fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence. When that
happened, Mom would refuse to get out of bed, even when Lucy Jo
showed up to drive her to school, honking impatiently.
One morning toward the end of the school year, Mom had a complete
meltdown. She was supposed to write up evaluations of her students'
progress, but she'd spent every free minute painting, and now the
deadline was on her and the evaluations were unwritten. The remedial
reading program was going to lose its funding, and the principal would
be either furious or just plain disgusted. Mom couldn't bear to face the
woman. Lucy Jo, who'd been waiting for Mom in the Dart, drove off
without her, and Mom lay wrapped up in blankets on the sofa bed,
sobbing about how much she hated her life.
Dad wasn't there, and neither was Maureen. Brian, typically, started
doing an impersonation of Mom carrying on and sobbing, but no one was
laughing, so he picked up his books and walked out of the house. Lori sat
next to Mom on the bed, trying to console her. I just stood in the
doorway with my arms crossed, staring at her.
It was hard for me to believe that this woman with her head under the
blankets, feeling sorry for herself and boohooing like a five-year-old,
was my mother. Mom was thirty-eight, not young but not old, either. In
twenty-five years, I told myself, I'd be as old as she was now. I had no
idea what my life would be like then, but as I gathered up my
schoolbooks and walked out the door, I swore to myself that it would
never be like Mom's, that I would not be crying my eyes out in an
unheated shack in some godforsaken holler.
I walked down Little Hobart Street. It had rained the night before, and
the only sound was the gurgle of the runoff pouring down through the
eroded gullies on the hillside. Thin streams of muddy water flowed
across the road, seeping into my shoes and soaking my socks. The sole of
my right shoe had come loose and flapped with each step.