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I look back on it all often, I think about it too much, and my life has fallen into categories—in spite of everything—gradations of her.
Life before Scarlett. Life with Scarlett. Life after Scarlett.
Wanting her.
Needing her.
Having her.
Losing her.
But always, always, there was a cloud looming over our heads, a storm on the brink, and in my mind, at least, there is only one person to blame for it.
*****
From my earliest memories, I had a complicated relationship with my mother.
She taught me to knot a tie, play chess, and to never, ever turn my back on her.
I kept Scarlett from my mother as much as I could for as long as I could. Hid the one I held most dear from the one I most feared.
I sheltered Scarlett from her. Protected her as much as I could. She had enough to contend with in her life without my terrifying mother adding to it.
I kept her hidden as best I could, but of course, that couldn't last forever. Scarlett and I were inseparable. There was bound to be some overlap.
It was the strangest thing, if you ever caught my mother off guard it was like walking in on a corpse. There was not one ounce of animation to her. She was inanimate, staring off into nothing, and if you startled her, her face went on like an alarm going off.
Like stepping on a snake, she struck before you fully understood what you'd done.
I'd caught her like that once and learned to avoid it.
Still, I thought about it. It creeped me the hell out. What did she do when she was so deep in her own mind that she seemed to leave her body?
I was young when I pondered that, very young, and the older I got the more apparent the answer was.
She was plotting. Always plotting.
An enemy's downfall, a friend's humiliation, a rival's shame.
A husband's misery.
A son's ruin.
She never lived in the moment. She only lived for her latest trap to spring.
And she always had some web to spin. Everyone in her sphere played some part in the spinning, whether they knew it or not.
There was one thing of value about being her only son; I did learn to deal with her.
Or so I thought.
When I was young and stupid, I thought I'd gotten the best of her, thought I had the keys to keeping her in check for the foreseeable future.
She let me think so, I later realized. She was playing a longer game than I could have anticipated.
The key when it came to my mother was control. If you broke it all down that was all she wanted from anyone, to have power over them.
But that didn't work until you had a weakness to exploit.
