My Other Mother Ch. 13

Minutes passed like years while I waited and worried myself sick, but she finally stepped outside with a half filled bottle of the place's home brew in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Finishing the bottle, she tossed it into the shadows and spoke a short command.

"Let's go."

Once again, I stumbled along in her wake out on the street lit sidewalks of the bicentennial city, but somehow finding the nerve to ask, "Mum, wh- what happened in there?"

"Never mind."

"But-"

"Never -- mind!"

I didn't bug. In fact, I never ever asked her what went on in that underground club since then. At the time, the uncomfortable chill that ran up my spine insisted that I didn't want to know after all.

We went home after that. She stayed on her feet by the door, not having removed her raincoat as she looked at me after I slumped in my chair. Her earlier attention to my face and body were killing me and all the walking I'd just done didn't help. Still, I deserved that, too. That and so much more that I had no right to complain.

"We only have three more days here at the most," she stated in that neutral, yet cool tone. "You're not going back to work. You're staying right here. Until then, the only place you go without the supervision of myself or Roxy is to the bathroom down the hall and back."

"Yes, Mum," I depressively agreed.

"You're sleeping alone tonight. I want you to think about the outcomes of your actions. I want you to see every wrong step you took, starting with the very first one and why. I want you to learn well from this experience and never, ever repeat mistakes like the ones you've made."

"Yes, Mum."

I felt her stare for a few seconds longer before she turned and opened the door in preparation to leave.

"Mum, I... I'm sorry. I know the mess I made and the cost. I know I endangered you and... disappointed you... and I'm so sorry. I know that can't ever cover it, but it's all I... all I can..."

" ... Marcie doesn't hate you. She doesn't ever want to see or talk to you again, but she understands your fears and... she pities you. ... She pities us both."

I looked up at that, but she was already in the hall, our door quietly closing behind her.

Part 5

Things stiffened up overnight and I woke with a lot of pain the next morning. It was, in fact, the reason I woke up. I couldn't see out of my left eye, my lower lip felt like a salami and, even if I was allowed to go to work, there was no way I was in condition for it with the upper body pain that almost took my breath away when I got carefully out of bed.

Grabbing the sheet, I threw it over my head and wrapped myself in it for a trip to the bathroom with the shower bag, the only visible part of me being my beaten, bruised and sore face which I directed to the floor on the way. With nothing on underneath the sheet, I simply threw it over the hook on the bathroom door, started a hot shower and got in.

Mum and I had murdered a family member. Shit. Audrey was dead. Holy shit.

I felt fractionally better once I got my teeth brushed and, draped in the sheet as I was when I got there, I was about to leave when I caught my face in the mirror. The person who looked back seemed so... unfamiliar. I wiped the steam from the mirror and stared. It wasn't just the black eye, swollen lip and the rest of the bruises, but how that one good eye looked back at me.

"You can't hack this. Can you?"

I waited a few moments, but I didn't answer.

Back at our room, I downed four Tylenol, turned on the television and eased myself onto the mattress, checking on current world and finance news in an effort to get my mind off recent events, but my thoughts soon turned to those things anyway.

Yes, my other mother was right about being more my mother than the person who came across the country with me was and I had to accept that, yet there was no doubt that the intensity level of her passions ran hotter than they did before all our troubles began. I couldn't ever imagine the woman I then knew as my mother killing someone, however, nor could I imagine what kind of personal baggage she'd been carrying around all these years after being terrorized by her mother from early childhood on, hindered by a mind warping parasite at the same time.

It seemed that the parasite lived at a certain ratio of control within its host, taking from that person their abilities and feelings to use as their own to different limitations, depending on age and level of substance abuse. There was no real 'other mother' when it came right down to it, only a different ratio of control than before.

At some point, I dozed off while sitting against the headboard, suddenly coming awake again with a start. It seemed like I'd only closed my eyes for a couple seconds, but I could tell by the angle and quality of the sun's light in the room that a couple hours had passed. The reason I woke with a start was because Mum was standing in the middle of the room staring at me in her red, short sleeved pullover that showed moderate cleavage and a short, black skirt with high heels.

In my sleep, I'd kicked the single sheet down to my knees and, lying naked on my back, Mum was getting a good look at what all she'd been able to accomplish with her fists the night before. I painfully tugged the sheet up to cover myself to my neck, not knowing whether I should say anything and feeling quite awkward under her silent inspection.

Spinning on her heel, she walked out of the room, not having said anything, showing no expression or hint at her feelings. After almost five minutes, I began making my painful way off the mattress again, thinking she wasn't coming back, but as I came to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, she did.

"(ahem) Have you eaten?" she quietly asked without looking at me

"No." I answered in the same tone, just as unwilling to look at her.

"Neither have I. I'll fix us something."

I eased myself into a pair of boxers while she silently prepared two bowls of ravioli from a can, heating one after the other in the microwave oven. I sat across from her at the table and we shared a quiet meal where we both continued to avoid each other's eyes until we were finished. Digging her cigarettes out of her purse, she lit one, exhaling smoke towards the open window before looking at me to speak.

"I, um... I know that you were only trying to look out for me. After speaking to Pastor Marx, I also know that things can't have been easy for you these past few weeks, on top of what we already went through... I should have been taking that more into account. I... kinda lost it last night. You didn't deserve... I'm sorry, honey, I shouldn't have done that to you."

" ... It's okay, Mum. You were just mad and you had every reason to be."

"No, don't make excuses for me and what I did. I look at you and I can barely believe that it was me who... If it was someone else, I'd have killed them and I wouldn't have cared about their reasons for doing that to you. I'm, uhhh... quite upset with myself."

"I deserved it."

"No you didn't. You made some mistakes, but your heart was in the right place. You didn't nudge Audrey off that bridge. You wanted to help her, like you were trying to help me. You just got confused and messed up on protocol."

"Mum... just forget about it. You know I love you and I'm the one I'm mad at, not you."

A slow, sad smile grew on her face and she said, "I love you too, Son. You're a good boy."

"If that's true, I have you to thank for it."

"Oh... sweetie pie," she toned, a tear leaking out of one of her eyes as she got up and came over to my side of the table.

Bending at the waist, she carefully put her arms around me, clasping her hands at the top of my back while we shared tender kisses that wouldn't hurt.

"Um, can we uhh... put this behind us?" she asked with an even lower, personal tone. "I mean, there are some details we'll be discussing regarding this parasite, as you call it, but I'd like to put our mistakes behind us. We've never carried grudges with each other and this would be the worst time to start. Okay?"

"Okay, Mum."

" ... Thanks, honey," she told me with a grateful, but careful smile. "I'm going to the drug store to get some stuff that'll make you feel better, get you healed up quicker."

"Alright."

"I uhh, I told Roxy you got into a bar, got drunk and started a fight because... I don't want her to look at me like..."

"I understand."

"Okay, thanks. ... Well, I should get going."

"Sure."

I looked at the door after she left, processing what had just happened between us and feeling relief that she was capable of regret and forgiveness.

Part 6

After half covering my upper body with Icy Cold patches, a few cuts and scrapes on my face with ointment, she sat back, trying not to have to focus on her work too much as she regarded me with a cigarette.

"Do you remember when she said we were in danger?" Mum asked out of the blue.

" ... Marie? Yes. She said somebody's been messing around with our heads."

"In our heads," she corrected. "I didn't think anything of it at the time because she was always such a liar and I had my own plans of getting what she knew anyway, but she wasn't lying. Somebody had... touched her mind. Like we can do."

I blinked back at her, wondering how she could be sure of this. She went on to answer that.

"Okay, you remember that time I thought I smelled something strange that day you got home from work?"

"Yes, it was her. Like she could smell me and tell I'm your son."

"Exactly. I knew as soon as I walked into her room what that smell on you was that day, who it was. Like that smell, I... It's hard to explain, but I could tell somebody'd been there in her head. Like walking into an empty room that somebody was just smoking a cigarette in. You know?"

" ... I think so."

"I'm assuming that wasn't you in your grandmother's head?"

"No. She's the one who had me."

"You've told me about everyone you've met, right? Everybody who seemed of any note, or interest at all?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Hmm..." she toned thoughtfully, pursing her lips and looking at the floor for a moment. "See, the thing is that Marie didn't send you that dream you told me about, the one where Pastor Marx told you to check along the shoreline. Trust me, I'd know if she did, like I know she sent you the one about her with the paring knives and the ones I'd been having. Those were her, but not that first one you had. Also, that little moment that you experienced when that dream clicked, when you were out walking around and you saw the painting?"

"Yes."

"That sounds an awful lot like a nudge to me, yet if it was, I'd... Well, when we looked into each other's eyes and shared one another that night, I'd have known it then if somebody'd been at you. Like I knew someone was in her head. But then, I didn't see that she'd been in yours... Maybe she wasn't deep enough... or she could remove any trace of her being there..."

We both beheld one another now in thought, our eyes meeting and bringing us closer to a sort of warmth that's not physical and never could be.

" ... Sheila?" I quietly threw out. "She was there two years ago. She'd have had opportunity."

"True, but... Well, Mum thought of Sheila too, but she wasn't anywhere near convinced. She suspected me, but she was leaning more towards the devil being responsible."

"That's comforting."

"She was crazy. So, you're sure you've never been approached by anyone who...?"

"Not that I remember, no."

" ... Interesting," she commented.

Still having that light eye contact, I easily interpreted, "You don't like this."

"No. I don't. There's so much we don't know and I don't like feeling disadvantaged in the face of a possible adversary who's on our level."

"Neither do I. But, if I was nudged, how was it done? We have to be sharing direct eye contact to do that, but I was just walking along by myself."

"I know... Well, she didn't have to be looking at either of us to send those dreams, did she? She used you very effectively as a stepping stone to get close to me from Shoreline. Maybe..."

"Um, did you learn much from her?"

She nodded, replying, "Yes I did, but much of what she knew was beyond me, at least right now. Her ability to get into our dreams, for example. I know in an instinctive sense how she did it, but without the developed ability, I can't... even describe it. I only partially understand it."

"What about the parasite itself?"

"It's definitely foreign. It's not something that's... It's from without and the word 'parasite' does indeed describe it well from what Mum came to know about it. She didn't have much more of an idea of what it actually is, or where it came from than I do, but her opinion was that... it brings insanity with it. She remembered her mother as addled, her grandmother as... Well, never mind that.

After a mutually thoughtful and dark pause, I offered, "Know what else I don't like?"

"What?"

"Being here. In this city. I suddenly can't wait until we leave here, especially now that there's someone out there that we don't know about."

"I feel the same way. ... Still, don't worry. Just think about it and try to remember somebody you may have forgotten, a strange thing about some seeming nobody that you may have dismissed. Anything."

"I will. Mum... I don't know exactly what you're doing out there when you say you're working, but please be careful, alright? Cause that stuff worries me a lot."

"Son, my line of work requires knowledge, a lot of patience, observation, careful setup and the ability to recognize little opportunities here and there. Comparatively, the risky stuff is very short lived and... almost accidental in nature. What happened at Shoreline was different. That was personal, not business, and I want to assure you that I'm much less visible, less real, when it's business."

" ... A stalker," I likened.

"Hmmm... A stalker plus. Have you ever seen big cats hunting on TV?"

"Yes."

"Well, think of me as a black panther in the jungle at night. I note my prey and its movements, how it's situated itself, how it will be situated while I set the stage and situate myself accordingly. Nobody sees me, nobody is aware of my movements or intentions, not even when the prey does something that would be completely fine on any other given night, except... That night, I was there and even my prey's sudden awareness doesn't last long. The tracks I leave behind are tragic circumstance and coincidence. Sweetie pie, I'm never really in any danger. I'm the danger."

I didn't quite know what to say after hearing her put it to me like that, after remembering her comments on how her work would change due to the evolution of her parasite.

"So, there's no need to worry about Mummy, only about doing what she says, right?"

"Right."

"You seem a bit shocked."

"Well, I... It's just the, uh... implications of what you said..."

"It's not exactly like you think. It's more like karma. What goes around comes around and sometimes I come around."

"But you're subject to karma, too."

"I don't necessarily believe in karma, I just used that as an example. Anyway, if karma does exist, it seems to work like this: Bad things happen to good people while good things happen to bad people. The presumption that it works the other way around exists because even false positives make people feel better and, because of that, the illusion is more popular."

"So, do good things or bad things happen to you?" I asked.

She suddenly showed me a tricky smile and asked, "You're asking if I'm good or bad. I don't know. I'm just that black panther in the night with a cub at home. I take what comes my way and I deal."

I nodded, taking this into thought as she got up, flicked her cigarette butt out the window and paced to the table. Mostly, I was wondering how much of this viewpoint of hers existed when I was growing up.

"I know how that sounds, you know," she informed while fishing around in her purse, "but in our so-called civilized society, we all exist that way, if only to a lesser extent. For example, the office politics your father dealt with before I steered him to a small partnership was unreal."

She turned with an open pint bottle of whiskey, took a drink and made a small face before approaching with it, explaining, "Were it not for me, he'd never have survived it. Like I say, he may have been excellent with numbers, but his social awareness was as short as his loyalty."

Sitting on the bed again, she passed me the bottle and went on while I took a sip and listened.

"My point is that everybody plays the game of life by their own rules and for the same fabulous prize of further ensured survival, often at the expense of others while easily justifying themselves in whatever ways it takes. When it comes down to it, maybe none of us are better than the other and there's no such thing as right and wrong except for a set of popular concepts that are just that and no more. Maybe it's all about your next meal and the people who help you get it. And if some piece of trash provides it according to my own ideas of right and wrong, which from my point of view are every bit as valid as anybody else's regardless of how many others say they agree, well so what?"

"You're an anarchist."

"In a sense, sure, but we all are. People say they believe in the law, yet when somebody gets caught for some heinous crime, everybody wants to hang him whether they have capital punishment or not, and most often before the trial. We speed like we own the roads, yet insult others who whip by us carelessly. The list goes on and on, but it should suffice to say that most people are hypocritical anarchists in that way. Like anyone else, I have my own opinions and I'll even voice them at times but, unlike most people, I really believe in them and I'm not ashamed of anything I've ever done by them."

"I take it you don't believe in God?" I assumed.

"Sure I do. If I ever run into him, I'll buy him a drink and ask for a job, but until then all I can do is wing it like everyone else. Look, this is pretty heavy, can we please change the subject?" she laughed.

"Yeah," I grinned, "but I thought it was interesting."

"As long as you don't think I'm... whatever. I usually don't talk to you about these things because I've never been sure you'd understand how I see life and my place in it. I was able to raise you differently than I was and... Well, it's all about perspective."

"I see you as my mother. You've never done anything but help me and I know that anyone who knows you, like Roxy, would only have really good things to say about you. That's always been more than good enough for me and it still is."

"Oh, sweetie pie... Thanks, I love you too. Um, we're really okay again, huh?"

"Yes."

"Good. And I don't want you to worry about that other matter of whoever it was traipsing through Marie's head. Think about it, but don't worry, we'll figure it out."

"Okay, Mum."

"And you're still grounded," she reminded with a smile.

"I know."

"Are you comfortable? Would you like anything?"

"Well... there is one thing."

"Name it."

Taking the bottom of her pullover in my fingers, I lifted it until it stretched over and above one of her lace cupped, large breasts. A sexy pushup bra, gray with light blue edging and only thinly padded held my eyes.

"Oh," she said, watching me palm and knead her breast.

"Yeah," I grinned. "Just sit there a minute and let me play with your tits."

"Oh, honey..."

"I love your lingerie, you know," I told her as I uncovered her other breast. "You always present so good, always smell so nice."

"And you're always so complimentive."