Stockholm

Chapter 14

"Hello?" I answer my phone warily, unsure what to expect after seeing the resale shop my mom works at number on the screen.

"Hi, is this Kyle?" A woman asks.

"Yes."

My heart starts to thud in my chest, scenario after scenario cycling through my thoughts at an alarming rate. Did my mom not show up? Is she at home, slumped in a chair drunk? Or wandering the city completely inebriated? Or did her body decide enough is enough and quit all together?

"Hi Kyle, this is Paige." She's the owner, I've only met her a few times but she's put up with my mom and her drinking, or maybe she's just turned a blind eye. "I was just calling because I sent your mom home. She just...she didn't seem..fit for work."

She hesitates saying it, what it means if she does. The things we'll have to acknowledge.

"Thanks for letting me know." I tell her, already gathering my things from my desk.

My shift has been over but I was cross checking names, trying to narrow down the name of the couple that Scotty supplied me with.

I hang up with Paige and hurry to Wyatt's sedan, dumping my stuff into the passenger seat before I tear out of the parking lot and head for home. It's not even a decision to drive the path home from the resale shop, my hands gripped tight around the steering wheel as fear laced anticipation builds inside me.

The drive from work to the resale shop seems to only grow longer as I mix with traffic and get stopped at lights, waiting for herds of pedestrians to cross. It gnaws at my patience until all my muscles are coiled tight.

But eventually I pass the resale shop, my eyes scanning the sidewalks on either edge frantically. There's plenty of different routes she would take but I'm betting on her being too drunk to stray too far from the most obvious path, that is if she hasn't just collapsed somewhere already.

I make a left, turning away from commercial buildings as the city gives way to residential neighborhoods, our own little neighborhood in the distance and there she is. Stumbling down the sidewalk. She almost can get away with it, most people probably barely notice her as she shuffles and sways but I can still remember how she walks when she's sober.

Rolling my window down, I slow the car. "Ma, get in the car."

Her head whips wildly toward me, eyes glassy and bloodshot. Her hand is gripped tight around a refillable water bottle.

She ignores me, turning back to stare down the street but the movement knocks her off balance and she trips over her own feet.

"Come on, let me take you home. Get in the car." I press.

I'm thankful we seem to be alone on the street because as she regains her balance she spits the words "oh you'd like that, wouldn't you?" at me.

Anger scratches at my patience and I retort with "yeah actually I would. You're drunk. Get in the car."

"It's always whatever Kyle wants." She snaps back and my defenses rise hearing her say my name. "With your dad gone, you just think you get to call all the shots. I'm the parent! Haven't I suffered enough?"

"I'm just trying to keep us afloat!" I shout, my anger has risen and spilled over. "Goddamn it mom. I didn't ask for this either!"

She yells back at me while I yell at her, I can't make out her slurred words over my temper but she has her finger pointed at me accusingly, as if every bad thing that's happened in our life is by my creation.

"I don't want you here!" She screams at me.

I know she doesn't mean it, she's drunk, it's the alcohol but her words cut me. I know she has resentment for me, I'm the only one left, I'm the reminder of all that she had and all that she lost. But she's still my mother. And I still remember the warmth she once had.

Her eyes shoot daggers at me and I can't help but wonder what she sees when she looks at me. If she sees the little boy whose scraps she'd kiss, that she'd read stories to and who always wanted to hold her hand. Or if all she sees is a man she doesn't really know.

"I'm doing the best I can." I plead. "I didn't want this." Tears spring to my eyes as desperation fills me. I feel beaten, pushed down, crushed by the weight I've been shouldering.

Maybe seeing me break makes her realize I'm not just some man she barely knows. Maybe I look more like the son she used to cuddle to sleep at night when he was too afraid of the dark, or maybe I resemble the little boy that used to pick her dandelions to show her my love. Or maybe the alcohol has finally seeped deep enough into her blood that her brain forgot what we were doing, all the fight leaving her body.

"Please, just get in the car Ma." I ask one more time.

And this time, she listens. Relief floods my body as she falls into the passenger seat. My belongings swept to the floor but I don't care. I don't need her stumbling through the city drunk. Not while I'm a cop, supposedly meant to protect the city and the people in it. God if Paul knew, he'd be on me to put her in the hospital, detox, a home, anything. But I can't do that. Even if she hates me. Even if I'm not the one she wishes was still here.

She stinks, booze seeping from her pores until Wyatt's car smells like it taxied a group of college kids from bar to bar all night. I don't say anything even when she takes a long drink from her water bottle as I drive down the road to our home. We ride in silence, all the things we screamed at each other hanging in the air and I can only hope she doesn't remember any of it.

I can't fix it, I can't fix her.

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I think I'm getting sick 😭