Damn it! She’s done it again! 

A while ago, my mother called to tell me my stepfather, ‘Deckle’ (Derek W. Grove), had passed away. Of course, he’d been ‘sick’ and in a home for years, so I was saddened but not ‘surprised’.  ‘I’m so sorry!’ I told her.  ‘Have you talked to his ex or the kids?’ When she said she hadn’t, I tried calling my step-family and, unable to find a number, made do with messaging my stepbrother online. Then, I stuffed my emotion away and dove back into life and my job search.

Last night, while polishing a resume though, I got another call from my mother, this time ranting about my stepbrother threatening her. Worried that message was behind it, I told her what I’d done and asked for details. She rambled a while but eventually admitted my stepbrother hadn’t called sinse his dad’s death. Relieved, I reassured her that while he was a ‘goof”, my stepbrither was far more likely to sick a lawyer on her than cross the country to attack her at that point. ‘Besides,’ I added innocently, ‘he probably talked to the home a while ago and…’

‘Actually…’ she interrupted, and I should have known from her tone that I wouldn’t like what she had to say, ‘I told the home not to talk to them years ago…’

‘You did what?!’ I seethed, and made her repeat herself to be sure I’d herd right. When she confessed she’d ordered staff to refuse Deckle’s family information, I didn’t care what her reasoning was, and only half herd her excuses. To avoid hanging up on her, I tried changing the topic by asking how she’d been coping(?)

Long minutes later, I – too late – realized what she was up to and tried steering the conversation in a different direction but she wasn’t having it. Instead, she insisted on wrapping ‘guilt’ with ‘greed’ and talk of ‘fresh starts’ and ‘inheritances’. She told me, for example, that her parents were hurt that my siblings and I hadn’t visited more, and asked why we’d ‘cut them’ out of their lives. Forty years of practice made it easy to make excuses. ‘You know what my ex was like…’ I said, and ‘… never having a decent car…’ but she badgered me for the ‘truth’ ’till I caved.

‘Maybe…’ I suggested, it’d been connected to their aparent disinterest, to the fact that they’d known we kids were being abused but chose to send Xmas money rather than get involved.  I teetered dangerously to mentioning the time her father had propositioned my teenaged sister but backed off, anxious not to hurt her.

To my surprised, she commiserated with me, talking a while about how difficult her parents had been to deal with. Just when I thought I might be ‘safe’, though, she asked why I’d avoided visiting her. Again, I avoid direct answers. ‘Can’t we just call… make nice-nice once in a while… and let it go at that?’ I asked, but like a terrier mauling a rat, she clung tenaciously to the point until I was so upset that I could hardly speak.

Cornered, I reminded her of all the times I’d tried to tell her about fighting fathers off in cars after babysitting and all the times she’d gotten into ‘moods’ and tossed my sister and I out of the house. I mentioned the day I stumbled into a friend’s suicide attempt, ended up face to face with a loaded shot gun, and showed up blood covered and in shock.

‘And what did you do?’ I asked. ‘You told me not to sit on your new couch… and you wonder why I don’t care to visit!’

Of course, she claimed she didn’t remember any of it, but I barely herd her. ‘Or there was the time you guys caught (my stepbrother) molesting me in my sleep…! I sobbed. ‘You let him stay while I got tossed out of the house!’

‘You know,’ she interrupted, ‘we always wondered about that…’

‘And yet you punished the victim…’ I thought, and remembered my stepfather going behind my her back to bring me food and check on me after that. ‘He was a good man!’ I sobbed. ‘One of the few that never messed with me… I mean, there was the sexual innuendo after the senility started…’

I trailed off, preferring to remember the ‘good stuff’ rather than the bad. Mom wasn’t making it easy though, and still seemed to want to drag me into emotionally charged and pointless conversation, so I simply gave up. Exhausted and barely able to breathe, let alone talk, I gathered my wits enough to tell her I couldn’t take any more and ended the call as politely as I could.

Since then, I’ve been wishing there were some way to reach out to Deckle’s family and let them know just how sorry I am that my mother’s done these things to them.  If I find any more information like where he’s burried I will post it here. Mean time. I just hope for both my father’s sakes that I can talk to that woman again if she calls.