Page 91 of Reckless At Raleigh High
“I got an email from Mom today,” Silver tells me. “She bought the house in Toronto. My little brother’s officially gonna be a Canadian.”
“You pissed?” I know how much Silver misses Max. They’ve been FaceTiming with each other nearly every day, though Silver’s been quick to cut their calls short whenever I come home. I think she feels bad that she’s building a better relationship with her brother, even though I’ve told her countless times that it doesn’t bother me. If Ben were still alive, I’d be talking to him twenty-four seven.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “He loves it there, and he’s made a ton of new friends. I think it’ll be good for him. He asked if we’d go visit him soon.”
“Hah! You think you can handle spending five minutes in a room with your mother?” Things haven’t been as great on the Parisi mother/daughter front. Kacey’s revelation at prom that Silver’s mom had an affair with her father went down like a lead balloon. Silver confronted her about it, but the woman refused to discuss the matter. In Silver’s eyes, her silence is tantamount to an admission of guilt.
Silver pulls a face. She’s getting better at changing the subject. “Oh! And speaking of mail, a package came from Maeve for you this morning.”
I smirk at the mention of the woman’s name. He hasn’t told Silver yet because he’s a pussy of the highest order, but Cameron confided in me that he’d had a date with my ex-social worker and they’d hit it off in a pretty big way. Apparently, they exchanged numbers at the diner, the day Silver and I played in public together for the first time, and have been texting each other ever since. I figured I’d be rid of Maeve the moment I turned eighteen, but now I’m not so sure. She’s fussed over and mothered the shit out of me ever since she took over my case when I moved to Raleigh. Now, there’s a chance that she could end up being my mother-in-law for real. This shit just gets weirder and weirder, I swear.
“Probably a court order, demanding we go back to our dorms and stay there like good little kids,” I muse. Technically, Silver and I are not supposed to be living together. On paper, Silver’s official residence is at Morton Hall in East Wheelock House. I have digs assigned on the same floor. Cam and Maeve both signed off on paperwork to prove that Silver and I have a domestic partnership, but the powers that be said we hadn’t been together long enough for the administration to recognize the relationship. So, I used the money I had left over from my time working as Monty’s runner to rent a small pad five minutes away from campus for us instead. We show our faces in dorms every now and then, study there sometimes, use the laundry just to put on a show for the floor directors, but welivehere.
After we’ve eaten, I grab the package from Maeve, wondering what the fuck is inside it. When you age out of the foster care system and CPS is no longer responsible for your well-being, it’s not like the send you a fucking certificate or anything. Much like a bad breakup, you part ways hoping to god you never have to hear from or speak to the other party ever again. I pull the thick sheaf of papers out of the heavily taped padded envelop Maeve has sent me, expecting to find official documents inside. Maybe even a bill of some kind; I wouldn’t put it past the board at Denney to somehow try and charge me for the time I spent in juvie with Zander. The last thing I’m expecting to find are drawings.
Pencil. Pen. Ink. Even paint.
And they’re all of my mother.
Alex,
You don’t need to work in a field like mine to know that families are complicated. It’s a universal and very obvious truth. People are flawed and unreliable. They hurt each other all the time, especially those closest to them, which makes the pain they cause so much worse. But you must know that even the very worst people occasionally have redeeming moments. Your father came to see me this morning. He didn’t want your address, and he swore he wasn’t going to bother you. He seemed quite adamant that you were going to come to your senses and track him down after all is said and done, which I really hope you do not do.
Anyway, he brought these drawings to me and asked if I would pass them on. Your mother was a striking, very beautiful woman, Alex. I’ve seen pictures of her, but the way your father captured her in these sketches only heightens her beauty. The sheer amount of times he drew her shows just how much he must have loved her at one point in his life.
There are so many things about your father that are ugly, but the amount of love he poured into these pictures of your mother is beautiful, Alex. You hate him, and I don’t blame you for that. I kind of hate him for you, too. But that doesn’t mean you can’t love the art he created.
I hope everything in New Hampshire’s going well for both you and Silver. Please pass on my warmest regards to her.
Sincerely,
Maeve
I feel like I’m being torn straight down the middle, furious and elated, as I leaf through the drawings and sketches in my hand. There must be at least fifty of them, on different sized of paper, some of them on proper thick artist’s stock, while some of the most detailed, lovely pieces were drawn on scrap. I turn over a drawing of my mother with her knees drawn up to her chest, a half-eaten apple held in one of her hands, her hair wild, head tossed back, her mouth open wide as she laughs, only to discover that it was sketched on the back of an overdue invoice for a Bosch Power Drill dated January 29, 1995.
The second I register the way my mother’s laughing, a slew of memories hit me hard like a sledgehammer to the chest. I can barely breathe around them. My mother would sink into the deepest, darkest depths of depression and wouldn’t smile for months. But when the depression didn’t have its claws in her and she was gloriously herself, she smiled a lot. She laughed with her whole body. Ihearthe breathless, raucous unmistakable sound of her laughter when I look at that picture, and it makes my heart shatter to pieces.
Don’t be sad,passarotto. There’s so much to be happy about. You’re no longer a boy. You’re a man. No, you’re akingamongst men. You have the love of a beautiful woman. I’m so proud of you, mi amore. You’re lighting up the world. Go on. Go out into the world and be great. Be the man I know you can be.
I haven’t heard my mother’s voice in my head for quite a while, I realize. With a heavy dose of sadness that makes my throat throb with emotion, I think that this will be the very last time I hear it. I don’t know how I know that. I just do.
“Wow. Those are spectacular,” Silver whispers behind me, leaning over the back of the couch to look at the drawings over my shoulder. “Holy crap, Giacomo could have earned a living as an artist. What the hell?”
He could have. There was nothing stopping him from becoming an illustrator, or designer, or a freelance artist of some kind. He chose a different path for himself, though—a selfish path that, in the end, benefitted no one. Not even himself.
“She was so lovely, Alex,” Silver says softly. “I really wish I’d gotten to meet her.”
“Yeah.” I run my fingers over another image of my mother, a dull ache pounding in my chest. Mom would have loved Silver. She loved anyone who knew their own mind and wasn’t afraid to say what was on it. And Silver, she would have adored my mother in return. It was impossiblenotto fall in love with her.
I have so few photos of my mom. There were never many taken, I suppose, and those that did exist were lost when she killed herself and CPS took us away. I was too young to ask what was going to happen to her things. Everything my mother had owned was likely bagged up by her old landlord and taken to a thrift store. Could have been discarded in a dumpster for all I know. Giacomo certainly never came back for any of it.
These pictures are a connection to my mother that I’ve been missing since I was six years old. I don’t give a shit that Giacomo drew them. I’ll cherish them for as long as I live.
Days later, when I come home, Silver’s waiting for me by the door to the apartment, and she’s wearing a look of excitement on her face. She bounces from one foot to the other, clapping her hands over her mouth as I walk in.
I dump my bag at my feet, smirking at her ridiculousness. “Oh my god. You won the lottery. You’re rich now and you’re leaving me to become Billy Joel’s unpaid intern.”
“Psshh. If Billy asked me to be his unpaid intern, I’d dump your ass and be on the road in five seconds flat. I wouldn’t need to win the lottery. Getting to be Billy Joel’s unpaid interniswinning the lottery.”
