too. He was always a bad influence on you.”
“Mom, you have no idea.” Petra looked around for the TV remote. It was all the way on the other side of the room. The news could wait. “Anyway, what is this about?”
“It’s about Michail. He’s not your uncle.”
Petra crossed her legs on the bed and blew another waft of smoke toward the ceiling. “What are you talking about?”
“Surely, you always found it suspicious that he showed up out of nowhere when I hardly talked about him. Because I ain’t got no brother.”
A sigh was about to knock Petra out. “Yeah. Trust me, I’ve thought about it more than once, but how did he get custody of me if he weren’t my relation?”
“Heisyour relation. He’s your father.”
The cigarette burned in Petra’s hand after she neglected it for too long. The worst part wasn’t the ashes landing on her thigh. It was the words still crashing through her head.
“Come again?”
“Michail is your father, not your uncle. I ran with him back in the day. After I got knocked up with you, I left to try to get clean. He never wanted anything to do with us, although he knew you existed. He signed away his parental rights, is what I’m saying. That and I didn’t put him on your birth certificate. I knew better than that.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know. He’s not a good man. The only reason he got custody of you after I went to jail is because… fuck it, I called him because I hated the idea of you being in foster care and away from family. Biggest mistake I ever made.”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Michail actually being her father had crossed Petra’s mind more than once, but he was such a reticent man that getting answers out of him was like sucking water out of the asphalt. Petra was better off going along with whatever story that man came up with that week.“Your mom and I had different dads.”No kidding.“I’ve been too busy to deal with kids until you needed someone to take care of you.”Petra saw the truth in those words. “You know what he’s made me do, right?”
Nicolette was silent. Petra would have thought the call dropped, but she could hear the guard in the background telling the inmate to wrap up her special treatment. “I know. He used to make me do the same thing.”
Petra snorted. “Great. So maybe he’s not my dad, after all. Maybe it’s some shmuck from Alabama who owed him money.”
“It wasn’t ever like that!”
“It has been with me. Your deadbeat brother or my father or whoever the hell he is has been making my life hell since he came into my life. I wish you had left me with the foster family in Chicago. They actually treated me nice and didn’t expect me to prostitute myself if push came to shove. I coulda gone to college!”
“I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,” Nicolette said. “It’s not like you died, and you got to be with real family.”
That was why Petra would never have a real relationship with her mother.Every time she sucks you in with her apologies, presents, and hard truths, she turns around and plays the victim the moment you get angry at her actions.Every time Petra fleetingly considered living with her mother when Nicolette got out of prison, she was reminded of theserealhard truths. Nicolette was a vessel of bad decisions that affected everyone around her. Most often… Petra.
