Page 123 of Riot Act
“Youareold.” I light the smoke I have gripped between my teeth. “Old and stupid. You shouldn’t have come here. It’s a five-hour drive from New York to New Hampshire. A simple phone call would have sufficed.”
“Today’s your graduation ceremony, Pax. You think I’d miss this?”
“Yes. Absolutely, yes.”
She pulls a face as she fiddles with the ridiculous black gown I’m wearing. She asked me to don the graduation cap for a photo earlier, but I snapped at her so viciously that she immediately gave up and hasn’t asked again since.
Flicking her cigarette, she blows smoke down her nose. “Oh, right, yes. Because I am the worst mother in the world, aren’t I?”
I say nothing. She’s waiting for me to fawn over her, to tell her no, of course she’s not the worst mother in the world, why on earth would I think that? But I’m not one of her paid lackeys. I don’t have to tell her what she wants to hear. I’m under no obligation to make this woman feel better after what she’s done to me over the years.
She seems to silently accept this as she looks off into the distance. After a while, she says, “You’re still covered in bruises.”
She tries to touch her fingers to the unsightly green shadow underneath my right eye, but I swat her hand away. “I’mfine.”
“I know.” She smokes some more. “You’ve always been strong. Stronger than you needed to be. I want you to know that…”
I wait, and then wait some more. I laugh under my breath, allowing the quiet space between us where Meredith’s apology remains unspoken to stretch out. She’ll never be able to say it. I will never hear my mother say that she’s sorry. I don’t need to hear her say it. A part of me knows she wouldn’t mean it anyway. She’s too broken to ever admit that she did anything wrong by me.
“The assault charges have been dropped. And that terrible boy is going to prison for a very long time, by the sounds of things,” she says.
I pull very hard on my cigarette, killing it. I flick the butt into the rose bushes. “I know. Rufus told me.” He said Jonah was looking at twenty-five years for what he did to Chase. Twenty-five years doesn’t seem like enough. But I have a long memory. I won’t forget. I’ll be waiting outside the prison gates for Jonah Witton the day his sentence comes to an end.
Meredith looks out over the sweeping swathe of lawn that stretches down to the academy’s lake. She ponders for a moment, and then says, “They should really put some Cypress trees along the road down there. The one leading up to the main entrance. I’ve always thought Cypress trees look terribly romantic. I’m not sure that they’d thrive in this kind of climate, though. I’ve heard it rains an awful lot around here.”
No word of a lie, this is Meredith’s second time in New Hampshire. She bundled me off to Wolf Hall on the strength of a brochure that her girlfriend from Connecticut sent her in the mail one time, because her friend thought Wolf Hall looked like the kind of place that would‘kick a boy like me into touch.’
“I don’t give a shit about Cypress trees. Look, if you leave now, you should be able to make it back to the city before nightfall.”
She gestures into the distance with her free hand, standing a little straighter, as if something’s just occurred to her. “They could always do a white picket fence instead. Something to draw the eye toward those mountains over there. It just feels like the view’s missing something. Don’t you think?”
I mean, she’s right. With a photographer’s eye, I can look at the vista before us and see that, if I were to take a picture of the gently sloping lawn, and the lake, the stand of trees beyond it and the range of mountains in the far distance, there is definitely something missing, visually in the far-left hand side of the image. But I am not getting into the rule of fucking thirds with my mother right now. Sighing, I watch a flock of birds scatter from a tree down by the water, attempting to summon up some patience. “Meredith—”
“When was the last time you went to church?”
My frustration levels spike. “I don’t know how many times I have to say this to you, butI do not believe in God.”
She scoffs. “Well,that’snot really got anything to do with anything.”
“Mother—”
“I’m proud of you, y’know?” She turns her head to face me, the sun catching at her hair and making it glow like spun gold. I used to love her hair when I was little. Loved stroking my hands over the thickness of it, wrapping her curls around my fingers. I thought she was so beautiful, like a fairy. I was sure she was made of magic when I was five. People’s flaws are much easier to overlook when you’re that age, though. It’s easy to look at someone andonlysee magic. It wasn’t until I was older that I started to realize that my mother wasn’t like the other kids’ moms. She wasn’t affectionate like they were. She was as cold and as distant as a glittering wall of ice, and no matter how hard I pushed forward and strived for her attention, I would never reach her. I would never melt her heart.
So this…thisthingshe’s just said to me? Wholly out of character. “Why? Because I hospitalized a guy who did something vile?”
“No. Well, I suppose so, yes. I’m very glad that you protected your friend, Pax. But I’m proud because…” I watch her brow crease and realize that communicating like this with me isn’t easy for her in the slightest. “You’re letting that girl in,” she says eventually. “You’re very much like me, darling, and that isn’t something I wanted for you. I’ve done the best I can. I’ve protected myself more than I’ve ever protected anyone else, and selfishly it’s been easy for me to pretend that I’ve always done the right thing by you. But all I’ve really ever done is shown you how to shut yourself off from the world. How…how to bealone.” Her hands shake as she lifts the smoke to her lips and takes a drag. “Being alone isn’t fun, darling. Not in the long run. Life loses its color. All you’re left with is a manageable, controllable, dull,greyperspective on the world. It’s good that you’re letting this girl in. I’m glad you’re not going to end up like me.”
Meredith’s said what she needed to say. She leaves before the actual ceremony.
On the other side of the academy, on the green that stretches between the old English block and the beginning of the forest, hundreds of chairs have been set out for Wolf Hall’s students and their families in front of a huge stage. A sea of familiar and unfamiliar faces stare back at me from the foot of the stairs that lead up to that stage.
Unsurprisingly, Chase didn’t come back to the academy for the last week of school. I’ve given her space and I haven’t messaged. She probably hates me for bribing Jonah to come and meet me in New York. If I hadn’t, she would never have found herself unconscious in that parking garage. It’s a miracle I even found her when I did. I’ve barely slept at night, considering all of the terrible things that could have happened if I hadn’t. I did, though. If Chase never speaks to me again, I can rest easy in the knowledge that Jonah won’t be able to hurt her ever again. I find some solace in that.
“Are you ready?”
Next to me, Wren and Dash stand in their gowns, fidgeting like little boys in church. Neither of them is happy about the stupid outfits we have to wear, but at least all three of us are making them look good. I fiddle with the cap I refused to wear for my mother, considering putting it on, but Dash snatches it out of my hand and slaps my ballcap on my heads instead. Backwards. I didn’t even see him carrying it in his hands.
“That’s better.” He laughs when I pull a face at him. “No point in conforming at the very last second,” he says, shrugging. “Go on, killer. Knock ‘em dead.”
