161 Mother and Child

(Winona)

The words hit me. Is he just playing mind games? A sibling? My mind reels, trying to process what he’s saying. “My mother… She had another child? To you?”

“Yeah, a year after you left,” he says, almost gleefully. “I was done raising kids by then and done with supplying her drug habit, no one wanted to pay for her services anymore.”

I stare at him. What a monster.

“Yeah, surprised your mother was a whore, are ya?” He grins. “She wasn’t even good at that. Crying every time. Men want some fire, some passion.”

I didn’t ever think my heart could break any harder than it already had over the years. But it did. The sudden realization that I was just too young to realize. He was the reason my mother had a drug habit. He kept her that way so he could pimp her out.

If I could ever kill anyone with no regrets, it’s this person in front of me now.

“One kid was bad enough, and I wasn’t about to waste the rest of my life on another. So, I left. Don’t know what happened to them, and I don’t