Proud Of You

'Okay, we'll start with some basic questions which may help your memory on certain aspects." Jackson says with a smile pulling his pen out, Catia only rolls her eyes before taking a look out of the window. 'So, when was the last time you saw Mario?" He asks writing the question down in his notebook, while I was more focused on taking in my surroundings. 'It would have been around 4 years ago now; he came here and was telling me he needed to hide some things around the house until whatever agency was looking into at that time stopped." She says in a bored tone, you could tell right off the bat that she wasn't interested in anything that Jackson was asking. 'Do you have any idea what he wanted to hide here?" Jackson asks which now he was putting a spotlight on what she said, it did tell me that maybe something that we need to find him is hidden in this house. 'I don't have a clue, I know the type of things my son liked to get up to in his life, I wouldn't want to know what shady shit he wanted to hide around my house. I told him he could hide whatever he wanted but to make sure I would never stumble across it." She says putting out her cigarette before taking a fresh one out and lighting it, she has literally just put the last one out! 'If this was the last time that you had seen him, I will guess and say that he never came back for whatever it was he was hiding?" Jackson says snapping me out of my thoughts of how many cigarettes this woman must go through on a daily basis. 'Yeah, just after he hid it, I asked him why he was still living the same fucked up life that he does. He lost his shit and told me it was my fault he had to live the way he did, if I wasn't such a terrible mother, he and all his siblings would probably have turned out well. Yes, I was a bad mum, but I didn't have any other choice, my mother did the same thing, so it was a cycle." She explains which did make me feel bad for her, if she too had to go through what she put her children through, you can kind of understand why it happened. 'I tried explaining that to him, but he didn't like it, he told me it was a choice for me to turn out like my mother and I didn't have anyone else to blame but myself. He told me some people should never be allowed to have children which is why I'm alone in this house. I admit I lost it and told him to leave and never come back, no son of mine will ever talk to me the way that he did. So, he left and never came back." She says sighing a little at the end, this telling me alone that she does regret what she said to him and the way she raised him. 'Is there any chance that Mario could have come back to get what he hid when you didn't know?" Jackson asks as I knew he was very interested in whatever he was hiding here, it's probably the agent brain of his. 'No there's no chance, I've got friends that tell me whenever anyone is by the house and I'm awake most of the night so I would hear if somebody was coming in the house." She says crossing her arms over her chest, at least she wasn't reaching for another cigarette now. 'Would it be okay if we took a look around, I know we might not find it but just in case?" Jackson asks which she shrugs her shoulders to telling us fine, I send her a kind smile before following Jackson as he got up from my seat. 'I'll take a look in the living room and the front of the house, could you take a look in here?" He asks turning to look at me, I nod my head with a smile while he leaves the room to look. I start to look around the kitchen not really knowing what it was that I was looking for, not that I had any chance of finding whatever it was. If Catia, who lives in the house and seems to spend the most time in can't find it, what chance do we have at finding it? I walk over to the cupboards and open them up, the cupboards were empty with only a few tins of food in them. 'They've gave you a hard case as your first one." Catia says breaking the silence that we had going on, I nearly jumped at the thought of me screwing all this up now Jackson wasn't in the same room as me. 'I bet your parents are proud that you've chosen this path." She says when I didn't answer her question, this telling me that I should talk back so she doesn't get too mad at me. 'Yeah, they probably are." Is all I say closing the top cupboards to take a look at the bottom, which was fuller than the top ones but with junk. 'I'm no detective, but your answer didn't sound too convincing." She says with a little laugh, I stop what I was doing and have to pause for a second. 'I don't really see one half of my parents enough to know what they really feel." I say trying to keep my answers vague and hoping that Jackson would hurry up and get back in. 'Mum or dad?" She asks which was really invading my privacy, but once again I didn't want to blow my cover, so I answer. 'My mum, I'm really close to my dad but my mother was never around when I was growing up." I explain sorting through a box of what looks like stamps, well at least she has a mini stamp collection. 'She's trying to patch things up with me now, but it's been so many years, I'm not the same person that I was when she left me. I'm trying with her but it's hard." I say moving the box of stamps to the side while grabbing other things, it's like this cupboard goes on for miles! 'That's why I'm afraid to reach out to my other children, they're both adults now and I left when they were only tiny. I know Mario doesn't want anything to do with me but the thought of those two rejecting me, I'm too scared." She says also opening up about her life, I stop my search of the cupboard to turn to look at her again. 'My mum is an awful mother I won't lie, but you should take a leaf out of her book and try. Yes, things may be a bit rough at first because of everything that happened, but you won't know of the potential great relationship that could come from this if you don't even try." I say sending her a reassuring smile, yes, she has done some bad things, but she is trying to move past them and be a mum to her children, we have to at least give her a chance. She nods her head smiling before I turn back to the cupboard, I pull some weird things out of the way until I reach the back of the cupboard. I thought that my search of this place was done, that was until I moved my hand to start putting things back into the cupboard and hit the back of the wall. If I would have done this to a normal cupboard it wouldn't budge, but with this one the wall went back. I put both of my hands in to see if I could move it, where it begins to slide to the side where a big empty space stood. A brown box sitting right in the middle of the empty space, have I just found what we're looking for? 'Jackson!" I shout to wherever he was in the house, within seconds he was back in the kitchen asking me what what the problem was. 'I think I might have found something." I say moving over slightly so that he could see, he walks over kneeling down beside me seeing what I had found. He looks at me for a second before reaching in to take out the box, which collected many cobwebs and dust. This telling us that it had been there for some time, maybe 4 years. 'I had no idea that was there." Catia tells us from the table, that was what she told Mario to do when he came here to hide something. Jackson pulls the lid off to reveal what was inside, my eyes go wide as he looks over at me like he knew what was happening. What did I just find?