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“Hi, Mom.”
Beard had parked around the corner, unsure if he had the strength to see his mother for the first time in two plus years. He used the walk to build up the courage, picturing Ted in his head encouraging him. Patricia ‘Patty’ Beard looked up from her magazine as if she had seen a ghost, which to her, maybe she had. Maybe she hadn’t expected to see her son again; maybe he should’ve let her have her wish.
She recovered quickly, though, and the unamused look she wore for most of Beard’s childhood replaced the look of shock on her face as she took a drag from her cigarette before stubbing it into an overflowing ashtray and lighting another. She frowned as she did so, the marionette lines becoming even more pronounced. Maybe the years had done that; Beard didn’t know.
He wasn’t sure if he cared.
“I thought you weren't getting out until next year,” she said, taking a long drag of the Carlton cigarette.
Nice to see you, son. Glad to hear you were released early.
“Got parole,” Beard explained, shoving his hands into his pockets as he climbed the steps onto the porch, the second step creaking in the same spot it always had.
Sorry, I didn’t visit.
Dejavu floated through him as he sat down in the same rickety chair that had been on the porch since he was a teen. It would make most people calmer, being in the presence of their mother and childhood home soon after being released back into society. But Beard wasn’t normal, and neither was Patty; neither was his life, before or after those cell doors shut behind him for the first time.
But he had come this far; he wanted to make them proud. Wanted to show his mother he wasn’t who she thought he was. He wanted to show her he wasn’t who she raised him to be. But, maybe he was exactly that.
He hadn’t even wanted to come.
He hadn’t planned to see her, at least not yet, until Ted’s mom planted the idea in his head.
“Your Mom must be so happy you’re home.”
Beard hadn’t had the heart to tell Dottie that his Mom didn’t even know he was on the streets. He hadn’t had the heart to tell Dottie that his mother wouldn’t be happy. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her his mother likely wouldn’t even care.
Patty snorted lightly, “Well, you can't stay here. Michael’s been staying in your room.”
The years hadn't been kind to his mother, nor had she been kind to them. Saddled with an alcoholic husband and ‘ungrateful’ kids, she had spent most of it working three jobs to keep her children moderately fed and clothed. As the oldest, Beard did his part, but Patty alternated between refusing the charity he offered and lambasting him for not providing enough for his family.
Beard could never win with his mother, not when she kept rewriting the rules.
“That’s okay, Mom. I'm staying with Ted,” Beard said, resisting the urge to ask her for a cigarette.
He quit in college, picked the habit back up during his addiction and quit again in prison, though that hadn’t necessarily been his choice, nicotine not being one of the drugs readily available to those incarcerated. Still, he had managed this long, he could keep going. He should keep going. Ted would want him to keep going. Sometimes Beard felt it was easier to kick the meth than it was nicotine.
“Who the fuck’s Ted?” his mother asked between puffs.
“Ted. My college roommate.”
“Oh. Right. The one who talked too much.”
The football scholarship had been Beard’s escape from poverty. It had been his escape from the small town he feared he would die in if he never left. It had been his escape from this porch, this house, his mother.
His fate.
Patty visited once his freshman year during parents weekend, complaining that Dottie was flaunting her middle-class wealth by offering to pay for their meal when the four went to the Cracker Barrell.
She didn’t visit again.
“Ted’s a good man.”
It’s an understatement, but his mother wouldn’t understand. She’s never had a friend like Ted Lasso. In that way he almost pitied her. The friendship made Beard rich in a way he never thought possible. A way Patty would never understand.
“Bet that makes him feel good about himself–” another puff from the cigarette, “--taking you in.”
“I don’t know, Mom. Ted just likes to help people.”
Patty snorted again. “No one just likes to help people.”
Ted does.
“You get a job yet?” Patty changed the subject.
“Not yet,” Beard admitted.
“Michelle needs braces.”
His youngest sister, Michelle, was thirteen, likely still at school. When Ted started dating his Michelle, Beard had felt an immediate fondness, despite the fact that he barely knew his Michelle, having spent as much time out of the house as possible since she was born. He wondered if he could change that now that he was out, now that he was clean. Maybe he could spend some time with her without their Mom, without Patty souring every interaction. Michelle was a surprise. That’s what they said when she was around.
Mom called her a mistake when she wasn’t.
“Ted said I could get a job with him coaching once the season starts,” Beard said.
“It’s April, Willis. What’re you gonna do until then? Lay on Ted’s fucking couch?”
Another cigarette was lit, and the smell suddenly made him nauseous. He grew up with the same smell baked into his clothes, his skin, and his possessions. Now, it felt like a handcuff, and he had enough of those to last a lifetime.
“I’ve been looking, Mom. Not everyone wants to hire someone like me.”
Patty’s face did that thing it did when she wanted to say, no shit dumbass. Her face did that a lot.
“I’ll send money as soon as I can.”
He needed a shower, the smoke was already seeping into his clothes, Ted’s clothes. Beard needed to run as far away from this house as possible. His skin felt itchy all over and a size too small. It’s the first time since he’s been released that he’s felt this way.
He’s just in a different type of prison.
There wasn’t anything here his mother could give him. There wasn’t anything here but bad memories, broken promises and pain.
“You missed your father’s funeral.”
It was more an accusation than a statement. Neither of them needed the reminder.
“My furlough request was denied.”
His oldest sister, Dawn, had called the prison and got ahold of his case worker, who relayed the news that his father was dead, doing his best to be empathetic, to let him know there were counsellors he could talk to if he needed to, then sent him back to his cell when he didn’t. Beard thought he would feel relief; he thought he would feel grateful, but he just felt empty. He didn’t request a furlough. Didn’t much care to bother with the paperwork, only to confirm the fucker was actually dead. Easier to tell everyone he was denied, and probably would have been anyway, his institutional adjustment being what it was or wasn’t, depending on how you looked at it.
Even if he thought it might be approved, even if he wanted the chance to say goodbye to his father, Beard wasn’t sure a furlough would have ever been enough. A few hours spent outside the walls of the institution, but his hands and ankles shackled together would be both too much freedom and not enough. How would he return to his cell after breathing unrecycled air? How could he go back to the yard after being outside without barbed wire within view from every angle?
“You didn’t miss much,” Patty said, “Your brother didn’t bother to show up either.”
“I’m going to visit the cemetery after this,” he lied.
That was the plan originally, at the very least, to piss on the man’s grave. Now, he only wanted to flee the town as quickly as possible.
“No need to stick around for me,” another pull of a Carlton as she picked the magazine back up.
There was little to stick around for at all.
Beard walked the short distance to Ted’s car, unlocking the door and sitting heavily in the driver’s seat, scrubbing a hand down his face. He looked around the neighbourhood he grew up in; it looked somehow completely different and exactly the same. The next time he saw his mother, it would be at her funeral.
The emptiness would grow.
Beard didn’t know if it would ever be filled.