She Coyote

49. Son

JUDE

The large, wooden door creaked open, allowing the gust of frozen air to run across my mother's feet. She stood there in the shadows, tooth firmly set in her bottom lip. She was quiet, staring.

I killed her son, her better son. Her son that was home for dinner every night and had long hair that she could brush while she sang to him. Her stare was almost too much for me. I felt the brittle bones in my knees begin to weaken.

She looked older, more wrinkled. I saw a thin glimmering strip of grey flash in her hair when she moved her head. For the first time I imagined her growing old and dying, and it scared me.

"Mom," I whispered, but it was so quiet. She had tears in her eyes. I stepped closer but I still felt so distant. She kept her arms curled in at her chest, fiddling with a lock of her hair that slipped lazily out from her tangled updo. What would I say to her? That I was running away? I was immediately embarrassed by the thought. How shameful, how disrespectful to Jasper, to her. I was a disgrace.

"Ma, I just...I don't want you to have to look at me knowing what I did. I feel...so, so awful, I can't even put it into words the amount of pain I feel every day, the amount of hatred I feel towards myself, and I..." I ran my hand down my face, trying not to cry, but somehow I couldn't picture this scene any other way. So when my lips began to tremble and my shoulders shook with the storm of emotions that began pouring out of me, I doubted that neither of us were surprised. "I just want to get away, from all of this, from everything. I wish I never got into drugs or drinking, I wish I was a good brother and a good son. I pray to god to take my life back, to let me start all over, but every day I wake up and it's the same feelings, the same mistakes burdening me and I just want it to go away, mom, I just want it to go away." I collapsed into her arms. I was sobbing. I could feel her breath on my cheek, warm and familiar. The same crushing warmth invaded me when her birdlike arms fished their way up around my neck, pulling me closer.

"Jude, baby, shh, shh," she whispered into the air around us, her fingers threading into my hair, running them up and down the back of my head. I wasn't deserving of her grace, her mercy. I was a filthy low life who killed her son, why was she hugging me back, why wasn't she throwing me out the door?

"I'm so, so sorry Ma, I am so, so sorry." I balled my fists into her sweater. My world used to feel collapsed but the moment her strength was enough to help stitch it back together. She shook the agony away like frightened birds. She gathered me as close to her as she could, whispering comfort into my burning ears.

"It's not your fault," she quietly assured me through the thick veil of my unbearable guilt. She shook her head further into my collarbone, her calm stature remaining unbothered as she pulled back, her hands cupping my distraught face. "I do not blame you for his death. You shouldn't either." Her eyes were a flame, a returning warmth.

"I just want to be someone else. I want that so bad," I whimpered, every part of my soul crying out for relief from this burden.

"No. Right now I need the Jude I used to know. I need you. I need you." She repeated her words, every word annunciated and leaned into, every emotion genuine. "You are not running away, I am not losing you, too." She searched my mind as easily as one reads a book.

"I am so sorry," I sputtered, unable to understand her unnecessary kindness.

"It's okay," she whispered and I finally began to resurrect. This cold, lifeless corpse's skin started to fill up with blood. I could feel it rushing through me. I wasn't ready for the adrenaline to pass and in that moment I realized I wanted to stay in my mother's arms forever. "Come inside," she pleaded as her tiny fingers found the tips of my ears.