Hillbilly Elegy

and regretful that I’d helped. A few
weeks earlier, I had sat with Mom at a
Chinese buffet as she tried in vain to
shovel food in her mouth. It’s a memory
that still makes my blood boil: Mom
unable to open her eyes or close her
mouth, spooning food in as it fell back
on the plate. Other people stared at us,
Ken was speechless, and Mom was
oblivious. It was a prescription pain pill
(or many of them) that had done this to
her. I hated her for it and promised
myself that if she ever did drugs again,
I’d leave the house.
The urine episode was the last straw
for Mamaw, too. When I came home
from school, Mamaw told me that she