Home

“ I’m drunk and I’m sad and it’s 1:00 in the morning, I’m so sorry,” I sob into the phone. “ I shouldn’t be calling so late. I shouldn’t be such a baby.” Nobody sees me cry, except maybe my husband and even that’s only been a handful of times in our 26 years of marriage. Not my counselor, or counselors I should say.Years of counseling actually. Not my foster parents. Not even my children.

 “It’s ok,” Richard responds, “you can call me anytime, and you’re not a baby.”

 “I just hate her so much!”

 “I understand,” he says. His voice is low and his speech slow. It’s always been like that He speaks with the same speed as molasses in winter. Now his voice has gotten gravelly as his illness has progressed and it is interjected with bouts of coughing. 

 “That’s not true, I don’t hate her. I want to hate her but I try so hard not to. Because not hating her Is the right thing to do. No one ‘normal’ hates their mother. So everyday I make up my mind to forgive her. It’s a constant battle,” I confess. Although that’s not actually true. Most days I don’t think of her at all. I think of her on my birthday or Mother’s Day. Or when I see my kids achieve something she should have been there for. Mostly I think of her when I have to fill out the section on the medical forms that asks for family history or when I’m drunk. Richard’s the only person besides my husband I’ve ever told how much I hate her. Mostly I don’t tell anyone anything about her, unless I’m drunk and weepy. There’s a theme there I guess. If I have to tell someone something about my mother I pretend I’m over it. I pretend I’m well adjusted. I pretend I’m normal.

My brother and I continue to talk and cry and laugh for close to 3 hours. It feels good. Cathartic. We’ve never been close. Not really. She prevented us from being close. She made choices for us that we couldn’t change. Or let other people make choices for us. Despite her, we love each other. We always have a connection to home. So it feels good to tell him how I feel, what I remember. He’s surprised, I think, by all that I remember. I remember Detroit, our hometown. I remember the streets and the smells. I remember our cat, our house, our life. Before we say goodbye he asks the question I’ve been dreading.

 “Are you coming for the funeral?”

 “Yes of course I am. I would never let my feelings for her stop me from mourning the loss of our brother. It’s just us now, we have to stick together.”

 “She’s going to be there..” he reminds me.

 “I know. Gabe said he would like to come. He misses you.”

 “I’d like to see him, we miss him too.”

 “I just wish she wasn’t going to be there. She was and is a shitty mother and she doesn’t deserve to lay her eyes on my son,” I stress. My children have never met my mother. They are all adults now. They could meet her if they wanted to, I’d never stop them. I don’t encourage them though.

 “I know, you’re right. But you’ll still come, right?” He asks.

Like he even needs to ask. Of course I’m coming. It seems the only reason I come home anymore is for funerals.

I was born in Detroit. The city of Detroit's motto is We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes. That’s where my mother left me on the side of the road, in Detroit, when I was 4. Those are the ashes I’ve risen from. A home burnt to the ground by the home maker. I think she was always a terrible mother. If I’m being honest, I think she is a terrible person. She let men rule her life. They were always more important than her kids. She would always choose men over her kids. She would do whatever it took to be “loved” and taken care of. Financially that is. Even letting her children be used and abused. Then there was the drugs, the drinking, and the whores. The parties, the stealing, and the homelessness. If she couldn’t sell herself she’d sell her belongings and that included us. But I digress. Detroit is where the funeral will be. It’s where my oldest brother, Richard, still lives. It’s where Gary and Marty lived. All 3 of her boys stayed close to home. I was in and out of foster care for the next 14 years after she dumped me and my older brothers on the side of the road. My childhood was nothing but cinder and ash left from the bad decisions she made. Terrible “parents”, more abuse, and trauma.I met and married my husband, we made our own family. I rose from the ashes. I made a better life. I never went home again. 

 I’ve lost 2 brothers now. Marty from a heroin overdose when he was 35 and Gary from a meningitis infection that spread to his brain. He was 51. Richard’s not far behind. He has something wrong with his lungs. Won’t tell me what, but he’s on oxygen now. He can’t walk from his bedroom to the living room without it. I blame her. Marty never would have been an addict if it weren’t for her. Maybe Richard and Gary would’ve taken better care of their health. If she had been around, maybe they would’ve known to go to the dr. Maybe they would’ve made better choices. Sometimes I think, no I know, that this way of thinking is ridiculous. I have boys. I’ve taught them as well as I could’ve. They still make bad choices. But at least they can always come home.

 Of course I’ve been back to Detroit. Detroit has so much to offer. I've been to the Eastern Market, the Vernor’s plant, and the Institute of Art. But I’ve not been “home”. As a matter of fact I arranged for Marty’s funeral to be at my church. As far away from home as I could get. In hopes she wouldn’t come. But she was there. She tried to get me to come home, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t even look at her. Richard and Gary flanked me, one on each side so she couldn’t sit next to me. That was the day I realized I hated her. I didn’t hate her because of the men or the booze. I hated her because of what she did to them. I hated her because of what she did to us. We were just children.

 I don’t think I can avoid coming home this time. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to say. How I’m going to act. How do I introduce her to the adult grandson she’s never met. I should come up with a snarky comment. I should take the high road. I always take the high road. I won’t become her. All that aside, I still decide against taking the high road. I deserve a little fun, a little payback. So maybe I’ll burn the whole damn house down. Richard won’t care. Gary and Marty are dead. They were the only ones that really loved her. They were the most messed up but also the most loyal to her. Maybe that’s why they were so messed up. They always defended her. Marty wanted nothing more than to be a family again. He could never wrap his head around the fact that that would never happen for us. We could never go home again. And just like that I had decided to burn it all down. All the pretending, all the hopes I had of being normal, and all the ideals of being a family. Until Richard calls.

 “You don’t have to worry. She’s not coming.” He says. 

 “Of course she’s not,” I laugh. 

 I guess I won’t be going “home” after all.