Who I Am (FireNine)

by Williams, S. Q.

  A few nights later, we were at my place. It was finally time for Rose to meet Mom. I’d told Rose she had AIDS and that she was sick, but Rose being the person she was, didn’t mind one bit. She wanted to meet her. She wanted to get to know her, especially after I’d told her my mom was my number one lady.

  Mom wasn’t very happy about meeting anyone, though. She was getting sicker by the day, and she always called herself ugly and disgusting, so seeing Rose walk through the door made her eyes widen with disbelief. With haste, she sat up, pulled the blanket over herself and smoothed her hair down while shooting me a dark look.

  “Mom, I think it’s time for you to meet someone,” I said, ignoring her glare.

  “Roy… you could have warned me,” Mom muttered, forcing a smile at Rose. Rose smiled back genuinely.

  “Oh, get over it.” I sat by her side and kissed her forehead. “You’re beautiful.”

  Mom bit on a smile.

  I looked from her to Rose who was awkwardly standing at the entrance of Mom’s room. “Come here,” I said, motioning her my way with my hand. With a gentle smile and her fingers twisted, Rose walked toward me and took the hand I held out. “Mom, this is Rosemarie Beretta, the girl I always talk to you about.”

  “A pleasure, Rose,” Mom said, nodding. She didn’t like touching people. In this circumstance, it made her seem rude, but I guess I could understand. She felt like she was highly contagious, like even looking at her could get a person sick. I warned Rose about it so she wasn’t expecting to touch her in any way.

  “Rose, this is my gorgeous mother, Joanne,” I said to keep the mood light.

  Rose did a light wave and revealed all of her teeth. “It’s great to meet you! Roy talks nonstop about you.”

  “Does he really?” Mom questioned, smirking.

  “All the time,” Rose sang.

  They both looked at me. I shrugged.

  “Well, when he’s here, it’s the same way with you,” Mom said, clutching my shoulder. “He can never keep your name out of his mouth.”

  Rose blushed. I laughed and pulled her onto my lap. “What do you say we make you some soup or something, Ma?” I asked. “We can all eat and get to know one another?”

  She smiled. “That’d be lovely. The nurse won’t be here until tonight.”

  I took Rose’s hand in mine and led her to the kitchen. As soon as I turned in her direction, she narrowed her eyes at me, but she couldn’t fight her smile. “Roy, your mother is adorable,” she whispered.

  “You’re telling me? I tell her this every day,” I said, laughing.

  “I can tell you guys are really close,” she said as I pulled a can of soup out of the cabinet. She stepped toward me and took it from my hands. She then stood on her toes and placed a damp, warm kiss on my lips. “You know, there’s a saying about men who love and cherish their moms, right?”

  “No,” I whispered as she snaked her arm around my neck. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but to me, it’s cute. Sexy, even. You really love your mom,” she stated.

  “I do.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “And you’d hate to lose her?”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “I don’t want to.”

  “But… Roy…” Rose backed away a little and placed the soup on the counter. “Someday you’ll have to come to peace with her passing away. I mean, even though I’ve just met her, I can tell she won’t be around for very long…”

  “I know,” I muttered, snatching the soup up.

  “Hey,” she said, grabbing my arm as I pulled down a pot from above the island counter. “I don’t mean to make you mad, but… I never came to peace with my mom passing away. Every time I think about her and what happened, I get angry… she didn’t deserve it.”

  “Yeah, and my mom doesn’t deserve this shit,” I grumbled, dumping the soup into the pot.

  “Everything happens for a reason, Roy.”

  I blew out a breath. This really wasn’t what I wanted to be hearing. Not one bit. Not about my mom. I wanted her to live on. I wanted her healthy. I wanted her to be okay. I wanted a lot of shit for her but… fuck.

  “Look at me,” Rose whispered. I forced myself to look down at her, and she stood on her toes to kiss the corner of my mouth. “I’m not saying you have to do it now… but one day. We all have faith and hope, but sometimes, we have to face reality.”

  Pressing my lips, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her into me. “Can I ask you something?” I asked.

  “Anything,” she murmured.

  “How did you… cope?”

  “With… my mom’s murder?”

  “Yeah…”

  “I… never did. I just kind of left it in the past. I won’t lie, though. For the first month, I was angry. Hurt. Vengeful. Depressed.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. “But… after a while, I saw that there were people much weaker because of her passing than me.”

  “Who?”

  “Rocky,” she whispered. “I had to be strong for him. I didn’t really cope, but we cried together one night. We got it all out. We bought a ton of flowers, lined them up, lit candles, and sat in the backyard all night, staring up at the stars. My mom used to take us out to star watch all the time. She hoped, one day, we’d see a shooting star… we never did.” She shook her head and laughed a little, but then, her face grew serious and tears formed at the rims of her eyes. “I loved my mom… so much,” she said, tearing her gaze away from mine. I knew it was best not to react too quickly. “I wanted to be like her. She was a teacher. She loved kids. She loved helping others. She donated and volunteered for so many charities. She always gave back. It’s why she didn’t deserve it…”

  She was choking now. A few tears slid down her cheeks, but she wasn’t breaking down. She was just reminiscing. Sometimes, reminiscing is good. It seemed she’d been too strong for too long, like she needed to let some stuff off her chest.

  “Anyway,” she sighed, pulling away from me and wiping her tears away. “Everything happens for a reason. What happened to my mom was unplanned. Had I have known she was going to die, I would’ve prepared myself for it somehow. So, will you do something for me?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Will you… prepare yourself for it… not completely but enough?”

  I shrugged. “Either way, it’ll hurt, Rose.”

  “Yes, but it won’t hurt as bad,” she assured. “Will you promise me?”

  “Will you be around to cope with me?”

  “Always,” she murmured.

  A grin took over my lips. I cradled her face in my hands and brought her mouth to mine, kissing her deeply. She moaned just enough for me to hear, and I smiled behind my next kiss before pulling away from her. “While we have her, let’s enjoy her. I swear that woman is a lot of fun.”

  Rose nodded in agreement, and for the rest of that day, over soup, crackers, and water, Mom and Rose really got to know one another. They shared the same jokes and even came up with inside jokes about me. It was a fruitful night. I’d never seen Mom smile and laugh so much. She was happy, and I was glad to see her that way.

  Rose was right, though. I had to get ready for the reality of things. I didn’t know exactly when Mom was going to pass away, but I did know it was going to happen. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to keep my faith and hold on to what little I had, but in the back of my mind, I always knew she would have to leave me one day. I wasn’t sure how I was going to prepare myself for it. It just didn’t seem possible. When you love someone dearly, it’s impossible to prepare for the loss of them. My mom meant so much to me that even thinking about it hurt my heart.

  But I had to. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to get in touch with reality when it came down to her. My mother was going to die soon, and I was going to make sure her last moments with me were nothing short of amazing.

  I was starting to feel better.

  I was glad the urge to sniff and snort was fading.

&n
bsp; I knew my band was going to give me hell for skipping out on practices, so I had to stop lying and making excuses and just tell them the truth. I had to tell them every single thing about me—from delivering for Corey, to meeting Rose and finding out her father was boss of Red Round, to Rocky “getting rid” of Corey for me because he made me sniff coke, to now. They were shocked, and it shocked me that I’d gone through so much in the proximity of a year.

  I still didn’t know what the hell Rocky did with Corey and Cheek. And to be honest, I really didn’t want to find out. I was glad they were finally out of my life. Glad I could finally breathe. I went by Corey’s house, and it was abandoned, boarded up with wood and everything. No cars. No trucks for drop-offs. No people. Nothing.

  Rocky wasn’t kidding when he said I’d have money to last me a while. Rocky cleaned Corey’s entire house, turned it completely upside down until he finally found his stash of money in the cellar beneath the porch. There was over half a million stored, and it was all mine. Rocky wanted no part of it. He was just glad to finally be able to do something for Red. I heard his dad was pissed he took charge, but I also heard his anger was trumped by pride in his son’s enormous accomplishment at such a young age. His dad ended up giving him small shifts with Red Round for the time being. I guess we all got what we wanted.

  I wasn’t sure how to handle having that much money, but I made do. I stayed humble. I continued to pay for my mom’s nurse, I got the boys and myself new instruments, and I also put in tons of money for more studio time. It was the least I could do after being absent for a few weeks. I’d drug them behind because of the shit I was going through, and I had to make up for it. Good thing the boys were forgivers. My best friends. Nothing could top our bond. They understood, and I think they started looking at me differently. I wasn’t just the Roy who made sure they were always on their toes. I was a Roy who’d been beaten, forced to do terrible things, and heart broken, too. All within one year. What kind of life did I fucking live? A fucked-up one, that’s what.

  Although things were going great with FireNine, things weren’t looking up for Mom. The band and I had our first long-distance gig in Washington, and as soon as we’d performed, I called home, only to hear that the nurse had to rush her to the hospital. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. I didn’t want to until I heard from Mom. On top of that, Rose wasn’t answering any of my calls or texts, so I was all alone, allowing my worry to eat away at me.

  I heard from Mom a day later, when we were on our way to Rhode Island, and she swore she was fine, but I could hear it in her voice… I could feel it. She was doing terribly. I hated that I couldn’t be there for her. She needed me. She might not have wanted me to be there, but I wanted to be. I couldn’t lose her so soon, not when everything was just starting to get better.

  “Keep your head in the game,” Mom said. I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Hard to do when my mom is on her sickbed.”

  “Your mom will be all right. Just make sure you come back home with some good news. I’ll be here to listen to every detail.”

  I smiled, fighting the tears. “Have a goodnight, Ma. I love you.”

  “Goodnight, Roy. I love you, too.”

  After talking to Mom, I gave Rose another call. She’d fallen asleep while studying the night before. She only had a few more months left before graduating and getting her degree. She wanted to be a math teacher for first graders. She loved kids. She loved people. She volunteered to take orphans out on Wednesdays, and she also volunteered to organize events for charity. She was following her mother’s footsteps. She was a lively person, and I loved that about her. She was everything I wasn’t. She completed me.

  The boys and I did one big show in Chicago, and somehow, it changed everything. Ben told us he had the opportunity to talk to a man named Andrew Binds who was looking for fresh talent. He’d given us a chance. He bought us all flights to New York to have us perform for him personally. We were a nervous wreck, but with prayers and faith, we went in like men with real talent and nailed it. We could tell by the look on Binds’s face that we’d impressed him. It only took eight hours for Binds to call us and tell us to come back so we could work out a deal. I’d never felt so much joy. So much relief. After months and months of working ourselves to death, this was it. All the hard work was paying off. We were finally getting what we deserved.

  My happiness got the best of me. I had to tell Mom. She was beyond excited for me. Her laughter made me laugh. Her happiness filled me up with nothing but glee, but for some reason, when I called Rose, she didn’t seem very happy about it.

  “How much longer will you be away?” Rose asked, sounding defeated. “I’m happy for you, Roy, but I miss you. A lot.”

  “I know. I miss you, too, Rose, but this is the opportunity of a lifetime. We have a few more gigs to go through, and then we’re done. I’ll be coming back home for a few months before heading back to New York to work with Binds. You can come with me, if you want. Maybe you can find a school you like and teach here?”

  “Oh… I don’t know about that, Roy. But I’m… I’m really happy for you.”

  Of course, I looked over her uncertainty. She had the tendency to make me believe anything she said. I thought her seeming lack of happiness was a result of missing me, so I told her I would be back soon to make it up to her somehow. I knew how much she hated to be apart from the ones she loved.

  Just when I thought I was doing so much better—just when I thought Rose and I were on good terms and she just needed the boost of seeing me again to get back in gear—things completely turned on me. I made time to go back home throughout that year, but around six months of sleepless nights and endless practicing, I got a call from Mom’s nurse, Sylvia, telling me I might want to come back early for her.

  “Why?” I asked. My mouth had gone dry.

  “Well, Roy, the doctors have done all they can do. Joanne has given up on taking her meds, going for checkups… she just wants to rest. I admit, right now, it’s not looking too good for her.”

  I shook my head, biting the emotion back. “How long do you think she has?”

  She was silent for a moment, making the lump in my throat thicker. “I’d give her about two weeks.”

  I didn’t hear much else Sylvia said. To know that Mom had given up, hurt me. Mom never gave up. She always sought a way out. I had to go back and figure out what was going on with her. This wasn’t like her.

  The boys were pretty pissed that I was bailing out on our last gig—our biggest one yet—but within no time, they all understood why I had to go back, especially Gage. We ended up rescheduling that gig. I promised them we would get back at it as soon as things got better for me, but the truth was… I didn’t know when that would be. I didn’t even know if Mom was going to get better. From what I heard, she was most likely going to get worse.

  I had to calm down on our drive back. We rode in a black van with four rows of seats. I was in the very back row, staring out of the window, hoping this was just a speed bump in my life, something I could soon maneuver my way over.

  But the speed bumps were only getting worse. I had to have called Rose over a dozen times during the drive back to Virginia. Not once did she answer… and I worried. I assumed she was busy with being a teacher, grading papers… that sort of thing. She’d gotten the job and was doing amazing the last time I heard from her. Sad to say, but the last time I’d heard from her was three days ago.

  This long distance thing wasn’t going exactly how I wanted it to with us. In fact, Rose hated it. She hated being away from me. She even compared me to Tommy one night, saying that I was never there for her when she needed me to be or that I didn’t talk to her as much when I was on the road. There may have been truths to what she said, but I was nothing like Tommy. I made time to talk to Rose—something Tommy never did. I made time to Skype her during my free time. The band was a lot busier now. I missed her a lot, but the fact that she was comparing me to her loser of an ex
irked me.

  As soon as I got home, I smelled chicken noodle soup lingering in the air. It was Mom’s favorite, and I was glad to smell it. It meant she was eating… maybe. Sylvia stepped around the corner as I shut the door behind me. She wore a fake smile on her lips, the bowl of soup on a tray in her hands. Walking past me, she stepped into the kitchen and placed the tray on the counter.

  “Won’t eat?” I asked.

  “Not a drop,” Sylvia sighed out, tucking a curly dark lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Here,” I said, reaching for the tray. “Maybe I can get her to.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. She’s been waiting for you. She hasn’t slept all day.”

  “All day. Geez.” I took the tray from Sylvia and turned around, entering the bedroom. I loved our new condo. We actually had space, and Mom decorated the place beautifully. With the money Rocky gave me, I allowed Mom to do whatever she wanted. She never asked me how I got the money, and I was glad. If she knew how I’d scored so much money, she would’ve probably been disappointed.

  “Mom?” I called, knocking on the door. I entered her bedroom, and for some reason, it felt cooler in her room than the rest of the condo. I don’t know why, but the coolness of her room compared to the rest of our home bothered me. It felt like death was lurking.

  “Roy,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse… barely there.

  “Ma… I’m bringing this soup back,” I said, sitting in the rocking chair beside her bed.

  “I see.” She sat up a little, smiling.

  “Will you eat… please?” Pressing her lips, she tilted her head and gave me a stern look. I returned the look, placing the tray on her lap. “You have to.”

  “What if I’m not hungry?” She picked up her spoon.

  “Just take a few sips of it,” I offered.

  “Fine. Fine.”