“Ma, what is it?”
“I… uh… I can’t remember. I was doing something and then the phone rang and the mail arrived, and now I can’t find my knife.”
It was like this all the time.
All the fucking time.
At first, I thought she had dementia or ALS or some other horrific brain shit, but it seemed that the love of your life leaving you for a younger model could fuck with your neuro pathways in ways that also couldn’t be fixed, and were just as fucking frustrating.
Thanks again, Dad.
When he walked out to ‘live his life before it was too late’, Mom had a meltdown. We managed to get over that, but when she left, Mom blamed herself and had a mini nervous breakdown, reckoned that she could have stopped her. It brought back a reassurange of the emotions we thought she was over after my dad and for a while, things got bad. In the end, they put her on suicide watch in a hospital I really hated visiting. She was a completely different person than when she went in. When they finally let me take her home, she’d become this dependent shell and she’d been the same ever since. As an only child, I got it all; there was no break. It wasn’t like I could leave her be. That would mean a third person she loved in her life had fucked her over.
“Knife,” I muttered, beginning our usual process of elimination. “Ma, were you cooking? Go back into the kitchen.”
“Oh, kitchen, cooking. Shoot!”
“What is it?” I listened as she started to cough and splutter, then the phone clattered onto what I assumed was the kitchen counter. “Ma? Ma… Ma! Fuck!” I shouted until she finally picked up the phone.
“You shouldn’t curse like that,” she wheezed.
I looked to the heavens, begging the big guy for some patience. “Do I need to come home?”
“No, I forgot I’d put some bread in the toaster oven. It’s carbonized now.” She laughed. Laughed! Like she hadn’t just scared the shit out of me.
“You need to do one thing at a time, Ma. The mail can sit there until you open it, and whoever was calling will call back. Open all the windows and get some air in. I’ll call after work and make sure all is okay.”
“You’re a good boy—”
I cut her off. I knew where this was going. Her guilt mechanism was kicking in and I didn’t have time for it. “Gotta get back, shit to do. Love you, Ma.”
“Oh, that mouth of yours.”
I hung up before she could continue.
“Everything okay?” Angel appeared like a magician’s assistant right on cue. She’d perfected this art since we’d become friends and she knew about the pressures I faced with mom.
I pulled in some much needed patience and plastered a smile on my face. “Yeah. Usual.”
“Can I help?”
“You already do.” She did. She popped round and took the kids to see Ma when the autoshop was overloaded and I was looking at working overtime to get shit done. It was nice to have someone to look in on her and make sure she wasn’t repainting the living room with a blow torch. God love the woman, but when she got a wild hair, she worked hard to see it through.
“Maybe it’s time to get some help.”
This was something only a couple of people could say to me and not feel the rough edge of my tongue. “We’ve been through this,” I muttered. “She ain’t ill, disabled or anything else that qualifies for me putting her in a facility.”
“I’m not talking about a facility. I’m talking about moving her out of your family home, away from the memories. Put her near some people her age and give her some friends. Help her find the desire to start again.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Angel knew I was dismissing her. What she suggested wasn’t without merit, but it still entailed me packing my mom off somewhere else where not only would she be alone, but so would I.
“I know she’s not ill. She’s just built some walls in her head to cope with life’s pressures.” I watched as she smiled. “I mean, you have to give her points for actually getting the mower in the living room to have a go at trimming the carpet.”
Like she always did, she made me laugh. It wasn’t funny at the time, but how she got Dad’s old petrol mower into the house was a feat of endurance itself. I was only thankful she didn’t think to try to use the weed wacker first.
“You coming to the party tonight?”
“Yeah, unless I’ve got an emergency paint job on because Mom forgot she put bread in the toaster oven.” She shook her head and followed me as I headed back to the workshop. “Hear you’ve got a new nanny.”
“Yeah. Been meeting her in town and at parks to make sure she gels with Little Angel. So far so good. She’s at the house today under my mom’s watchful eye.”
“She a local?” I honestly thought that Wolf and Angel had exhausted most of the local options.
“Used to be. Been back a month or two.”
“Great, look forward to meeting her.”
No doubt, if she stuck it out, she’d become a regular fixture. Little Angel was turning into her mom and proving to most generations that gender specific jobs and interests were just horse shit. Wolf spent as much time teaching her how to work a motor as he did their boy, Liam.
“But seriously, you need to start living your own life. You’re hot,” she gestured. She’d always told me so. Angel was brutally honest and on one night when we were both drunk during a club party, she’d asked me if I was gay. I burst out laughing because at that point in my life, I didn’t take body hygiene and grooming seriously enough to be gay. Apparently, she hadn’t seen me with a girl and wondered. At that time, I was just coming out of something heavy.
The heavy I was involved in convinced me that relationships were destined to destroy you. If the other person didn’t fuck you over, they died eventually and left you anyway. It wasn’t like I needed to look at my parent’s relationship to know this. I’d had faith once despite my parents’ fuck up, and I still got it wrong. I thought it was going all the way, but you know what thought did… misguided you to fuck and broke your heart.
I wasn’t stupid. When I looked in the mirror, I knew what I saw. My overlong brown hair did its own thing, but usually just split straight down the middle and hung close to touching my ears. Some people paid a fortune for the style I was lucky enough to have been given by Mother Nature. I had a typically square male jaw that was permanently covered in stubble that was just a couple of days off needing a serious shave, but no one noticed any of that when they spotted my eyes. They were green, like emeralds, and I had no idea where I’d got them from. They had hypnotic powers, so getting ladies wasn’t a problem. My looks overrode my hostile personality and I was in there. I didn’t get close to people. I’d bonded with my brothers but that was it. I was ice cold, motherfucking Arctic, and it suited me. Beside the club, the only people who saw any different were Angel and my mom. My mom needed me; she gave me life and I’d take care of her until I literally couldn’t anymore, and Angel, well she just forced her way in. When that girl went after something, nothing got in her way.
I usually picked women up for fun and then struggled to unhook their claws from my skin once the fun stopped, and that was the problem. Generally, it was easier to just steer clear. At six feet tall, I was well built and looked after myself, and all those years ago, if I’d made a move on Angel, I might have pulled it off, but fate had other ideas and some things just weren’t meant to be. In any case, I definitely preferred to have her in my life as one of my best friends than an awkward ex.
“Who does my wife think is hot? Mighta fuckin’ known it would be you,” Wolf joked, knowing that I never posed any threat to his happy marriage. Knowing he’d suffer no guilt or remorse from leaving me lifeless in a shallow grave made his confidence both acceptable and understandable. Wolf had a past; we were all intricately involved in it somehow through the Black Sentinels and we felt connected because of it. He knew the love I had for Angel and because I’d take a bullet for him, her or the kids, I earned his r
espect and gratitude.
As soon as Angel laid eyes on her old man, I was gone and forgotten. Proof positive that stars aligned and sometimes people got their happy endings.
Just not all of us.
This was going to be one of these times where he made some shit excuse about helping her in the office and we all knew what that meant. The two of them were like couple goals—fought like crazy most of the time, but always woke up and fell asleep next to each other. After what they’d been through it was no surprise.
They lived every day exactly like JP had advised them years ago, because it was nearly too late, and I couldn’t have been happier for them.
But still, I was as jealous as fuck about it.
I wanted it. I’d thought I had it once, and then fate had proved me very fucking wrong.
Gears
Mom hadn’t managed to burn the kitchen down. The smell of burning bread was still cloggy and stuck in everything, though. Minimum she was going to need new drapes for the kitchen. It looked like it had been close, though. The back of the toaster oven was covered in thick, black powder. Thank fuck she’d remembered it just in time. I didn’t live at home with her, but the more twisted up her thinking got, the more I thought I might have to. I called in to see her every day and so far it had worked for us, but I was starting to worry this shit was escalating and she was going to hurt herself.
Over the years, I’d paid for a lot of medical professionals and shrinks to check her out and they all said the same thing. There was nothing medically wrong with her. Her brain was just working through emotional trauma in the way it wanted. Based on that I figured she’d be ‘right’ in a month maybe two. I had not banked on this shit lasting years.
After I’d helped her clean up as best as we could to lessen the smell, she made us dinner. That was the odd thing: the times when you expected her to be a little off her rocker, she was as right as rain. She didn’t concoct crazy food shit you were scared of eating. She went about it with a purpose because she had someone to look after and it was like it soaked up the space in her brain that was constantly going over her losses. Sometimes I worried that she cooked, served and chatted like she was expecting Dad home from work. It was only when she was alone and remembered those she’d lost and blamed herself for that her brain spiraled into crazy town.
“How was work?”
“Busy. Angel says hi.”
“Tell her I miss those babies and she needs to come visit.” Mom’s eyes sparkled.
“She will.”
“You need to find a nice girl like…” She swallowed as she was about to say her name.
I shut her down rapidly. “Ma, I’ll get a nice girl when I’ve got time.”
Mom was devastated when Angel got it together with Wolf. Our friendship was solid and Mom had always hoped that things would head to the next level. Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts and apparently, that was one of the reasons for his mid-life fuck up. Hearing him tell her he regretted not sowing his wild oats back in college, and how because he’d only ever been intimate with her, he owed it to himself to see what else was out there, was a real sickener. The thing is, no matter how many times I balled him out because he was a selfish cunt, I really wanted to tell him that I understood. No one should live a life they’re unhappy in. I got it. I just didn’t approve of how he went about it. My dad’s need to be utterly selfish completely destroyed my mom. She’d followed him to college, never used the degree she worked her ass off for, gave him the family he wanted and kept his home for him so he could climb the corporate ladder. The same corporate ladder he ended up fucking despising.
“I wish things had worked out for you with… her. If only I’d checked on her that day,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I couldn’t hear her name. It was like shoving a red-hot poker through my sternum. Fucking painful and hard to hide just how much it hurt, but I’d had a lot of practice over the years because Mom never shut up about her.
I schooled my insides and forced the same dead calm across my outward appearance and shrugged it off. The best way to get Mom to shut the fuck up about her was to feign indifference.
Still.
“Fuck, Ma, Let’s not fucking do this. It was what it was. None of it was your fault. I’m more to blame than you.”
“Mouth!”
I rose from my seat at the dinner table before she began again. “You okay to clear the table? I need to get back to the club.”
“Another one of those wild night party things. I know what goes on. I’ve seen Sons of Anarchy.”
“Not going over this again. I work there. They’re my friends and Sons of Anarchy is a drama designed to freak normal folk like you out. It’s trash and you shouldn’t be watching it.”
Every damn time.
I was sure she thought I was a drug runner. Thankfully, that wasn’t the Black Sentinels and any connection we had to it, through Wolf and the Carnals, had been handed off with pleasure to the mother fuckers I truly despised, the Hermano Del Mal. We really were just a club of brothers who happened to ride motorcycles and fix and restore cars.
“Then why do you need to wear that leather vest?”
“Because it’s cold on the back of a Harley,” I threw back flippantly.
“Then it needs some sleeves. I’ll make some for you.”
“Christ,” I muttered. “No, Ma, don’t do that. I’ll get one with sleeves before the winter turns.” I could only imagine how she’d conjure those up.
Her lips peaked up into a smile and she seemed satisfied. Hopefully that was disaster averted. I leaned over the top of her as I rounded the table, knowing she’d be in bed less than an hour after I kissed her head and walked out the door. I always left it late to go to parties, leaving less time for her to be alone and disaster to strike. Then I’d come back in the morning and check in on her before my shift started. I had no idea why I didn’t just move back in. I spent less than ten hours a night at my place and eight of those were usually when I was flat out sleeping.
My ride back to the club was the same old route. Out of the manicured HOA environment that was another contributing reason for my dad’s past unhappiness. The day I brought my Harley home had not been a good one, and it wasn’t long before I got my own place just to escape the prejudice bullshit. Neither Mom nor Dad had wanted the grief from the committee about a supposed gang hooligan living amongst them. Turning left out of the gates, I hit the freeway doing a steady fifty-five in the zone, careful not to attract the wrong attention. The local police knew what we were about, but keeping on the right side of the law was still important. The freeway took me through town, which apart from seven-elevens and a few food diners was all closed up. The main strip wasn’t huge and the sound of my Harley’s pipes reverberated off buildings and glasswork stood high to both sides of me. Once out in the open, I was on the home straight. After a few miles, I could flex the throttle a bit more and really get to grips with my bike. Our club compound and the autoshop were in the middle of nowhere. The only houses nearby were that of JP and Vix, and within walking distance of that, Wolf and Angel. If you didn’t have motor business or weren’t in the know about a party to attend, there was no way to wander onto the land by accident. We didn’t signpost the autoshop. There was no need. Our reputation pulled in enough business and anyone wanting washer fluid, windshield wipers or tires could get them from the places in town. We’d survived locally with our business reputation because we didn’t take anyone else’s livelihood away from them. We’d survived locally with our reputation as a motorcycle club because we didn’t shit where we lived and community was important to all of us, after all, that was why most of us were part of it; we wanted the sense of belonging.
When I turned down the well-kept lane that led to the club house, I saw the lights around me change. We always kept the tarmac fresh. We needed to purely because of the traffic. Heavy trailers and low loaders delivering parts, shells and cars chewed it up, and the last thing any of
us needed was to be bumping our Harleys up and down a piece of shit road. As I progressed further along it, the security lights stated to ping on either side of me. These were a result of Wolf’s trouble from the past. Since then, if anyone was coming towards his house and business during the dead of night, he wanted to know about it in advance. Angel told me that the brightness lit their bedroom up like a football stadium and that was warning enough.
The entrance to the compound was secured with fifteen-foot high gates and a wire fence, all topped off with razor wire. After all, if they could get into the compound then the autoshop was vulnerable. A couple of prospect-cum-trainee mechanics were working the gates and they swung open as soon as they saw me get closer. After our last encounter with a rogue prospect, it took Wolf, JP, Wave and me some time to look for new recruits. In the end we agreed that no one would simply be just a prospect. They had to be invested in the business and learn the trade as well. This weeded out the mech guys who thought they were too good for a bunch of bikers, and the bikers who were solely SAMCRO wannabees and under some illusion they’d be making a mint from drugs, strip clubs and guns. We still rode them hard, though. They got the shit jobs—like tonight, instead of being able to carouse and hook up, they’d spend all night sober watching the gate so the rest of us could kick back. Their time would come; they’d just need to earn it first.
Gigi: A Black Sentinels MC Novel Page 19