I went to her grave when it was over. I didn't know what had possessed me to do so, or even how I had convinced myself that it would be a good idea. But when I left the squad room, I had gone without really knowing where I would go. And it was in front of my mother's grave that I ended up. It was ironic, in the twisted sense that made me wonder if it was the world or me that was all screwed up. I had the feeling that I didn't want to know the answer.
Mom's name had been Madeleine. A beautiful name for a woman who had once upon a time, been beautiful herself. The years of putting up with me, among other things, had gotten to her after a while, but if I looked back far enough…I could remember a time before the beatings, and the rage fueled by the alcohol she'd send me out for when she was already too far in to go and get it herself. Before things had changed enough to make me somewhat into the person I was, now.
I had been named for her father. I remembered her telling me this once, on one of the good days. It was one of those things that she always seemed to be proud of, though on the bad days, you'd never know it. I was a disgrace, she'd yell, a disappointment. I didn't deserve the name I had been given…didn't deserve to live. I learned to ignore her after a while, but I could still hear it, and it hurt. Even now, years after she had gone, it hurt to hear her voice echoing in the back of my mind. I wondered if her voice would ever fade away.
And I wondered if she could see me now. Hoped that wherever she was, she could see that in many ways, she had been wrong about me. That I had made something of myself. That there were worse people than me, worse things than the ones I had gotten myself into. Once upon a time, I'd hated her, and I wondered as I stood there if I still did. Part of me wanted to. But the other part of me had long ago come to accept that in a way, she, too, had been a victim, a slave to her own addictions. There were, I thought bitterly, worse mothers out there, as I had only just seen.
Chesley Watkins was a real piece of work. I was starting to think of her the way I knew Goren thought of Nicole Wallace. A force to be reckoned with, and not a good one. I knew I would be seeing her again, knew I'd be feeling the repercussions of that shooting long from now, just like I'd felt the repercussions of decking that one councilman. I wondered if it was worth it, to continue this fight. To keep bothering with it when I knew damn well that even now, anything I said or did would probably still leave my mother in a state of either drunken rage or disappointment.
That was my weakness, and I knew it. My downfall, and the one thing that I knew would never go away. I wondered how Chesley had known to play on that aspect of me, wondered how she'd known that I had been uncomfortable around her. As if it were something about me that gave it all away. I hated the feeling. Didn't like the fact that someone as evil as Chesley could see right through me when it was so hard for me to express my feelings on my own. Above me, a streetlight flickered on as I spoke, finally breaking my silence.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" I asked, almost bitterly. "To prove yourself right, to prove that I was weak and worthless?"
I certainly felt that way. This case had left me shaken in more ways than one. For once, talking to Elizabeth Olivet had not really helped. There were more issues than the ones we had discussed. I was a cop, and had known that sooner or later, someone would get shot, and I'd be there to see it…or hear it, I thought, thinking of Max Greevey, my late first partner. But that wasn't it. That was never it. I had seen children murdered by other children who had been twisted and manipulated by a mother who had only pretended to be loving. I wondered if Chesley even cared, or if she'd just decided to cut her losses and walk away.
"You're the reason I am the way I am, you know," I said. "The reason why I've got issues. Why I can't ever seem to hold anything together. Is it worth it to you? Are you watching? Wherever you are, I bet you're laughing. You always were when I was hurting."
And she was. The good days became few and far between as the years went on. I remembered one in particular. It had been right before Dad had died. I'd gotten into a fight at school, and had balked at going home, fearing another beating like the one I'd just received. It had taking much persuasion on the part of one Caitlin McClesky, who still remained my closest friend, to get me there. Mom had been waiting, worried. I'd wanted to ask her if this was one of the many acts she liked to put on when she was drunk. But I hadn't. And she wasn't. Everything was fine; there was nothing wrong with me, I wasn't a disgrace.
Things were…odd to say the least, that night. I was on eggshells, wondering if Mom would finally snap, but by the time I decided to turn in for the night, she hadn't. I wondered if I'd get dragged out of bed that night for something I'd supposedly done wrong, and beaten from one end of the house to the other, but I wasn't. Instead, I woke up in a cold sweat, feverish and shivering, at the same time. And Mom had been there. I remember leaning against her, relieved that I wasn't alone, remembered her talking to me, though I couldn't for the life of me remember what she'd said. But she was there. I'd hidden my face in her shoulder so that she wouldn't be able to see me crying, because I had known that once the morning came, things would be back to normal, and I'd be called a pain in the ass for being sick, yet again.
"Why couldn't it have gone back to that?" I asked, trying and failing to keep my voice from breaking. "Why'd you have to go back to that damn bottle? Why couldn't you have just stayed sober for once in your life? Did you not understand what you were doing to me?"
It was pathetic, I thought as I continued to stand there, that I could only stand and face my mother now that she was gone…now that I knew she could not reach out and smack me across the face, like she had, many times before, when I'd dared to speak to her when she was in one of her drunken moods. I recalled bitterly that a few days later, Dad had died, and after that, days like that one had become virtually nonexistent. It was like Mom was determined to punish someone for everything that he had ever done wrong, and I was the one who took the fall for it. I would never admit it to anyone, least of all anyone that I knew, unless I myself was drunk, which rarely ever happened, but after Dad had died…there were more than just a few nights when I had cried myself to sleep, wishing that he was still there, if only to shield me from her.
"He protected me, you know," I said, my voice finally normal again. "From you. When you weren't looking. Used to promise me he'd get me out of there one day, but he loved you too damn much to leave. And you….you didn't even care. He'd have given you the world if he could have, and you would've turned it down, even then, just like you did everything else he tried to give you. I don't get it. What was wrong with him? With me? Were you just so damn unsatisfied that you had to take it out on everyone around you?"
This time, I didn't fall silent. Something inside me had snapped, and whether it was the thoughts of Chesley or the long-suppressed memories of my childhood that had done it, I didn't know, but I went on.
"There wasn't anything you could have changed. D'you hear me? Nothing. Things were the way they were, and if you didn't like it, that was your problem. All you ever cared about was that damn bottle, and you were too damn blind to see that it was hurting everyone else, and you know something else? I saw a bunch of kids this last case…bunch of kids that I could've ended up like. You want to know why they were the way they were?"
No answer, but I was long past expecting one as I continued on my tirade. "It was their mother. Yeah, you heard me. Their mother. The one who was supposed to nurture them, and protect them, and whatever else, but d'you think she gave a damn? No. She was just like you, only it wasn't the bottle she turned to, it was her own damn mind, and you know what? Those boys were eating out of her hand. They would've done anything for her, and they did. They murdered innocent families, stole things…beat the hell out of their own brother, all for her sake. Is that what you wanted?"
A bitter laugh escaped me when all I heard was a random cricket chirping in the grass nearby, and I went on yet again.
"Is that why I was a disgrace? Because I wouldn't go out there and do what you wanted? I've got news for you. I did do what you wanted. Every day. Every time I ran to that damn liquor store because you were too damn smashed to walk down there yourself, and I only ever did it because you scared the hell out of me. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Got to the point where I towered over you, but I still did what you said, and waited when I got home. Fell asleep wishing you'd get drunk enough to decide you wanted me dead, because it hurt that much to live."
That statement startled me, and this time, I did shut up. That was one thing I had definitely suppressed, had definitely tried not to remember. But yes, there had been times in my earlier years when I had wanted to die, if only to get away from that woman I called a mother even now. I realized then that there were tears streaming down my face, and that there probably had been tears on my face long before then. But no one was around, to witness this one weakness, and so I didn't bother to wipe them away, speaking again as I struggled once more to keep my voice from shaking.
"You were wrong," I said finally. "About everything. About me, and where I'd end up, and what I'd do. You might not be proud of me, wherever you are, but I'm proud of myself. I went the right way. I got where I wanted to be, and I'm still here. And you can hate me all you want, but that's never going to change."
I turned on my heel then, and left, wiping at my eyes now, if only to give myself a way to see where I was going. My feet felt heavy, and my footsteps seemed to echo loudly on the asphalt path as I made my way out, under the darkness that had fallen over the city. Chesley Watkins' boys may have gone one way, but whether or not she liked it, Madeleine Logan's had gone another, and he wasn't turning back. As I walked out of the cemetery, I felt something lifting, and got the feeling that it was the weight of my own world finally coming off of my shoulders. It was over. There was no going back, and there was no wanting to go back.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and closed my eyes as I continued walking, a sense of ease settling over me. Part of it was a feeling of liberation…the other, a feeling of relief.