Me, I’m Not…5

Ch 7

“………doomed right from the start………….”

Those words, they resonate. 9 months removed and yet they resonate…..This is the result of taking the easy way out of things. I really want to fast forward, move forward and match everything. I might even escape me; yet I find I have nothing more to add. All I have done is take, take while some where not looking or thinking or feeling……. proper fucking mess of things….I recall with vivid clarity the moment I would see Carmen for the last time…..for a long time really…….6 months too long.

We, the girls and I had had stayed on an extra day for the possibility of letting Shane know what we thought of her at that moment in time. Silent, in my room, alone, knowing that this entire mess with them was officially my fault. I saw fit to intercede into their lives, made a merry mess of things for Carmen, gave Shane’s father the right and proper excuse to bring fear out of Shane, goodness there was not a rock in Canada big enough for me to hide and disinherited to finish the indignity of it all. I suppose it was only fitting. The last true moment I spent with Carmen was in her mother’s home in a humbling part of East L.A. I was spending my last moments in my home when I got the phone call from Carmen. Her voice jagged, her words cryptic and sad…….

“My mother wants to thank you……..for helping……Shane and me destroy ourselves……..think you have the time to come out and hear her thank you?”

 I really did have this one coming to me. I had not informed Carmen of Shane’s father absconding with money and bar matron in hand……My thinking at the time was simple; Carmen needed to know that I was there for her……of course I wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t given the man what he wanted like a git…..Together Shane and I left Carmen quite a mess of feelings to sort thru, the least I could do was be there for her again…..

So I accepted and had Reeves drive me out to her mother’s home one last time. For the old days when I was in need and could afford a servant. I had fallen asleep on the way over, probably out of guilt……. conscious so tired it needed rest. Reeves tapped me ever so slightly on the shoulder to signal we had arrived. Two burly youths sat on the porch obviously keeping guard…they allowed me to pass and I saw Carmen in her pajamas just staring angrily at the tiles in the kitchen.  She did not look up at me, more as she pointed to her mother.