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My mom follows after me while he’s distracted and I’m thankful to have a second alone with her.
“Bodhi,” her voice is pleading, but I have to do this.
I can’t leave her behind, though.
I won’t.
“Mom, I want you to go upstairs and pack a bag. We can come back for the rest later,” I tell her, and her frantic eyes widen in fear.
“Bodhi, I can’t. He won’t… Bodhi,” she crosses one arm over her chest and fingers her necklace with the other.
“Mom, I lost one parent this week, and I will not stand by and let that man take you from me as well.”
A tear slips down her cheek, and I know that this will probably be the second hardest thing she’s ever going to have to do. But I will stand by her side through all of it.
“Mom, please? I love you, and I can’t stand by any longer and watch him treat you the way that he does. Pack your stuff, come live with me for now,” I beg her.
Her eyes soften and I think that maybe I’ve almost got her. She always had the hardest time telling me know when I was little. That was, until my dad forbade her from coddling me anymore. He was afraid it would make me too soft.
“Honey, I don’t want to impose on you,” she says, a sad smile gracing her quivering lips.
“Mom, if I asked, then it’s not an imposition,” I say, lifting my lips into a cheeky smirk.
Her smile fills my chest with warmth.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Listen, I don’t know much yet, but Rob found out that Nana and Pops left me their house and property,” I say, and she gasps, clearly never having known this before.
Thompson, that sly bastard. He kept everything from her.
“He’s looking into seeing what needs to be done, but I want to move them back home. Hire some help, and maybe we can add onto the house, and you can stay with them,” I suggest, and her hopeful gaze never leaves mine.
I see her mulling it over for all of ten seconds before turning to listen for any noises coming from the living room.
We’re met with silence. She draws her bottom lip between her teeth and looks up at me, nodding silently.
“Be fast. Like I said, we’ll come back when he’s at work,” I say and she nods, rushing up the stairs.
I wait in the foyer in case he decides to try anything to stop her. When she rushes back down no more than five minutes later, I take her bag from her, and we leave that house.
Hopefully, once and for all.
Bodhi
After dropping my mom off at my house, I head back to the hospital.
The amount of relief I feel knowing that my mom isn’t in that house anymore, that we’re taking the steps toward a better, safer life, is astronomical.
I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in years.
Things before Tommy’s death weren’t much different, but we tolerated it more. Tommy was always the buffer between dad and the rest of us. Like a shield that protected the rest of the family from the very worst of dad. But with Tommy gone, dad had no one left that he truly cared about.
He let the façade drop and stopped pretending to be a decent person.
I hated him for so much of my childhood. Hated that he couldn’t spare an ounce of love for me, and instead bestowed it all on my brother.
I resented Tommy some days as well. I didn’t understand what was happening, or how to deal with such big emotions at such a young age.
