Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

she called sometimes before the phones went. I used to get an email from her occasionally, letting us know she was okay. The social worker from the hospital called her at the last number I had and left a message. I had to hope that Sasha had eventually called her back and talked to her. I emailed her, too, but I never heard back. I hoped she knew. She wouldn’t be surprised. It was a message she had been expecting for a long time.
    I told the people at the hospital that we didn’t have the money for a funeral, let alone the medical bills. They said they would call the state and take care of it. It was horrible, but I knew they had done this many times before.
    I left her there.
    I said goodbye before I went. She didn’t even look like my mother anymore. At forty-seven, she was withered and gray. Ray had turned her onto some drugs that had taken her down under, into a totally different world. It took less time than you might think. I had no idea what she saw down there or why she preferred it to our real world, to green leaves, to fresh air, to chips and guacamole, which she used to love.
    These new drugs made her drinking and cocaine habit, the combination of which had always been a horrible roller-coaster ride, look like a spin around a carousel on a sunny afternoon. At least when she drank she still yelled at us and ate occasionally. But in the months before she died she had moved past her need for speech, for food, for sunlight. She only had one need, and as out of it as she was most of the time, she still managed to fulfill it with Ray’s help. In the process she had transformed from Snow White — my sweet, kind, beautiful mother — into the Wicked Queen.
    She had been the fairest of them all, but she didn’t care about that anymore. I still didn’t know if it was her body or her mind that wanted the drugs so bad, but whichever part it was, it was ruthless. I had nightmares about her during that time; she was chasing me, she had turned herself into the old hag with the apple and was trying to get me to eat it. She wanted me gone and she wanted all the money for drugs, drugs, and more drugs, every day. In real life, as I stood by and watched, horrified, the drugs did turn her into the old hag. Even Ray stopped going after her.
    And she never changed back. She stayed like that, shriveled and ugly with her teeth yellowing, until she died. She had given up everything. Her beauty. The light. She had given up me and Sasha, even though I knew she loved us. She was just so sick.
    Looking at her lifeless body, I told myself that she had finally left her prison, her hell on earth. Now she was at peace, and I knew in my heart she would want me to go far, far away.
    I left the next day. The landlord had tolerated my mother for reasons I didn’t want to think about, but the same would not apply to me. So I left and Sasha didn’t know where I went, and I didn’t know if she was still in Portland. I emailed her and googled her at the library practically every day but I hadn’t heard or found a thing. She must have wanted it that way. She was smart about those things. I missed her so much sometimes it made my stomach hurt. One day soon, I kept telling myself, I would be able to afford a bus ticket and I would go up there and find her. One day soon. When I slipped up and let my mind wander, like now, I often found myself wishing that I had gone to Portland instead of Vegas. But I needed to get the hell away from Ray, and from the rain, and from the lush greenery that my mother had loved. I needed to hide. And I would take the desert, the cockroaches, and the stripping over the memories any day.
    I shook my head and came back to myself. I never wanted to think about any of this stuff, but because I was alone most of the time, it had a way of creeping in. I planned to ask Alex if I could work every day for the rest of the month. Maybe he’d let me work 24 hours a day — that way I could avoid thinking dark thoughts and avoid