Bringing the Light

14. Steve

"You're sending me away!?" I yelled at David and tried to pull away from him.  

"We're not sending you away, Stephen. I don't know why Arlene is here," David said, putting his arm around my shoulders and holding me tight. 

"Daddy? Is Stephen going away?" Erin asked. "Please don't make him go away."

"I'm not. We're not. I don't know what's happening. Why don't we go listen to Arlene and find out why she's here," David said. 

I wanted to run. If Arlene is here to tell me I'm being moved again, I will run. I'll leave my stuff and take off. I am not going back to the Boy's Home.

"Arlene," Mandy said as we walked up the porch. "We weren't expecting you. Is everything alright?"

"Hi, Mandy. Hi, David. Hi, Stephen," Arlene said, looking at me. She looked sad. 

"I'm not leaving, Arlene. I like it here! I have friends! I'm on the baseball team. I have a shot at a full-ride to UCLA!"

"I'm not here to take you anywhere, Stephen. I just came here to talk to you. I have some news for you and I think it's better if you hear it from me in person."

"Come on, Stephen," David said. "Let's go inside and see what Arlene has to say, alright?" 

David unlocked the door.  Mandy told Erin and Toby to go downstairs to the playroom in the basement, and they'd come to get them when we were finished. 

David led me to the living room and pushed me onto the couch. Not like, pushed, just sort of gently guided me to sit down. 

"Stephen, I'm afraid I have some bad news," Arlene said. 

"I'm not leaving and I am not going back to that Boy's Home! I'll run away before I go back there!"

"Arlene, Stephen's been doing so well here," Mandy said. "We never called to complain or have him removed. The neighbours love him. The kids love him. Hell, we love him!"

"I'm not here to remove Stephen from your care. Stephen, this might be hard news to hear, but I've come to tell you that your mother has passed away."

"What?" I asked. I couldn't have heard her properly. 

"I'm so sorry. But I've been informed that your mother was found in her cell, having died sometime during the night. It seems she got her hands on some illegal substance and accidentally overdosed."

I was stunned. My mom was gone? 

"Excuse me," I said and got up. 

"Stephen," Mandy said, reaching for me. I pulled my hand away from hers. 

"Stephen," Arlene said. 

"When?" I asked. 

"When what?" Arlene asked. 

"When did she die?" I asked. 

"Last Tuesday," Arlene said. 

"Last Tuesday?! And you're just telling me now!?"

"I just found out this morning. I'm so sorry, Stephen."

"Well, fuck her. I'm glad she's dead! She never gave a shit about me anyway! Good riddance!" I yelled and then ran up to my room and slammed the door.

I threw myself on my bed, and the tears just exploded out of me. 

My mom is gone. My mom is gone, and now I'll definitely never go home.  She's never going to get better. She's never going to try to be a good mom. She never even did. I was eight the last time I saw her. It's been almost eight years, and never in the whole time did she ever look for me, contact me, or visit before she wound up in jail.  She never asked for me to visit her.  I stopped existing for her the day I was taken away from her. 

So why am I so upset that she's gone?

I lay on my bed and let the tears flow. 

Eventually, they stopped, and I just lay there, curled up on my side, staring out my bedroom window at the oak tree in the backyard.  David had put a tire swing on there for Toby and Erin, but sometimes I sat out there on it, too. It was relaxing to sit there and swing.  

I thought about my mom. When I was little, no matter how much she hurt me, I always craved her love. I just wanted her to love me. I wasn't a bad kid. Was I? She said I was. 

I looked at my night table where ET was sitting beside my book on Freud. It was well-worn. I read it a lot. 

I'm unsure how long I lay there before someone knocked on my door. 

"Stephen? It's David. Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

David came in and sat beside me on my bed. 

"I'm not going to ask how you're doing. But how are you feeling? What are you feeling? Talk to me."

"I don't want to talk," I mumbled. 

"I bet. But Stephen, if you don't talk about how you're feeling, you're going to bottle it up inside. It'll just fester and grow until you can't handle it anymore, and one day, you'll explode. And that won't likely go well for you," David said. 

"She was my mom. I hate her, but I love her. I always loved her. She didn't love me. Why didn't she love me?" I cried. David pulled me into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around me. He didn't say anything. He didn't tell me not to cry. He didn't say anything besides 'Let it out' and 'It's going to be okay.' 

"I can't explain why your mom treated you the way she did. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent. I wish I could say that at least she tried because we both know she didn't. But somehow, with everything you've been through, you've turned out to be an amazingly compassionate and caring person.  You don't let things hold you back. You're stubborn, but you're also passionate about things. You care about others. You are an amazing young man. You've been a great influence on Toby and Erin," David said as I stopped crying.

"But all I ever wanted was for her to love me. Why was that so hard?"

"I wish I could answer that for you, Stephen. But I don't know. That's honestly the best answer I can give. I just don't know."

I wasn't expecting that he would. 

"Why didn't she ever even ask to see me? It's like I stopped existing the day they took me away from her.  She never called, never showed up for visits and never asked me to visit her in jail. Was she just happy to be rid of me?"

"I'm going to be honest with you, okay? And this is just coming from me, not from anything I know or heard. She may have been happy to be rid of you, and that's okay. Not because you deserved that, but because it got you out of a situation that was heading to very bad places, based on what we've learned about you and what Arlene was able to tell us before you came to live here.  She might have been embarrassed by the situation. I know you don't know anything about your dad, but maybe you just reminded her a lot of him. And maybe that was not a good thing for her.  That doesn't make anything that happened to you your fault. If you do look like your dad, well, he's a good-looking guy," David smiled. I smiled a little, too. 

"Ohhhh," David said, picking ET up off my night table.  "I remember this guy. Great movie. Did you ever see it?"

"No, actually. I got that when I was in the hospital after I was taken from my mom. I've had it ever since."

"You've never seen ET? Well, dinner and a movie it is tonight!"

"I'm not really in the mood," I said. 

"That's fair. I understand. I wasn't thinking. Look, we have the movie on tape. We can watch it any time you want. If you're feeling up to it, we can order pizza instead of going out. We still have to celebrate all the good things that happened today. But I don't want to step on your toes if you want some time to grieve.  We can celebrate another night. 

I thought about it.  What good would it do to sulk in my room all night? 

"Yeah, let's do that," I said, smiling a little. 

And so that's what we did.