Bye, Bitch

I smother my smile with my hand and a cough when my brother starts to cry at our mother's funeral.

Jackson's face is pinched and bright red like an agitated boil. Fat, sloppy tears spill down his cheeks. Runny snot drips onto his white button-up shirt. It reminds me of when we were kids and I gave him a bloody nose. For what? I don't remember, but I'm sure he deserved it. Or the time AJ "the Bulldozer" Richter called him gay before running an offensive play in midget football.

My little brother. Sensitive, annoying. The human equivalent of a hangnail.

It's the same disgusting scene he always makes. And as always, it makes me irrationally angry. This time, I'm more than angry. There's thunder and lightning in my chest, screams bubble in my throat.

An old woman I don't know in the pew in front of me turns slightly to throw me a suspicious glare. I keep eye contact obstinately until she turns around. My husband, Nick, elbows me in the ribs with side-eye.

"Behave," he mutters, even though the corners of his mouth twitch upward.

Looking into his face for a little too long, I'm struck by how handsome he is. Blue calm eyes. Others might determine a sadness in them, but he's not sad. Not for my mother. He's concerned. Confused. I can tell by the way his forehead is creased. The way his eyes dart back and forth to decipher my expression and respond to my feelings appropriately. Nick thinks being here doesn't make sense. He had a good childhood.

Abuse is complicated. How many times have I heard people say, "But she's your mother" over the years? They say parents raise you, but not all of them do. To raise is to cultivate a child, to elevate them into a well-adjusted member of society. Even more than that, a parent is supposed to love their children more than they love themselves. My mother didn't know how to do that.

No. She didn't want to love us more. I could tell by the way she used us to bleed money from my grandfather that he didn't have. Jackson learned how to cry to get what he wanted from the reigning champ. That man's hard-earned cash went to support her shopping addiction while we starved and went without electricity.

Maybe I knew she didn't care when she forgot to feed my pet rats while I was at summer camp. I had three females; Penny, Pepper, and Penelope. I was fourteen. I opened my bedroom door and was greeted by stale air and the stench of animal shit. Penny and Pepper were safe in the cage, but I couldn't find Penelope. I was upset but assured that she was somewhere in the house. I found her when I cleaned the neglected cage, her corpse buried underneath the bedding. It was hardly recognizable. Penny and Pepper had to eat somehow.

I would take it personally. But when I moved out, she accumulated three step children in addition to my brother. Four teenage boys that she had to take care of. What a laugh.

"Please Kitty, I need money to feed the boys. There's no food in the house. John got fired." I hear her take a long drag from a cigarette.

Jackson is called up to the lectern by the pastor who presides over the congregation. I don't know her, I haven't been to church in eight years. My brother lumbers up the aisle, smoothing his black suit jacket when he approaches. The index cards he pulls from his pocket flutter like butterfly wings in his trembling hands. His eulogy begins in halting starts and stops. He trips over his own blubbering lips.

"My mother was my best friend."

No, she made you take care of her.

"She loved everyone and took care of people."

She only cared about attention.

"Always giving the shirt off her back."

She took my grandfather's money. She took advantage of other peoples' kindness. She took our childhoods.

His words fade away, leaving an angry buzzing in my ears.

Red. Everything is red. My nails dig into my palms so hard that I hardly notice when their sharpened points break my skin.

I waited so long for the news. Eight years I waited for the phone to ring and end my suffering. I watched from afar as she lost her teeth, her hair, her beauty. It didn't give me joy. Or maybe it did. Because as she withered away into nothing, I raised myself. Made myself into a person she could never be. Someone who pays their bills. Someone who puts the people they love first.

Nick's hand squeezing my thigh makes me jump. I don't know how much time has passed, but my brother has been replaced in front of the crowd by the woman pastor. Her brows furrow while she gazes directly at me.

"Kitty, would you like to say a few words?"

My body moves before I can think. It's as if I can't wait to get up there. My feet bounce off the floor as if it were hot coals instead of a sixty year-old carpet. I speed past the front row where the rest of the family sits. There's an empty seat where I'm supposed to be. Before I know it, my hands are flat upon the polished wood of the lectern. Everyone watches me, rusting in their pews like a murder of crows. Soft whispers creep through the room in waves.

Among the crows are a handful of owls giving me knowing, wary looks. They're tense, aware that a natural disaster is about to strike.

"Wow," I say. "It's like we had two entirely separate childhoods, you lying little-" I cut myself off. Close my eyes for a few tense breaths to tamper my anger.

A low chuckle, bubbling into giddy giggles, rising into open mouthed laughter. Then a witch-like, maniacal cackle. Finally, I catch my breath. I meet their horrified expressions with a teeth-filled grin.

"I'm so glad she's dead."