Splinters: Part One

Part One | 44

They were dry, and bony, but they were her hands. These were the hands of my mother, the hands I've wanted to feel ever since she left. The hands that refused to hug me, that refused to hold me when she was with me. These same hands are the hands I should hate. But I don't. At least not right now.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to touch my baby boy all these years."

I felt a sense of guilt and pity. "You could have," I said lightly.

Marie closed her eyes and sighed. "I've missed you, Brayden."

"I've missed you, too," I confessed.

She pursed her lips. "I heard you... Ran away."

I pulled my hands away from hers. I can't believe Melissa would tell her that. And I especially can't believe she'd want to start our meeting with this conversation. I was angry now.

"Why would you run away, Brayden?" I didn't answer. "Is there something going on there that's not good?"

No. No. She can't do this. She can't act like a mom now.

"Not good," I repeated, narrowing my eyes at her. "Not good? I lived with you for five years in a one bedroom cockroach infested apartment in New York with you randomly leaving, and the next two with you gone, and you're asking me if something at the Piersons, which is a mansion by the way with five great sisters, that somewhere in there, something's not good?" She stared at me, surprised. "Don't act like you know me. Don't act like you care, because you don't."

Great. Now I'm being a jerk. I'm being the rude, inconsiderate, and closed-minded son. Why can't I ever make up my mind with her? I hate her one second, but then I love her the next because she's my mom. And I love her, but when I think of one scenario or choice she's made, I can't stand her. And right now, I. Can't. Stand. Her.

"Brayden-"

"You can't do that, Marie. You can't act like you can do anything, like you didn't start all this in the first place!"

She winced at the sound of me calling her by her name rather than Mom, and I didn't that on purpose. I wanted her to know that she can't keep that title after all she's done or lack thereof.

"You act like I left because I wanted to," she retorted, offended and shocked.

"Isn't that what parents do when they abandon their kids?"

"I had other things going on, Brayden," she said.

"No you didn't!" I shook my head vigorously as I yelled at her. "No you didn't! You left because you got sick of me. Admit it! You got sick of my dad and you got sick of me! So you left!"

I hate her. hate her for making me rethink my decisions, for making me go crazy and for making me cry. I hate her for throwing me and my dad out. I hate her for letting me rot in St. Anne's only to have her sister adopt me six years later. And she wants to act like it matters that I ran away from Melissa's house, as if she would've noticed if I ran away when I lived with her and my dad in New York. Gosh, I hate her for letting me believe that she changed.

"Brayden-"

"Don't say you love me. Don't say you miss me. Because if you did, at any time in my life, you would've came back. You would've came back and told me you loved me. I don't remember you saying those words once when I was a kid! And then you leave like I'm just trash to you! Like I'm a burden!"

She closed her eyes in frustration. I could tell I was hitting opened wounds.

"You say you had other things going on? What can possibly be more important than your own son?"