A Perfect Love Story - Book 9

Dinner With Friends

SHARON POV

I had always loved attending my son, Eddie's, BBQ's, but tonight all I had really wanted to do was come back to my RV and think. Being around my family was my joy...I thrived on it, and I enjoyed spending time with my boys, their wives and all of my grandchildren. But amidst it all, my heart ached deeply tonight, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Not a damn thing.

Everything that had gone on with Stefanie over the past 24 hours had all but crushed my soul a great deal, and the fact that she now refused to speak to me, or any of us, broke my heart in half. I had no earthly clue how I was going to tell my daughter, for Stefanie was her world much like all of her other children, and I had no idea how I was going to tell Lena either. I knew my daughter was having a hard enough time being away from her other children, and that she was worried because I had come home to three messages from Stef asking us where the hell we all were.

Lighting a smoke and pouring a glass of bourbon, it had been a long time since I allowed myself to indulge in a hard drink. But, I needed it tonight for my thoughts and mind kept circling back around to to my eldest son, Frank, Jr. I wasn't sure why, well, I knew why because my granddaughter's behavior all but brought me back to the worst time in my life, when my son started to use drugs.

Stefanie of course wasn't violent, and she wasn't on hard drugs, that I knew of anyway, but her language and how nasty this child's words were, stung like fucking hell to the point I didn't recognize her. Not one bit, and it was that same venom that I had seen in my son. Hell, I was a strong woman, but I wasn't stone cold and heartless, and deep down, much like my daughter, I had a big, soft heart.

Puffing my smoke and taking another sip of my drink, this entire thing was triggering feelings of helplessness much like it did back with my Frank Jr, and I hated the fact that there wasn't a damn ass thing I could do for my granddaughter. Nothing, and her father didn't believe she had an issue. I had circled over in my mind every single option and scenario that I could muster, and came up with NOTHING. NOTHING because well, she was right. She wasn't a minor, I wasn't her parent, and that was just that.

I had felt the same about my son when I reached a point where there was nothing I could do. Drugs were a strong demon, and I had all but lost him to it. Every single part of his personality was robbed by addiction as I glance toward the photo of him that I had beside the rest of my adult children.

He had been such a handsome young man, and was the spitting image of his father. Nothing like what I had seen when we buried him, for I didn't even recognize him. He was someone so emaciated, void of life and void of any dreams. I often wonder what he could have been, and I often forget his voice or the sound of his laugh, unless I put on the old videos Frank Sr. had back in Albany. All of it made me incredibly sad because he didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be robbed of the man he truly could have been, and well, I played my part in ruining his soul as well. A very big part and so had his father.

FLASHBACK

"You have got to go! You have got to go now! And you cannot be here, Francis. Your father told you that you are not welcome!" I yell at my oldest son as he damn near tears my kitchen apart looking for money or anything he can sell to buy drugs as my ceramic sugar containers go flying along with everything in my cabinet and drawers as he ignores me for the third time. "I said to go!! YOU GET RIGHT NOW!!!!"

"FUCK OFF, MA! YOU FUCK OFF!!! I know you have something! I know it, and YOU better give me money and give it to me now before I burn this house down! I will burn it all up!!!" His eyes are bloodshot, he is angry, and I knew he was high as hell on whatever he was using, and it was terrifying beyond belief because I was the only one here right now, and he had busted in through the window like a thief in the night only it was morning, and all the kids were in school.