Page 140 of Under Her Skin

“No, I meant to call you.” She hiccups and I know she’s drunk. “I’m not a wellwoman.”

I want to say, ‘duh’ but that’s too mean. “No, you’re a little broken, and that’s okay after all you’ve been through. You see Grandpa told me about your mother too,Mom.”

“Mom?” she asks, her voice cracks. “You haven’t called me that since you werethree.”

“Well, my mind and heart didn’t agree on calling you that. But now I kind of think you need me. You may not realize it yet, but you do and I need you too.” My heart hurts as I think about her and her mother in a car as it crashes and my four-year-old mom watches her mother pass on right in front of her eyes. “Wanna talk about your mother and that day or night or whatever itwas?”

“It was nighttime,and it was so scary, Shelly.” I can hear her take a long drink of something then she inhales deeply and I know she’s sucking on some kind of a cigarette. I keep my comments to myself and just let her talk. “The one thing I hold on to is that she was dead and gone right after it happened. She never screamed or cried. I did though. I wasn’t in pain, but I was just soafraid.”

“Then what happened?” I ask and sit upright in my bed. It’s all I’ve been wanting to hear fromher.

After another long drag off of the thing she’s smoking, she says, “Well, a man broke the windshield and some of the glass glanced across my skin. It stung, and I looked down as I cried that’s when I saw all the blood. I was covered in blood from the waist down. It’s odd I never felt it until I saw theblood.”

“What was wrong?” I ask and sit up more, leaning over and holding my knees in myarms.

“Something had flown around in the car as we rolled over and over again. It must’ve clipped me just above my thighs. I was cut deep. I still carry those scars.” She giggles. “That’s why I never wear short, shorts, even though my legs are to diefor!”

I find myself laughing a little too. “Did you have surgery or juststitches?”

“Not real sure,” she says. “A lot went blurry after that. A man with jet black hair released my seatbelt. I have to say that my mother always made sure she and I always wore our seatbelts even though it wasn’t the law backthen.”

“I’m sure it’s been hard to remember for you. When did you start to miss her?” I ask and listenintently.

A long pause she makes. Her voice goes so soft I can almost not hear her. “The moment I saw her head hanging. The moment the four-year-old I was realized my mother was gone. That’s when I started missing her and I still do to this very day. It took a part of my soul. The part that loves, trusts, and believes this is a reallife.”

“But this is a real life, Mom,” Iwhisper.

“You sure, Shelly?” she asks then I hear her take another three gulps of whatever she’s drinking. “I’m not sosure.”

The idea I have so many crazy genes running through me makes me afraid, but I swallow hard and say, “I am sure, Mom. This is reallife.”

“Hmm, I wonder all the damn time,” she murmurs. “It’s kinda like my life stopped then, when I lost her. Is that what happened to you when I leftyou?”

My heart stops. I never thought I’d get to talk to her about how I felt about that time in my life. “Yeah. Momma, whathappened?”

“Drugs, alcohol, and the fact you reminded me of your father and my mother.” Another long drag she makes. “You have to know you were conceived with love. Your father and I loved the fucking hell out of each other. If it wasn’t so hard to love, I would’ve stayed with that man forever. We could’ve been a family, us three. That’s what he wanted, and I did too at thattime.”

“You said he fooled you, Momma. You said he poked holes in his condom.” My words come so soft I pray she hearsthem.

“Truth!” she says with a loud voice. “Truth time, right? Okay, here it is! You were a planned baby! I wanted you, your daddy wanted you! He didn’t fool me, I fooled him. Or so it seemed at that time. When I found out I had a baby in me, well, Ifreaked.”

“I get it. I do,” I say. “It’s like you knew you couldn’t do right by the baby,right?”

“Right!” she says with an excited voice. “I knew you’d end up with your daddy’s brains. He was so fucking smart and so damn handsome. God, we loved each other, and I had to mess us allup.”

“You know, Mom, there are people who you can talk to that can help you. What you went through, losing your mother and in the way you did is traumatic. It messes with your mind and we need help to get past it and make our lives better,” I tell her and myself at the sametime.

I’ve been talking to the friend of Peyton’s some. The truth is I haven’t been really letting her in. It’s what I do with everyone, I let them in just enough, but not all theway.

It’s time I follow my own advice and do some real talking with the person who can help me the most. My mother is crying on the other end of the line and I feel terrible for her and wish I was there to hold her and tell her it’s all going to beokay.

“You know, Shelly, even if I do get someone to help me, I think it’s just too late. The fact I have to see what I did to your father, alone, is enough to make the guilt flow through me like a raging river.” She goes silent for a littlewhile.

Finally,I ask, “Mom, you stillthere?”

“I am,” she answers. “I wish it was so simple. I wish everything was simple. It seems it’s been so long that things have been so messed up in my head that it can’t be fixed. I can’t be fixed. Anyway, sorry I took up so much of your time and it’s late. I suppose you have that school thing in the morning and here I am just going on andon.”

“Mom, I’m really happy you called, and that we talked about this stuff. Thank you so much for this. You can’t imagine how bad I needed to hear all this.” I pause to wipe a tear off my cheek. “Maybe I could get Rodney some help too. Where are hisparents?”