March 15th, 2017

Kinsky, California, USA

Mother

The St. Agnes Cemetery was quiet that morning. With spring slowly creeping life back into the trees, flowers that lined the yard began sprouting back into their vibrant focus. And yet few were there to appreciate them.

Among the mourners were the Israels, more potently Russell and Billy as Mahalo stayed back to play with some toys at a nearby bench.

“He still ain’t at that age, huh?” Billy said aloud as he watched the little boy from a distance. “It’s funny. I remember Gram dying when I was young like him. All these adults around me crying and I didn’t understand nothin’. Didn’t hit me ‘til near a decade later.”

“Better it be that way,” Russell added. “Especially if it’s your Moms.”

The two young men looked down at the grave in front of them. Etched in stone was the caricature of a single rose, and an epitaph:

Lyssa Carter Israel

March 15th, 1967 – September 18th, 2013

A bird who sang to her own tune. And now she sings in heaven.

“Hey, we all good,” Billy spoke again. But this time he didn’t appear to be speaking to Russell, but rather to the gravestone itself, making eye contact with the rose on its front. “Mahalo’s in elementary school now. I got a job at Bruno’s as assistant chef. And Rus… man, you would’ve loved to see this boy play. He’s the Kinsky Eagles’ strongest soldier, ya know.”

Russell didn’t say anything. His sunglasses were on, as they always were. He looked up into the bright sky and just listened to Billy keep talking.

“I figured it was important… to let you know we were still holdin’ it down. You don’t gotta worry about us up there. Everybody be puttin’ in work, even Mahalo. Little kid knows how to fix a computer now, you believe that? And yeah, sometimes we get up to some shit. But we always keep it respectful. Honestly, I’m proud of us. We family. And I hope you’re proud of us, too.”

From under his left elbow, Billy took a bouquet of fresh flowers and placed them gently next to the tombstone.

After standing up, he turned over to his brother. “You got anything you wanna say, Ru-”

As Billy took a look over at his brother, he noticed something different. That from under his glasses, a fresh stream of tears came down one of his cheeks. But Russell just kept looking up at the sky.

“Nah, I’m good,” he answered, his voice not betraying any of his emotion.

Billy nodded. “Aight, then. I’ll go bring the car around, if you stay with Mahalo.”

“For sure.”

Billy went down the opposite path of graves, occasionally bringing up his eyes to notice the flowers on the seams of the walkway. Russell meanwhile wiped his face with his elbow, put his hands in his pockets, and walked over to where his younger brother was playing.

…

“Mr. Huerta?” the nurse called from out the door. “It’s time.”

Rodrigo’s heart skipped a beat when he heard his name called. The past year had all been leading up to this, and while times before he had just felt numb and ignorant to the reality, this was the one time where he couldn’t shy away from it. This time it was the end.

The boy walked into the hospital room, his hand hanging on his wrist, his head dropped down. He wore a navy blue sweater, which he didn’t wear too often – but this time it had a special significance, since it was a gift from his mother.

The old woman, whose whole body was connected to medical machines, slowly turned her head towards him after she heard him enter. When she saw the young boy’s face, she greeted him.

“Rodrigo… come here,” she spoke in Spanish, beckoning the young boy to come to the bedside. “Come here so I can see you, my boy.”

In his heart, Rodrigo really didn’t want to come any closer. But he had no choice – he approached the bed and sat at the chair close to her.

His mother reached forward and took him by his hand. Her grip was cold, leathery – it made him feel uncomfortable.

“I don’t want you to be sad, my boy,” Rodrigo’s mother continued in her native language. “You have a future to worry about now.”

“I know, mom,” Rodrigo replied rather stiffly in the same tongue.

“I know you’ve had… to worry about me. I’ve been a burden to you in these last days. If I had lasted longer, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps you may not have had to worry until you were already married, or had a family. I’m sorry.”

His mother’s pitiful comments almost annoyed the boy. He wasn’t sure why. His whole life he had a close bond with his mother, but all of a sudden in that moment he just wanted any excuse he could take to get away.

Then he remembered the book.

What Whitney had said – that young men like him grow up to hate their mother. At the time he didn’t understand it because he had taken it too literally, as if there was some romantic, jealous relationship to it all. But he noticed in that moment he both wished his mother would die, and that his father would be back to take care of him. He wanted to run out the door and hug his dad, the dad who wasn’t there. The dad he had never knew.

The reality is that he didn’t hate his mother. He hated the fact he no longer had any guide in life. From this moment forward, he would be alone.

Rodrigo closed his eyes and, in those moments, drummed up enough courage in his heart to chase away those cowardly feelings and look his dying mother directly in her eyes.

“I promise you, mama,” Rodrigo began, his head now up high. “I promise you I’ll become someone you’re proud of. I’ll have a life, a partner, and a big family. Maybe even a nice job. I promise I’ll start going to church every Sunday, and that I’ll start volunteering myself to help the neighbors during Navidad. I don’t want you to worry about me when you’re gone. I’ll become the son you always wanted.”

The frail old woman’s chapped lips began to crease with a big smile. “Rodrigo, my boy…” she replied to him in her gravelly voice. “…you’re already the son I wanted.”

With that, she began to relax. Her eyes closed, and her head fell back into the pillow. It only took a few seconds after that for the life support to flatline.

Rodrigo stepped back as the nurses suddenly swooped in to check on her. The end had finally come, but Rodrigo felt a lot better about it than he did before. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater, then walked out of the hospital room.

…

Maurice and Emily sat on opposite sides of a couch in their living room. They were waiting on their mother to come back, and the mood in the room was sour.

“What do you think it’s about this time?” Emily whispered over to Maurice. Maurice shrugged his shoulders – he genuinely didn’t know.

After a few minutes of silence, their imposing mother reentered the room. She sat in an armchair facing the two directly.

“I know what you’ve been up to,” her mother said, a sense of terseness and apathy in her voice.

The two teens were anxious. Their minds immediately went to the stash they had been keeping, but the conversation ended up sprawling into a completely different direction.

“You’ve had that boy over. I know.”

Mrs. Bryant’s gaze turned towards Maurice. Emily, who was already aware with (some) of Rodrigo’s visits, looked at her brother in a way that was concerned with his well-being. Maurice said nothing.

“I already told you to cut that shit out. Find yourself a girl, if you had to. But now you had to soil my own house with this filth, and on top of it all disgrace your father’s legacy?”

Maurice kept his eyes down into his lap. His hands tensed up, but he did nothing.

“You forced me, Maurice. I didn’t want to do this, but your behavior is disgusting. And I know there’s no other punishment I can give you. So I’ll have to punish your sister instead.”

Maurice’s eyes suddenly widened. He looked back up at his mother. Emily’s gaze changed, too.

“I know you’ve been defending your brother. Enabling his actions. So that insurance money your father left you… I’m taking it away. I know he’d be sick at this behavior, and so I’m doing him a favor.”

“Wait, but…” Emily tried her best to fight back with words, but didn’t know what to say. “I… my, at Dartmouth… I have to…”

“I already hated that idea, anyway.” Mrs. Bryant, who had been smoking a cigarette earlier, took the stub and put it into an ashtray on the coffee table. “What, you go off across the country to some snotty rich school, just to play around and hook up since I can’t do anything about it? Just go get yourself a job.”

“Mom…” Emily persisted, her voice cracking, her eyes beginning to mist. “P-please…”

In that moment, something stirred within Maurice. Something that had never happened to him in the years his tyrannical mother ruled their lives in the wake of his father’s death. All this time, every punishment for something Maurice had done had been given to Maurice himself. And he took it, because he didn’t know what to do. But that night his mother had made a great mistake, because now he saw his sister in tears and knew something had to be done. For the first time in his life, he went on the offensive.

Maurice sprung up from the couch and stood up, his eyes lasered on his mother. “What is this really about?”

His mother turned to him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. What is this really about?” Maurice demanded with authority.

Mrs. Bryant was taken aback. “And you.. After all you’ve done, you would talk to your mother this w-”

“Because I think I know what it is. This doesn’t have to do with me, or Emily, or anyone else. It has to do with you. Because you’ve never been the same after dad killed himself. And I don’t know what you gotta go through, or what’s in your head, but it’s time you left Emily and I out of this. Think about the man he was, then think about how he must be seeing you now. That’s what’s really making him sick.”

The entire room became deathly quiet. Maurice continued to stand there, unflinching, looking his mother straight in the eyes. She was the one to finally break contact.

“Fine,” she let out, getting up from the couch. Her words were callous, but her speech hinted at something more – a form of hurt, of vulnerability. “I won’t do anything with the money. Not now. But if I catch something else, I’m not gonna go easy on either of you two.”

Mrs. Bryant walked out the room, down the hallway towards where the master bedroom lay. The two siblings waited a moment until they were sure that she wouldn’t come back. Then Emily, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly got up and hugged her brother around his chest.

“We should get rid of the stash,” Maurice whispered to her, accepting the hug.

“Aaron said he can take it if we ever needed to drop it some place else.”

“That’s fine with me.”

Emily let go of him, and began walking back to her room, turning around once to give him a smile of appreciation. After she was gone Maurice decided to head back too, only to be stopped by something on his way out.

At an inlet of the far right wall there was a collage of photos, mostly of Emily and Maurice and their mother throughout the years. But one picture, prominently displayed at the bottom left, was of their father.

Usually the image served to give Maurice only a sense of unease. But that night – for whatever reason – it felt comforting. That smile his father gave in that grainy photo was no longer empty, but rather it felt like he was smiling right at Maurice. That somehow, somewhere, he was proud of him.

Maurice walked out the living room, and back towards his room.