Love Endures

Valentine stepped out of the taxi into the windy, rainy weather that always seemed to surround his mother's apartment complex. Of course, it certainly wasn't raining every week for all his visits. But the long train ride from the casino's living area always ended giving him too much time to think. Those thoughts often turned gloomy and the weather seemed happy to match his mood most days. Val knew he shouldn't dread these visits so much. He loved his mother. He'd swear to it on a stack of bibles. But that didn't make the weekly visits more pleasant.

The door to her apartment reflected the complex in general, the signs of wear showing the door's age and lack of maintenance. He knocked twice, curtly but firmly, the sound echoing down the empty dilapidated hallway. Val pulled the pocket watch from his left jacket pocket. 7pm, on the dot, as always. He put the watch back and pulled his keys from the other pocket. As if it knew the routine (and it ought to by now) the key easily came to his hands and several seconds later, he had the door open.

His mother had not made any effort to clean since last week, Val noticed. Familiar looking scraps of paper littered the vinyl floor of the entryway. He bent down and picked one up. The Black Diamond casino logo sat in the upper left corner of the payout slip. His own casino had a similar system in use. The customer would put their money onto a card, which they could then use at any of the slot machines. The money on the card, of course, registered as points rather than credits. When they were done, they could take their payout slips and get cash back from automated machines across the casino. Another way of putting barriers between the customer and their ability to realize how much money they were actually losing. The amount on the slip he held in his hand was small, and he knew that meant his mother had most likely spent ten times that amount before deciding to cash out. He crumpled the slip into a small ball and started picking up a few of the others off the floor.

"You just can't come in like that, son! I might not be decent." His mother's voice, more shrill than normal, was coming from the kitchen.

He sighed and called back, "If I didn't come in, you'd leave me standing outside every week." He threw most of the slips in the small trash can in the hallway, but kept one as he walked into the kitchen.

The kitchen had seen better days. The walls, which he was sure had been a bright and cheerful yellow once upon a time, now were a sickly yellowish gray from age and from the smoke from the cigarette his mother constantly puffed on. He saw that the two cabinets closest to the entryway were still missing their handles, despite Val having called the management at least twice. Not that she used the cabinets anyway, he cynically reminded himself.

Three or four tall stools stood beside the faux wooden counter that lined the kitchen and his mother, rail thin, sat perched on one of them. The ever present cigarette in her mouth, she had a mug sitting next to her and sitting next to the mug was a bottle of cheap tequila. Her clothes were faded, but unlike most of the apartment, his mother seemed to care about taking of her clothes. The striped blouse that she was wearing was one Val had bought her a few years ago for her birthday. While it wasn't as vibrant as it once was, it still looked to be in good shape, even though it now hung loose on her frame.

"I didn't hear you knock," his mother said, giving him an accusatory glance as she opened the tequila bottle and poured another dollop into her mug. "I was busy."

Val left that statement alone as he walked into the kitchen to stand near the refrigerator across from where his mother sat. He held up the slip of paper. "I thought we agreed that you weren't going to the Black Diamond any more, mother." He pulled the check from his right jacket pocket and held it up. "This is supposedly to be going towards food. You haven't been eating enough."

Her eyes flitted greedily towards the check, but she didn't move. "I buy food," she said indigently. "You can't tell me I don't."

Val opened up the fridge to show empty shelves, with a couple half opened jars the only sign that the fridge had ever been used. "Strange, I don't see any."

"You didn't say I had to buy it for here. I get it when I'm out." Her eyes kept darting between Val's face and the check in his hand.

"You mean when you're at the casino." He sighed, but reached over and put the check down in front of her on the counter. "You need to stop spending all your money on the slots and try to take care of yourself."

She jerked the check away and glared at him. "I'm your mother, Valentine Quick. It ain't your job to tell me what I can and can't do. "

"Well, as long as I'm writing the check, I think I ought to have some say in how it gets spent."

"That money's a gift and you know it." His mother could be lawyer sharp when she wanted to be. She blew a puff of gray smoke that matched the color of her hairoff to the side. "Besides, like you have any right to talk. You act like me going to the casino to enjoy myself is some sort of sin, but if that's a sin, what's that make you?"

It always came down to that with her. Whether or not he enjoyed his job wasn't her business. "Please, mother. I do what I have to do to pay the bills and you know it."

The look on her face softened and she reached out and patted his hand. "I know, Val. You've always been responsible since your dad left. Even when I wished you didn't have to be."

Mention of his dad reminded him of the thing he had really come down here to say. He was willingly letting the usual arguments distract him because he didn't know how she'd react. "Mom, I got a wave. Dad's dead."

Delilah Quick stared at him for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. And in that moment, Val could see the mother he remembered from his childhood, the optimistic tough-as-nails woman who hd run her own ranch right up to the moment that it had gotten repossessed. But over the years, the years since his dad had left their ranch and his family behind, Val had watched all of that vitality drain out of her straight into liquor bottles and no-hope slot machines. He had done his best to try and stop that transformation, but his mother had always been stubborn. Val always thought that the day that she had lost the ranch that she had decided that it wasn't worth trying and no amount of arguments from a 16 year old kid were going to change that. Even if that sixteen year old was her own son.

But then the moment passed and the calculating look he was most familiar with settled back in. "Good riddance, I say. I don't suppose he left us anything."

He nodded slowly. "He did. He left me his ship, which has already cost me 120 credits in port fees on Persephone. I'm going to sell it."

"He named it after me, you know." Her voice was briefly wistful. "At least I'll get something out of it."

"He left it to me," Val clarified again. "Maybe if I can get enough for it, I can move you into a better place."

"Hell with a better place," his mom shouted at him from the narrow confines of the kitchen. "I want the money. It's gorram named after me, I deserve the money!"

Valentine shook his hed as he slowly backed his way towards the exit of the kitchen. "I'm not going to let you pour this money down the drain." He could already see how this was going to go. The arguments had started getting uglier over the last year or so and this one had the chance to be epic if he didn't leave before it really got started.

Her mug came flying through the air and shattered against the doorframe in a thousand pieces, splashing tequila over one of his better suit jackets. "The hell you won't! I'm your mother, you'll do what I say. I sacrificed everything for you and that wastrel of a father of yours!"

Val continued moving out towards the front door, out of sight of his mother in her kitchen. She was still cursing him and his father as he got ready to open the front door. He nearly had to shout to be heard. The neighbors would definitely hear it all, but it wasn't like it was anything new.

"I'm going to be gone for a week to Persephone to sell Dad's ship. I left you a little extra in that check." He opened the front door and was stepping out when she sent out her last volley.

"So you're abandoning me, huh? Just like your father, leaving when things get tough!" His mother always knew where to place the knife so that it hurt the most. But Val had gotten good over the years at letting it all fly past.

"I love you too, mom," he said quietly as he closed the door behind him.

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