The light emanating through the windows was alone in providing light for the house. It had been a long while since the place has hosted electricity. So long they had pulled all the bulbs out of their sockets so they would stop hitting their heads on them as the fixtures hung that low. The kitchen was best illuminated at this time of day, so that's where they gathered in the mornings. Gathered was a generous term-- where they had once been a collective of ten, eight of the family had moved on. If one of them even counted as family. It was just Blaise and her son that lived there now, making the neighborhood almost too silent where a few years ago you could easily find over half a dozen children kicking up the pavement before, after, and sometimes during school. It was just the two of them now, with no electricity and barely keeping the running water. Blaise wasn't unhappy, however. She'd had a good run, lived a good life, raised some fantastic sons. And she still had her pride and joy left.
Of course, she would never say aloud she had a favorite son, but it was blindingly obvious she loved her youngest way too much for his own good. She used to spoil him, take him to evey game when she could afford it. The other kids didn't mind. Maybe Franky had been a bit jealous when Scout took over the role of being the baby but honestly, it was hard to feel shunted when unable to get between Blaise and her little slugger. They were just too close. So close he was 23 and still lived with her. Let her cook for him. Became the man of the house when everyone was eventually married off or traveled to the other side of the continent or pursued whatever other dream they'd had. Or left Blaise in tears. Unfortunately not in that order.
Nathan pressed his paperwork to the table and sighed. He looked up to his mother dragging smoke out of her cigarette and watching out the cracking window. The radio didn't work anymore so the birds were the most interesting thing around the place even if most of what they did was poop. One might question what such a poor household was doing wasting money on cigarettes but whenever Nate made any suggestion he was shut down about it. Still, she had made concessions quietly without discussing it, cutting down and down until she had one maybe every Friday. It was the most he could ask for. He knew it reminded her of Dad.
"So," she inquired, "That paperwork another application? What do we got this time hun? I hope it's a delivery job again I know you like those ones best."
Nate shook his head. It was indeed yet another job application but it wasn't for a delivery job. Honestly, if he was to put up a job title for it he had to tell his mother he wasn't sure what he would say. He had to tell her what it was eventually he knew but, he only really had to if he got the job anyway so maybe it was best not to mention it yet. Save her the turmoil. Save himself the turmoil too.
"Ain't a delivery gig, it's a much nicer one. Good pay. Not so sure I'll get it but it's worth trying am I right? IF I get turned down it's their loss!" he scoffed, making his mother smile at his bravado.
"God, you remind me more of your dad every day. He was such a bragger himself. Sometimes I wasn't sure he was tellin' the truth or lyin'. You though, you're easy to see thorough, " she teased, "So youse got a little ways to go hon." Nathan smiled back and shrugged, sweeping up his application and snatching a kiss from his mother's cheek.
"You say I got a ways to go but I'm tellin you I'm gonna hit it big soon okay? Just as soon as these folks accept me. We gonna have light again, we gonna have heating too. And it'll be in a bigger house. And we'll get a new pet dog, and I'm callin' her Mozzarella."
"Keep dreaming big, honey."
He trotted towards the door and only held up to ask if the car was working again. The reply was no, that thing was pretty much junkable. Best case scenario they could sell it for parts. Disappointed Nate took himself out to one of his jobs via bus and Blaise waited minutes after he left until she felt truly alone in the house. She dragged herself listlessly up the staircase to her dark bedroom and up there she pulled a box out of the wardrobe so she could ritualistically look through the dregs of her love life. This happened pretty much every week. She put out her cigarette in the same overflowing ashtray she always did and picked apart the contents. Romantic photos, roses pressed in a novella she would never read, a box of matches she preserved, the official letter sent to her to inform her of her lover's death...
Hold up, that wasn't in there. The letter, it was gone. It had been there last week. She tipped the contents out and searched around, checked quickly around her room, baffled. It was only a painful letter, she wasn't that attached to it, so she let it go with only a bit of irritation. It would show up eventually, she supposed. It was just strange. She generally kept better care of these things.
-
"You are calling them and telling them you won't be taking the job! That simple!" Blaise demanded sternly. This wasn't happening, in her mind. Nathan was being stupid, obviously. Childish. Selfish. Stupid.
"But Ma, they're willing to hire me. Me! I mean, I'm pretty alright, but I ain't exactly killed a guy before. This is such a friggin huge opportunity for us," he grinned, as if the situation was wholly positive. Clearly Blaise didn't think it was. She was visibly shaking. With anger, with frustration, maybe with fear. Nate couldn't read all that off her but she was upset, and she was usually never upset. She had pretty thick skin, being a lady who raised eight and descending boys for 23 years.
"Why did they even hire you?!" She squeaked in distress.
"Well I," Nate stopped up. He knew he was going to get a little flack in a moment. He didn't like doing stuff Ma didn't like because, well, she was his Ma. She wouldn't take the belt to his ass anymore but she was still a scary lady. "I sent Dad's letter in, told em I was his son and kinda used his name to get in." Blaise gaped. Mystery solved. "You KNOW how much money this job can make us. We lived off Dad's blood money for years. This is my chance to set you up for the rest of your life!"
"You can't do this to me," she groaned. She didn't need to explain why she was distressed, did she? He wanted to go to the same job that killed his father. He was ready to die to send her a few bucks for electricity.
"Ma, it'll be fine," he said naively, "I've been in a few fights before. I sent 'em my criminal record, I have a feeling that helped get me in too." Blaise shook her head. She wasn't hearing any of this. She refused to. This was just something she had never imagined. She had assumed Nate would leave home eventually, yes... but to be a blacksmith or a postman or a flower arranger. Not to follow in his father's footsteps. She didn't even hardly know what her lover did besides that he had worked as some kind of assassin in his time and the job was loosely similar... oh, and that it had KILLED him in the end.
"Nathan, my baby... for Christ's sake please don't do this to me."
He smiled like the idiot he was. "It'll be okay."
She didn't fucking believe that.
-
They sent an advance in money. Insurance. Just in case he didn't last long enough to get the first real paycheck. That was unnerving. But he turned the lightswitch on triumphantly anyway as if it would convince her everything was okay. He also got a bouquet of roses for every other room in the house because the amount of money they had received was exorbitant. He was already talking about new furniture and, in a couple paychecks, moving to a higher-class part of town. Or maybe closer to his job. He would be going away in spurts, maybe a week at a time due to the distance, but he could live at home if she agreed to move. She nodded a bit, knowing that seeing her baby every day would only curb her pain in tiny increments. Even then that wouldn't be for a couple months. Assuming he was alive two months from now.
She kept having those thoughts. Every time he said anything upbeat, she always thought the same thing.
"When you're like 60, I'm gettin you a butler." If you're still alive when I'm 60.
"We can come back to Boston to see all the big games together. Heck, I'll get my bros into it too!" If you're alive long enough to arrange that.
"Next week I'll pick up a real good bat. I mean, I love my old one but it's pretty dinged up. I can't hit balls straight with it. I guess I'll get a wooden one so it doesn't bend up too." Assuming you're alive in a week.
Eventually her lack of positive response led him to stop speculating on how great things were going. And then he just couldn't find anything to say to her at all. At that rate it went onto the point where he wasn't sure he was going to get a goodbye when he left. But that day came up and she brought breakfast to his room to wake him, still looking disheveled and depressed but at least willing to communicate.
"You sure you packed everything?" She nagged halfheartedly. He nodded into his cereal and she nodded too. "Good, good..."
She hugged him. Pretty hard. And he hugged back of course, just glad she hadn't turned into a potato.
"Come home safe, promise."
