n the back of my neck li

it

one, in the woods. I'm

o dramatic.

e spiraling, but it's also Momm

a minute, the demons I'm

they'll do to me

e, even though I still

't far ahead. My car will be

lmost

ep at

ath at

ough the dark woods, I see a glint

mad

e unlock button, looking for the flash of my car's headli

methin

perched o

ar, halfway between the dirt

tiny and afraid

oa

O

tor blow up my phone be

ling on their last night

have so many othe

ust one other

ght-foot high windows that make up most of the fir

one of the double front d

ryway and into the sunken living room. I can see where my mom h

open, and the once-plentiful stash

ing home gifts from clients and expensive bottles he woul

mom is resisting going

she's waiting for him to c

ut. The bottles ins

s, the massive sectional little more

n the room, I se

that separates it

at an antique store when I was a kid. Dad hated it-the green fr

ellowy, aged glow

cross

light, she doesn't move. For goo

eact

d around her knees and the shirt collar is rumpled and smeared with her lipstick. Black mascara s

still coherent enough to b

an early start on t

uor bottle tucked somewhere that she'll pu

artment. Instead, the

ture

the mantle over the fire place. That's where it used

ly, she

s. Mom's arms fall limply into

ss of curly brown hair like a mop on m

hings, but she's right about th

anym

n hair. In this shot, we look like the happy stock pho

d-over earth of what would become our house. Construction was ju

home," Mom said that day. All these ye

n't give to jump

ling fools what's

om is usually too drunk or too depressed to cook, so she swallo

f we didn't have a cleaning lady, the dining

e out of my thoughts. For a secon

t a small, pitiful whimper b

ok back down

troyed it the way

ever she saw a picture of Dad, so I got rid of them all. I shredded and

ouldn't find it in me to rip up the

, though,

ing it scatter across the hearth, and pull the picture free of t

s no n

of a life that

ies, but I can't. They slip between my

arm under her knees and the other under he

er into her bed, but I don't bother trying to decode

e used to have, it's

thing changed when I hunted do

f frigid si

ending the past d

I did to the photograph: rip her