“I don’t want to,” she snapped before easing into the warm water mixed with Epsom salts. Feeling helpless, I grabbed a washcloth and started gently running it over her skin. Without clothes, my mother looked too thin. I could count the bones in her spine, each disk protruding against her thin black-and-blue skin. She bent her knees and rested her chin against them, the bones cutting into her face as she let out a sigh. “I just have to stay here a couple days while he calms down. It’ll get better, you know. I just need to let him relax. He doesn’t want to see me like this. It hurts him to see me like this. I know he feels guilty. He loves me so much. I made him angry. It was my fault—”
“Mom,” I replied gently, as if worried I’d spook her. “It wasn’t your fault. You can’t go back to Joseph like this.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Vera,” she gritted as I ran the cloth over a particularly nasty cut on her back. Some of her injuries looked older, like this had been going on for a while.
“Has this happened before?”
“Joseph is a passionate man,” Mom mumbled. “He feels things stronger than everyone else. It’s what attracted me to him. I like it rough.”
I gagged. “This isn’t rough, Mom. This is brutal.”
A single tear fell down her cheek, and I wiped it away. “You can’t go back there.”
“And where would I go, Vera? I have nothing. We have nothing,” she sobbed. “I can handle this, okay?”
I exhaled before lathering up shampoo in my palm and scrubbing her scalp. She jumped when my nails ran over a tender spot of baldness. He ripped out her fucking hair.
“How do I always end up like this?” Mom asked.
“Like what?”
“Helpless, letting my daughter clean up my mess.”
I scoffed. “You had me when you were fifteen. You worked three jobs to raise me. You’ve always taken care of me.”
“We both know that’s a lie, Vera. You learned how to make dinner when you were eight years old,” Mom replied. “You were folding laundry at six. Watching yourself, getting yourself ready for school when you were barely five.” Soft tears sank down her defeated expression, but she looked proud of me in that moment. “You grew up fast. Faster than you should have.”
“So did you,” I replied warmly. “You took care of a baby you didn’t want when you were just a baby yourself.”
“You think I didn’t want you?” Mom said, crying harder now. “Is that really how you feel?”
“I know who my father is. I know you didn’t—”
“I wanted you, Vera. The moment I saw those two little lines on a cheap dollar store pregnancy test, I knew my life was going to change. Every good thing in my life starts and ends with you. You helped me find a strength within myself I never knew existed. Everything I do is because I want you to have a better life than I did. Because I love you so very dearly, baby. I might be a mess. I might not go about things the right way. I say the wrong thing. I let my ambition get in the way. And yes, I resent that my life was stolen from me, but I don’t resent you. I have failed as a mother if you think for even a second that I don’t love you.”
I stopped washing her hair and leaned back, my own tears flowing freely now. “I’ve felt like this obligation. Something holding you back.”
Mom reached out and cupped my cheek. “You push me forward. I wake up every single day knowing I have you in my life.”
I hugged her wet body, not caring that she was getting my pajamas drenched. “You don’t have to stay with Joseph, Mom,” I whispered. “We were plenty happy before. We can be happy again.”
“It’s not that easy, baby. He’s my husband.”
“He’s your abuser,” I replied.
That word sent a shiver through her thin body. “I don’t want to talk about this. He wouldn’t be angry if you’d stop this nonsense with Hamilton.”
It was like she slammed a wall between us, ruining the sentimental moment. Grabbing a nearby cup, she rinsed her hair of shampoo by dumping the water on her head like a baptism. I watched her for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know what I’m doing with Hamilton,” I admitted. It felt good to finally talk about him with my mother. Even if she didn’t approve, I needed to get it off my chest. “Sometimes, it feels like he could be the one, Mom.”
Mom’s mouth dropped open, but she schooled her expression quickly. “You’re too young to have the one.”
“We have this connection I can’t explain. I tried to stay away. It’s not just physical. But sometimes, I feel like I don’t know him. The Beauregards have a lot of secrets…”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Mom mumbled.
“What do you mean?”
Mom grabbed the conditioner and started coating the ends of her hair with it, working it up to her scalp with slow, methodical movements. “It’s better if you don’t know. I had no idea just how far their reach is…”
“More of a reason to get out while we can, Mom.”
“It’s too late
