Luiz dropped me off at my house just after midnight. I fiddled in my pocket for the key to my front door and managed to minimize the noise as I unlocked it and slipped inside.
My house wasn’t exactly big. With just the light from the single lamp next to the couch, I could see the kitchen, family room, and upstairs hallway, all from the front door. I walked over to the couch, expecting to find my mother sleeping on it. Yeah, she was there. It was her halfhearted attempt to wait up for me. I would turn eighteen in several months, so I didn’t think she needed to fake trying anymore. Still, it was a house rule to tell her when I got home, so I shook her shoulder.
I hovered over her, waiting for her to wake. But she didn’t. The dim lamp cast knifelike shadows over her face, like she was a creature that was only wearing my mom’s body. I shook her shoulder again. She took a deep breath and turned her head. Her eyes blinked open and settled on me. Then her eyes widened and her face trembled. She jumped to a sitting position and recoiled from me, frantically scrambling backward to the far end of the couch.
“Aaaahhhhheeee!” she screamed, covering her face. Her breath escaped in short quick gasps. Even her lower chin quivered.
“Mom. It’s me,” I breathed loudly. “It’s just me, Jake.”
She peeked between her fingers with one eye. She cursed under her breath. “Jacob. I’m sorry . . . I . . . you . . .” She lowered her hands and looked at me with both eyes, until the weight of the emotions she saw on my face forced her eyes to drop to the arm of the couch.
“I look like him that much now?” I asked.
She nodded.
I heard a door open and saw the light turn on in the upstairs hallway. My stepdad, John, whom I thankfully did not look like, stumbled to the edge of the stairs. The image of his portly figure in boxers made me want to scream and scramble back like my mother had just done. He surveyed the situation. His droopy eyes came to life and his eyebrows pulled together, forming a vertical wrinkle between them.
“What the hell are ya screaming for?” he shouted. “I was trying to sleep.” He turned on one heel, rotating his body like a globe, and then grumbled as he stomped back to his room.
I turned back to my mother. Her chin still trembled on her colorless face.
I stepped to the stairs and clenched the cheap, wood railing in my left hand and squeezed till my palm hurt. I couldn’t control who I looked like.
“I’m going to bed.” I glanced back over my shoulder, then turned and went upstairs.
I could feel Mom’s ashamed eyes on me until I closed my bedroom door.