Broken Pieces

Chapter thirty-two

Whenever Andrea randomly decides to stuff me with ice-cream sundaes, talk about random things and continually glance at me from her side eye, it means she wants to talk about something she thinks is painful to me but would rather not say it to avoid it but still will. Like today.

The countdown was finally over and after that first major nightmare three days before, there were no other major ones. My drugs had kept me from having any that I could fully remember the details in the morning or that would give me panic attacks.

This day happened the same way each year for the last four years. There was always that gloomy feeling in the air. Everyone tried their best to avoid each other and pretend like my mom didn't die on the same day that night years ago.

Everyone constituted of my aunt and my dad. When I still worked with my aunt, today would have been filled with a lot of tiptoeing around the topic on her part-while on my part, I would spend my time stubbornly refusing to skip work that day in return for her not mentioning the topic.

The reason why Andrea wasn't in the list though was because she didn't really cut me that much slack or allow it slide that easily. Like right now, I had the bowl of hot fudge sundae she made for me in my hand and I was eating it and each scoop slid down my throat and tasted heavenly.

I knew I would soon come crashing back down to earth soon though because Andrea was just biding her time before she started talking.

"So... I visited your mom's grave site this morning and put flowers in all of our names." She said quickly, just laying it all out there.

I took a calming breath and murmured the word, "Hm." Then took another spoon of ice-cream. Her words had an effect on me but I resolved within me that it would be a cold day in hell before I let Andrea guilt me into visiting my mom's grave at least once. As she always said.

Since the time we left the town,
Wyandotte. I hadn't looked back because it was now in my past. Going to her grave site seemed completely unnecessary and not something I wished to do in the slightest if I remembered how I had paid for that burial. Something that wasn't still clear even to me but made a black hole of guilt open in my heart each time I thought of it.

Andrea or her mom always helped us put flowers on her grave each year. I was always grateful to both of them for it and knew deep down that Andrea didn't only do it to make me feel guilty or make me feel like I should be the one doing it but because she took my mom as a mom too.

On that thought, my mouth opened after our moment of silence. "Do you remember when she taught us how to make casserole?"

Andrea laughed and I joined her too because we both knew my mom was the reason we knew how to cook. "She was teaching you but you never really concentrated and she made it into a competition for both of us."

I smiled as the vision of those old times came through as I listened to Andrea's retell of the scene from the past that I knew by heart. "We moved from perfecting making casserole to baking. It became fun for us and encouraged us to learn how to cook other dishes. Without her I would have never learnt how to cook because my mother didn't really care about teaching me because I never really cared about learning either."

"She was extraordinary." I said with a loving smile on my lips.

Andrea also had one the same smile on her face. "Yes, she was."

I stood up to dispose of my now empty bowl and make a new one myself and Andrea laughed shaking her head. "Is that good for an ex-model?"

I gave her a look. "I run on my treadmill or out in the park almost every morning and I don't do this usually so I doubt it would affect my shape." I picked another one this one vanilla and took out sprinkles, whipped cream, peanuts and peaches and walked back to the couch after preparing it and putting it all in my bowl.