When the Rain Never Stops

Chapter 11

Lee

Dinner with Will's family was enjoyable, I met his aunt and she's nice. They both have big brown eyes and brown hair, she's a smaller woman in height. I seriously wonder where she gets her perfume, it's the kind of stereotypical perfume old people always seem to have but you never actually know where they get it from. Maybe you just magically smell like that the minute you turn fifty. I probably stayed there for about four hours before deciding to head home. I kind of felt bad for my Dad, it was his first Christmas alone. Of course he still had me but my mom wasn't there to keep him company but I guess she wasn't ever there to keep him company. Regardless, I felt bad.

Christmas with my Dad this year was painful. My mom being gone out of the house for good was like an open wound and knowing that no matter how hard I hoped or prayed, she wouldn't walk through those doors sober and join us at the tree as we opened our presents. Never again would she stumble home in the dead of Christmas night, slurring "Merry Christmas" as she walked into the living room before passing out on the couch. Never again.

Though my Dad tried to make Christmas as happy as he could, it seemed impossible. The house was cold and bland, when you looked at it from the outside it was even worse. The house used to shine down on you and now the windows just stare at you with cold empty eyes that used to be filled with love. Now when you look at the house, all you see are the remnants of a once happy family that was destroyed by alcohol. What once was so happy has now been ruined, so I will never drink. I will never let an ounce of alcohol touch my mouth. I vow to never allow alcohol to ruin me as it did my mother.

My phone rang, it was my mother. I watched it ring and debated on picking up. In the end I did. "Mom?" I said with the word sounding foreign on my tongue. A slurred merry christmas came from the end. Though I'm sure she thought she was being kind by remembering her daughter on Christmas, the words stung. I asked myself in the moment why I always picked up the phone when she called. I know that it will never be her talking and it will only ever be the alcohol but still I pick up. I pick up because a piece of me is holding onto the idea that she'll choose me over the drinks. No matter how many times she hurts me, I'll always pick up. I will forever relieve the disappointment that spawns from my mother's phone calls.

I didn't hang up on her, I listened to her heavy breathing and the sound of traffic as she sat there not talking into the phone. But then I heard screeching, and I heard horns blaring, I heard a loud crash from her end and then it was just the sound of the radio that I heard. "Mom?" I said once more into the phone. There was no response this time, I couldn't even hear her breathing. "Mom?" I said again. I said it again and again until the word stopped sounding like a word at all. But still there was no response. My Dad looked over at me and saw my state of panic. "It's mom, I don't know what happened," I said to him. And then the line went dead.

An hour later, there was a knock on the door. There was a police officer standing at my front door, he looked at me and took off his hat. "Are you Athaleena Hardwell?" he asked me.

"Yes I am," something in my gut told me he didn't have good news. I said a silent prayer hoping my mother was alright but I knew that prayer would not be answered.

"Miss, I suggest you sit down for this, may I come in?" he asked me. I moved out of the way of the door and he stepped inside. I led him to the living room where I joined my dad on the couch. "I'm sorry to tell you this but your mother, Alicia Hardwell was killed in a car accident earlier this evening." His words knocked the wind out of my chest. While I had known in my heart that the noises I had heard over the phone was a crash, hearing it confirmed was a nightmare come to life. The officer gave us no time to realize her death was real, he read the will to us. She left everything to my dad and I. She also left a note in her will for us to read when she passed.

"My Dear Lee and Mike,

I'm sorry you're reading this. I hope that you, Lee, are reading this when you're older and your father and I have grown old together. I'm sorry for what I have put the both of you through. Neither of you deserve what I've put you through and I'm sorry. If I could change the past then I would, but I can only hope to be better in the future. I want you both to know that I love so very much. Mike, before I met you I didn't even know what love was or if it truly existed. And Lee, I know that I may not show it and I wasn't around a whole lot when you were a kid but I loved you every second of my life no matter how mad or drunk I was. I wish I could explain the things I've done but I can't. I can't even find the right words to write you this letter with. I shall miss you both so much. Lee, you must promise me you will never give up, you're so much smarter than you give yourself credit for. And don't ever place your worth on a boy, you're worth so much more than you could ever think, don't you ever settle for less. If you dare settle for less, I'll come back and haunt you and whoever you settle for. Mike, while I'm going to tell you not to mourn my death, I know you will do the exact opposite. I want you to know that you completed me, I know things changed after the drinking but in its prime, our marriage was more than I could've ever asked for. I had it all when I had the two of you. Please celebrate the good times we had together instead of mourning my death. I know that it's easier said than done but do it for me. I love you both for eternity and beyond.

Alicia"

At the moment, I felt my world crumble. The only question that ran through my mind was "Why?"

Two months later, we finally laid my mother to rest. The service was bleak and no one stood there with dry eyes. We all wept, whether the loss was personal or not, we all shared the loss. I had the task of delivering a speech, I hoped I'd be able to keep my composure. "Two months ago, on Christmas Day, I spoke to my mother for the last time. At the time I didn't know that it would be the last time. But you never know when it will be the last time. If I had known, I would have said so much more. Months ago, I would have told you my mother was not a good woman, after all it seemed she chose alcohol over me. But I feel as though it's easier to understand and admire someone once they are gone. The day she died, I felt my life fall apart. I seemed to almost have it all, but you can never have it all. And now I look out the window and see that it has begun to rain. It seems every time my life worsens, it rains. What do you do when the rain doesn't stop? That is the question I have come to ask myself. I mourn my mother today just as I mourned her yesterday and as I will mourn her tomorrow. I curse the alcohol that took my mother, though my mother died on Christmas, the alcohol killed off the real her years ago. By the end of her life, she was nothing but a vessel for the alcohol. But even then, there were times where you'd catch a glimpse of the real her. You'd look up at her and suddenly the woman she was before it all started was staring back. It was like when the clouds finally parted so that the sun could shine through. But I guess even that doesn't last," I managed to cry as little as possible during my speech. But when I stepped down from that podium, I just left the church.

I pushed open the big church doors and walked out into the cemetery. My friends followed behind me. I collapsed against a tree. My breath was out of control and I was dizzy. Everything stopped making sense, what did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me? So many questions and no answers. Things just kept getting worse, my life is a rollercoaster that only goes down. I shook my head as I pulled my knees to my chest. My friends gathered around me, not saying anything just sitting there letting me know that if I want to talk I can. "Please don't leave me," I whispered as my tears met the rain.

"Never," they all said in unison.