The rum smelled good.
Better than good in fact.
It smelled of memories.
When it hit her tongue, it burned with a searing intensity that continued as it flowed down her throat, and seemed to linger there, like the memory of a kiss or a grazed knee. She understood, even though she poured just a little into her glass, why her mother had loved it so. Well, not the rum. Rum was not her poison. It was good old, cheap and slutty beer.
Her daughter, however, was a different kettle of fish. She had seen what it had done and was extremely wary of it. But sometimes, she just wanted to turn the tables.
Turn the tables. That phrase made her smile. Her mother had physically turned the tables when she had collapsed into one decades ago, coming up to Christmas. The shit had certainly hit the fan that year. Feliz Navidad her ass. That was the winter that her mother, in a blind and jealous rage, had told her truths she had hinted at for years.
Her green eyes burned with the intensity of that flashback. Her father had been back from Egypt that Christmas, and she had missed him so much. They were extremely close, for a father and daughter with army challenges, and she tried to talk to him every week. They only got closer when Jenny got to college.
She didn't really get on with her mother, and Jenny liked to act out in school, she had a habit of covering school property with graffiti without a second thought. She was a bright kid, kind of walking the tightrope between goody-two-shoes and attention seeker. The last thing on her mind was boys, but she did love playing with their minds, but never let anyone in. There was a 'School Jenny' and 'Another Jenny'. They couldn't have been more different, but after that Christmas, the lines, which could blur sometimes, got blurrier than Jenny's present eyesight.
'Mom, please, come on. It's time to go to bed.' A fourteen year old Jenny pleaded, wide-eyed, at her mother. She didn't even recognise her anymore. Her eyes were red and bloodshot from her binging and her heavily lidded eyes kept threatening to close.
She picked up the cigarettes that her mother reached for, her reflexes superhuman compared to that of her mother's slurred movements and harsh words that she winced off. She didn't want to show her how much her words hurt, but her eyes were burning so bad.
'Gimme my cigarettes, you little bitch!' She stumbled blindly, groping at the ornate Georgian fireplace as she regained her balance. The last things that she needed were cigarettes. God, if she got her hands on some, she'd probably burn their brownstone to the ground.
'No. I want you to stop. Please. I hate seeing you like this. It's not fair.'
'You have no right to judge me. You and him, looking at me, watching me. All. The. Time.
And then a thought crossed her mind and she shouted: 'You love those damn cigarettes more than you love me, dont'cha? Just go to hell!'
She walked coldly out of the living room, her shoulders set. She stormed into her father's study, slamming the door as she went.
'You tried, honey. At least you tried. Just leave her to sleep it off, and she'll be right as rain in the morning, don't worry.' Her father tried to reassure her as she threw herself on to the chaise longue opposite his desk, shooting him a dirty look.
'Yeah. You were a great help, thanks.' She knew her words were bitter, but she wanted him to hurt. Hurt like she did. He had no idea, especially when he was deployed, how bad things could get.
'Jen, look, I'm-' his words were cut off by a crash in the next room, and Jenny jumped to her feet, racing toward the sound, her heart pounding.
She shivered, back in the present. She knew her mother wasn't badly hurt, just a couple of bruised ribs, but they had never been able to repair the table. And it had been one Jenny was particularly fond of, but when she saw it, she calmly picked up her mother and swept up the remains of the antique.
She smiled, thinking of the look on her father's face, coming home when her mother had gone out shopping, only to find his little girl burning the broken table and throwing bottles of his finest liquor as well as the cheap beer his wife favoured into the bonfire, watching it burn with a look of malevolent satisfaction etched on her young features.
That was the first of many turning points for Jenny. No longer would she wait, scared to death that her mother would fall down their huge staircase or the like. She waited, staring her mother down until she went to bed frogmarching her up those same stairs, locking her into her bedroom.
The first night she had tried to act casual, reading a book on the couch as her mother watched TV, surreptitiously trying to fix herself a drink. Jenny stood up and feigned stretching. Her mother whipped around when she got up, her bleary eyes taking in Jenny's stretch. 'You going to bed? Sick of watching me?'
'No, Ma. That's not true I mean I'm not watching, but I am going to bed.' Her mother's voice was sharp, as usual. 'Don't be smart.'
Her heart was pounding, but she knew she had to do it, she had to, or she'd never get any sleep. Jenny sighed inwardly. 'Can I show you something? Upstairs? Please?' she got a grumbled response. 'It's in your room.' She left that open for interpretation and she opened the living room door, adding cautiously, 'Coming to check it out?'
She went to take her mother's arm on the staircase, but she jerked it away. 'I am NOT an invalid; I don't need your help.' Jenny shrugged it off, used to it by now. Little did her mother know, but things were going to change. Noemi, their new housekeeper, had left hours before, but Jenny had made sure that her mother's bedroom was nice and warm. She wasn't cruel enough to make her mother freeze.
They entered the room, and Jenny quickly brought her mother over to the bed. 'Stay here for a second, I have to check if it's still there,' she crossed to the window, visually checking the lock on the window so as not to alert her mother. She walked back over to the door. 'Look, Mom, I still love you, but this is for your own good.'
Without waiting for a response, she shut the door quickly and locked it without hesitation, taking the key with her.
That night, she didn't sleep much, as usual, so she took up her usual perch downstairs. Her mother shouted and screamed, beating at the door with her fists as if she was possessed, but Jenny sat in the living room, just watching TV, blocking her out with the loud volume. The next morning, her mother didn't remember a thing.
Sometimes she overslept for school, but she didn't care. She would get up and out of the house as soon as she could, oblivious to her mother puking her guts up in the master bedroom's ensuite bathroom after the previous night's escapades. Sometimes, when she showed her face just as Jenny was going out the front door, she got in a snide remark, just because she was still hung-over. She took it in her stride, because she knew she would get verbally bashed for it later.
'Why is your hair tied up like that, Jennifer?'
'Jennifer Shepard, fix that skirt right now. You look like a hooker, positively shameful.'
'Jennifer, what is that stuff on your face? Running off to the circus?'
Jenny smiled into the tumbler. Her mother would be eating her words now.
Now she was the first female Director of an armed agency, she didn't give a damn anymore. She wore short skirts and makeup and she wore her hair whatever way she wanted. She sipped her rum, whilst simultaneously flipping the bird to the photo of her mother beside the fireplace, and deciding that she preferred bourbon and the man that went with it anyways. Setting down her glass, she reached for her phone and dialled one on speed dial. She heard him pick up, and announced, 'Let's talk. I have a bottle of rum for me to burn, an empty fireplace and some bourbon with your name on it. Get your ass here in ten.'