Brightly Burning Bridges by Ivy Wild
I watchedSkyler until her form retreated behind the Touper residence. I hadn’t meant to bring up her condition. To be honest, I didn’t really care about it one way or the other. She clearly did, though. And the hurt that was evident on her face when I brought it up had me searching for some way to smooth things over.
And damn, didn’t that make me angry.
I prided myself in not doing things for other people. Not because I was an asshole, but in my experience, people on a whole didn’t deserve my time.
I gripped the steering wheel to my BMW as I grit my teeth.
I didn’t even know this girl’s last name, but for some reason, I was concerned about hurting her feelings.
I cracked my neck and sighed as the tension left in audible clicks. I didn’t have time to worry about a snow white girl named Skyler. She wasn’t the woman in my life that mattered.
That woman was currently sitting alone in a hospital bed and I needed to make my way there before visiting hours ended. Because apparently, even if your mother was dying of Huntington’s disease, that still didn’t entitle you to any extra time.
How fucking ironic.
I looked at my watch and peeled away from the Touper residence. I’d spent too long on Skyler and how I felt about her. Which was not at all.
My stomach growled as I made the drive to the hospital, but I resisted the urge to grab my food. I hated eating dinner alone. The first time my mother had been admitted to the hospital was the first time I’d eaten dinner alone in my entire life.
And it was a lonely fucking existence.
They say traumatic shit gets imprinted into your head. Ask someone where they were when the towers had been hit or when they learned Carole Baskin was going to be on Dancing with the Stars, and they’d spout off the most intimate details about their living room.
I couldn’t remember any of that shit.
But I did remember the first time I had to eat dinner without my mother. The first time I had to fall asleep in my father’s lonely ass mansion, knowing she wasn’t there, but across town in a hospital bed under fluorescent lights.
That was the type of shit I remembered.
It’s probably why I was so fucked up.
I managed to find a parking spot on the first level of the garage and made my way inside. The routine was familiar now and most of the staff knew me. I plastered a smile on my face as soon as the automatic doors opened, washing me in the smells of disinfectant and human misery. By the time I’d made my way to my mother’s room, I’d winked at nine nurses and excused myself from three pointless conversations about their children—or cats. I couldn’t understand which was which to these women.
“Hey mom,” I said softly as I entered the room. She was lying in the bed with her eyes closed. I hated that the hospital insisted on keeping the large fluorescent lights on. How anyone was supposed to sleep and get better when they were staring into the sun constantly was beyond me.
Her eyes fluttered open at my words. They were big and brown, just like mine. Her and I used to be so much more alike, but her diagnosis had changed both of us. I’d become a callus bastard that had kept his looks, and she’d become a more compassionate woman, while her looks faded. The glossy flaxen hair I remembered her having when I was a child was all but lifelessly gray now. It made me so fucking angry at the world.
People on the internet post stupid ass pictures of sunsets, daring anybody to deny God exists. Like the Earth continuing to move around an orbit was somehow a miracle. I’d like to post a picture of a son watching his mother and the only friend he had in the world die slowly in front of him for no reason and ask people to convince me God does exist.
“Silas.” Her voice was beautiful and I kept my mask firmly in place. I didn’t want her to see how sad I was to see her this way. “I told you not to come on school nights. What about your assignments?”
I shook my head and made my way to her bedside, pulling up the nightstand and placing our food on top. “I’ve got an arrangement worked out,” I said, choosing not to give her any further details. “I’ll be able to visit you more often now.”
She narrowed her brown eyes at me, but held her hand out for a chip. I smiled and brought the bag up to her. She was so very weak these days and even in just the past week, she seemed to be worse. Her skin hung loosely on what little muscle hadn’t withered from her body and I smiled bigger.
“Silas Jenkins, son of mine, please tell me this arrangement is honest.” Her accent leaked through and her tone was chiding. Because she knew me better than anyone.
I leaned back and snapped a chip in my mouth, chewing slowly. I thought about Skyler and wrinkled my features. “Depends on your definition of ‘honest.’”
My mother rolled her eyes. “You know my definition of honest. Sounds like it’s dependent upon your definition.”
I shrugged and gave her my best smile. She shook her head and laid back down in the bed. “Such a heartbreaker,” she said. Her words were light, but even still, I hated feeling like I’d disappointed her in any small way.
“It’s fine, mom,” I said reassuringly, putting my callused fingers atop her frail ones. “Please don’t worry.”
“I never worry about you, Si,” she said, calling me by my nickname. “Of everyone in this family, you’re the most put together.”
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cold fingers. “If that’s true, we’re all fucked,” I said with a laugh, leaning back in my chair and grabbing my burrito.
I’d stopped bringing my mother a dish of her own. She never had much of an appetite anymore and I knew wasting food made her anxious. She grew up in a small Italian village in Northern Italy, bordering Slovenia. Most of the town were farmers and those who couldn’t farm left or joined the Mob. That was just the way of the world for her growing up.
“Language, Silas,” she scolded, her voice weak and unable to carry the fiery Italian attitude I remembered from my youth.
“Mi dispiace,” I replied with the few words of Italian I knew. I took a bite of my dinner and offered her another chip, but she just shook her head. “Still don’t understand why you agreed to marry Percy.”
“Percy is your father, Si. It’s weird that you call him by his first name.”
I shrugged. “He’s not much of a father. And I’m not much of a liar.”
My mother snorted with a bit of laughter. “We both know that’s not true, amore mio.”
“It’s not too late to file for divorce,” I said, half joking, half serious, before taking another bite.
She sighed and fixed me with that intense stare of hers. “I know you two don’t get along well. But maybe try for me?”
“It’s hard to try when he’s never around. I mean honestly, mom, how much business in Brazil does one man have to do? And it can’t wait until you’re out of the hospital?”
She sighed again and looked back up at the fluorescent interrogation lights above us. “Your father is very busy with his businesses, which provide for us. We should be thankful.”
“I’m thankful that printed leggings aren’t a fashion trend anymore. I’m not thankful that I have an absentee father,” I said, shoving another bite of my burrito into my mouth. “Can’t we move back to your home?”
“He wasn’t always like this.” My mother smiled softly. “When I met him, he was such a charmer. And he was crazy about me. We were crazy about each other.” She shrugged and turned to look at me. “Il buon giorno si vede dal mattino.”
I shook my head.
“A good beginning makes a good ending.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe the wise old women of your village meant that sarcastically, mom.”
She laughed, the sound somehow dimming the harshness of the room. “If we became deserters, I wouldn’t get the help I needed and you’d be disinherited for coming with me.” Her tone was bright and I knew she was trying to lighten the mood.
I, on the other hand, was not past ruling this scenario out.
“I’m all the help you need and I don’t need his money,” I almost spat.
“Mio bello ragazzo, you and I need a lot of help.”
Her comment broke my defenses and we both laughed together.
“Besides, you should be good to your father. One day you’ll inherit all those businesses. You need to know how to run them.”
I popped the last bite of my burrito in my mouth. “If he can do it, so can I,” I said with my mouth full. “I’m smarter than he is, after all.”
My mother smiled and closed her eyes. “You just might be, amore mio.”
I could tell by my mother’s increasingly winded speech that she was getting too tired to carry on much longer. But I never wanted to put my mother in the position of asking me to leave. So, I always came up with a bullshit excuse.
“I gotta get back, mom. Homework,” I said, standing and kissing the top of her head. I left the bag of chips next to her bed, in case she got hungry for something other than Jell-O and dumped everything else in the trash.
“I’m glad you take your studies seriously, Si.”
I smiled and brought her bony hand up to my lips for a kiss. “Rest, mother.”
“Ti amo,” she whispered.
“Il mio cuore é solo tuo,” I replied, telling her my heart belonged to only her. It was something I’d said to her as a child and it’d become our tradition whenever we parted.
Closing her door, I made my way down the lonely hallway, back to the garage. As I walked, I looked down at my wristwatch and realized that the nurses had let me stay an extra fifteen minutes past visiting hours.
The world kept trying to convince me it was good. But it was wasting its time.
I knewhe was home the moment I’d opened the door. When my mother was home, the desolate mansion always felt brighter and more comforting, somehow. When my father was home, the place felt like it was being visited by a 1980s poltergeist. Angry, and to some, present company included, comically ridiculous.
I tried to make my way up to my room as quietly as possible, but the bastard had clearly been waiting to ambush me.
“Where the hell have you been?” he called out from the kitchen.
“Auditioning for the Bachelor: High School Edition,” I replied irreverently. I knew my mother asked me to try, but those were things people say on their deathbeds. She hated him as much as I did and if she were in her right mind, she wouldn’t have given me that cross to bear. “What’s your excuse for being absent while your wife is in the hospital?” I made my way into the kitchen so I could square off with him face to face.
It was a good thing I took after my mother, because in my opinion, Percy Jenkins was an ugly son of a bitch. No offense Grandma. Short, heavy-set, balding. Basically a Dr. Phil doppelgänger with about the same amount of judgment towards angsty teenagers.
“Grow up, Silas. Not everything can be a joke,” my father spat back, taking a sip of the whiskey he was nursing.
Pretty much every time I looked at my father, I secretly wished my mother was a moonlighting whore. I’d rather be some rando’s failed pullout than share blood with the man standing in front of me.
“Depends on your point of view. But, I wasn’t joking. Mom is in the hospital. In case you, you know, cared about shit like that.”
Percy looked at me with dead brown eyes. Why couldn’t he be the one in the hospital dying? The fact that he was standing here talking to me while mom’s mind and body wasted away on a hospital gurney was proof enough for me about the whole God-almighty nonsense.
“I’m aware,” he finally replied through gritted teeth. “Why can’t you take the world more seriously?” he said, totally ignoring the fact that mom was dying and he was the douche that refused to visit her. “Look at Albert’s grandson, Carter. Now that boy’s got a good head on his shoulders. Unlike you,” he said with narrowed eyes.
I seethed at his words, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
“Feel free to adopt him if you’d prefer him as your son. I’d happily give up the title,” I yawned and Percy’s face reddened. “If we’re done with whatever lame attempt at a conversation this is,” I said, gesturing wildly. “I’ll be going.”
“I saw the vase,” my father said, taking another drink from his tumbler.
I shrugged at him. “Oops.”
“Oops? That’s all you have to say to smashing a priceless vase?”
I gave him an exasperated stare. “Was there something else you’d like me to say? Is there a magic word that puts it back together?”
“You’re an ungrateful little piece of—”
I cut him off before he could embarrass himself any further. “Careful, or you’ll be the one saying oops.”
Percy shook his stupid bald head. “Figure out a way to replace it.” I could tell my father was getting angry, but he knew better than to try anything with me. At this point, I was easily twice his height and well—it’d be hard to be twice his size considering his—size. But I worked out religiously and he knew it. I couldn’t punch for shit, but it looked like I could and that’s all I cared about.
“That sounds like a dumb idea,” I said. “Considering that mom didn’t care about that fucking vase in the first place. And she’s not really around to enjoy it, even if she did.”
“Then it’s coming out of your inheritance,” he threatened. Well, at least he tried to threaten. Percy tried to motivate me with that shit the same way they did with cheat meals on the Biggest Loser.
Difference was, that I knew Percy was too selfish of a bastard to let money he felt was rightfully his go to anyone except someone that shared his name. And unless the fucker tried to bury himself with bags of gold, which wasn’t unlikely, the millions earmarked for my life was safe.
“I guess I’ll be making a check out in your name to a charity of my choosing then.”
I smirked. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to pay for sex. But, man to man, I just wanted to tell you that her real name’s probably not Charity.”
His temper broke. He started screaming. I started walking.
I was so past caring, I didn’t even bother slamming the door to my room.
In a few months, the only person I loved would die and I’d be left permanently alone in this house with Percy.
I laid down on my bed and finally let the smile slip off my face.
