When I get home, I find Mom already wasted.
It’s not even lunchtime.
I open the door and see her in the kitchen and know something’s up, since she always works lunch and dinner during the week.
“Chris, you’re home,” she says.
And right there I know.
On the way up, my mom sounds like this. Happy and light if not a bit slippery and slurring. On the way down, before she blacks out, she’s either half unconscious or she’s half possessed.
She’s good to go.
The question is where she needs to go to. I think AA would be fitting.
“I’m so glad, because you and I are going to have a magnisifent lunch.”
Oh dear.
I don’t tell her that she needs a spell-checker.
“What are you doing home?” I ask.
The sky outside is overcast. I just had a feeling this was going to be one of those days.
“We need to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“How about a birthday celebration?”
“Your birthday is July 15.”
I’m hoping she hasn’t actually forgotten her birthday.
“I know. But you only turn forty once, right? And I need to start really trying to feel good about it.” She comes over and puts her arms around me. “Where’s my little baby?”
I sigh and gently move out of her embrace.
“Come on,” she says. “What are you hungry for?”
How about sobriety? How about an embrace that doesn’t smell like the backside of a brewery?
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Oh, come on. I just went shopping.”
I can see the bags of stuff on the counter. And it really is a bunch of “stuff.” She must have gone a little crazy in the store and bought one of everything.
“How much did you get?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it—I had a good night last night.”
“Are you serving tables now?”
“No—just—don’t worry about it.” She goes back into the kitchen and starts unpacking bags.
“What about work today?”
“They gave me the day off. ‘Celebrate good times, come on!’”
When Mom starts singing, it’s time to get out of here, and fast.
“And why did they give you the day off?”
She shrugs and keeps her back to me, still humming as she unpacks the bags.
I see a half-empty bottle of wine in the corner. In the garbage can, another completely empty bottle that wasn’t there this morning.
I’m beginning to notice a lot more things, living with Mom.
“Did they send you home?” I ask.
She looks at me with an Are you kidding me look that confirms it.
“Mom, come on.”
“What?”
I curse.
“Don’t use that language.”
“What? What’d you just say?’
“I said not to use that kind of language.” She talks in a way someone talks as if trying desperately not to slur their words.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that offend you?”
“Chris—”
“No. I mean—come on. It’s barely noon.”
“So.”
“So? Oh, okay. What are the rest of your plans today?”
“I don’t know. I thought we could go sightseeing.”
I look at her and just laugh. The look on my face has to be similar to someone just discovering that there are martians living in the bottom of his shoe.
“And where would we go?” I ask.
“I’ve always wanted to check out the Biltmore Estate. I think that would be fun.”
Yeah. And I’d have to get a stretcher to carry you back home.
“Or maybe Grandfather Mountain?”
So you can fall off?
I just stare at her. “Why did you—what’s the deal?”
“Nothing is the deal, Chris. I’m just living life a little.”
“Good to see.”
She brushes her hair back and shakes her head. “Do you know something?”
“I know a lot of things, actually.”
“You’re the most dramatic sixteen-year-old I’ve ever seen. And you’re a boy.”
This would have hurt less if she’d slapped me in the face and then punched me in the gut.
The slap’s for the dramatic comment. The punch is for the boy comment.
I stare at her. This woman across from me still doesn’t have a clue. She has no idea the nightmare she’s brought me into by moving here.
I want to say it, to say what I’m thinking and say it while she’s still halfway coherent.
Oh, yeah, well, you’re the worst example of a mother I’ve ever seen.
Or Oh, yeah, well, suddenly Dad’s place is looking a lot more appealing.
Or something else like the hundred other nasty and mean feelings swirling around in my head.
But I just shake my head and force myself to keep quiet.
I leave this cabin that doesn’t feel like home and never will.