Here are my mom’s five ADD (After Dad Disappeared) boyfriends in the order they showed up:
1. Roy—This guy came into the emergency room one Sunday afternoon after an engine he was working on cracked the tree branch holding it up and broke five bones in his foot. He and my mom were only together for three months. I have no idea why it ended and I wasn’t about to ask.
2. Joe Carey—I was never supposed to know about this one because he was married. Joe Carey was an insurance salesman. He came into the emergency room on a rainy Wednesday evening after slicing open his palm with a broken wine bottle, wearing a disposable diaper wrapped around his hand. He got seventeen stitches and my mom for about six months.
3. Keith—My mom discovered Keith rolling around and groaning on the floor of the emergency room one evening after he’d gobbled an enormous Mexican buffet dinner. He thought he was having a heart attack but was actually only suffering from heartburn. Three months later she told me not to mention his name again, explaining, “He’s king of the rat bastards. I’ll never eat a summer squash again.” (I didn’t ask.)
4. Duane—One day in November after school, there he was, sprawled out on the sofa drinking beer and looking at an afternoon talk show. He had short black hair with a streak of gray above his left ear and eyes the color of rain clouds.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
He waited a full thirty seconds before he patted the cushion beside him and said, “I’m your new daddy. Come sit down over here with me and I’ll let you have a sip of my beer.”
I walked straight over to the hospital and found my mom. She told me he’d only be there a night. One night became a month. And like a bad roach infestation, she needed the help of pros to get rid of him—two orderlies from the hospital. He broke my favorite lamp as they dragged him out. It had a picture of a mermaid made from colored bits of stone.
5. Hayes—She met him long before he met her. Hayes was unconscious for several days, after running his truck into a ditch. When he came to, the first thing he saw was Mom changing his IV bag. “My old, sweet mama was wrong about me,” he said. “I knew I’d go to heaven.”
I tended to agree with his mama, but sadly, he was still here with mine.