“You don’t have to do this alone anymore, Freckles.” He leaned forward to press a soft kiss to my forehead. “I’m here. And everything will be alright.”
“Aut viam inveniam aut faciam,” I breathed, so quietly barely a whisper left my lips.
“We’ll find a way, Lux. We’ll always find our way.”
***
The empty vodka bottle rattled across the floor, crashing to a noisy stop against the refrigerator. Flipping on the light with one hand, I clutched my stubbed toe in the other and attempted to massage some feeling back. I took in the state of the kitchen, cursing under my breath. My parents’ most recent party favors littered the floor like confetti. Vodka, gin, scotch — they weren’t particularly particular when it came to their alcohol. As long as it burned going down and deadened their pain for the night, that seemed tobe enough of a selling point. Usually, though, they took their festivities to the local bar. That they were here meant tonight must’ve called for a special level of inebriation — the kind that even the shadiest of local watering holes frowned upon, because it too often led to drunken misconduct and bar fights.
It was late by the time Sebastian dropped me off, almost midnight. I closed my eyes and prayed they’d already passed out.
“Lux!” The slurred voice came from the small den off the kitchen. The room was dark except for the flickering, intermittent light cast on the walls by the muted television, as scenes from late-night infomercials flashed across the screen. My shoulders slumped defeatedly as I exhaled, picking my way through the discarded bottles toward the doorway.
“Mom.”
Her stringy blonde hair hung over her face, unwashed and unkempt. She’d been beautiful once, my mother. A fading pageant queen, with crowns and tiaras from every county fair and homecoming festival around. With Marilyn Monroe curves and a Grace Kelly smile, she could’ve gone to Hollywood and made it as an actress, as she’d dreamed of doing as a teenager.
Those dreams had died the day she went into the girl’s locker room after gym class one day toward the end of her senior year, peed on a little white stick, and watched as it turned blue. And that woman she’d been back then had died too — not at first, but over time. A gradual withering away, like a penknife scraping against the bark of a mighty tree. Her curves had disappeared, unsustainable on a diet of liquid alone, and the lines appearing on her face each day were not from laughter, but stress and sorrow. As a little girl, I’d sometimes catch her staring at herself in the mirror, tracing the weathered skin as though it belonged to a stranger, as slow tears dripped down her face and fell onto her tattered blouse.
Her drinking had increased with age, spurred in part, perhaps, by my father’s addictions. She couldn’t care for Jamie and me — she could barely care for herself — but I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. How could you hate someone who’d had her heart broken by life? Who’d been beaten down by her fate and never found the strength within herself to rise again?
No, I didn’t hate her. I simply didn’t understand her.
“Where you been? ’S late.” She was slumped over in her chair on the far side of the room. My father was nowhere to be seen — assumedly, he’d already fallen into a liquor-induced stupor in bed. I thanked my stars for that.
“Out,” I told her, still hovering near the doorway. I tried to stay as far from her as possible when she got this way. Not because she was a mean or abusive drunk — quite the opposite, actually — but because I couldn’t bear to see the wasted potential that her life had boiled down to. Talent, ambition, beauty, charisma — all of it squandered in the bottom of a bottle of gin. A ghost of the woman, the mother, she might’ve been.
“Don’ get sassy with me, girlie,” she slurred, gesturing at me with a near-empty tumbler. She nearly toppled over with the effort, the glass falling from her hand and rolling under the coffee table. I sighed. I’d be spending my pre-dawn hours cleaning the house before school tomorrow.
“Let’s get you to bed, Mom.” Judging that she’d never make it by herself in this condition, I walked over to her and placed one hand on her arm. “Come on.”
She turned to me, her eyes clearing of the haze for a moment as she examined my face. “You’re a good girl, Luxie.”
“Okay, Mom, come on,” I said, rapidly blinking away the film of tears that had appeared in my eyes. “Time for bed.”
“Dunno what we’d do without you ‘round here,” she continued, refusing to budge from her chair despite my tugging.
I rolled my eyes. “Quite the party you had here tonight.”
“It’s a goin’ away party.” She giggled.
“What?” I dropped my hands, staring at her intently. “Mom! What did you just say?”
“Isaid,” she whisper-yelled between fits of laughter. “It’s a goin’ away party.”
“For who?” I asked, my heart beginning to race.
As quickly as her levity had arrived, it vanished, replaced by a forlorn look and hunched shoulders. “For us, for the house. Bank called. Can’t pay the bills. Gotta move.”
The blood began to pound in my ears. “When?”
She shook her head back and forth in slow denial.
“Mom!” I snapped my fingers in front of her eyes, trying to focus her attention. “Whendo we have to move?”
“End of next month,” she mumbled, her eyes drifting closed again. “Where’s my drink?”
I stood stock-still, contemplating her words and feeling my heart sink down to my stomach. If it were true, if the house was in foreclosure, there was no way we’d be able to pay for the best care for Jamie. And without the best care, he might not make it at all.
I stood for a long time in the flickering darkness, looking down at my mother passed out cold in her chair. I could see nothing but an unscalable mountain before me, with no visible footholds or convenient paths up the massive peak. It was the most treacherous of cliffs, ascending in a straight sheet of rock and ice, up into the clouds and far out of sight.
Even attempting a climb would be futile — a hopeless endeavor.
But then, from a tiny corner in the back of my mind, a single image forced its way to the forefront of my thoughts.
Hannibal.
I saw him looking up at that selfsame crag and telling the wisest, most trusted of his generals to fuck off, before making his way resolutely over the Alps. Despite everyone’s doubts, regardless of their predictions of certain death… he’d found a way. He’dforgeda way.
And, for Jamie, so would I.