Page 46 - TheBridge_Vol16

Auntie Gia always gave me books. Books
for my birthday, books for Christmas, and
books just because she thought I’d like
them.
–
It was a Sunday when she called. I was in
middle school and I was angry and wearing
hand-me-down Abercrombie and Fitch. The
phone rang. I waited for Auntie Gia to pick
it up. She wasn’t home. It kept ringing and
ringing. I ran down the hallway, annoyed,
and picked it up myself. The cord tangled
and twisted around my arm like a snake.
“Hello?” I said.
“Charlie?” she said.
“Who is this?”
There was a long pause.
“It’s me,” she said, “It’s me, it’s your mom.”
I had everything and nothing to say. “Oh,” I
said after a little while. She was crying.
“Charlie?” she asked, her voice raspy like I
remembered. “Charlie, I’m sorry.”
I breathed heavy and tried not to cry. I
didn’t want to cry because she didn’t
deserve to hear that. Instead I wiped my
eye with a pink cotton sleeve, leaving a
cakey smudge of cheap black mascara
on the fabric. I had played the same
memories of her over and over again in
my head and they became exhausted. I
had drained all the pulp out of them and
now I didn’t know her anymore.
“Charlie, I never meant to hurt you. You know
that, right?” she said. “You believe me, right?”
34 | The Bridge
There was a man’s voice mumbling in the
background, muffled, but definitely speaking
to her. “One fucking minute,” she said to him
in a whisper loud enough for me to hear.
I swallowed hard. In my family, you don’t
ask questions if you don’t want an honest
answer. “No. I don’t believe you,” I said,
surprising myself when the words came out.
“I know. I know you don’t. But listen Charlie,
I’m better now, okay? I needed a lot of help
and I’m better now,” she said. The man in
the background scoffed something to my
mother again. “Charlie, I gotta go, baby. But
listen, tell Auntie Gia I called, okay? She
knows, okay? I’ll see you soon, baby.” And
then there was a click.
I was angrier now. When Auntie Gia got home
I waited for her to take her white nurse clogs
off before I told her.
“My mother called today,” I said.
Auntie Gia walked to the fridge and took out
a package of chicken breasts. She paused and
rested her forehead on the cold white freezer
door. She sighed.
“Charlie,” she said, turning to face me, tired
purple bags under her eyes.
–
It was on that Sunday that my Auntie Gia
told me about my mother’s problem. I had
always known, but pretended that I didn’t.
We sat in the kitchen for a long time that
night, the chicken breasts sitting raw on the
counter behind us. “She wants to see you,”
she said. I pulled at a string along the hem of
my shirt until it unraveled all the way around
to the point that I couldn’t stop it. I wrapped
it around my finger until the tip turned blue
Vol. XVI | 35