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“Be good to your Mother”. “She’s the reason you’re here today”. “Would you talk to your Mother with that mouth?” All voiced reminders you may be taking your Mother for granted. You may roll your eyes when your Father tells you to mind her, thinking to yourself “She is so goddamn suffocating, I cant wait to live on my own.” You’re being dropped off at your first day of Junior High, you make her drop you off at the farthest corner of the school so that it looks like the two of you aren’t together, let alone blood-related. You’re bringing over the new boyfriend or girlfriend and that first meeting seems to go by slower than any Math class you’ve had to sustain, thinking to yourself “Please God...don’t let her tell the story of when I was two and a half, saw the dog shitting in the front yard so I decided to do so myself under the Christmas tree.” When her life ends, you’ll feel a gaping hole at first that whispers to you all of the things you wish you had told her, growing smaller with time but never completely healing. For the first couple months you realize what everyone meant in saying that you are lucky to have her and it the hardest thing you’ve ever had to adjust to- this is it, you’re on your own. Although, it is a whole different thing, to have her alive and very much so a part of your life, feeling as if you had lost her years ago to something more harmful than death itself.

It had been three weeks since her Mother disappeared for the approximate 243rd time. She came back that day to “recharge her battery” as the Grandmother put it. The daughter was simply grateful her car hadn’t been incorporated into the vanishing this time. Mother walks in looking pathetic and worn out from her extensive all night (and all day) partying over the past 2 weeks- or had it been three? She had no recollection. The daughter’s face conveys no emotion- she’s grown numb to such things as worry or relief to see her mother alive and in tact.
Mother says “Hi. I was at a friends. He’s having a really rough time, his uh brother passed away and he really doesn’t have anyone there for him. I called your cell phone but it went right to your voice mail I think.” Daughter processes and discards the excuse into the never-ending stash she’s stored away in her memory. Daughter says “We have to be out by the first of the month, your social worker called and your benefits wont go through because you’re not in compliance with your treatment. I cant afford the full $750 this month or any other month for that matter. This just isn’t going to work.” Daughter watches Mother’s face waiting for her to crack, show some sign of remorse, any trace of the woman she once knew in this frail, abused body standing before her. At the age of twelve it would’ve been difficult, but now almost twenty one she’d constructed a penetrable but usually reliable shield blocking her emotions from her tear ducts. Daughter feels like the parent who’s just finished dishing out a good serving of how dare you come home passed curfew. She’d give anything for this to be reversed. She laughs inside thinking she may be the only teenager in history to wish she were, at present, being grounded by her Mother. Mother says “Doesn’t Aaron owe you $310?” Daughter says “He doesn’t have it right now and you know just as well as I do that $310 wont so much as temporarily solve our problem.”
Mother walks into the kitchen, appearing 5-10 pounds lighter than she had two weeks ago. Mumbling something about the refrigerator being empty, she walks back into the living room, dragging her feet out of seemingly disappointment. Mother breaks the silence “Nana hasn’t sent anything over lately? No goodies?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, she’s afraid of what a pause might evoke from her Daughter. “Can I use your cell phone? I wanna see if she’ll lend me some bus fare.” Even though this is far from the first time she’s been in this position, making eye contact with her daughter cuts through her with the force of a machete. Having no dignity is one thing that has never gotten easy...or has it? Don’t think about it now she tells herself. Or maybe it’s the soberness, she’s conscious of the empty feeling that comes with not being high on crack. She’ll soon need to escape again to fill that void, to dull her senses to the reality she’s created for herself. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow” she thinks. Tomorrow never seems to find its way to her.
The Daughter made a conscious effort to remember 5th grade and every year before it almost daily. She was afraid that neglecting to do so would let certain things she’d like to remember about her Mother slip through the cracks, forgotten. Cornbread muffins on Thanksgiving. Reindeer made out of candy canes and pipe cleaners around Christmas. Learning to count money, and being ecstatic when she was allowed to keep the loose change. The ice cream man, making the other kids jealous because he’d give her free ice cream (everyone had a crush on her Mom). Shopping sprees to the Dollar Store (any elementary students dream come true) whenever she’d get an A in class. The not so happy memories were just as relevant, they stood for discipline, the Mother and Daughter had evolved into more of a friendship since the poison had been introduced. Roles reversed.
Two weeks later, the first of the month is tomorrow. Mother disappeared for the 244th time yesterday, leaving her daughter to pack the contents of the house on her own. Her father has come with a U-Haul and they spend the next seven hours loading and unloading. Daughter fronts the $54.00 plus tax for the storage space for Mother’s things. It may have been the perseverant snow that had started its ascendance the night before, or the couple hundred dollars he lent to her for the U-Haul, either way her Father had every intention on making the experience that much more intolerable. It seemed that with each inch of snowfall, her Father had another paraphrasing for “I told you so”. He had made all aware of his disapproval from the get-go, his Daughter renting out a house for herself and her Mother in attempt to help her Mother back on her feet. It had been bound for failure before it had been a mere consideration, but he was never able to convince his hard-headed daughter of this. It pained him to know she had thought she could save her Mother. He was among the first to lose all hope in his ex’s recovery and chance at getting her life back on track.
Next came the Grandmother, as neurotic and psychologically bruised as any normal, old woman could be. She’d never say so of course but she often blamed herself for her Daughter turning into the waste of life she had become. It was this guilt that fueled the continuing of loaned bus fare, hand me down furniture for each “new start” apartment, groceries and considerable amounts of shopping sprees. In addition to her escorting her Daughter repeatedly to rehab, this was the Grandmother’s contribution. She had no words, no pleas, no loving intervention, her emotions were never as open as her wallet. “Love is a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food in your belly”- this motto reigned true in her mind throughout the years she raised her Grandchildren as well. Pre-junior high is when the two girls were handed over. The day their Mother traded them in for the poison.
It takes a month before her caller id reads “restricted” again. Mother is needing to borrow money to pay the next month’s rent on her storage unit. Another month passes and Daughter gets a call requesting that she confirm to her current boyfriend that she did indeed give her Mother those old shoes, that old sweater, those earrings she didn’t wear anymore. Boyfriend is psychotic and assumes his woman has been cheating, her supposed sugar daddy must’ve bought her all of these things. A week later, phone reads “restricted”, she wants a ride to the emergency room but wont say why. The car ride reveals the boyfriends been abusive, and this isn’t the first time. She thinks her ribs are broken, and is furious that the hospital calls the police (obligated to by law). She wont press charges, she seems to like playing the role of victim. Daughter feels guilty for thinking that her Mother is taking the abuse because for once, she can blame the destruction flooding her life on someone other than herself. Over the course of the next week, Daughter is moving Mother and her “necessities” to a battered women’s shelter. Mother is concerned about the rest of her stuff and what he might do to it out of spite. “My stomach flip flops just thinking about it, I cant lose everything- its all I’ve got”. Something in the Daughter has, at that exact moment in time, let go. A faint flame that up until now, regardless of any weathering, has burned in her. Strongest at first, hopeful and naive. Over years she had felt it getting colder, felt it go out in those around her...in anyone her Mother came to let down again and again. Those last three words hit her ear drums, embracing every nerve in her body, ricocheting off her heart and hitting its target, flame extinguished. “All I’ve got.” She watches her Mother push the cart containing clothes, TV, makeup case and stuffed pig (gift from previous boyfriend) into the elevator. Car running, she waits to shift gears, she feels the gates to her tear ducts trying to give way. No, not tonight, she thinks. It’s funny how the human brain tries to heal itself, blocking entire people from entering a particular train of thought.
Daughter hears rumors Mother has a plan. The Reverend working with the shelter has made her an offer to help get her an apartment, but she has to get clean. Bless your heart Reverend, Daughter wishes she could apologize to him ahead of time on her Mother’s behalf.
It’s been 5 weeks, Daughter packs her car. She’s transferring schools, severing herself from every street sign, old/new apartment that she’s called “home”. Cell phone lights up reading “restricted”. Daughter hits ignore.