Read Online Being Jolene by Caitlin Kerry - Free Book Online

The information he threw at me was not real. My mother left me when I was five and again when I was twelve. She was in Las Vegas, an anchor for the news channel there, but that was the last I had heard from her. She broke my heart twice and I wasn’t going to let her break it again.
    “In the area?” I said, repeating the last of his words. We were in the middle of Idaho and pretty isolated.
    “We live over the pass in Topaz.”
    Topaz was the rich and snooty part of the state, where there was high class skiing. Mostly those who lived there were from California or celebrities.
    “How long has my mother been married?” I asked Troy. I was on autopilot, spewing words, not really aware of what I was saying.
    “Oh, I would say for about ten years. We’ve lived in Topaz for almost eight years.”
    This situation was becoming too much, because if what Troy was saying was right, that meant my mother had only been a few hours away from me since I was in high school and never made any contact with me.
    “Jolene,” Troy started. “I know this comes to you as a shock. The reason she isn’t here is because we thought this would be easier to handle if I stopped by-”
    “No,” I stopped him, “the reason she isn’t here is because she’s a coward. She’s trying to fuck with my mind. Asking for an oil painting? That’s her playing head games. As much as you think she truly wants to reconnect with her long lost daughter? Well, it’s all bullshit. I won’t do it. She wants something from me? She better show her face rather than sending her stepson. And you’re not my brother. You’re a stranger and don’t ever forget it.”
    I promptly spun around and walked out of the bar. I had no idea if he left or not, but I was all sorts of done with that fucked up situation. The rest of the shift I was in a daze, trying to make it through. My mind was a million miles away, in the past as the memory of my mother was thrown at me, catching me off guard. I knew people were talking to me, but all I saw was mouths moving. Nothing was computing in my brain. I shook my head yes and no throughout the day but really had no idea what was going on.
    Finally, I was home and sitting on the couch. The sun was setting and the final rays came through my window. It silhouetted the log walls, but I sat there underneath my dark cloud, ignoring the warm rays.
    My mom had been my hero, even when she broke my heart. She slept with my dad when she was the weather girl at the news station. He was the anchor and my mom was what I like to call White Trash Famous. She had grown up poor and in a trailer park, spending most of her life on her own, trying to survive. It was a story heard time and time again. She was pretty and did what she could to get to the top and out of the trailer park. I didn’t know all the details of what her parents put her through, I don’t think I ever did want to know, but I knew it was bad. She didn’t tell my dad about the pregnancy. She left the station and went to another one but then got offered a job in Seattle. She left me on the doorstep of my dad’s when I was five and then she was gone.
    He was flabbergasted at the site of the dark haired five-year-old. I honestly don’t remember most of it and if it was left at that, I probably wouldn’t have held so much resentment towards her. It was later when she delivered her final blow.
    Seattle didn’t work out, and when I was ten, she came back begging on her hands and knees to my dad. She filled his head with dreams of us being a family and he believed her. For those two years, she could do no wrong. She was loving towards me. We had family outings, holidays, and vacations together; it was the whole works. There was this illusion of a normal family clouding my head, setting up expectations that would soon be ruined.
    I was twelve when she left again. This time for Las Vegas. A better deal came up, a new life, one without a family and she took it. When I was five, my dad