I grabbed myself a glass, because I was purposely prolonging whatever brought my mom here. I surmised it was related to the ongoing drama with the house and my father.
“What’s in the box?” I asked as I took the empty seat next to her. My large frame sank into the cushion, nearly causing Mom to slide into me.
“Just a few things from the old house I thought you might want. Trophies, certificates, pictures.”
“Cool. Thanks.” I grabbed the box and flipped one pane open to explore inside. The first item I grabbed was my trophy from winning the National Championship when I was a senior in high school.
“I’ve been working with the kid next door, Roman. He’s pretty good.”
Mom nodded and gnawed on her bottom lip, but she didn’t reply.
“I know this isn’t the only reason you came by.”
“You’re right. You’ve always been very perceptive.”
“Well, might as well rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with. That’s what you used to tell me.”
Mom pushed up from the couch and stood, then walked toward the sliding glass doors leading to the back deck and yard. Her back was to me as she said, “You know, you were born at twenty-eight weeks. The tiniest little thing. I was so worried about you, thinking I’d done something wrong. Every day was a challenge. Every day, I was worried when I visited you that they’d have something heartbreaking to tell me.
“But now, here you are. No one would ever know how much you struggled that first year of life.”
I listened intently, even though her story was one I’d heard numerous times. Usually, it accompanied a milestone event, like graduating to the next grade in school.
“That was when everything changed with your father.”
My ears perked up. That was not her typical statement made after the flashback. Normally, it was the level of pride she felt for me that followed it.
Mom had my complete attention.
“He wasn’t a bad man before. Never raised a hand. Now, I don’t want you to believe you were the cause of his anger. It was never you. He was angry at me, because he thought I couldn’t give him a healthy son.”
Her sniffles echoed around the room.
“I let it go on for so long. Too long. The day he left was the happiest in my life… until I learned how devilish he truly was.
“Your father had a whole other family on the side. A wife, stepchildren, two dogs. The sad part was she knew about us the entire time. She relished the weeks he didn’t return to her.”
“He… he hit her too? And the kids?”
“She and I never went into the details, but I assume so.”
“Do I have siblings?” I choked out the words.
“No. They were hers from a previous relationship.”
“Wow,” I whispered, leaning my elbows on my knees as I ran my hands through my hair. Talk about an overload of information.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That’s not even the worst of it.”
“What?”
How was the man causing all this devastation from the grave? Did he make a deal with the devil?
Unable to process what she told me so far, I stood, chugged my glass of water, and walked back to the kitchen. I needed something stronger. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I cracked it open and gulped it down, then followed it with another. I didn’t care it was early in the morning.
“Owen?” Mom questioned as she stood in the opening between the living area and the kitchen. I rested back against the closed fridge, craving the distance.
“Just… get it out, Mom.”
“When your father died, I thought it was the best thing that could have ever happened. By the time you left for college, he was never around, so I lived in peace for those few years. Then the first letters and calls started up right before you were drafted by the Coyotes.”
The letter and calls she told me about when I first got to Ashfield, the conversation that sent me storming off to the bar that night. Collections, banks, pretty much anyone my father owed money to. All those years he tried to do something with the farm, he’d taken out loans in my mother’s name.
She continued, “Now, Jim never gave me access to any of the bank statements. Anytime I asked or questioned where the money was coming and going, he would blow up. It was easier to stay quiet.
“I told you he had two mortgages against the house and some personal loans. But what I didn’t get the chance to tell you, because your reaction to only those was bad enough, was he also had two more on the land alone, and he put the farm as collateral on a business loan.”
The bottle of beer nearly slipped from my fingers as I stared at my mother in shock.
“He…? That bastard! How much money? Why didn’t you use the money I sent you? How much do I need, in order to get us out of this hole?”
“None.” My mother smiled sweetly, as if she were in on some secret. Then my entire world exploded as it all hit me like an asteroid.
“It was the Easterlys. They bailed us out, didn’t they? I should have fucking known.”
“They did, and it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, Owen. They paid far more than that land was worth, and the house isn’t even inhabitable.”
Pushing past my mother, I brushed her shoulder harder than I intended in my anger, but she stood there stoically, like the rock she was. The sliding glass door banged against its frame as I made my way outside.