Page 141 of Serpentine

Just as Aella does.

“Miles,” she turns toward my brother, who’s gripping Aella for stability, “you’re both so handsome and grown up.”

We’re no longer grown men covered in leather who smell of oil and gasoline. We’re her boys.

Her boys loved and missed her for the entirety of our miserable lives.

“Mom,” Miles chokes out, and a singular tear treks down my cheek. I swipe it away and meet Aella’s sorrowful eyes.

“You left us with him,” Miles says, and the room seems silent to the point of deafening everyone in it.

Her tears flow harder following his statement. It’s not a question. No, it’s a reminder of what she did to us. The hurt and the pain she left us while she was living her new life.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think he’d do all this… I never knew he would continue to…”

“To beat us? To command his fucking club of vigilantes to find you? What, Mom? You thought he would just let you go?” I spout, crossing my arms over my chest in clear defense.

I’ve had weeks to prepare for this meeting. Sessions with the therapist helped me gain the confidence to walk in here today, ready to confront her. But I wasn’t prepared for the anger flowing through me.

I thought I was more prepared than this.

“No, I didn’t think he would do all this to find me. Though I worried he would be angry, I thought he would still have you boys to live for. To keep him sane.”

Miles scoffs to my left. “Sane? That isn’t a word I would use to describe him in the fucking slightest, Susan.”

Using her name instead of her title does something to our mother. She winces, dropping her eyes away and looking at Walter for… Direction? Comfort?

What exactly drove her into his arms?

Trails of money and drugs link him to the Jackals, and there’s more than that I’ve gathered on him, too. Irrefutable evidence.

My tongue itches to lay into both of them, but I breathe and let my brain catch up to my emotions as I’ve been working on in therapy.

“I know I missed a lot,” Susan says. “But I couldn’t take it any longer. You two are stronger for having him as your father. For losing me. I wouldn’t have survived it.”

Her words make my ears throb in time with my pattering pulse.

Miles shifts on his feet, crossing his arms as he does when trying to maintain control. Not that she knows she’s in any danger.

Would he kill our mother?

That I can’t answer the question makes me nervous, and I watch him like a hawk.

“What, do you want us to thank you?” Miles snorts.

Susan’s cheeks turn beet red. “No, that’s not what I’m saying…”

“Maybe we should all take a beat to let our emotions settle,” Walter interjects, and I snarl.

“Shut the fuck up.” My eyes flare as they capture his gaze.

We take him aback.

I turn my eyes on Susan, who’s shifting in her chair. “You missed more than you know. You missed Miles becoming president of Dad’s toxic fucking club. You missed him turning it around for the better. You missed us framing our father for murder to get his ass put away for the damage he’s caused and missed me finally getting diagnosed after years of not knowing why I was different. You also missed your lover’s daughter getting kidnapped by both of us and falling in love with both. You’ve missed the nights we cried out for you when we were sick or hurting and the moments in our lives we’d have loved for you to be there. You can’t take it back. No words will fix it, and no time will heal it. It’ll always be there,” I finally tell her.

Miles sighs as if I captured what he’s feeling perfectly.

“So, you’re saying this can never be fixed?” Susan asks, tears silently moving over her time-weathered cheeks.