Sinner's Prayer

by Seth King

  “I’m so sorry. And I’ve been lying about something,” I said very quickly. “My mom isn’t dead, no matter what I let you think. She just left me. But now…I guess she really is going to die. Possibly.”

  He shook his head. “Rewind, please.”

  “I never said she was dead, by the way. You just assumed it. But the real story is almost worse.”

  “Okay. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “It’s humiliating. And I don’t even speak to her. Last time I saw her, she was drunk and I tried to hide her keys. She slapped me in the face in front of three people. That was three years ago. She hasn’t even me called since then. She’s a drunk and an addict. And now I guess…well, it caught up to her.”

  “Oh my…wow.”

  “Yeah, so obviously I wasn’t going to just go around talking about this. When I do mention it, everyone immediately looks at me like I’m damaged goods because I come from such a broken family. And-”

  “Adam. Adam!” he said. “Stop. You really are crazy if you think that would’ve changed anything.”

  “Really?” I asked, trying not to notice he was already speaking in the past tense.

  “I like people, not their pasts, not a set of circumstances they can’t control. When I’m into someone, nothing they could say would ever scare me away. I mean, for a while, at least.”

  I leaned against him. He didn’t respond, though. He didn’t even touch me back.

  I backed up. “Oh.”

  “Oh,” he said back to me.

  “Well, um, I think I have to do this alone. Too much is happening. Do you get that?”

  “I get it. Yeah.”

  “Fabian. When I get back, will you be waiting for me?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Fabian. Please.”

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I need to think, too.”

  “About what?”

  “About whether or not I can be with someone who publicly denied me. Many times. Do you know how that feels?”

  “Yes, because I’ve denied myself every day of my life. Until you. I hated myself, Fab. To the bone.”

  “But it’s not getting any better. I have to protect myself too.”

  “It’s not getting any better,” I mocked, my eyes getting glassy. “We just toured part of the country together and it’s not getting any better? Good, great. Why don’t you just abandon me like everyone else has, then? The thing with Kinnan was a debacle, it was humiliating, and I’ll be repaying you for the rest of my life. If you let me…”

  He frowned. He came forward, took me by the head, and kissed me. But it was a sad kiss, an apologetic kiss. Maybe even a goodbye kiss.

  “I love you, Adam. That never changed. But…none of this matters anymore. Go help your mom. You need to figure yourself out. On your own.”

  I gasped, and that’s when I realized what had happened – I’d been dumped the same day my mother was put on life support.

  ~

  I arrive at the hospital at about six, then get lost circling around the myriad parking garages, then finally find her ward at six-thirty. I beg my way into the ICU waiting room and finally get someone on an intercom. But when I say my name, something weird happens – they send a nurse out to talk to me.

  “Hi, um, I’m here to see my mom, Mary Donaldson? Is she awake now? Can I go in?”

  The nurse, Kenzi, looks down at a chart, frowns, and looks up at me. “Awake? I beg your pardon?”

  “Yeah, I was just gonna tell her I’m here before I get a hotel and all that.”

  She hugs her clipboard and frowns. “Oh, son. I’m so sorry, but there’s been a miscommunication.”

  “A mis – a what?”

  “You were called here because they were waiting for her next of kin to arrive before they discontinued life support services. I’m so sorry.”

  I rock back on my heels. I remind myself that part of her job is to tell people that people they love are dead, and her crisp formality is not meant as anything personal. But it does feel personal. She just told me my mom is going to die. I’m not going to have a mom anymore. And she said it like she was asking about the weather.

  “Discontinue?” I ask.

  “There’s nothing else they can do. Her lungs are failing due to her emphysema, and her liver is at five percent function because of…well, I’m sure you know the details.” Her lips shrank into her mouth. “And, I’m sorry, but…she is not a candidate for…any organ transplants, due to her general health. There’s nothing else that can be done. At this point we’ve got to let nature run its course.”

  I look away and try not to cry. Here it is – the moment I always dreaded. The moment I’ll have to face this.

  The nurse puts a hand on my arm, but it feels awkward. “They’ll make the room comfortable for her, but tonight won’t be easy. I’ll look out for your room number on the system – you need anything at all, and I’ll make sure it happens.”

  “Thank you.”

  Blindly, I make my way through the sterile hall until I turn and find her room. The curtain is pulled around her bed, and for now, I want to keep it that way. I can’t look yet. Nobody else is here, and why would they be? I’m an only child. She probably hadn’t spoken to my dad in years. She didn’t have any friends. Her boyfriend died last year. Who else would be here?

  After taking one look, I realize the end really could be close. After steeling myself I get up against my mom’s face and pray she can hear me, even though I’ve been told she can’t. “Hi there. I’m here now. Um…I love you, Mom. I always will. I’ll never not be your little boy. And I’m so glad you’re going somewhere happier. I’m going to be right here until I can’t anymore.”

  So many memories fill my mind – but good memories, not bad ones. Early ones. The way she always bought us spicy boiled peanuts from the gas station when we were together. Her laughter, and the way she snorted when she laughed too hard. The way she always looked the other way and quietly accepted it whenever I wanted to head to the girls’ section in the store, when my father would get mad and steer me to the blue toys instead…

  Then I wipe my face and settle into the room and try to prepare myself for what’s to come. And as the last of evening becomes night, she accelerates her “transition,” as they are calling it. They don’t even bother moving her to hospice because it’s happening so quickly. And so I get out a newspaper, sit back, and wait, Fabian still on my mind…

  ~

  In the movies, death is peaceful. A family gathers around a quiet bed while a smiling patient slips into a deep, permanent sleep. This, though, is far more…grim. Her pallor is unsettling from the first moment – she is grey, but with a yellowish undertone, and she doesn’t look like any human I’ve ever seen. I try to reconcile this with the happy women I sometimes knew as a kid, but then I stop. Right now is for closure. The next few weeks, months – those will be for processing, understanding. Right now she just needs me to help her leave. I can feel that. Do I feel guilty for not trying harder to get through to her? I don’t know. The few times I did try to contact her, she wasn’t herself – she was distracted and didn’t care about anything I said. She’d barely grunt along to my conversation before saying she had to hang up and do something. I knew what she needed, though – another hit. Another fix. For addicts, they’re always just focused on getting the next hit. They’re always one step removed from you, because their mind is already consumed with finding the next rush. It wasn’t my responsibility to be the adult of the relationship, and soon I stopped trying.

  This all does send me into a sort of panic for other, more selfish reasons, though. This right here in front of me – this is death. This will happen to me one day, and will I be ready? Will I know I have done everything I could to be happy when I was alive? In the church, everything was about the next step. The entire point of this life was about preparing for the next one. But now that all seems so…wasteful. Here I am, alive, right now. Why not do what I can to
be happy? Especially when nothing is promised?

  To see this thrown into stark relief for me is shocking and distressing. This right there – this is the only life I’ll ever get to live. What am I doing with it? I learned very early on that love was the most important thing in the world. And here, I’ve found love, and I’m barely letting it into my life. What if I don’t end up with Fabian, and I waste my only shot at true life I am ever given? Who will show up for me, when the time comes for me to leave this world? When I am on a hospital bed, just like my mother is right now, will I be alone? Or will Fabian be there with me, just as I want him to be in my mind’s eye? At the end of it all, what am I even doing with this blessing of life I’ve been given?

  And in that moment, I am faced with the breathtaking realization that I am nothing but a big fat liar. Because for all this time I’ve woken up and tried to tell myself I didn’t see him in the screaming sunrise, didn’t hear his name in the gurgle of a passing bus’ exhaust, didn’t stare into my refrigerator thinking of how he looked off to the right when he was bashful, didn’t love him and need him with my every breath. But all those moments were lies, and I am a liar. I was born to love him. I was put on this planet for the moment when he would barge his way into my heart, and that is the unassailable truth.

  I just realized it about one day too late.

  At about midnight my mom’s breathing quickens, and I know what is coming. In the last, worst moments, she opens her mouth in a sideways manner and starts gasping for air. I am desperate to help, desperate to do anything, but I can’t. Nurses watch from afar, their hands tied. And when the breathing finally stops, I am, in the strangest way, happy for her. I kiss her on the forehead as the nurses prepare to rush me out of the room for the next horrible steps, and then it is done.

  Back during her more lucid days, my mom made very specific instructions: a quick cremation, with a ceremony following very soon after. She wanted me to have all the ashes, too, which I guess offers some consolation. So I take charge of every single detail, because at least it gives me something to focus on. I make all the calls, send all the emails, pay all the bills alongside an insurance specialist a nurse assigned to help me. And on the night before the service, I finally break down and cry. And I don’t stop for hours.

  Thirteen people come to my mom’s funeral on a cloudy morning, mostly out of duty and pity than anything else, or some mix of the two. I surprise myself by crying twice, and then by feeling markedly better after that. She accepted God when she was young, and besides, my mom wasn’t built for life. She just wasn’t.

  In a way, I am almost…well, again, I’m not happy, but I am relieved for her. One time, during the lowest of lows, she looked at me, got very clear in the eyes, and told me that she didn’t like being alive. She just kind of blurted it out, in this heartbreakingly to-the-point way. She wasn’t built for living. Some people are, but she wasn’t. In some way, I’m glad she’s found peace. After all this hard living, she’s earned it.

  ~

  The day after the funeral, I get up to leave Savannah and head back home to face the future, feeling like I’ve walked across Egypt. Four days ago I showed up here thinking I was getting some big, cinematic goodbye with the woman who’d upended and defined my life. Instead I got nothing. And now I just feel more lost than before. I don’t even know what I’m doing, to be honest. Nothing with Fabian has been resolved. We’ve barely spoken. All I did in Savannah was become even more adrift. Why would I be going home now? What am I even returning to? My life, as I know it, is essentially over. Where do I go from here?

  I’m packing my bag into my car when my phone rings. Again. At this stage I can’t handle any more phone calls, but I answer anyway.

  “Hello, is this Mr. Venus?”

  “It is. Hi.”

  “Hello, I’m with Smith and McGarity, I was assigned to handle the estate of your mother. It seems we’ve run into some very unexpected developments.”

  “Yes?”

  “It turns out she was common-law married to a Mr. Butch Ross, who passed last year. Were you aware of this?”

  “Um – I mean, yeah, I knew she lived with someone, I didn’t know about any common law stuff.”

  “Well she was. He passed recently, and his estate was still being processed, but he had quite a few bonds from his childhood in his possession that he’d never cashed in or even done anything with. We assume…well, honestly we think he was just too impaired by chronic substance abuse to know about any of this.”

  “Okay?”

  He swallows. “Mr. Venus, your mother was technically married, and when someone dies in Georgia, their spouse gets everything, provided the deceased had no children, which her husband didn’t. When your mother died, she had just become the sole beneficiary of his estate. And, as her only child, you are now sole beneficiary of their joint estate.”

  I take a deep, anxious breath. “Can you just tell me what you’re telling me?”

  “Okay, sir. Your mother didn’t even know this, but she was worth over a hundred thousand dollars when she died. Now, you are.”

  Act III

  Mercy

  Adam Venus

  After my mom dies, I get an initial payout from her estate (a lawyer is free to release a few thousand dollars immediately) and I do something strange: I stay in Savannah.

  It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. I know I can’t go back to St. Marys yet. I wouldn’t know where to even begin. So I just stay. School’s out, anyway. There’s a hotel downtown, a hotel too fancy for me to afford, but I move into it using the extended stay program anyway. For a few days I just lay in bed with the TV blaring, too exhausted to move, too exhausted to sleep, to do anything. I have to wait around for some paperwork to be processed, and then I will be rich. Well, rich for me, anyway.

  But then, things change more. I get sick of sitting around and sign up for a gym on a weekly basis, and start working out twice a day. My body starts changing immediately, but the biggest change is a mental one. One day it snows a little, which is fairly rare for the coastal South, and I walk to the gym in a haze of happiness, feeling the flakes melt on my cheeks. I don’t know what I’m doing here, wasting my time away, but I can’t go back to St. Marys yet. I just can’t. Before I return, I want to figure myself out, to explore who I really am, who I really want to be. Who I always was, under the religion and everything else…

  I mostly work out and read books during the day, and at night I go down to the hotel bar, which is right on Savannah’s most exciting street. Savannah always had a sort of glamour to it, this weird old-fashioned charm, and I sit for hours and watch women walk in wearing their pea coats and their curled hair, and men in their scarves and hats. In these evenings I order food and I think about God, I think about my future, I think about the fact that my life going forward will never be the same, regardless of what happens. But mostly I think about Fabian.

  He changed me. Forever. Just thinking of his name makes me want to choke with grief, but we aren’t speaking. At all. I don’t know what to say yet, and I don’t think he does, either. Maybe he doesn’t even want to speak to me. Our time together was a wild fluorescent stressful rush, and I need some time to think about everything. At least all the exercising is turning me into a different person with a different mood, at least temporarily – when I am this exhausted, I don’t have time or energy to be anxious. For the first time ever, I am just living, moment by moment.

  Before too long, Christmas comes and goes. I visit my mom’s stone, which doesn’t yet have her name on it. But I don’t care. It’s still beautiful – and at the price I paid, it’d better be.

  I flop down on the closest bench and start crying. And not just about her. I did so many things wrong. I made so many mistakes, took so many wrong turns. Instead of doing the work to figure myself out and process everything, I jumped on the Highway to Love and strapped him in with me while I was still a disaster inside. I can’t even believe I asked him to hang out with me “as a fri
end” when I knew we were already falling in love, that I expected him to hook up with me while still jerking him around and pushing him away, that I treated his love as some kind of game. And I denied him three times to his face. I am so humiliated.

  But at the same time, I’m weirdly grateful. Even through it all. Fabian brought something out of me that I didn’t even know was there. Well, of course I knew it was there, but I’d snuffed it out. He was the spark that lit the match that blew up my whole life, but I don’t want to go back. I couldn’t even if I tried. My life is never, ever going to be the same, in so many ways. The person I thought I was – he was never me. Life has changed forever now, and on some level I mourn that. I liked my life – it wasn’t too bad. Slowly but surely, I am becoming a different person, with a different world.

  But where will I go from here? And will Fabian be a part of that world when I get back home? And does he even want to be a part of it?

  ~

  My mental breakdown at the cemetery makes me feel more adrift than ever. Maybe our souls were connected – maybe that’s why I can’t move on, or even think about anything else but Fabian. Maybe I messed it up, and I’m doomed.

  On New Year’s Eve, my old friend Tanner comes through Savannah on the way up to his parents’ house on the Outer Banks. I barely know him anymore, but I want to be friendly, so I invite him to the hotel. I order some small plates and then get us a table in the lobby restaurant, looking out on the bustling sidewalk.

  “So where the hell have you been?” he asks, eyeing me suspiciously. “Like, all semester? What gives?”

  “Some stuff happened,” I sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull out on everyone like that.”

  “I get it. Graduation is coming. Everyone’s about to move on.”