Morning Light
From my brain
It's hard, you know, to sit there and watch Mom get hurt like that. He's never hit her. He's never even cursed at her, but it's the things that Dad does do; he might as well push her down the stairs.
He must think I'm dumb. Like I'm just this kid still. He thinks I don't know that usually he's just stumbled into the house not a half hour before I get up for school. He thinks that when Mom asks me to do the laundry that I don't smell the perfume on his clothes that I know isn't Mom's. I sometimes think that's why she has me do the laundry: she can't take it any more.
Sure, she puts on this good face for people. In front of me, in front of the neighbors, and I think even in front of some of her friends. But I know that every night he comes home late, she's dying a little. I can't say how many nights I've walked passed her room and she's sitting there bed, looking out the front window. Often enough I can hear her crying, but she's usually praying too. Praying that he'll come home tonight. Praying that when he does try to come home, that he calls a cab and doesn't drive himself. That at least he has someone drive him. That he's safe.
There's this secret, horrible part of me that I feel half-guilty about. Just once I wish he wouldn't come home. I wouldn't want him dead (or even hurt really), just that whichever floosie he found keeps him for once. Keeps him for good. Maybe Mom and I would be better off that way.
Last night I had gone to bed way early, but I had woken up when I heard him stumble in. I heard him as he sat down on the little bench by the stairs, and kick off his shoes. I heard him as he stumbled through the living room, and threw his keys on the kitchen counter. I even heard him let out this gut-wrenching burp that any of my buddies would be proud of. I heard all of this because whoever built these apartments used to build Kleenex boxes.
He practically crawled up the stairs from the sound of it. He stumbled around the bathroom for a few minutes, peed, and washed up. I heard his slow steps walk down what little hall we have, then stumble back into the bathroom to turn the light off, and then toward the bedroom. My door was still part-way open, so I heard him take a deep breath and let it out before walking into their room.
"You're home early," Mom said. It wasn't angry, she just said it plain. It was 3 a.m.
The bed creaked as he sat down on it. "I'm sorry baby." Some days he lies, saying he "...tried to call." I guess not tonight. I pulled myself from the bed carefully, and sat next to my door, leaning an ear out.
There as a bit of silence before Mom spoke again. "Am I going to be able to pay rent tomorrow, or will I have to make up an excuse again this month?"
"I...I think so."
Silence again. "I can't do this much longer Tom. Do you have any idea what it's like to sit here night after night, wondering if I'm going to be that wife getting that call from the cops? I don't know what to do any more. I don't know if you go there because I don't thrill you any more, or if they make you feel like a bigger man, but we need you here...they don't."
The bed creaked again. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry isn't working the way it used to."
"I'll change baby. I promise I will. I...I just need to get myself together is all."
"How many nights have we done this Tom? You're going to change, you swear you will, but it doesn't happen." Silence. "We're only barely paying the rent, and yet you drink away half your paycheck every week. You hate the job, but yet you don't go somewhere else."
"I know."
"I love you Tom. Nate loves you too. Neither of us want to watch you flushing the man you were down the toilet. I don't want to loose the man we loved like that." I heard her sniffle a bit. She was crying. Again.
"I love you both too so much. You don't know how much that helps."
There's probably some shrink somewhere that says that this is completely wrong, but a guy shouldn't have to hear his Dad cry. He cried for a long, long time, and all the while I was just rooted there on the floor of my room. I'm sure those shrinks are talking about crying at Old Yeller, or when your Grandpa dies, or when Rudy gets carried off at the end of the movie. Not that kind of crying. No guy should have to hear that from his Dad.
After awhile, things started to grow quiet again. He must have passed out because they weren't even talking anymore. The quiet started to pull me back to myself and I realized my own cheeks and the sides of my neck were wet. As I looked over to the window I could see a bit of blue had starting to fight through the blinds. A second later, my alarm went off.
I kind of sleepwalked through getting ready for school. I know I took a shower and got dressed, and I think I brushed my teeth, but other than that, I'm not sure. Part of it was just plain tired, part of it was all I had heard. All I know is that I've been sitting here in the car waiting for Mom to drive me to school and I'm gonna be late if she doesn't hurry.
The car door shut loudly. "Got all your stuff for school?"
"Yeah."
She put both hands on the wheel and just looked forward at the front door of the apartment. "Did you see the suitcases in the back?"
"Yeah."
She put the key in the ignition, but didn't start it. "We're going to spend some time at Grandma's for awhile."
"Okay."
As she started the car, the sun finished cresting over one of the trees and light hit the car squarely. She put the car in reverse, and took a deep breath. She took one last look at the apartment, and breathed out heavily.
The car gently rolled backwards as she quietly said, "Goodbye."
