The engine of Joel’s dingy black 1982 Corvette clinked as they pulled up into the parking lot of the Marymount Apartment Complex, the yellow building barely visable in the dusk morning.
“Couldn’t we wait until it was a little lighter?” Benji asked tiredly, a giant lion yawn fleeting from his mouth, his hands laggardly gripped over the cupholders that container mediocre but satisfying coffee from Waldorf Bagels Inc.
Joel sighed as he whipped into a spot right in front of his mother’s first-floor apartment. “Maybe you have too much Deon on the brain to have too many questions,” Joel begrudgingly replied, pushing himself out of the car and slamming it shut, kicing the curb in frustration like he struck out in the most important game of the season.
“Maybe I just enjoy 40 winks,” Benji mumbled to the absent air, struggling to open his door and keep the piping brew from scalding his crotch.
Joel strolled up to the white door and banged softly, the rising sun glinting off the black ‘5A’. Another yawn escaped through Benji’s lips, Benji stretching his arms to the sky, the coffee cups plummeting to the ground.
Joel looked at the streaming brown puddle, then at his brother disapprovingly. “Nice,” Joel Tsk-Tksed, banging his knuckles harder against the door.
“Coming,” he heard a voice call sleepily from the other side, feet shuffling over the carpet. The door creaked open, Ms. Madden (We’ll call her Teri) dressed in a blue terry robe and a fatigued grin. “Boys,” Teri gasped as well as she could under the circumstances, rubbing her eye and looking behind her for a clock, “What time is it?”
“Too damn early,” Benji told her, Joel spearing Benji with a hot glare.
Teri laughed a little, her honey brown eyes falling on the river of coffee flowing off the tan sidewalk.
“We brought coffee,” Benji told his mother sheepishly, offering the empty cupholder.
“My better half spilt it,” Joel rolled his eyes, Teri giving him a playfully stern look.
“How thoughtful you boys are,” Teri told the boys, reaching out and squeezing Joel’s arm. “Come on it. You should know you don’t have to knock, it’s always open,” Teri informed the boys, flicking on the hallway light and pacing to the kitchen on the right, turning on the stove and placing a steel kettle on top of the red/blue flame, “I have nothing for anyone to steal, except my heart.”
Benji and Joel have been enjoying how lively their mother has been these past few months. It must have been moving away from the house where they grew up. Teri must feel liberated now, leaving the final piece of their dad’s memory behind.
“Now you boys sit down and take a load off,” Teri waved them away without raising her eyes from the stove, the boys awkwardly walking to the back and sitting down at a small oval oak table that Teri used as her dining room set, Benji gazing at the light blue wallpaper, the bottom streaked with dark blue lines, then the faux white leather couch and loveseat cornering a black 24 inch TV against the corner of the room. Joel could hear their mom hum along to some unknown tune in her head as she reached up and grabbed 3 cream colored ceramic coffee mugs from overhanging hooks, the song probably “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Ms. Aretha Franklin. Benji hit Joel’s shoulder hard, letting him know that he was staring.
“Here we go,” she said in a sing-song voice, carrying a silver tray over to the boys and setting it down gently on the table.
“Thanks, mom,” Joel told her, reaching for his mug, his hand shivering.
Teri only smiled, her smile clumping together the fine lines that drew around her mouth and eyes, her black curly hair flowing in front of her robe, her high cheekbones reddened from sleep. The whole aura around their mother was like she was a goddess, a goddess finally unfettered from the chains of some underworld beast. Sometimes the suspected that beast was herself.
“What brought you boys over her before 6 AM?” Teri suddenly asked the boys, both of the boys freezing their positions, Joel eyeing Benji fearfully, coffee bouncing against Benji’s lips as the mug stood stoically in front of his mouth. “I remember Benji needed a hose on full blast to get his ass out of bed.” Her chuckling was almost heartbreaking.
“Umm…Mom,” Joel began, tracing circles on the table, Teri’s hands folded angelically in front of her steaming coffee. “We’ve met someone recently-“
“Both of you?!” Teri gasped happily, her eyes widening with this news, her hands clenching together with joy.
“No, no like that,” Benji cautioned her, covering his one hand over hers, Benji perplexed at how his mom was still a hopeless romantic.
“Mom,” Joel refocused the conversation, trying another approach, Teri switching her gaze from Benji to Joel, Joel peering into her eyes, searching for any clues, “Is there anything you want to tell us about…Umm…our childhood?”
Teri stood her ground, only emitting a confused smile for her answer, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, “Like what, Joel?”
“About the day we were born? About our triplet?” Benji blurted out, Joel slapping himself in the forehead. Why was he related to Mr. Suttle?
Teri’s careless expression came crashing down, her hands clenching for a different reason, clenching so tight that the pale skin nearly broke, spilling blood from her wounds and past. “How…did you…” Teri’s voice trailed off, her eyes beginning to morph into flowing rivers.
“So it is true?!” Joel shrieked, slamming his fists on the table, his surprise nearly toppling over his coffee.
“Oh, Honey,” Teri choked behind sobs, Joel’s hateful glare skewing her heart, “I…I’ve been…dying to…” Teri dove her head into her hands, Benji throwing Joel a spiteful glare as he abruptly rose from his seat and knelt down next to his crying mother. Joel always through Benji was a Mama’s Boy.
“Joel,” Benji scolded him huskily, hating him that moment for making their mother sob, something she hadn’t done in months, maybe years.
“It’s alright, Benjamin,” Teri responded weakly, wiping her eyes on Benji’s navy blue T Shirt. Benji pressed soft circles in her back until her tears were merely salty entrails, Teri lifting her head up. Teri’s frown dipped lower as she saw’s Joel’s angry, downcast glare, as if he was trying to count each fibers on her blue carpet. “Joel.”
Joel kept his arms clamped around his stomach, his glare softening a touch. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Joel whispered hoarsely, making valiant efforts to choke back his tears.
“I wanted to, Joel, believe me,” Teri defended herself, reaching out for Joel’s hand, and down for Benji’s. “Every free moment I thought about her and about how I could tell you. You know how…a lie, I suppose you could call it, how a lie is harder and harder to tell after time? It was…so painful, letting her go. I’ve regretted it every day of my life.”
“Why did you, Mama?” Benji asked childly, running his thumb over the veins protruding from his mother’s hand, Teri trying to hold back her emotions like she was stone, impenetrable, Benji’s glistening eyes rising to hers, “Why did you give her up?”
Teri took a deep breath and tilted her head towards the ceiling, a single tear leaking from her eye. “It’s a long story,” Teri began, tightening her grip around her sons’ hands, “Not very long, actually, but the results were…long term.” Benji reached over to the oak coffee table and painstakingly grabbed a tissue without breaking the tattered bond between his hand and his mother’s, gently brushing away her tears. “Bless you, Benji,” Teri replied thankfully, her smile against her tears agonizing.
“Your dad…he didn’t want a lot of kids. When I found out I was having twins, I was ecstatic. Your dad on the other hand was resentful, hostile, and drunk. He heavily drank those 9 months, staying out till ghastly hours, neglecting work and his family. When I went to the hospital and had a surprising 3 babies, your father…wasn’t happy.” Teri paused, closed her eyes, as if to sift through the folders of her decrepit memory. “Don’t get me wrong, he loved you boys, but he convinced me that triplets were too much to handle, that you two boys belonged together, that she would be better off with a mom and dad who loved her.” Joel’s jaw nearly fell to the floor, Teri biting her lip nervously. “So, I stupidly gave her up for adoption. All I asked her adoptive parents is to let me name her, so that maybe, someday when your father was out of my life, I could find her, hold her in my arms, and smell her hair like I did when I gingerly washed Sarah. When I got pregnant again, I prayed it was a boy, that maybe your father would be lenient because it was ‘one of his own kind’, you know? Well…we found out Sarah was going to be a girl, and I stuck to my guns, put my foot down and told him I would not have an abortion nor give her up. Children are gifts from God. Your father only knew the philosophies of Jack Daniel’s and Coors Light. Ultimately, when your fathers left, even thought it was years after Sarah was born, he said he blamed me for his unhappiness, blamed me for having so many kids. He left soon after, Christmas Eve.”
Benji and Joel sat there stupefied, absolutely drained from emotion, their only emotion trickling down their cheeks. Joel tugged his hand away and pushed them over his salty cheeks, averting his face from them, Benji laying his head down on his mother’s lap, tears silently dropping from his eyes onto her robe.
“I’m so sorry, Benji, Joel,” Teri whimpered, her chest heavy and soar from her sobs, Teri burying her forehead into her wrist, her other hand brushing through Benji’s messy hair.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Joel cried, sprinting from his seat to her side, bending down and tightening her like a vice in his arms, “I’m sorry I was so hasty with being angry. You just…”
“I was wrong for not telling you boys sooner, a lot sooner,” Teri confided, raising both of her hands to Joel’s cheeks like she was molding clay, holding his face gently in her hands, “I shouldn’t of through you boys couldn’t handle the truth. I was so ashamed and thought you’d never forgive me.”
“Don’t be silly, Mama,” Benji cooed, lifting his head from her lap, trying hard to smile convincingly.
Teri abruptly shot up and sliced between the two brothers, holding her hand thoughtfully beneath her chin, Benji tapping Joel on the shoulder, Joel starting into identical eyes before his face collapsed as he fell into Benji’s arms.
“Boys,” Teri turned around, Joel pushing Benji away, trying to remain manly in front of his mother, brushing his black Atticus T Shirt with his hands. “Is she as beautiful as you are?” Teri asked innocently, touching their cheeks with her mother’s touch.
“She’s got your hair,” Benji told her, pulling gently at a tangle.
“And your nose,” Joel giggled, flicking softly at his mother’s bunny nose. Teri laughed, rubbing her arms with her hands as if it was 0 degrees inside.
“Where’d you find her?” Teri asked her boys intensely, grabbing their wrists in case she might topple over with their answer.
“Well,” Benji began, wrapping one had around Joel’s shoulders and smiling cheesy, “My better half ran into her cousin’s car in New York City.”
“I didn’t run!” Joel defended himself, pointing defiantly at Benji’s innocent smile, “I just…tapped.”
Teri’s smile beamed from ear to ear, knowing her boys were doing fine in life, that hardly anything got them down. “Oh,” she shouted shrilly, retreating to her bedroom opposite from the kitchen, creaking open the white door, “Wait here, boys.”
A few moments later, she emerged with a faded brown jewelry box, Joel’s eyes aggrandizing as his breath hitched in his throat. She softly placed the jewelry box on the table, flipping its shambled lid and spinning out the first two rows of rings, earrings, and bracelets, something g folded nestled in the red velvet. Teri extracted the photo and unfolded it, strolling over to the boys to finally mend this 23-year black hole in her heart. “This is the only photo I have of all three of my little angels,” Teri confided, a tear scattering across the photo, the beads dancing across the grainy photos, pointing to each baby as she recited their names. “Benjamin Levy, Wyllah Rae, and Joel Ruben.”