We All Fall Down

Chapter 31

John

Present

Marshall asked to meet me for lunch today, but I was hoping to wrap up some work before the weekend. Victoria is annoyed with me. When she brought in my coffee, she barely paused to give me so much as a sideways glance before leaving for work. My head is pounding, and I rub my fingers into my eye sockets until I see stars. Today is my birthday—and like clockwork—the days leading up to it have been sleepless and agitating. She wanted to make it special for me, had planned a dinner party and was upset when I'd asked her to cancel. Had I known beforehand, I would have told her that I didn't want to celebrate my birthday. In our years together, I assumed she understood as much.

The phone rings and I let out a visceral groan. I don't want to talk to her—but as always—my mother manages to call at the most inopportune times. I let it ring. Each trill seems louder than the last. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for her to give up, for the answering machine to kick on, for the ringing to stop. Marshall was likely going to try and talk me into the dinner party, advocating for his daughter's attempts to make me feel loved and important. What they don't understand, is that although my mother was who she was. I still had love in my life. It was not the kind of love they are accustomed to, but it was love all the same.

I remember my neighbors, the Leonards. Eve was a little younger than me and so much of my childhood was wrapped up in memories of her family. Mrs. Leonard was more mother than Patrice ever was, and I wish I'd told her that. As stern and cold as she may have seemed to most, she'd been the one to pick up where my own mother fell short. The day of my eighteenth birthday I saw her in her usual spot, staring out her front window. I called her the neighborhood watch, because she always knew everything that happened on our street.

Eve told me that they'd bought me a gift and that I should stop by before I left for my trip. She'd hinted that it would come in handy when I moved to New York. I promised that I would, and I fully intended on doing it but by the time we got out of school, I'd completely forgotten. It didn't occur to me until we were several hours away that I'd left without saying goodbye, and it eats at me to this day because in that short time away, everything changed.