A Mom's Greatest Sorrow

The one thing Daria had found out the hard way was, sitting in a jail cell gives you tons of time to sit and think about the past and all the mistakes you had made in your life. She had, had two days and two whole nights. Sleep never comes to the wicked. The nightmares and guilt were still way too sharp, like a knife straight through both her heart and brain.

Daria now understood why incarceration was such a good tool for criminals, with nothing to do but sit and think all day, a person could go crazy quite easily. Cooking, cleaning, work; all things she used to hate having to do; she would give the world for right now if they would help keep the pain at bay for even a minute.

Her tears, hot and salty, running down her face were wasted on the people in this place. To them, she was just the bitch that killed her son. They didn't believe her story or the truth. She knew nobody would, even her own family. She hadn't even admitted how bad things had gotten with her boy to her own mom, whom was not only the best mother in the world, but also her best friend and armchair therapist. Mom would never understand how she could let things get this bad. This out of control.

Thinking back, the only time Daria could remember being in control of her very own life was right after Severe, Jr, her oldest, had went to prison. Those two years, sadly, were the best two years of her life. She knew where he was, he had a roof over his head and food in his belly. And most of all, he wasn't there to terrorize her anymore. When he got out, it was like she was being shoved right back into the cage she had been in before he was put away.

It was so hard to love someone so much, but hate them so much at the same time. She loved him because he was a part of her, but his psychotic nature made her hate him even more than she could ever have loved him. The cruel things he had said or done to her, and the humiliation he had caused her so many times, so many years. He loved systematically tearing her down. His cruelties knew no bounds.

Daria had known someday he would finally drive her to have to make a decision to be rid of him from her life, but she had never believed that he would go as far as he did.

For years, she had blamed his father for how he was turning out, but somewhere deep down she knew it wasn't just anger from his dad taking off and leaving them when Junior was four years old. Severe, Sr., aka Sev's, leaving did start her problems with Junior, but his regressing back into a baby was just the tip of the horrors to come with age.

He first stopped talking and walking, started crawling and babbling again. She had to start diapers and bottle feeding him all over. If she handed him a sippy cup, he just dropped it. She would try to get him on his feet to walk, he would just crumple to his knees. He wouldn't pick food up or use a spoon to eat, he would lie on a blanket in the floor for hours and eventually crawl after something if he took a want for it. He was a severely depressed toddler.

So yes, Sev's leaving had really messed him up, worst of all, he had left her five months pregnant with their second son, Luca. Him leaving caused her to lose everything, not just her precious, beautiful, perfect little boy, but everything they had built together for seven years. Junior wasn't the only one affected by Sev's dirty choices.

Daria's mental state had deteriorated pretty badly when she found out he was shacking up with someone she had grown up with and she thought of as a sister instead of the cousin she really was. She had been closer to Terry than she had been her own sister. If she hadn't had Junior to take care of, she knew she would've completely lost it.

Thinking of that dark period in her life, she realized the killer inside of her had just lain dormant all these years. Remembering how she had loaded little Junior into his car seat, and drove to Troter St., circled Grandma Toot's trailer ten times or more, imagining Sev in bed with Terry, touching her, kissing her, making love to her as he had done with her in their bed so many times made her brain feel like it was on fire. She had pulled the car over a block from the trailer, forgetting about the baby sleeping in the backseat, got out of the car and opened the trunk. She looked at the rifle Sev had left behind when he took off that dreaded day. The fire of revenge was starting to consume her as she remembered so vividly the day he left them like they didn't exist.

He came in from work, like any other day. She was in the bathroom with Junior, he was on the potty. When her son was done and trailing behind, she went out into the living room, expecting to see him sitting on the couch, already turning on the TV and scoping out what he wanted to watch, but he wasn't there. Junior sat down in front of it and she put toons on for him. She had walked on into the kitchen, thinking he might be making himself a snack before supper, not there.

She heard someone coming roughly down the steps from upstairs. Heard a thump, thump, thump of the garbage bag with all his clothing in it, hitting each step as it was being pulled down behind him. Although she found this odd, it still didn't register what he was doing.

"What's in that bag?" she had asked him and got no answer.

Junior was up and running towards his daddy. Oh my how that baby loved his daddy, more than her, more than anything in this world. Daddy was his best buddy. Sev walked past Junior, pushing him down in the process. Didn't say anything to him. Daria had shouted at him.

"Why won't you talk to him! He's been waiting for you all day. And all you can do is shove him down. What the hell?!"

He turned back and looked at her, "I'm leaving."

She looked over and saw his bestfriend, Kent sitting in his car in the driveway. "Ok, but when will you be back? I can have your supper ready for you."

"Don't bother. I'm not coming back."

Junior had ahold of his daddy's leg. "Dad, dad! Up!" he chortled and held his hands up to be picked up. All Sev did was look at her and shout, "Get him off of me!" She remembered the almost hateful, not sorrowful tone he had.

Fearing he might strike or push him again, she picked her wailing, flailing toddler up. "Dad, dad! Dad, dad!", Junior had cried, waiting for his daddy to take him in his once loving arms.

Sev had always, since Junior could walk, taken him with everywhere but work and National Guard meetings. He had shown more love for his son than hardly any father she had ever seen. Always so proud to be Junior's daddy, until the day his prick's brain won out over his main brain.

She just stood there in shock while he kicked and shouted for his daddy, almost jumping out of her arms. Probably five minutes or more after he was in the car and long gone, she finally took her crying boy inside and started making phone calls. That was when she found out that her cousin had stolen her man.

Thinking about all this made the tears run fresh again, she got up from her lonely little bunk and paced the floor. Now her thoughts were on her family. Why hadn't her mom come to see her in the past two weeks, if for nothing more than to ask her WHY? Why didn't she want to hear her side of things? She should've guessed that Daria wouldn't have went this far without reason. The thought of being alone for the rest of her miserable life in a tiny jail cell, made her wish she had turned the gun on herself after she had shot him. Not once did she stop to think she would be abandoned. She just knew she had to do something. She had, had to end the madness.

Even Luca had not came to see her.

When he was fifteen and had come out to her, she had not abandoned him. She had not sent him packing like was her first instinct. Just the thought of his being gay and having sex with men, had made her cringe. She had always thought of the act of anal sex as barbaric, and she didn't make it easy for him, but she had not turned her back on him.

When Luca had tried to commit suicide, she realized the damage she was doing by constantly tell him he was going against God and family. That his feelings were just mixed up, give it time and he would like girls. Saying it was just a puberty thing. Looking back, she had come to realize, she had always known he was different.

The whole family had just laughed, pretending he was just going through a phase when he was little and wanted to play with dolls and put makeup on. He had at one point, at five years old even came to her and said, " Mommy can I get my tallywhacker cut off like that man on TV?" She realized he had been watching and paying attention more to the episode of Geraldo she had been watching that morning, than his toy cars she thought he was busy playing with.

Quickly she thought to herself, NOTE TO SELF: NO WATCHING GERALDO WHILE IMPRESSIONABLE CHILD IS IN THE ROOM!

She had looked at him like he was a bug under a microscope and with scary surprise had asked, "Why would you ask something like that?"

He looked her straight in the eyes and said, "I want to be like a girl. I want to wear dresses and makeup and be pretty, Mommy."

Daria just told him, "No baby, you are a boy. Boys don't wear dresses and makeup or play with doll babies." He had just went off to his and Junior's room and played with his toy cars some more.

Then when he turned fifteen and showed up to his birthday party with a boy, she still didn't think anything of it. Thinking he was just a friend. Luca had tried dating girls, but had never really had a girlfriend. Daria still didn't think much of it, until he introduced his friend, Michael, as his boyfriend to everyone in the room.

She heard her dad say, "What the hell did you call him?" and Luca calmly said back to him, "This is my boyfriend, Michael, Papaw." She knew she had to defuse this before it became something that no one could get over.

"Dad, he's his friend. Just leave it at that."

She had pulled Luca off to the side, asking, "Why would you just spring this on us? You could've at least told me you were bringing your friend."

"Mom, what would you have said if I did? What? I know what you would've said." He looked at her with those so sad eyes he had developed over the years to manipulate her. "You would've said, Don't bring him. You're not gay, you just think you are. Just like you always do when I try to tell you about myself and my feelings. You avoid Mom!"

"Ok, you're gay! So how do I deal with that? You expect me to just be ok with it! Well, I'm not ok with it! Two guys are not supposed to be together! You're supposed to be normal!"

"Oh so I'm supposed to be you're kind of normal, and God forbid I embarrass the family or tarnish it's good name. Huh Grandpa!" he shouted as he walked back into the room with the crowd of birthday partiers. He had grabbed Michael's hand and they walked out the door.

She knew she should go after him, hold him and tell him it was ok. They would work through it, but she didn't. Especially when she saw the angry look on her dad's face. He was humiliated and there was no getting around that. He would expect her to be humiliated too. So like any good Daddy's girl, she was.

Luca and Michael were an item for about four years, she still couldn't wrap her brain around it. Probably never truly would, but her son's happiness and well-being were what were important now.

One day not long after graduation, Luca came home and told her that she could be happy now. When she asked why, he said that when they were talking about their future and what they were going to do, Michael just up and said he wanted to go his own way.

"Broke up Mom!, Michael broke up with me!" and he collapsed in her arms. They went down to the floor, where Daria held him for quite a while, while he cried it all out. She shed tears for his pain, but inwardly, was glad it had ended. Now maybe she could have her son back. The son she could hopefully mold into a thriving, happy heterosexual.

Well that was a short-lived triumph, because the next morning when Daria knocked on his bedroom door to get him up for breakfast, he wouldn't respond. She just thought he needed more time to wake up. She let 20 minutes or so go by, and finally knocked one last time. No answer...Daria was going in.

Seconds ticked by, so she opened the door saying forcefully, "Luca! Get up! Breakfast is ready!"

He was lying on his bed looking lifeless. He was clammy to the touch, but had a very light pulse still. Daria raced to the phone and called 911. He ended up in a psyche ward for two months. Together, they learned to deal. She went to his family therapy and came to realize just how much she loved her son, gay or not, and all Daria really wanted was his happiness. He had the right to his own path in life, whether it was the one she would've chosen for him or not.


And out of everyone in her life, Daria knew Luca was the one she could count on