know you don’t want to end up having this baby in prison, do you?”
“Go to hell,” I grunted, cuffed in a steel chair with the short leg, the one that makes the suspects uncomfortable and antsy. I’d seen enough
NYPD Blue
on TV to know the trick. The officer slapped me across the face. It stung more and more with each backhand, until it actually burned my ears
.
But worse was the smile from the second cop in the corner of the room, his arms crossed. “Hell will be a lot better than where you’ll end up.”
—
“Freedom.” I jump
when Carrie shakes me from the flashback. “You all right?” I focus on a nude woman tattooed on her forearm. I focus on anything that can rip me from my memories.
“Yeah, sorry.” I put my hands down in my cleavage and scoop out the sweat. I gulp at air polluted with crack and try to shake it off. I try to tell myself that it was years ago, that it’s over now. “Gotta go to the basement and switch the PBR kegs.”
“I’ll take care of it.” She squeezes my shoulder to put me at ease. If only it worked. “Take the night off. I’ll watch the bar.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She waves me off. “I got it. Go home.”
Dear Mason and Rebekah, though once upon a time, you were Ethan and Layla,
To pick up where I left off last: I was giving my mother a pedicure on her deathbed. It was the August after I’d graduated high school, top of the class, I might add. It was the day a pregnancy test came back positive in the restroom of a Roy Rogers. It was the day my mother died.
“Vanessa, I’m scared.” Before that, I wasn’t sure if she knew I was there. There were a lot of things that weren’t there. Her voluminous hair wasn’t there. The meat on her bones wasn’t there. Her will to live wasn’t there. But I was there. I was there until the very end.
“Don’t be scared, Ma.” I tried not to drown in my own words, tried to be strong. “I won’t forget the cuticle cutter this time.”
And that was it. Poof, she was gone. She never got to learn I was pregnant. Perhaps that was a good thing. She never did approve of those Delaney boys.
That was around the time your father decided to join the NYPD. I was suspicious at the sudden transition from lifting cars and sipping 40s to being a cop.
“Imagine the dope you could score in arrests,” Lynn would push. Oh, yes, your grandmother was a fucking gem. Lynn, this stocky womanwith bad teeth and a huge fucking mouth…never mind. I shouldn’t talk bad about your grandmother. That’s for you guys to assess without my editorializing. Maybe one day you guys will see for yourself if she’s still around.
The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. I think that was Mark’s plan all along: become a copper to score dope, to demand respect. He was always one who felt he deserved respect, even if he didn’t earn it.
After Mom died, we spent a few months with the Delaneys until we’d gotten our own place, a house we bought on Huntington Drive with the money I’d inherited from my mother, an inheritance that turned all of the Delaneys into my best friends overnight. But on one particular night at the Delaney house, I was about four months pregnant, Mark didn’t come home.
See, your father and I were kids at the time, excited at the thought of playing mom and dad at such a young age without knowing what parenthood really meant. Lynn Delaney was the only parent Mark was familiar with, so the recipe was already toxic. I was just too young to see it at the time.
It was the night before his graduation from the NYPD academy, and the neighborhood was already preparing the party. Not a bad idea to know a cop on the inside, the delinquents around the block would say. The rest of the Delaneys were fast asleep, but for your uncle Peter, the only one of your father’s brothers that I ever cared for. Peter was this brilliant and kind man confined to a wheelchair, and probably the best friend I ever had in all my life. I miss
“Go to hell,” I grunted, cuffed in a steel chair with the short leg, the one that makes the suspects uncomfortable and antsy. I’d seen enough
NYPD Blue
on TV to know the trick. The officer slapped me across the face. It stung more and more with each backhand, until it actually burned my ears
.
But worse was the smile from the second cop in the corner of the room, his arms crossed. “Hell will be a lot better than where you’ll end up.”
—
“Freedom.” I jump
when Carrie shakes me from the flashback. “You all right?” I focus on a nude woman tattooed on her forearm. I focus on anything that can rip me from my memories.
“Yeah, sorry.” I put my hands down in my cleavage and scoop out the sweat. I gulp at air polluted with crack and try to shake it off. I try to tell myself that it was years ago, that it’s over now. “Gotta go to the basement and switch the PBR kegs.”
“I’ll take care of it.” She squeezes my shoulder to put me at ease. If only it worked. “Take the night off. I’ll watch the bar.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She waves me off. “I got it. Go home.”
Dear Mason and Rebekah, though once upon a time, you were Ethan and Layla,
To pick up where I left off last: I was giving my mother a pedicure on her deathbed. It was the August after I’d graduated high school, top of the class, I might add. It was the day a pregnancy test came back positive in the restroom of a Roy Rogers. It was the day my mother died.
“Vanessa, I’m scared.” Before that, I wasn’t sure if she knew I was there. There were a lot of things that weren’t there. Her voluminous hair wasn’t there. The meat on her bones wasn’t there. Her will to live wasn’t there. But I was there. I was there until the very end.
“Don’t be scared, Ma.” I tried not to drown in my own words, tried to be strong. “I won’t forget the cuticle cutter this time.”
And that was it. Poof, she was gone. She never got to learn I was pregnant. Perhaps that was a good thing. She never did approve of those Delaney boys.
That was around the time your father decided to join the NYPD. I was suspicious at the sudden transition from lifting cars and sipping 40s to being a cop.
“Imagine the dope you could score in arrests,” Lynn would push. Oh, yes, your grandmother was a fucking gem. Lynn, this stocky womanwith bad teeth and a huge fucking mouth…never mind. I shouldn’t talk bad about your grandmother. That’s for you guys to assess without my editorializing. Maybe one day you guys will see for yourself if she’s still around.
The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. I think that was Mark’s plan all along: become a copper to score dope, to demand respect. He was always one who felt he deserved respect, even if he didn’t earn it.
After Mom died, we spent a few months with the Delaneys until we’d gotten our own place, a house we bought on Huntington Drive with the money I’d inherited from my mother, an inheritance that turned all of the Delaneys into my best friends overnight. But on one particular night at the Delaney house, I was about four months pregnant, Mark didn’t come home.
See, your father and I were kids at the time, excited at the thought of playing mom and dad at such a young age without knowing what parenthood really meant. Lynn Delaney was the only parent Mark was familiar with, so the recipe was already toxic. I was just too young to see it at the time.
It was the night before his graduation from the NYPD academy, and the neighborhood was already preparing the party. Not a bad idea to know a cop on the inside, the delinquents around the block would say. The rest of the Delaneys were fast asleep, but for your uncle Peter, the only one of your father’s brothers that I ever cared for. Peter was this brilliant and kind man confined to a wheelchair, and probably the best friend I ever had in all my life. I miss
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