Page 205 of True Blue

MARCH

The rideshare drops me off right in front of the house, and I have to double-check that I am at the right address. It looks completely different from when I was here in July.

The usually manicured lawn is unkempt, as are the shrubs lining the walkway. My father’s truck isn’t in the driveway, which isn’t completely uncommon, but the lack of lawn care is a big red flag. This isn’t days or even weeks of neglect, this is months.

The sun has started setting, but all of the little candle lights my mother has in the windows are knocked over, or the bulbs are completely out.

All the lights are off inside, and as I step onto the porch, I notice all of her precious potted flowers are knocked over or dead. I look next door toward Colleen and Lily’s house and briefly wonder if my mother is over there… and what Colleen thinks of the state of the house. And what the neighbors think. Because that’s what truly matters to my mother, but if she’s allowed the outside of the house to fall apart like this…

What the hell has happened in the last eight months?

I don’t knock—she doesn’t deserve the fucking courtesy—and find the door unlocked anyway.

Reaching for the switch beside the front door, I turn on the light and find it flickering and weak—something wonky in the electrical. Something my dad would have fixed immediately.

“What the fuck?” I whisper once I get a good look at my childhood house. It looks like a tornado tore through this normally immaculate space.

The picture-perfect family photos my mother made us dress up for, the ones she showed off to every guest who walked through our door, are hanging crooked or smashed on the floor.

Broken glass crunches under my boots. The expensive decor that my mother cluttered every available surface with is either broken or gone. Though I find that ugly gold pregnant figurine she treasured half-buried in the wall like someone threw it.

From the foyer, I can see into the dining room, where my mother’s good china is broken on the floor and the table. The family photo is torn down from the wall and smashed to the ground. A tear goes right between my parents, my sisters, and me. How fitting.

The floor is dirty, covered in leaves and dirt and god knows what else, looking like it hasn’t been cleaned in months.

“Well, I finally have your attention.”

The voice makes me jump. Turning, I startle when I see my mother in her sitting room, which is as trashed as the rest of the house. That’s not what startles me, though.

My mother’s normally perfect hair is flat and straggly. Her face is completely bare of makeup, with dark circles under her eyes, deep lines in her face. The color of her skin is sickly and sallow. And she’s—what the fuck—wearing stained gray sweatpants and the baseball mom t-shirt.

A half-full glass of wine is in her hand, and an open bottle on the table next to her, the same brand as the numerous empty bottles scattered on the ground.

I came here to try to maybe see if there is any sense of humanity left in her. But as I look at her, all I feel is years of pent up rage and resentment.

I lose control.

“Yeah, that’s all you ever fucking want, isn’t it?” I snarl, slamming the front door closed. “Attention.”

“Theodore! How dare you—” she snarls, but I cut right through it.

“How dare you!” I roar, making her jump and spill some of the wine.

I just had to hold the love of my life in my arms as she completely broke down, thinking that years of work were for nothing.

Months and months of disrespect toward Indie that I allowed. Months wasted after Indie left me, missing out on spending the vacation together, all because I saw too late that my mother was pulling strings I was too scared to cut.

“You… you are fucking creepy, overbearing, parasitic, and vile,” I snarl at my mother. “You are the most pathetic woman alive.”

“Oh, that poor girl has her claws in you deeper than I realize,” she says, having the audacity to sound concerned for me, to still place the blame on Indie.

I laugh helplessly. “And every fucking word out of your mouth is bullshit! I know you reported Indie to the board.”

She sniffs, haughty still, even now.

“I brought up concerns,” she shrugs, but her voice shakes. “That’s all I did—concerns any sane person would have!”

“You are trying to ruin Indie’s career!” I roar, my voice so furious it rattles the broken glass everywhere. “Something you’ve never respected, so I guess you can’t feel the weight of what’s at stake. To actually work for something so fucking hard, and have some selfish, insignificant, greedy person try to take it all away.”