“Fine. How was work?”
“It was good.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. I watched her as we ate. She was getting those lines around her mouth that made people look like they were still smiling even after the happy thoughts had faded, and her dark hair had strands of gray shimmering through it. Mom looked over at the bags she’d dropped in the hallway, and her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, I stopped by Thrift Town after work, and they were having a blue-tag sale on books. Everything was a quarter, so I got some great hardback books practically free.”
I thought about the four bookcases we already had stuffed full of Mom’s bargain books that none of us had ever read. The overflow books had taken up residence next to the bookcases and were now the holders of other useless stuff, as if they were some kind of towering side table. “Where are you going to put them?” I asked tentatively. I kept my eyes firmly on the rapidly cooling chicken on my plate.
“Oh, I don’t know, I’ll find somewhere,” she said. “Some of them I bought for other people. There was one called
I took a deep breath. Here was my opening, and if I didn’t take it now, I might not get another one. Dinner was coming to an end, and I knew that after that, Mom would retire to her recliner to watch TV for the rest of the night, while Phil and I stayed barricaded in our rooms. “About finding places for stuff,” I said slowly. I glanced up quickly to see her expression, but she was happily cutting up chicken on her plate. “I was wondering if we could maybe do some straightening up around here this weekend.”
Mom chewed and nodded slightly. “We could probably do that,” she said between bites. “You know I’ve been busy organizing the drawers in the coffee table. There was so much good stuff in there, you wouldn’t believe it.” Maybe she would understand, after all.
“Well, I was thinking about more than just the coffee table,” I said. I could hear myself starting to talk more quickly. Once the words were out, I wouldn’t be able to take them back again, so I just had to move forward. Like taking a Band-Aid off in one quick motion. “I was thinking maybe we could take some of the newspapers and magazines to the recycling center and go through some of the stuff that’s starting to pile up in the living room.”
Mom’s chewing slowed. “I don’t know about that,” she said. She glanced down the hallway with a worried look. “I haven’t had a chance to go through all of the newspapers yet. There might be something in there I really need, and if we just toss them all, I might miss it. And stuff is not starting to ‘pile up’ in the living room. I know where everything is, and it’s all very necessary. I have my quilting supplies for when I start quilting again, and there are the clothes I’m sorting through for the charity drive at church.”
“There is such a thing as the Internet, Mom.” I could hear sarcasm creeping into my voice, but I couldn’t stop it. I could feel her pushing back, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “You can pretty much find everything you need there, you know. You don’t have to save all these papers.”
“Well, Ms. Smarty Pants,” she said, “how do I know what I’m looking for if I haven’t read about it yet?” She put her fork down on her plate with a loud clatter. “You haven’t been talking to Aunt Jean, have you? I knew she wouldn’t mind her own business. She’s just jealous about all my treasures—”
I was losing control of this situation quickly and had to pull it back if there was ever going to be a chance to look normal to Elaina and the other girls. “No. I would never talk to Auntie Jean. We promised you we wouldn’t.” My stomach was beginning to churn, but I got up from my chair and put my arm around her to try to get her back on my side. “It’s just that some girls wanted to come for a sleepover—you know, for my birthday—and I thought —”
“You thought I was an embarrassment, is that it?” Her eyes were wet around the corners, and I could see she was going to start crying. She shrugged my arm off. “I’ll have you know I work hard for this family just to keep us afloat. No thanks to your deadbeat father, I’m killing myself to keep a roof over all our heads. Maybe other mothers have time to keep their houses spotless because they don’t have to work twelve-hour days and then come home to ungrateful children who can’t manage to pick up after themselves.” She slid her chair back with such force it banged into the sliding glass door. “I don’t need to come home to this kind of pressure, Lucy Anne Tompkins.” Tears were rolling down her face, and she wasn’t doing anything to stop them. “If I’m not good enough for your snotty little girlfriends, then maybe you should find somewhere else to live.”
“Maybe I will,” I said quietly, staring into my napkin. I knew that was like throwing water on a grease fire, but I couldn’t help myself. I was so tired of pretending, of not being good enough.
She inhaled sharply, and put all four legs of the chair back on the ground. “You think so, do you?” she said evenly. “And where would you go? Hmm? Who in the world is going to want an arrogant, whiny, good-for-nothing twelve-year-old baby? Your father?” She laughed. “You really think he wants you ruining his life? His perfect little girlfriend wouldn’t let you in their house for a minute.”
I could feel my cheeks burning. “Auntie Jean would take me,” I said. “She always said she would help us if we needed it.”
“Jean?” Mom said with scorn in her voice. “How often have you heard from Aunt Jean?” She took a deep, labored breath. “You really think she’s going to want to take you in? Trust me, she doesn’t want anything to do with us. Face it, Lucy, I’m all you’ve got left, so you’d better get used to it.” Her face was flushed and she coughed twice.
“I’ll run away,” I said, staring her down. “Anywhere would be better than here.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice raspy. She coughed and then inhaled sharply with a gasp. Her breath rattled in her chest as she tried and failed to fill her lungs with air. Mom’s arms started flailing and her eyes grew wide with panic as the oxygen failed to come. “Inhaler,” she mouthed, pointing to her purse on the floor by the doorway.
“Phil!” I screamed as I dove for her purse. I’d seen Mom’s asthma act up before, but I’d never seen an attack this sudden or this severe. I tore through the contents and found the beige inhaler sitting at the bottom. I shook it as I raced back to her place at the table, where she grabbed for it like a lifeline, Phil standing uselessly wide-eyed next to her. After a couple of hits, her breathing was ragged but successful, and the wild panic in her eyes was replaced by weariness. I stood next to her chair, not knowing what to do next, the feelings of hate mixed with guilt for almost killing her. Several long minutes passed as she gained control of her breathing and I held mine, remembering the words that hung between us.
Mom took one last hit on her inhaler and put it in her pocket. She held her hand out to me, and I helped her up out of her chair, her legs still shaking. She braced herself on the table before letting go and testing her balance, her shoulders squared as she stood up and looked me in the eye. “You do what you want,” she said and paused for breath. “But I won’t be an outcast in my own home.” She took a couple of shallow breaths again. “If you walk out that door . . . you’d better be able to make it on your own . . . because you won’t be welcome back.” She took a few shaky steps out the kitchen door and down the hallway, slamming the door to her room so hard the windows rattled.
