Casting Bones

Chapter 8 - Part 2

Desi waited until evening to head home, hoping that by that time his mother would have gone to Darlene's, or maybe was already passed out on the couch. He didn't want to talk about things, certainly not with her, and if he could get into the house without drawing too much attention to himself maybe he could be afforded the mercy of a night's sleep.

His string of tragic luck had clearly not ran its course quite yet though. When he quietly came in through the front door is mother was in the living room as if she'd been waiting, lounging on the couch with a cigarette between her fingers that was burnt down to the filter and an open bottle of cheap vodka, already half empty, that Desi could smell from across the room.

"Well. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." Her sarcasm was as sharp as Desi imagined the vodka was on the swallow. "Where the hell've you been?"

He resisted rolling his eyes as he locked the door behind himself, the anxiety that he'd managed to settle by driving around for a few hours now ripe and stifling in his chest again. If he could just disengage, just get to his room without a fight, that was all he asked for.

"Sorry. School started, I've been busy. It's easier to stay with Ashley when I have class." Desi offered his usual excuses cautiously. He hadn't been home for a few weeks, which wasn't necessarily unusual, but every now and then she'd like to give him shit for it anyway, courtesy of her alcoholism and abandonment issues. Depending on the mood and the number of bottles she'd been through that day, her reactions to his absence could range anywhere from manic bouts of anger and aggression, to sobbing and begging and threats of personal harm.

Anyone that had ever called Ashley dramatic had clearly never met Desi's mother.

She laughed with his excuses, like she found some sort of irony in them, and Desi wasn't sure what to make of that reaction. She didn't leave him wondering for too long. "The police came by looking for you. Twice. Asked where you were. When I told them that you stay with Ashley they told me she's been missing since Friday. So, where the hell've you been?"

Desi sighed, caught in his fib. It's not that he meant to lie, just that he didn't want to be having this discussion in the first place. He hadn't thought about the fact that the police might go to his house to find him. The day had been so long, he was hardly thinking at all anymore. "I was just driving around."

"For the whole weekend?" Her questions were just as skeptical as the cops', and even more condescending. It itched at Desi last strained nerve. He didn't have to wonder where she was heading with the comments. He already knew what she was thinking.

"Yes. For the whole weekend. I talked to the cops about it so you can tone down the interrogation." Desi let his aggravation show on his tone, moving to leave the living room and hopefully escape to his bed. He didn't have it in him to keep this up. He didn't have it in him to defend himself any longer, especially to her.

She followed, a hand on the wall to keep her balance. Despite her drunkenness, she got to the threshold of his room before he could close the door on her. "I ran into Karen Isaac at the grocer this morning. She certainly had a mouthful to say to me about you."

Desi stifled a scoff, responding under his breath as he kneeled to retrieve a duffle bag from under his bed. "You're an easy target. You're the only mother in the neighborhood worse than her."

She didn't respond; either not hearing him or choosing to ignore. Instead, she watched in silence as he started throwing clothes into the bag, not stopping him. He knew where this was going and it wasn't a good place. As much as he'd hoped for a bed to sleep in, he knew better. Tonight was a pack up and leave night.

After a while she added to her previous comment. "She wouldn't say it but, it sounds like they're treating this as a homicide."

"Homicide? You've been watching your crime dramas again, I see." Desi offered a laugh in response, a defense mechanism to his chest seizing with the new information. The cops hadn't said anything about finding evidence or a body though. They'd made it sound like she was just missing. If they thought she was dead, wouldn't he have already been arrested?