Trapped in his End Game (Series)

“Mr. Lucchesi?”

I turn my head to the Italian receptionist, who gives me an uneasy smile.

Must still look pissed off.

Immediately, I brighten at her and set the flowers on the counter.

“Are those for your mom? They’re beautiful!”

“Yeah, they are. Thanks.”

“Um-your mother is in her room. Go ahead!”

For a moment, I’m tempted to just leave the flowers and go. Do I really have the patience to deal with her today? The receptionist’s encouraging smile makes me take the flowers off the counter and walk down the hall.

A huge, deep green golf course stretches beyond the glass outside. Every surface inside gleams, from the hardwood floor to the picture frames. Not a speck of dust. A man plays ragtime on a grand piano in the common room and he smiles at me as I pass. Everyone looks happy to be here. They better be at five grand a month.

I take a shuddering breath as I stop in front of Ma’s bedroom and knock on the door.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

A perpetually angry voice shouts. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Ma.”

“Carmine! Come in.”

I twist open the door, my nose twitching as I inhale a stale smell. It’s a big room with nicer furniture than I have at my house. There’s a sofa and a big, stuffed armchair, a 20-inch lcd screen, and a giant window with white curtains, kept firmly shut.

It’s dark inside. Everywhere.

I set the vase of flowers next to her head carefully. The yellow flowers seem to wilt in her presence, or maybe that’s my imagination.

Ma is buried under her comforter; her grey hair long and unkempt. Red-rimmed eyes seek me out-as if blaming me for something.

“What did you get those for?”

I inhale air. “I thought they would brighten your room a little.”

She waves them off dismissively. “I don’t need those. What’s the point in giving me something if it’s just going to die?”

Just fucking say, ‘thank you.’

“Nothing lasts, Ma. That’s why it’s important to enjoy things in life.”

Her eyes narrow at me. “There’s nothing in life to enjoy. I’m so sick I can’t even get up out of bed.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re not sick, Ma. It’s all in your head.”

Her eyes bulge out of her sockets. “How dare you!”

My heart jumps in my chest when she screams at me. “The doctors said so.”

“Oh, you think you know everything, don’t you?” she snarls. “You can’t even get a wife. That’s what I have to live with, with the shame that my son is a fag.”

My chest tightens and heat fills my face.

Step back from the bed. Don’t hit her.

“I am not a fag.”

“Yes you are,” she grins nastily. “With the way you dress and how you always cry and beg me-”

I almost lunge at her, but I grab the glass vase of flowers instead. A brief vision of me grabbing them and smashing the glass into her skull fills my eyes.

“I have a girlfriend.”

Suddenly, her attitude does a 180-degree turn and a smile widens her face. “Is she Italian?”

“Of course.”

“Well, are you going to marry her?”

I already know that I want to. “Someday.” Thinking of Adriana dispels some of the tension and my hand relaxes on the vase.

“Why didn’t you bring her here, then?”

“We just started dating, Ma.”

Suddenly she screws up her face. “I know why-you’re ashamed of me. Oh Lord, what did I do to deserve a son who is ashamed of his mother? Do you complain about me to her? I bet you do.”

I’ve told her a few things. My insides twist with guilt.

“Why do you always have to be this way?”

“Oh, poor you.” she snaps “I’m the one stuck in this nursing home. Left here alone to die.”

Fucking hell.

She dabs at her face with a corner of her bed sheet.

“Jesus Christ, you’re not alone. You’re surrounded by people.”

Ma grabs her tissue box from the nightstand, burying her face in cotton as she sobs. “I gave my life to my child and he repays me taking the Lord’s name in vain.” She gives me a venomous look. “You’ve always been such a little bastard-such a spiteful, hateful child.”

Darkness fills my vision. “Who was the one who burned cigarettes on my chest? Who starved me, beat me, made me kneel until my legs bled?”

“I never did any such thing!” she moans. “Why would you make up such horrible lies about your mother?”

I grit my teeth, my body burning with hate for her. She used to say it all the time, until I doubted my own memories. I wondered if I really was crazy-that I imagined it all.

I didn’t imagine the scars all over my body.

“They’re not lies, even if you refuse to admit them.”

“I bet your girl that you’re dating is a lie, too. Why would anyone want to be with you?”

It’s like I’m floating above myself.

I see myself lunge across the bed, grabbing a pillow and burying it in her face. Her muffled screams don’t even reach my ears.

I’ve snapped.

Maybe it’s because it’s a question I ask myself all the time, and to hear it from my own mother is too much to bear.

Her nails dig into my arms, scratching, but she’s too frail to fight me off. She has to die. Even if I stop now, she won’t hesitate to call the police and put me in jail. I know that.

Bitch. Fucking bitch. Cunt. She was always a nasty woman. She was so terrible that she drove my dad away. He wanted nothing to do with us because of her.

She ruined my life.

Made me who I am.

And I am the monster she says I am. When I kill, I’m numb. There’s not a damn thing to stop me from doing it because I like it. I feel powerful.

Gradually, her moans fade and her limbs stop kicking. It takes over ten minutes for her to die. I lift the pillow, almost hesitantly.

Her mouth is open like a gaping fish, her eyes staring.

Jesus, what have I done? I killed my mother. I killed my mother.

The pillow drops to my feet and my back hits the wall as I inhale deep, panicked gasps. They saw me come in here. What the fuck am I going to do?

I killed my mother.

She wasn’t all bad, wasn’t she? Didn’t she take care of me when I was sick, hold me when I cried, didn’t she apologize for every burn on my body, every mark she ever made?

Oh, God.

I sink to my feet and take one of her hands, which is still warm. My throat is thick with tears when I bring it to my lips. “I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it!”

Her glassy eyes stare upward, unmoved.

She used to say the same thing.

It’s nearly a half hour before I get enough sense to leave through the open window. I can’t call for help. They’ll know she was smothered. They’ll know it was me. I’ll have a few days, at least, before the autopsy finds fibers around her mouth and inside her lungs, her bloodshot eyes, the high levels of carbon dioxide in her blood.

I get the fuck out of there, slipping through the window and running over the golf course back to the parking lot. I just can’t believe that after everything I’ve done, my mother was my downfall. If only I could come back at night and set fire to her room-but no, it’s too much. I have to leave town.

My whole life is here. Everything I’ve worked for. I can’t just leave here.

My hand trembles on the shift of my car.

Maybe I’m overreacting. I wiped that room of all my prints. Without anything linking me to the murder, there’s no way they’d be able to convict.

No, fuckhead. They have footage of you going inside the room.

When Tony finds out about this, he’ll go apeshit. I need to leave town.

But I’m not leaving without her.