15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

House of Pain

The old house was still yellow. He knew, without even getting out of the car, that the inside of the house was nowhere near as bright as the exterior. Dark wood, dull yellow bulbs instead of sunshine. The curtains were there for show, pretty, frilly, the kind most everyone else on the block had framing open windows that let fresh air and light in. The windows to this house had been painted shut in his childhood, and the one in his mother's old room had been nailed shut too, the same way his had been, once he was older.

Asking why had only resulted in him being told not to touch them, but he'd seen pictures once, in an old photo album he'd found in a box in the basement, where the windows were open, sunlight streaming into the room where his mom and aunt Kay played.

No one had ever told him what had happened to change things, or why his mother had gone away, just that she wasn't coming back and Aaron better get used to it and do as he was told, ‘cause if he wouldn't behave for his grandparents, then he was going to find himself sent somewhere they'd teach him the meaning of discipline.

Now here he stood, a grown ass man scared shitless of what he was going to encounter when he finally got up the nerve to make his presence known. The doorbell glowed the same orange it had when he was a kid, but the buzzer sounded like it was dying. When the door opened, there stood his aunt Kay, a little grayer and a little thinner, with weathered lines etched deep into her face.

Never married, she'd lived there with her parents, his grandparents, a constant presence in his life from the time he'd come to live with them until the day he'd decided to leave. Her nose scrunched up when she saw him, eyes narrowing as she peered into his face, then slowly took in the black t-shirt, black jeans, black motorcycle boots he'd changed into at the airport after cleaning up as best he could manage in the bathroom sink.

"I see you decided to show up," She said, still sneering at him. "Though the least you could have done was be certain you were presentable."

"Well, there are no holes in anything and my fly is zipped, which is about as presentable as I'm going to get these days," Aaron said, flashing that fake ass phony grin he used whenever he hoped to be left alone.

She sighed, but stepped out of the doorway in order to let him in. "I see all the praying for you we've been doing has been in vein."

He rolled his eyes, grateful that she wouldn't be able to see him do it. "I told you that a long time ago," he grumbled as he stepped deeper into the entry room.

"You did, but like before it's just the devil talking. Someday, he'll loosen his hold on you, and we'll be here to welcome you back into the flock where you've always belonged."

He couldn't help it, he snorted before laughter bubbled out of him, bitter edged and brittle. She just shot him a dirty look and led him deeper into the house, to the kitchen, where the glossy wooden table was as highly polished as he remembered. One of his grandmother's favorite punishments for him was to have him spend an hour making sure it, and the chairs, gleamed.

His grandmother sat at one end, her once ash brown hair completely silver now. Her fingers had grown gnarled, the skin almost tissue-like as she lifted a delicate teacup to her lips. The sight of him almost made her drop it. Her mouth opened and closed before she finally set it down, sloshing tea over the rim, not that she paid the spill any attention, her eyes never left his as she stood, pinched frown growing more severe as she appraised him. Like his aunt, she was tinier than he remembered, perhaps because her back was stooped, and she leaned a great deal of her weight on a shiny silver cane.

"Looks like someone dipped you in the devil's ink," she said as she hobbled closer.

"Hi Gram."

She shook her head, one hand covering the other as she clutched the handle of her cane. "I tried to be a grandmother to you, but you never did like to listen when someone tried to teach you something. You were too much like your mama. I've prayed for her soul since the day she was born, and now the times come to hand her back to the lord and hope she finds the peace in death that she never did in life."

Blinking, Aaron struggled with the words between the words, all the things she didn't say, until it dawned on him why he was back here. "I thought she died a long time ago."

His Gram shook her head and huffed. "I never told you she was dead."

"You never said she was alive either, just that she wasn't coming back!"

"No, what I said was she wasn't coming back any time soon."

"That's semantics, Gram, and not very fair when you're talking to a kid!" Aaron snapped, then immediately lowered his tone when the sound of ice cubes rattling around in a glass echoed from the living room. It was always his grandfather's favorite place to sit.

"So what happened? How'd she die?" Aaron asked, desperate for answers.

"It's liver-failure that will kill her, probably within the next few days or so," his aunt said. "She asked for you. We told her we didn't know how to find you, just in case you decided not to show up. All those years of hard living just rotted her away from the inside out."

Whirling, he turned to face her. "So, what, you brought me here to watch her die?"

"We asked you here to honor your dead the way you were taught," his Aunt Kay informed him.

"Which is a fancy way of saying you called me here to arrange a funeral for someone who never wanted anything to do with me until she was on her deathbed," Aaron snapped, feeling those old hurts and insecurities start bleeding again.

"The way I see it, you can spend the rest of your life being angry with her over things that can't be changed, or you can be happy she chose to leave you in a stable, god-fearing home, rather than drag you around the country exposing you to god knows what." His Gram said, regarding him coldly.

"You woke up clothed and always had food in your belly," his aunt Kay added. "We're all getting on in years, none of us can afford a burial, or the hospital care her stay is racking up."

"In other words, you want me to use the money I've made playing the devil's music, to bury a woman you wouldn't even talk to me about," Aaron said, wanting to be certain he was hearing things correctly. "I know literally nothing about her. I don't even know what she looks like. I don't remember one single thing about her except that she couldn't even wait around to see if anyone was home before she left me here!"

Aaron tried not to let the memory suck him under, but it did, dragging him back to the porch, the cold wind blowing through the thin jacket and sweatpants he'd been wearing when she'd left him behind. At four years old he'd been utterly terrified of the huge house when they'd pulled up to it, and more so, when the sun started to go down, and no one let him in. He had vague memories of a stuffed dog and a battered blue backpack that held all his worldly possessions. What he remembered most was the headlights blinding him as his grandparents' car pulled into the driveway, and the harsh way his grandfather had spoken to him, demanding to know where his mother had gone.

So much after that was a whirlwind of sound. Arguing mixed with prayers and someone fussing because he'd sat there so long he'd wet himself and now the porch would need to be cleaned. He'd eventually been fed and given a place to sleep, after he'd been given a sponge and a bucket of water with Lysol in it so he could clean up his mess. After that, turmoil and upheaval had seemed to follow wherever he went.

Funny, now that he really thought about it, he'd left the same way he'd come, with a backpack full of items and something clutched in his hands, only, it hadn't been a stuffed animal, but his guitar.

He'd left.

Escaped.

So then why the hell did he compare everyone and every situation to these zealots who'd never seen him as a person, just his mother's mistake, one they'd been stuck with and needed to fix? Standing there in that kitchen were so many silent meals had been consumed, Aaron suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Despite the air conditioner running full blast as it always had, the air in the house felt stifling. His legs were beginning to feel like jelly and there were slow spots drifting across his vision, a sure sign that he needed to sit down.

Instead, he gripped the back of the nearest chair, letters whirling through his mind that he struggled to form into words.

"Which hospital?" he choked out, blinking to try and clear his vision. His skin prickled, flushed with warmth, making him long to scratch until the sensation stopped. He ran his fingers through his hair to keep from digging his nails into his arms, the need to get as far away from here as he could get beginning to hit him like the first moments of a panic attack.

"There's still only one hospital in this county, child," his grandmother said. "Would think you knew the way there by heart, as many trips to the emergency room as you took running around getting into one bit of foolishness or another with those friends of yours."

Regina County hospital . Yeah, he was certain he could find it with his eyes closed if need be.

He took a staggering step backwards, then another, far more steady and sure. "I'm going to see her."

"She goes by the name Paula Jean Curtis now," his aunt Kay said. "Don't know nothing about the Curtis fellow she married. The nurses up at the hospital said no one had come to see her since she'd been in there so maybe he's out of the picture now too, just like the rest of them. For all your faults I'm glad to see you haven't been running around getting married and divorced every other week."

"How would you know?"

"We've always kept track of you and those heathens you run around with," his Gram said. "I still ask the pastor every Sunday to say a prayer that you'll give up your wild ways."

"Then you should know you have nothing to worry about in that regard," Aaron said, taking another step away from her. "I've always preferred men a little more than women, and while I've dated women once or twice, there's only one person in the world I'd ever pledge myself to, and I'm not worthy of him, not yet."

The clank of ice let him know his grandfather was stirring again, only this time it was accompanied by the squeak of wheels that never seemed to turn right know matter how many times they were oiled.

His Pop-Pop looked as angry as ever as he wheeled across that creaky wooden floor, getting so close that Aaron took a reflexive step back to get out of grabbing range.

"So, it wasn't enough that you ran off chasing the devil's music, branded his images all over your body and blasphemed in the words you wrote," Pop-Pop said as he glared up at him. "You were determined to experience every type of depravity there is."

"The only thing I was determined to do was live."

"What is life if it's worth nothing!" his Pop-Pop said, his voice having taken on the strong, fervent tone it always had when he'd been preaching. "You were blessed with a beautiful voice meant to worship the Lord with and you wasted it, singing about whiskey and death and sin! You were given every opportunity to do something meaningful, and instead, you spit in the face of everything we believed in. You were a stubborn, hateful, disobedient child and I rue the day you landed on my porch."

Aaron never saw the glass flying at him until it struck him in the face and even then, he could only stand frozen and feel the sting where it hit his cheek and the cold of the water soaking through his shirt. Ice cubes clattered on the floor around his feet and all he felt was shame at drawing the man's ire again. After all this time, Pop-pop still had impeccable aim.

"I'm sorry that you all got stuck with me," Aaron said, fingernails biting into the palms of his hands as he clenched them, fighting back the urge to apologize for ever being born. "I'm gonna go. When everything is done here, you'll never have to lay eyes on me again."

He fled like the hounds of hell were after him, nearly tripping and tumbling down the stairs. He did smack himself with the car door when he wrenched it open and whipped the car around in the driveway in his haste to leave, spraying gravel and dust all over the lawn. A couple of the purple wildflowers on the lawn died too, but at least it wasn't his Grams' azaleas. The old lady might have been cold and distant, but those flowers had always been one of the most beautiful features in the yard, something that made the day a little brighter every time he'd walked past.

The car fishtailed where the gravel met the asphalt and he nearly overcorrected and sent the car plunging into a ditch. Heart hammering he got the nose veered away, though there was a moment when the back end dipped and the wheels spun like they couldn't find traction. Trees, yellow lines, and houses blurred together, until it was hard to keep the car on the road. Only the knowledge that there could be kids riding bikes along that road or someone walking, got him to stop and angrily swipe at his tears.

His hands were shaking, and every time it felt like he could breathe he choked on them again. The blare of a horn made him jump and look up in time to see an old pickup rattling past. The guy made eye contact, shot him the bird, and continued on his way, leaving a trail of grey exhaust in its wake.

The middle of the road wasn't the best place to have a mental breakdown. That might need to wait until he got back to the privacy of his rented room. As much as he wanted to drown in emotions right now, he was still too close to his Gram's house. If one of them got it in their heads to go to the grocery store, or even Edna Green's produce stand at the end of the street, they'd see him and they'd know their words and deeds got to him…again.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The weight on his chest didn't ease any, but the flow of tears did. Enough so he could see with only the barest of blur around the edges.

Hospital first, then something decadently sweet to help curb the sudden urge for booze. Taunting. Tantalizing. He passed three liquor stores before the highway, and several more before he pulled into the hospital parking lot twenty-two miles away. By then, he was squeezing the steering wheel so tightly that his fingers felt stiff and achy when he tried to open up his hands.

He knew he wouldn't recognize her, but would she know who he was when she saw him? Would his long hair and tattoos disgust her the way they did the rest of the family. She'd asked for him, but did she mean who he was now, or had she been exhausted, delirious and looking for the child she' d left behind?

Stone cold sober was not the way he wanted to face this. A block back had been a convenience store, surely they sold whiskey. He just wouldn't drink too much and when he'd gotten through this, he'd throw the bottle away and no one would ever have to know.

Even as he thought it, his fingers sought out the ninety-day medallion in the pocket of his jeans, the round disk pressing against his upper thigh, a reminder that he'd be going backwards, and moving himself further from Hawk and the kids in the process. His sponsor had told him several times over the past three months that staying sober would be filled with challenges big and small. Being able to play at a bar now seemed like a tiny thing compared to what he was about to do.

He got a matcha green tea latte with extra whipped cream and chocolate shavings at the little café just to the left of the reception area, along with a Boston Cream donut that he ate before he reached the elevator. He sucked down the latte like a man dying of thirst, disposing his trash in the bathroom trash can before he took a piss. He knew what he was really doing though, he was stalling, and maybe even intentionally attempting to make himself sick just to prolong the inevitable. Cold water splashed on his face didn't help him feel any better, and when he locked eyes with his reflection in the mirror, all he saw was a tired, scruffy face and a sliver of the tattoo that ran the length of his collarbone.

One foot in front of the other, he sought out the room number he'd been given, not that the patrician cubicles resembled actual rooms, more like cells with sliding glass doors. Blips, beeps, conversations, and the squeak of gurney wheels created a jumble of sound that was almost overwhelming.

"Can I help you?"

A tall woman in blue scrubs adorned with cartoon ducks, stepped into his path, forcing him to stop. Most of her attention was on the clipboard in her hands, and the rhythm she tapped out on it with the chewed cap of her pen.

"Yes, ma'am, I-I'm looking for 412."

"Back there," she said, pointing towards the far end of the hall.

"Thanks."

The closer he got to the room, the more he ached to do something with his hands. He'd left his stress ball in the car, and something about playing with his sobriety chip where his mother might see it, just didn't sit right with him.

He really shouldn't have worried.

The woman in the bed didn't seem able to focus on anything. There were tubes in her arms, another running under the blankets, and oxygen lines in her nose to help her breathe. She rolled her head from side to side on the pillow, eyes open to half slits as she muttered and moaned unintelligibly.

"Hi, Mom," he said as he stepped up beside the bed.

What hair she had left was as silver as his grams, and her skin was a sickly yellow. Her muttering stopped as she turned her head slowly, eyes opening a little more to gaze up at him. It was only then that he was sure that she really was his mother. While nothing else about her was familiar, her eyes were the same as the ones he saw every time he looked in the mirror. She gasped, and they brightened just a little, lips stretching to reveal a gap-toothed grin.

"Erik, you're back." she rasped in a tiny voice almost too low to hear. "Why did you stay away so long?"

"I-I'm not Erik, I don't know who Erik is. I'm Aaron. Your son."

She shook her head, eyes squeezing shut again. "You're not my Aaron. Aaron is just a little boy, and I lost him."

"Mom…I'm right here, I swear. I'm Aaron."

"You look like my Erik," she rasped in a voice barely strong enough to be heard. "I lost him too and then I lost the precious little boy he gave me."

"I'm not lost," Aaron whispered and carefully placed his hand over hers.

He could tell she hadn't heard him. She stared at the wall with unfocused eyes, a tear slipping from the corner of one to slither down her cheek to land on her pillow. Words weren't going to make a difference. His Gram and Aunt hadn't exaggerated her condition, and it was impossible to miss the do not resuscitate order at the top of her chart. An memory flashed through his mind, faded in places, but the one thing he was certain of was someone rocking him in their arms, singing as he fought against the pull of sleep.

It was the only thing he had to give her, so he scooted the chair closer and started singing Free Bird.

She smiled then and turned her face away from the wall to look at him, her free hand coming up to touch his cheek before it dropped back to the bed again.

"Erik," she whispered, the softest, most serine look smoothing her face out into something beautifully peaceful and at ease.

It was the last word she spoke. Somewhere around the forth song she closed her eyes and never opened them again, while the numbers on the heart monitor kept dipping lower as she started slipping away. Each song was harder, but he pushed through, singing Imagine then Hey Jude followed by several others, but it was Blackbird he was singing when the monitor went to flatline and the alarms began to sound while Aaron sat stunned into silence, trembling, lost and too numb for tears.