Page 110 of Pieces of Me

“Did your mom ever tell you how we met?”

Another head shake.

He motioned to the couch, where Dirty, Filthy, Younger Me was never allowed to sit.

It was surreal—being in the house with no yelling. No screaming. No fighting. I sat down, clutching my bag to my lap, and waited for him to sit opposite me.

He sat in a recliner and picked at the fabric of the arm, his gaze down as he seemed to relive the moments he spoke. “I was at a park with some buddies throwing a football around, and one of them ended up throwing long, and the ball flew toward you and your mama.” He sighs, the corner of his lips lifting. “She blocked it just in time, and I went to retrieve it, and I… I took one look at her, and I knew I wasn’t going back to my friends. Man, your mama was a knockout. Kind of like you now.” He smiled, and I remember thinking that I couldn’t recall him smiling before. At least not in a way that wasn’t threatening or sinister. “You weren’t even one yet,” he says. “She had you sitting up on a blanket, and you were squeezing grapes in your tiny little fists.” He shakes his fists out in front of him, mimicking his words. “You were the cutest little thing.”

I sat ramrod straight, my heart beating harshly against my ribcage.

“She told me that day that she was couch-surfing until she could find a job and a place to live, and I told her I had enough room for both of y’all.”

“So she just left with you?” I breathed out.

He shook his head. “Not at first. We dated some. But, within a few months, we’d made this your home.”

That was a lie. I’d never had a home.

“Not a lot of guys out there would take in a jobless, single mom, but you… you have to know… I loved you both with all my heart, Jamie.”

Tears formed in my eyes, but I refused to let them slip. Refused to let him have them. “So what thefuckhappened, Beaker?”

His eyes drifted shut at the loudness of my voice, and I clutched my bag tighter, felt the gun beneath my grasp.

“You loved the lights,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something.

“Whatlights?”

“The goddamn Christmas lights!” he shouted, and I squared my shoulders. “I was busy working to support you and your mom, and I hadn’t had time, but you—you wouldn’t shut up about it. You just kept crying and crying, and all I wanted was to make you happy, Jamie!”

It’s the fault in our fate…

Our one undoing.

All he ever wanted was my happiness…

Even when it costs him his own.

“So I got out the ladder in the middle of a snowstorm, and I started putting up the lights for you… but my foot slipped, and Ifell.”

A numbness washed over me, like pins and needles throughout my entire body. I closed my eyes, wishing to be anywhere but there. “The pain pills,” I whispered. “That’s how your addiction started.”

“I lost my job. My career. My sense of stability. Lost all my friends… lost it all… because ofyou!”

That’s why he hated me so much. His rage and his fury were always aimed at me, but my mother was there to protect me. “Why didn’t you just kick us out?”

“Because I loved her.”

“You beat her.Daily.”

“I fucking loved her!” he roared.

Panic clogged my airways, and I got up on shaky legs to rush for the door. But I could hear him coming after me, only a step behind, and in that moment, I knew why Mom would freeze up when he was near. That fear is debilitating. I was almost at the door when he grabbed my arm, spun me to him. “I’m sorry,” he said, then repeated it over and over. “I’ll let you go. I just need to know one thing.”

“What?” I stammered, barely able to see through my fear.

“How is she? Your mama? Is she happy?”

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