Hillbilly Elegy

Mom’s behavior. Lindsay, Matt, and
Mamaw did their best to hide it from me.
Mamaw forbade me to stay at Mom’s,
under the ruse that Mamaw needed me
with her as she grieved. Perhaps they
hoped to give me a little space to mourn
Papaw. I don’t know.
I didn’t see at first that something
had veered off course. Papaw was dead,
and everyone processed it differently.
Lindsay spent a lot of time with her
friends and was always on the move. I
stayed as close to Mamaw as possible
and read the Bible a lot. Mom slept
more than usual, and I figured this was
her way of coping. At home, she lacked
even a modicum of temper control.