Mom’s spare room was musty
and oozed with black slime.
Haze from the
distant trailer park
turned the drywall
a sickly gray-pink,
so I pulled down
the roller shade,
leaving just a crack
above the windowsill
to let the night air in.
Dad had told me
not to visit Mom.
He said she had
gotten fired
from her clerical job
for drinking
and showing up late,
and that she was living
in some run-down shack
over by Hampton Court.
“It ain’t no
Holiday Inn,” he had said.
“You’ll see what I mean.”
I told Dad
I wanted to see her,
that I missed her,
missed who she was,
even though I knew
she had left him
and deserted me,
saying she was sick
of being trapped
in some pointless,
boring life.
“Yeah, she just
up and went,” he had said.
“How you like that?”
I said I didn’t,
but I thought she’d
come back,
that she’d want
to come back,
that she’d be a mom
who loved me,
who wouldn’t leave me
no more,
a mom who might
joke and talk
like a high school friend,
and that maybe,
just maybe,
things had changed.
“They’ve changed
all right,” Dad had said.
“But not like you think.”
Lighting a cigarette,
I sat atop a
sagging single bed,
wondering how Dad
knew anything at all
about Mom,
about where she lived,
about how she lived,
about what she was doing
since he hadn’t
seen her either,
or at least that’s what
he said.
I wondered if
he was lying,
if he really did
still see her,
if maybe he was
sending her money,
if maybe he wanted her
to come back, too.
Inhaling deep,
I lay back and
thought some more,
remembering their fights,
how they clawed and
pushed and shoved.
Turning on my side,
I heard the front door
creak, then slam,
and got up
to raise the shade.
Mom was outside,
wandering toward
the state road,
dressed in just
a stretched-out T-shirt
and flip-flops,
her underwear
and legs exposed.
“Who needs you,” she shouted.
“Who needs anyone?”
Mom staggered
in half-circles.
A bottle dangled
by her side.
A car honked
and she took a drink.
“That’s right,” she slurred.
“Honk some more.”
A truck rumbled by,
blaring its horn.
“Go away,” she cried.
“All of you.”
Tapping the window,
I called her name.
She swayed
and looked back.
“Leave me be,” she yelled.
“I’m busy.”
Taking another drink,
she zig-zagged
toward the road,
her body spotlit
in the glare and
fade of headlights.
Raising her arms,
she twirled and stared
toward my window,
her face half covered
by her mess of hair.
“You should leave, too,” she yelled.
“Don’t get stuck like me.”
