Mika Torino was guided into the visitor area to a chair and table with a phone attached to the wall, two dividers on either side for privacy. He was incredibly nervous and his hands were shaking but he knew that what he was doing was the right thing. He sat down in front of a plastic divider, where, sitting on the other side in an identical set up, was his mother, Jolene Calhoun.
Immediately, all of his anxieties disappeared. The woman before him didn’t look the same to him. He knew it was her; blonde hair, blue eyes, round face, pierced ears, slim, pretty. He had seen her nearly every day for sixteen years, he knew it was her.
It was her eyes that were different. For the first time ever, he recognized the coldness, the emptiness, the contempt that she had been looking at him with his entire life. He had only ever imagined, and had wanted to believe in, the love and affection she had for him in those cold blue eyes. Even now, as he sat down before her, she put on a fake smile and a ring of joy in her voice as he picked up the phone.
“Mika! Oh my baby, it’s so good to see you!” she said. I bought this bullshit?
“Hey, Mom,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice light. “How are you doing?”
“Well, I can’t say it’s the most comfortable place in the world,” she chuckled. Gag me please. “But I do have a bed, a nice roommate, and the food isn’t totally awful.”
“I guess that’s something at least,” he said.
“How’s Gen doing?” She asked, something flashing in her eyes that made his stomach churn.
“He’s doing great, Mom. He’s getting ready for a second surgery to repair the inside of his cheek where Thomas cut it clean open. He can still eat and drink just fine and there’s no issues with talking either. He really got lucky, I think.”
Her jaw twitched. “Well, that’s good to hear. I guess he’s gonna have to have a lot of surgeries to repair that handsome face of his.” She’s trying to rile me up.
“Maybe just one more to repair the skin and tissue damage, but that should be it.” He isn’t ugly like you had hoped he’d be, you hateful bitch.
“And you? How’s your knee? And your hand? I heard it got pretty banged up.” Another glint and her eyebrow twitched.
Mika smiled. “Believe it or not, all healed up! Can you believe it?” He laughed and put his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand. “All my injuries from what you guys did are all gone, even a lot of the scars, including what you carved on my stomach. Kana actually made that go away while I was still in the coma. But the pictures from before they started the surgery show it clear as day!” His eyes turned cold. “I’m trying to remember, though, Mom, was it the paring knife, or the razor blade you used to carve ‘faggot’ into my skin?”
Jolene’s smile became forced, her face impassive and cold. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mika. Thomas did all that, remember? All of it.”
“Hm, are you sure?” Mika asked, tilting his head. “Because if I recall correctly, and I recall everything correctly, you were the one who also wrapped a belt and an electrical cord around my throat three times while he was whipping me with the leather thongs. And I’m pretty sure it was your voice in my ear that said, ‘don’t worry sweetheart, the policy has been renewed, so it won’t last much longer.’”
“What policy are you referring to, Mika?” He saw her hand clenched tightly around the phone.
“Oh, I’m glad you asked!” He pulled a white envelope from his hoodie pocket and waved it at her. “This one right here.”
Jolene gulped. “Now, Mika, I don’t know what you think that is, but it’s not what you think.”
Mika took three folded up pages out of the envelope and opened them up. “It’s amazing what a person can get, especially when they have a good advocate. The insurance company I got these from were more than happy to give me these copies, especially as they pertained to me specifically. In fact, they were absolutely amazed that a seventeen year old didn’t even know his life was insured by his own mother. Strange, right?”
“Mika, listen to me, that’s none of your business…”
“Oh, but it is all my business.” He glared at her then his eyes went to the documents, scanning until he found what he was looking for. “For one, Mika Torino, child of one, Jolene Calhoun, life insurance policy of Five hundred thousand dollars. Wow, Mom, who knew I was so valuable?”
“Mika–”
Mika put the phone on his shoulder and turned to the second page. “In the event of death, this money is to be paid out to you, the sole beneficiary. If it’s under circumstances of murder or suicide, which I thought was pretty damn interesting, it’s double indemnity. So my life would be worth one million dollars, right? Does that sound about right, Mother?”
“Young man, that is enough!”
He flipped to the last page. “This one is my absolute favorite. And Detective Don Parker, you know, my legal guardian you were happy to give me up to? He really got a kick out of this.” He leaned back on to his elbow, chin in hand and read, “Insurance policy for one Eugene Douglas Parker, child of one Donovan Parker, spouse of Mika Torino, Seven–”
“Mika…”
“Hundred–”
“Mika Torino!”
“Fifty–”
“Enough!”
“Thousand fucking dollars!” Mika slammed all the papers down on the table. “You took out a fraudulent life insurance policy on my boyfriend and had Thomas sign his name on it.” His voice was shaking with fury, his blue eyes blazing white hot. “These–” he pointed to the policies, “--plus all the abuse claims, plus the attempted murder charge, plus you being the absolute worst human being I have ever known in my entire wretched life…” he swallowed as he stared at the woman he once believed actually loved him, “you will never see the light of day again.”
Jolene stared at him wide-eyed, her chest heaving up and down, her lips a thin white line. “You can’t prove I hurt you,” she whispered. “Thomas did it all. I tried…to stop him, remember–”
“Five hours, Mother,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “For five fucking hours, you watched, you slept, you complained he was too goddamn loud, while your husband raped me repeatedly.”
“Mika, that’s not–”
“I was twelve years old!” Mika shouted. He saw the guard move from the door and he turned to apologize. The guard nodded and returned to the door.
“You don’t remember–” She shut her eyes and took a deep breath before trying again. “That’s not what happened and you know it. I had nothing to do with your abuse. I tried to stop it, remember? I was trying to save you from his anger, to have him hit me but you always got in the way.”
Mika leaned forward and smiled a cold, humorless smile. “Funny…because as I recall, oh so vividly, may I add, you would pull me in front of you. Or better yet, shove me at him, not so that he wouldn’t hurt you, oh no…it was to purposely scare Benjamin and Anabelle.”
Jolene started to shake her head.
“I always said that Ben was good at keeping secrets and Ana wasn’t old enough to keep a memory straight in her head. It’s funny, though, how time away from a manipulative abuser can change a person. Even a small child.”
“What have you done?” Jolene said, her voice strangled. “What have you done to my children?”
“They’re not your children anymore, Jolene, and neither am I.” He folded the documents back into the envelope and put them in his hoodie pocket. He stared at Jolene for a minute, her eyes cold and full of more hatred than he had ever seen before. “Have you ever heard of memory repression trauma?”
Jolene’s eyes narrowed and her lip started to twitch.
“It’s when the person who is experiencing the trauma starts burying a memory or event away because it’s too painful for them to face. They’d rather believe it isn’t happening, that what’s hurting them isn’t real.” He leaned forward, elbows folded on the counter. “It was easier for me to believe that Thomas…” he swallowed back the knot in his stomach, “was the only one raping me. That he was the only one beating me, strangling me, torturing me, or shoving a liquor bottle down my throat because I tried to kill myself to get away from him.”
“You filthy mongrel,” she snarled, her eyes blazing.
“Why?” he asked, without tears, without emotion. “Why would you do any of that to your own child? To me? What did I ever do to you? What sin did I commit that was so great you felt it was necessary to shove a fucking vibrator up my ass when I was ten years old while your sick-ass husband sat there and jacked off and then gave him permission to do what he did for almost three years?”
“You lived! That’s what you did wrong, you piece of shit, you fucking lived!” She slammed the side of her fist into the plastic divider, spit flying out of her mouth. “You should have died when you were born, I should have just strangled you with your own goddamn cord, been done with you and Yuki all at once. I never wanted you, I hated you! I was going to let Yuki take you, sign you away, forget about you but no, he had to go get fucking shot to death and leave you with me. Thomas decided it would be fun to fuck with you and I let him because you disgusted me so much. If I hadn’t let so many goddamn policies lapse, you would have been dead a long time ago, pieces in dumpsters all over town!” She began to laugh hysterically as she spewed her pent up venom, spraying spit all over the plastic guard while Mika sat there, unflinching.
“And then you went and got yourself a boyfriend, one that actually gives a fuck about you. Well, how to make you happy? Let you stay with him, even though you were still sixteen. If you’re happy then you’re out of my fucking hair. And if he’s happy, then the torment of you dying would be so bad, he’d die, too! So why not take out another policy, just in case. You both deserve each other, you fucking fag! You piece of shit! I hope you rot together with your mongrel father in hell!”
She stood there, claws in the plastic, foaming at the mouth, her hair wild, and face twisted. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t even a demon. She was a monster, twisted and corrupted by her own selfishness and sociopathy.
Mika only stared at her, calm and emotionless. Finally, he said, “Do you know why I love jailhouse visiting centers these days, Jolene? Everything, from your conversations, to your actions, are recorded.”
He calmly hung up the phone, stood up and turned around, leaving behind a speechless Jolene to stare at the phone in her hand and the cameras that were pointed right at her from both sides of the partition. She dropped the phone onto the counter as though she had been bitten, and began screaming, kicking wildly, spewing profanities and slurs as the guards grabbed her and carried her out of the visiting area to the place where she would never lay eyes on Mika, Benjamin, or Anabelle ever again.
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