A Letter From Mom

I have this memory that really isn’t mine. I was there, alright, but I was only a bit player in that fucked up scene. The tragedy played out all around me and I stumbled through it like Rosencrantz.

It all started with a letter.

Letters are powerful things. They capture forever words that might be forgotten seconds after slipping past the lips. Proof standing of the delicate insanity that resides in us all. The anonymous pale of the parchment, emboldens us to throw open the locked gates hiding our inner most thoughts and pushes them out our fingertips in scribbles of ink. Folded into thirds and stuffed behind the postage, letters deliver all the words that we really wanted to say.

Letters change the world.

This particular letter changed my world. This letter, three small pages filled with poorly scripted confessions, turned my brother’s world upside down.

My brother and I were the last kids to get off the bus. Being the last stop was pretty cool in the morning, but it sucked on the ride home. I followed Eric down the steps and off of the bus. He started up the gravel driveway. I put my books down and turned to watch the bus pull away. I stood there for a while, the grumble of the bus faded on down the road, and I breathed in deep. Spring was just about done and you could almost taste the salty thick of summer in the air. I went over and pulled open our red mailbox. We always had a ton of mail. I was mostly junk mail or bills. I rarely got anything, but it was my job to bring it up to the house. I made my way up the gravel and flipped through the twenty or so letters. About halfway through, I saw it and started running up the driveway. I bounded across the porch and into the kitchen.

“Yo! Eric, come here.” I yelled and through the entire pile of mail onto the counter, save for one letter. “You got some mail.”

I made my way over to the living room and flopped down into the couch. I didn’t here any movement from the basement and gave out another yell.

“Hey!”

Nothing

“You got some mail.” I yelled, slacking my jaw and faking a baritone. “It’s from mom.”

I heard the downstairs toilet flush and some awkward banging as my brother clamored his way up from the basement and into the living room.

“Mom?” he asked rhetorically and picked his letter up from the floor. I was hoping he might open and read it there but he didn’t. He just stuffed it in his back pocket and squirreled off down to his room. I kind of wanted to hear about her, hear about what she was thinking. Maybe she might even mention me.

Mom didn’t write me. I guess she was just too embarrassed. I didn’t expect an apology from her. I knew her all too well. She always had an excuse and it was always someone else’s fault. I always believed her lies. I was the only one that still did, but this last time I couldn’t. She fucked me over and got caught red handed. She couldn’t sweet talk her way around it.

One day she dropped me off at my girlfriend’s house. No one was home but I knew where the key was and I let myself in. Mom made note of where the key was hidden and went back there two days later with some guys and a van and robbed the place. Unfortunately, my girlfriend’s brother was home sick in his room in the attic and saw the whole thing. Mom was quickly picked up and sent to prison. I lost a girlfriend, suffered some embarrassment when it came out in the papers and stopped believing all the lies that come out of her mouth. She knew it and since she couldn’t lie to me anymore, she just stopped talking to me.

My brother, on the other hand, got a letter every other week. I admit I was jealous. I hated the stupid cunt, but she was my mother. If she was going to fucking write a letter, why not write two? I didn’t care that she fucked up. She had been fucking up for as long as I can remember. Hell, one of my first memories of my mother is visiting her prison and hearing “Rock the Boat” over the loudspeakers.

But no, Eric was the one she wrote to.

I envied him on all those days he got a letter and I didn’t.

That day, was even worse, he took his letter and never came out of his room. He didn’t share it with me. I banged on his door a couple of times.

“Fuck Off!” was all I got.

My brother was a strange cat so I just shrugged it off. I forgot about the letter and went on with my day.

I used to get up early in those days to go to church. My dad worked third shift and we didn’t see much of each other but occasionally we crossed paths. I barely blinked when I saw him at the kitchen table as I reached up to grab some cereal. Then I saw my brother and I could feel the shit start to sprinkle back from the fan.

“Rob, come over here and sit down,” Dad said “I got to talked to you about something.”

I inched over to the table and sat down.

My dad cleared his throat. He wasn’t nervous; in fact he was straight deadpan.

“Eric got a letter that wasn’t meant for him. Your mother must have mixed up the letters she was trying to send. The letter confused your brother and he showed it to me. I thought it would be best if I just explain it to the both of you at the same time.”

I looked over at Eric. His eyes caught mine and he tried to wink, but he was too sleepy. I kicked his shin lightly under the table. He shifted upright and we smiled at each other like friends.

“Your mother likes women,” dad said. That statement got our attention and we both turned and stared at my dad intently.

I felt a faint throbbing that I quickly suppressed.

Eric stood up and said “Fuck This” then walked down to his room. I didn’t know what floored me more, the fact that my mom was a lesbian or that my little brother just swore in front of my dad.

“You know what I’m saying, Rob?”

Dad was looking kind of drunk.

“I already knew.” Was the lie I threw back at him. I went downstairs to my brother’s room and knocked on his door. He wouldn’t open.

I remember seeing the sinking look of betrayal on my brother’s face that day. At first, I chuckled and welcomed him to my pain, and then I looked closer and saw the hurt I had already learned how to bury.

We have never talked about that day or our dad’s explanation of it.

I just wonder how his eyes saw that day