Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
“You sure you’re not going to interrupt as soon as I get going again?” I tease her and instantly feel her smile against my chest. That makes it all right. It makes it all right because she’s smiling now and that’s what matters.
“Time will tell,” is all she says, and I love it. I love all of her.
“So, my grandmom, she’d come home and put her purse down, and I’d get all excited.” I glance down at Chlo and get back to running my hand in her hair as I remember what it used to feel like. “I never slept in my room, always the living room so I could hear her when she got in.
“Every time she’d smile down at me, like me waiting up for her made her the happiest person in the world. And I really believed it too. She’d set everything down and come sit in the recliner, letting me sit on her lap and tell her everything that happened that day at school.”
It fucking hurts remembering the small pieces of it that come to me. Things I didn’t even know I remembered.
“She’d always have a candy for me. Always. Sometimes there’d be a toy too, something small. Like things you’d get in a piñata.”
Chloe hums a small acknowledgment and lifts her leg to lay over mine as she peeks up at me. I pull her in closer, loving that she’s letting me tell her this.
“I always thought that she would go get something for me before coming home, you know?” I clear my throat, remembering how some nights if I wasn’t able to stay up, I actually felt bad. She’d gone through that trouble of getting me something, and I couldn’t even stay up for her. I remember wondering if that was why mom left. Because I didn’t stay up for her.
“I was six, I think when she died. And after the funeral, everyone came back to the house.” The depth of emotions that play in the soft blues of Chloe’s eyes force me to look at the ceiling rather than at her.
“And I didn’t know any of the people. I hardly recognized my own mother, because she’d been gone for years, but this one guy, an older guy with glasses, sat down in my grandmom’s recliner. And when he did, he pulled up a Zip-loc bag, and it had all the treats in it.”
I can feel Chloe’s eyes on me, but I can’t look down at her. It’s so stupid, but I can feel tears pricking my eyes.
“Grandmom had a stash I didn’t know about. She didn’t pick one out every night. It was right there all along.” I clear my throat and tell her, “I kicked him, Chlo. I kicked him hard and grabbed the bag from him. I grabbed it so hard that it tore, and the candy and little toys fell everywhere. They weren’t his though. They were Grandmom’s. It was her stash to give to me.”
I feel the tears on my chest at the same time as I hear Chloe sniffle.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and I hold her closer to me.
“It’s all right, Chlo. Just a story I remembered.” I don’t tell her the rest. How my mom beat my ass in front of everyone and made me throw away all the candy. She struck me so hard I fell to the floor. I don’t tell her how I cried uncontrollably and my mother, who I hadn’t seen in years, held my face up for everyone to see that she was punishing her brat of a child who didn’t deserve any candy. And that was why she left. That’s what she told them. That she was cursed with a bad kid.
She was so proud that everyone got to see her being the mother she never was. And the only thing I had to hold on to, was that those tears weren’t for her. They were never for her.
“Your grandmother sounds like a wonderful person.”
“She was,” I tell her and we’re both quiet for a long time.
“Hey, if you could up and leave, where would you go?” I ask her even though I can see sleep taking her already. She’s going to pass out soon and then I need to take care of some shit. I’ll be careful; I won’t wake her up.
“Anywhere that would take me,” she says playfully.
“I’m serious. What would you do?” I ask her, wondering if she’s really thought about it. If she’d really run away one day. She props herself up on her elbow, still lying on her stomach and considers me.
“I think I could be a writer. Not like a reporter… but like my books. Fiction.”
“If you could do anything at all, you’d write?” It takes me a minute to visualize it. Her bundled up on a sofa, with a mug of tea beside her, jotting down notes or typing away. I could see it. She’d be good at it.