The Nuclear Family Pt. 04

"Robbie, my beautiful boy," she said mournfully. "I'm dying. No one except my doctor knows, not even your father, but I have had an inoperable brain tumour for the past two years. And for the past few months, the pain has been getting worse. Only the hope that I could see you has kept me going. Right now, I can hardly move my head, and I'm losing my sight."

I was in front of her in a flash, tears in my eyes.

"No Mum, sorry but no, there has to be something... I mean something we can do." I said, despite everything, this woman was still my Mum, I still loved her, to have her back in my life and now hear that I would lose her...

She smiled at me, her hands rubbing my hair like she did when we were young.

"It's way too late for that, Robbie. I've been holding on this past few months just to have some last memories with you and your beautiful family before I go home."

When she said home, I knew she didn't mean back to the Gold Coast.

"Mum, what about Dad? He'll need you," I said in desperation, not caring that I was invoking someone I hated.

She snorted quietly.

"Robbie, that man hasn't spoken a kind word to me or been intimate with me since this all began," Mum said sadly. "Your father has been attending that bloody swingers group with your brother and sister for years to meet his needs because I wouldn't give him what he wanted until he apologised to you."

I wanted to growl, my father again showing how depraved he was, but this moment was not about him.

"But Mum... I mean, it's not fair," I whined.

"It's okay, Robbie," Mum sighed; I think she knew where my head went with her admission. "It's alright. I got to see you again. I meant what I said that evening. You are the best of us; never forget that."

Her hand came out of my hair, and I looked up at her.

"Would you just sit with me, baby boy, hold my hand and let me watch the sunset with you?" Mum asked.

She smiled as I sat back down beside her, and I slipped my hand into hers. "One last, happy memory." She almost whispered.

The sunset was amazing that afternoon, seeing the sky move from yellows, oranges and red near the water up into purples and blues into the evening sky. The wind was gentle, and at some point, nothing was said, but William came out and sat in Mum's lap. Then Amy came out with Sarah, and we all just sat watching the sunset and later the moon rise.

We sat there as a family. My emotions were raw. A few times, my eyes met Mum's. She smiled; despite the morbid news, I knew she was happy.

As the moon rose overhead, I heard Mum sigh and slowly exhaled. Then, surrounded by my family, Mum passed into a coma.

For three days, she held on, the massive tumour pushing on her brain, cutting off the blood circulation to her brain. She never regained consciousness. Despite my animosity for them, I called and left messages for my family but never heard anything.

Someone must have leaked something on the second day because several news vans camped outside the hospital, hungry for news about the mother of Australia's fighting champion. Information spread quickly and again; parts of the audio captured from the fight and some of my more crushing blows were replayed over the evening news.

We never heard anything from Dad or Joanna; Brad was still in police custody awaiting trial, so he couldn't visit. But a timid Georgia turned up one morning with Peter and Rayne.

We let Georgia say her farewells. From what I understood, Mum had been the only one in the family who had treated Georgia with any respect over the past few years. On her way out of the room, with tears in her eyes, Georgia handed me a letter asking me to read it in a few months when everything had settled down. She left almost as quickly as she walked in.

Mum passed that afternoon, and it was widely reported in the news. Due to my notoriety, Mum's death was reported in Australia and on sports channels worldwide as the woman who slapped and scolded her son into winning an unwinnable fight.

At her funeral, there were a lot of people; some were very old friends of my mother's that had seen her death in the news and came to pay respects. Some were old employees of Total Build that recalled a friendly woman who always had time for them. Georgia attended with Peter, Rayne and Ruth. However, the seats for my father, Brad Jr and Joanna stayed empty.

I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I was pissed that someone who looked after them for so many years couldn't take the time to say farewell. On the other hand, with the media around, they wouldn't want to increase the scandal any further. Total Build has closed its doors two days after my last fight and hasn't re-opened. Rumour was that this latest bit of bad press, combined with the charges against my brother, Total Build, would close forever.

I was asked to take the podium to deliver the Eulogy. To be honest, this was going to be hard in front of friends, assorted family and, of course, the media. I had to get past a lot of hate from the past few years. I placed my notes on the podium before me and gazed at everyone. Right at the back, I saw a few people lurking, even someone who was trying not to be noticed and understood that for the first time, I was free to talk my way. My family did not constrain me in this instance.

I looked at Amy, holding Sarah, William sitting beside her, looking up at me, his Dad. I looked at Darren and Toni. I even looked at Georgia. Sadness etched on her face. But as I caught their eyes, each of them, even my ex-wife, smiled mournfully.

"Good afternoon everyone," I began to the assembled group of grievers.

"I want to thank you all for coming out to celebrate the life of Hattie Edwina Other, my mother. I don't think it's too much of a secret to anyone anymore that my family has had its share of challenges over the past few years."

There was a murmur in the crowd and even a few small chuckles.

"But the truth is that for years the only words I spoke with my mother were full of anger and malice about our family drama. From my perspective, my mother and the rest of my family had spurned me, treating me like a thing to help them make money, not a son to be supported and sympathised with.

"I learnt recently that my mother, in her own way, fought unsuccessfully against that approach; the night of the fight that you have all seen was the first time in years that I was able to hug my mother. It was that night I forgave her."

There were murmurs again through the crowd.

"I spent the last couple of months reconnecting with Mum, we worked through a lot, including a lot of emotion and anger, but I came to see that my mother was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She could support me and lose the connection with the rest of her friends and family. Or she could sacrifice me, her son she loved, to keep the rest of her family, including her husband, her other son and daughter, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. It was for those grandkids that she sacrificed. She felt she had no choice but to side against me, her own son. Because her grandkids were and are innocent.

"It took me a very long time to see it from that perspective. It wasn't long ago that Amy, my wife, pointed it out to me from her own experience in motherhood. Even now, talking to all of you about Mum's life, I am still angry. But I loved my Mum, and I know that in the end, she loved me."

I paused a moment, wiped my eyes and saw several people do the same thing. When I spoke again, my voice broke.

"Amy, my children and I were there when Mum went to sleep; it was a beautiful afternoon just like this as we watched the sunset, then the moon rise. We didn't need to say anything other than be in each other's presence. Mum told me that evening, in the end, she just wanted to make one last happy memory, and I was honoured to be there for its creation. For me, it will be a moment of peace in the storm that is our lives. Over these past few months, my Mum showed me a strength I had never seen before. She suffered horribly to lose connection with one of her children for the greater whole, and it took a series of minor miracles in the form of my wife and her family to allow us to connect again."

I again wiped tears from my eyes, struggling to swallow before continuing.

"This afternoon, as we celebrate my mother's life, I choose not to remember the bad but prefer to remember the loving and caring mother who was there for me as I learnt to ride my bike for the first time. I recall her worry and relief as I returned from my first sleepover at eight years old. I remember her joy at my graduation and her contentment as I watched her hold my children in her arms for the first time only a couple of months ago.

"The time to reconnect with my mother was scant short enough to resolve our problems, but I was happy to get to be there at the end and hear her tell me how much she loved all of us in the end. Farewell, Mum. I'll love you forever and hold you forever cherished in my memories."

As I walked down from the podium, everyone was wiping their eyes, even some reporters who had snuck in.

Mum was cremated, so there was no body to bury, but a plaque in her honour was placed in memory at a cemetery on the Gold Coast. So after the crowds had left, I stood around with Amy and the family, including Darren and Toni and we toasted Mum one last time.

I noticed a solitary figure loitering in the background as we packed up. The woman had also been at the funeral, lurking in the back.

I whispered to Amy, and she quickly looked at the woman nodding. She gathered everyone and left me to stand beside Mum's plaque. I stood for about five minutes before she approached.

"You spoke well," the woman said, her hand brushing the plaque.

"Thanks," I said simply.

"Not much sympathy for your family, though," she stated.

"Not much to be given after what they did to me," I replied somewhat bitterly.

"Oh, common Robbie," the woman replied, turning to me scornfully. "After all these years, you're still holding on to that anger?"

I nodded. "Yes, because any time I tried to let it go, one of you would have to come and rub it in my face. If it wasn't you, it was Dad. If it wasn't him, it was Brad. If it wasn't Brad, it was Georgia. Despite all of you saying I was out of the family, you had a funny way of letting me go."

She deflated a bit.

"I guess we deserve that, but Robbie...." She trailed off.

"You deserve everything you and your family have sown Joanna," I spat, saying my sister's name out loud for the first time. "Your father and brother are textbook narcissists. And you were always the middle child, spoilt, never growing up, always trying to do the minimum amount of work and claim the glory." I heard anger growing in my voice. Jonna just stood there.

"You never stood up for me because while they put me down, it always puts you one rung above me," I said angrily at my sister. "You could have stopped Brad and Georgia right away back then, you could have stopped this train wreck, but you wanted to make sure you had something to hold over me, something that you thought made you superior. So you agreed to keep it all quiet, then when it all came out, you were embarrassed, so you came to my house that day on the attack because you weren't above me. Your little secret held no power over me anymore."

She looked dejected, knowing I spoke the truth.

"But I need to thank you," I said, changing my tone.

Joanna looked at me questioningly.

"That day you came around to Darren and Toni's, you brought me my wife, the love of my life, and I am so much happier with Amy than I ever would have been with Georgia even if she never cheated on me," I told my sister.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because she gave herself to me entirely, Georgia and I married because it was convenient. Even now, I think our father might have had a hand in it. But if Georiga hadn't cheated on me with Brad, it would have been someone else sooner or later. We just weren't matched like Amy and I are."

Joanna nodded sadly. "I think that was the same as Chris and me."

I raised an eyebrow.

She laughed mirthlessly, "Yeah, I know you heard about that. How stupid am I? I let my fiancé fuck my sister-in-law, and she got pregnant with his child. Now I am single, bitter, lonely and pretty much unemployed since my fuckwit of an 'older' brother tried to get some payback on you for taking his sales. But Chris was a mistake. I let Dad put us together."

"Joanna, I..."

"No Robbie, I couldn't say it then, but I will now," she said. "I'm sorry for everything. You were right about everything, and I am glad you are doing well. With Mum passed, Brad now in prison and Total Build is closed for good. I'm moving south."

"Where?" I asked out of curiosity more than anything.

She looked at me for a moment, considering what to say.

"Melbourne," she said at last. "I still have a couple of friends who will talk to me after everything came out. And I need to go somewhere where when I walk down the street, people don't know me and can shake the label of skank sister that I appear to be called at the moment."

I nodded.

"Robbie, do you think...." She hesitated. "Do you think one day you might forgive me as you did Mum?" she asked, the first note of hope in her voice I had heard since we started talking.

I sighed, "Joanna, I'm honestly not sure. I am never going to forget what all of you did to me. And you had a starring role in my betrayal. But the fact that we are not screaming at each other right now says I might be willing one day."

She shrugged, "I suppose that's all I can ask for."

She looked at me, studying me for a moment, then sighed. It was almost the same gesture I gave a moment or two ago.

"Robbie, Dad, has been screaming your name for years about how ungrateful and disappointing you were. We all bought into that for years because we relied on you to make our lives easy. We blindly followed Dad any time because you would lift the load for us."

Joanna hesitated and glanced at me.

"I spoke to Dad yesterday to let him know I was leaving, and of course, he blamed you. He says you broke the family. But I know it wasn't you who broke us. It was him."

She looked at the plaque with Mum's name on it and reached out gently to touch it before turning back to me, her eyes red.

"I'm glad it was you who was there in the end. I'm glad her final moments were with the best of us," my sisted lamented.

My head swivelled to look at Joanna. "What did you say."

Joanna looked at me. "When I would meet with Mum over coffee, just the two of us. I'd often start to complain about you. Mum always silenced me, telling me to shut my mouth because we were the ones that screwed up, not you. She always used to say you were the best of us. Why?"

I reached out and touched the plaque as well.

"She said something very similar to me. I don't know that I deserve it." I started to cry. "I'm going to miss her Jo."

Joanna did something then she had never done ever. She took two steps toward me, reached out and hugged me. Even as children, Joanna never hugged me. She'd high-five, fist bump, but never hug. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed, I felt hot tears against my chest as my sister decompressed so many years of emotion.

"Don't you dare Robbie, don't you cheapen Mum's words." She whispered. "Mum was right. You are the best of us; you didn't play Dad's games. You are the best of us, and I'm sorry it took me so long to figure it out. I just hope I can put my life back together."

With that, she released the hug and walked away. Before she got a dozen steps away, I yelled out.

"Joanna."

She turned and looked at me.

I hesitated, seeing my sister staring back at me. I struggled for a few moments, internal turmoil raging on what I was about to say. "I forgive you," I said. My heart ached at saying the words, but I knew my soul felt a little lighter.

Joanna's eyes went wide for a moment. She just gaped at me, then she sadly nodded her head, turned and left. It would be a couple more years before we saw each other again.

I returned to the car, where Amy and the kids were ready and waiting. Amy had finished strapping the kids in and hugged me.

"I saw Joanna leave; she looked like she was crying. Are you alright?" my wife asked, concern in her eyes.

"Yeah," I replied quietly. "We were civil to each other. In the end, I chose to let go of my hate for her and told her I forgive her." Amy's eyes went wide like my sisters did a few minutes ago. She knew I placed a lot of blame for concealing Georgia's initial affair with my older brother at Joanna's feet.

She hugged me again, "You're a good man Robbie."

I snorted, "It's not like we will ever hang out as a family; I still don't like her very much. But I think it's time to let go of my hate for her and move on with my life." I looked over towards the way she had walked, she was out of view, but I could imagine her walking sadly beyond belief, having lost everything.

"She told me she's moving to Melbourne, away from everything, to start her life again." I got lost in thought for a minute. "If she can shed the selfish attitude and stand on her own two feet, then who knows, maybe she might grow up."

We got back in the car and made the long drive home. The kids slept in the back of the mustang while Amy and I quietly chatted about work, kids, and even my fights.

"I think I've only got one or two more serious fights left in me," I told Amy. "I'm getting a little older, and while I love the training and the focus I need to have, I don't enjoy the media attention, especially after this last fight..." Amy laughed. "Besides, I have a wife and two children to think about. I would be happy to stay fit and perhaps find someone to train."

"Like a padawan?" Amy inquired, smirking. She was referring to characters from one of her favourite series Star Wars.

I laughed, "Kind of."

"I've been burning the candle at both ends for a few years," I told her. "Between all our family drama, building the business, the fights and raising these two munchkins," I said, gesturing to the two kids in the back seat. "I must admit I'm getting a little worn out and to take it slower for a year has real appeal.

Amy snorted. "Sorry, baby, but you wouldn't know how to take it slow if it jumped out and bit you in the ass. And even if you did, I don't think life will let you slow down too much if you try. I think we're destined for drama. It's what keeps life interesting."

I sighed. I knew she was right.

The next couple of months were a lot easier. I mourned a little for the loss of Mum. I spent a lot of time with William and Sarah and a few hours a day at ALRO Homes. Lastly, I made good on my promise to meet with the networks to do interviews for my fights. I wasn't a massive fan of doing it, but a marketing consultant Amy hired convinced me that it was in our best interest to have a positive influence in the media, or they start making up stuff.

One cool thing is that I picked up a couple of significant sponsors for clothing and some workout machines. Amy and I got invited to spend a couple of weekends with a certain Hollywood celebrity with his own fitness brand who lives down south. He and his wife were great fun to hang out with, and we promised to get together every few months and trade stories.

Amy also made me commit to my promise of overwriting those images and videos with ones of our own. My wife was a sexual vixen in those media clips. Her cries of passion as I fucked her ass really did override those horrible images and videos. Sure I still recall the memory of those images but the moment I did, I often found my thoughts drifting to Amy, distracting me from what my brother had done.

It was coming six months after Mum died, and Amy and I had found a bit of a rhythm in life, balancing work, kids and time with each other. It wasn't easy, but it was life, and Amy was right. Even if I tried to take it slow, life got in my way and sped me back up.