Tag: nonfiction

Kathy Kay | By Megan Saunders

Dear Mom, 

The day before you died, I hugged you in the hallway of my childhood home. The framed photos to the right, just before rounding the corner into the kitchen, were hung too closely together and yellowed from the sun shining through the front door. Your bones looked so thin under the soft cotton of your T-shirt. You smelled like you. 

***

Things between my mom and me weren’t what one would call “fine,” but that was nothing new. I was seven months pregnant and Annabelle, my three-year-old, and I had visited for a couple of days to belatedly celebrate Christmas. My husband, Cory, stayed home. He was understandably angry at my mother’s recent relapse and refused to support the occasion. I was angry too, of course, but I couldn’t bear the thought of no one from my nuclear family showing up for our post-Christmas gathering. What if it tipped her over the edge, whatever that edge may be? I cursed Cory on the three-and-a-half-hour drive to my parents, stopping at a McDonalds in Abilene so Annabelle could get lunch and use the restroom. It was blistering cold and the wet wind whipped my car door open. I pictured him playing video games in our living room by the fireplace.

 That was two days before that hug. Now it is warmer and sunny, and I’m hugging my mother goodbye for the last time. She held Annabelle, and I told her to be a good girl for Ammaw and Papa while they kept her for an extra night.

“She always is,” my mom said. 

She wore the necklace we had given her for Christmas. Casually, I leaned forward and hugged her with one arm and Annabelle with the other. Did I sense it, in this moment? That my mother would be dead in twenty-four hours in the bedroom ten feet from where we stood? No. But it’s so easy to imagine I did. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

***

Dear Mom,

You spent much of your life apologizing. Apologizing for the trauma you faced as a child and its effects into adulthood, apologizing to my father for your inability to control your addiction, apologizing to my brother and me for being drunk for most of our childhood. Did anyone ever turn to you and say—I mean really say—they were sorry to you? Sorry for refusing to acknowledge the terror and humiliation you faced repeatedly, or sorry for our lack of understanding of what you needed to fill that gaping wound? I don’t know if it would have made any difference. 

I have some apologies of my own. I didn’t understand how—or didn’t have the courage—to voice them to you while you were still alive. That is my first apology. 

I’m so terribly sorry that I often saw you as a one-dimensional addict. When you were drinking, it was so much easier to be angry with you for the physical act of consuming alcohol and what it did to our family on the surface. There was some comfort in the predictability. You drank, which usually involved lying or at least evasiveness, then you became some combination of belligerent, embarrassing, pathetic, and comatose. The fact that this behavior was a direct result of a liquid you purposely put in your body made it easy to lean on my anger. It was perhaps too painful to peel back that layer to see your pain, to better understand the perpetual nightmare of shame that existed within you. I didn’t understand that it was your own betrayal that led to the one you would enact on us.

***

The parting words my mom and I spoke aloud were full of love and familiarity, but our final digital communication was ridiculously mundane. I began my eastward return home, sans Annabelle, and decided I’d stop at a local children’s consignment shop in Great Bend. Three shopping bags later, I was back in the car and I texted her.

“Stopped at that consignment place in Great Bend. Super cute stuff if you’re ever looking for stuff for the girls.”

“Yep. Been there.” Our last communication. 

The consignment shop was called Forever Young. 

***

Six days later, I was back in the car, this time with Cory in tow. Annabelle, too, as my father had returned her to our home the same day my mother killed herself, probably as he was driving back. We were returning for her funeral.

I purposely timed our arrival so we would miss most of the visitation. Maybe I should feel shame for my selfishness— didn’t my dad need me, after all?— but I know my mom would have understood. She shared my dread regarding crowds of all sizes, well-meaning acquaintances encroaching on our space. The sorrowful eyes, the uncomfortable hugs, the “suicide is such a different type of grieving” sentiments. I just couldn’t. Being quite pregnant meant I wasn’t as nimble in my attempts to dodge them, either. More than this well-worn anxiety, though, I was terrified that I might catch a glimpse of my mother’s cropped blonde hair lying on a satin pillow in the open casket down the aisle of the chapel attached to the funeral home. I simply could not bear it. We arrived at the tail end, plenty of time for sympathetic shoulder patting, but not enough time for my disobedient eyes to wander to the chapel. 

***

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to touch your hand one more time. I still remember how the veins patterned their backs and how your nails could grow so much longer without breaking than mine ever could. I’d rather imagine them in the kitchen, though, wiping a finger across a metal mixer before popping it in your mouth to gauge seasoning for mashed potatoes. You made the creamiest mashed potatoes.

***

My brother, Marc, was brave enough to face my mother in her casket and for that I’m grateful. He and I operate as different sides of the same coin, perhaps more so than most siblings. In a way, his courage feels a little like something I can share. She looked like a reflection of herself, Marc said. Physically, of course, she had the same attributes as in life, but the lack of a spark made her a stranger. 

I white-knuckled my way through the tail-end of the visitation, knowing the worst was to come. Several months ago my father had rented my mom an apartment in an attempt to save his own sanity and keep her out of the house while she was drinking. While she still spent a lot of time living in my childhood home, most of her possessions resided in this apartment. In the pristine cream-sided house back on the farm her memories permeated the walls and her footsteps were beat into the floors, but it was still a shared space that allowed for a level of diluted avoidance. Within that apartment, though, every item had been chosen, organized, and arranged with my mother’s hands. 

I prepared myself to enter that apartment, the one you left just a week before, fully expecting to return. You would not, but I would. It felt like an altar.

***

Dear Mom,

Did you like living alone? I know you were sad to not be back in the house with Dad, but I like to think you found some power in being away from his suspicious eye. He wasn’t fair to you. I wish I had told you that so long ago, but I spent my childhood and early adulthood being told that he was the hero of this story. He was the one who carried the burden of the alcoholic wife, the embarrassment of your missteps, the raising of the children when you were incapacitated, and, most of all, making the money and keeping the family together. 

“Your father is a saint. I couldn’t put up with everything he has.” I heard a variation of this sentiment a million times. And he did put up with a lot, you knew that and you felt the guilt. But you also did the emotional labor that is rarely recognized in women, especially women who are constantly tripping over their own trauma. 

When you weren’t intoxicated, you were usually planning the next time you could drink or you were reliving the shame of your last binge. But even with all that chatter and distraction ping-ponging in your head, you still managed to wake children up in the morning, yell at them for eating five granola bars for breakfast, harp on them about making their beds, ensure they had clothes that fit, scheduled haircuts and doctors’ appointments, enrolled them in school and sports, attended their sporting events, bought groceries, made lunch daily for Dad and his hired hands, drove grain cart during harvest, ran to the parts store for farm emergencies, bought birthday and Christmas presents, taught Sunday school, chaperoned field trips, and substitute taught at my school (much to my chagrin). 

You made plenty of mistakes, but we all know what the Bible said about casting the first stone. Dad cast a lot of those stones and while I’ll never judge the anger and betrayal he felt toward a spouse who chose a liquid over everything he provided, I think you had some stones to cast, too. 

***

The apartment was silent but for the air gusting in and out of my lungs. At the top of the stairs, just beyond the front door, my mom’s scarves hung neatly on hooks and her gloves rested in a basket below. In my mind, my knees gave out and I tumbled back down the stairs, but in reality, I found myself somehow moving forward. Cory followed behind, silently, letting me soak my grief in and out like a sponge. My dad said to take anything I wanted, as the apartment was going to be cleaned and back on the market by Monday. 

How does one decide the items they’ll take from their dead mother’s apartment four days after she died? I grabbed two small suitcases and began filling them with a hunger that will never be satisfied. I started in the office, grabbing scraps of paper with her handwriting, books I knew she loved, then I turned to the bedroom. Her curling iron sat on the bathroom counter, cord dragging on the ground, makeup scattered nearby. I didn’t take any of that. I’m not so sentimental that I wanted a half-used tube of deodorant. Instead, I took the framed picture of my mother as a child that sat next to her bed and the simple flat stone she’d painted with Psalm 18:2, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.” I took the shawl tossed on the bed, not necessarily because I wanted it but because I liked imaging her placing it there, fully intending to return and hang it back up in the closet. 

Sitting on the closet floor, my face wet, I held her sweaters up to my nose, memorizing the smell of the laundry soap. I heard the front door open, followed by my father’s voice softly greeting Cory who waited on the couch.

A moment later my dad popped his head in the closet. “Just wanted to say goodnight before we headed home,” Dad said as he glanced around the closet. “You should pick out some of her clothes to take with you. You two always had the same taste.”

***

Dear Mom,

Do you know that Dad told me that I should take some of your clothes because we “had the same taste”? Hilarious, right? You and I both know that isn’t true. You were constantly pushing boots, dresses, and shirts onto me and I would politely push them back. You were a size four on a bad day and the thought of me shimmying into your dresses now would have made us both cringe a little, even if you would have been politely encouraging.

Still, I did as he suggested.

***

“Yeah, okay. I will. Is there anything you want me to make sure I leave here?”

“No, take whatever you want,” he responded as he turned to walk out. 

I stuffed cardigans and sweaters into suitcases—items with a better chance of fitting my very differently shaped body—and quickly zipped them shut. Wheeling them out toward Cory a thought bulldozed me. I ducked back into my mom’s office, trying to channel her thoughts. Where would she have put it? Would it even be here? I poked around in the closet and there it was—the blanket my mother was knitting for the granddaughter she would never meet. Periwinkle blue, perfect in its slight imperfections and, best of all, nearly finished. I let out a low laugh. Even in death she held our shit together. 

***

Months later, I was back at the house—the apartment long gone—for the weekend, this time with the new baby in tow. While my dad was preoccupied I resumed my new reluctant pastime: Searching the house for anything that could remind me of my mom. After turning up little in the hall closets, I opened the coat closet off the front door and felt around the top shelf. Bingo, notebooks. She must have been doing a Bible study in the months before her death as the writing seemed to have a focused quality, like she was answering questions. Beneath all the surface-level familiar highlighted Bible verses a stunningly painful theme began to emerge: Heartbreak. 

“I will forgive Kirk, I will forgive Kirk, I will forgive Kirk,” my mother wrote in one corner, line by line. “I will work on bettering myself so Kirk will want me back.” 

***

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry I read your entries, but I think they gave me your final beautiful, terrible gift: understanding. The divorce a year before had been sold to the family—myself included—as more of a legal formality. What if you injured or killed someone on the road while you were drinking? It may sound cruel, but it’s practical—if you two were still married potential victims could come after the farm and the assets that he, his father, his grandfather, and now Marc had worked so hard to accumulate. Divorce could insulate our historic livelihood. 

Slowly, though, the severity of the break became much more apparent. I can’t imagine what that was like for you, watching your marriage dissolve in extreme slow motion, knowing your own actions were causing it but not being able to stop that train. By the time you died it had progressed from “on paper only” to “only at the house when necessary.” 

It was clear how long you had been hurting and how little of it had to do with your alcoholism. “I’m so frustrated that he won’t recognize my value to not only the farm, but in raising our children,” you wrote. I know that’s true. Dad is a kind, hard-working man, but his focus is narrow and his flexibility is that of a fresh carrot (you would like that joke). It’s not that he didn’t love or respect you, but I don’t think it is unfair to say he viewed you as inferior. I think you viewed yourself as inferior, too. He was the man, after all, so he made the money and gave his blood and sweat to keep you at home and comfortable. So what if you were home alone all day, in the middle of nowhere with two small children and near-crippling anxiety that made a social life next to impossible? You had a comfortable bed, plenty of food, and Bible class on Sundays. What more could you want? 

I must admit that the overwhelming feeling I felt reading those notebooks was guilt. It was the kind of guilt I didn’t feel when Dad called me that terrible evening after Christmas to tell me you had killed yourself. “I should have done something more,” people say in those situations. But I knew there was nothing more I could have done to stop you from putting a gun in your mouth at 2 p.m. alone on a Sunday afternoon. You were drunk—the coroner could still smell the booze in the room—and so afraid and sad. At that point I had no power to help you.

But reading those journals, I fear that I failed you. I know the psychology—I was the child, you the parent, albeit often an incapacitated one. It wasn’t my job to monitor your emotions. But my heart whispers a different story. I wasn’t just your daughter, I was one of your only true friends; one of the only other people in your world who understood the suffocation of anxiety and the constant threat of negative thoughts looping through your brain. Maybe most of all, I understood on some level the complications of the man you married—my father—and how he could be so compassionate and understanding one moment, then quickly turn off emotion at the drop of a hat and repel any source of warmth. 

I may not have been able to change it, but I should have felt your hurt at losing your true love. Dad had rescued you from a mother who sat silently with the knowledge of your abuse and now it felt as though he was the next one to turn his back on you when you were struggling. Don’t get me wrong, Mom, I was angry with you too. I was on Dad’s side, and I shared a portion of his pain. But toward the end, I know we had a tendency to treat you as An Alcoholic, and not as Kathy Molitor. You became flat, a two-dimensional problem that was best dealt with using tough love. Often, though, it was more tough than love.

***

The morning of the day my mom would die my dad briefly left the house to check cattle, getting in a quick chore before bringing Annabelle back to our house. My mom planned to tag along, an opportunity to help me organize the nursery. Instead, when my dad returned home around 7 a.m., he found his wife passed out in bed, inebriated beyond belief and Annabelle standing alone in the hallway looking afraid. We’d been thrilled to leave her there just one extra day, not only to give Cory and me a break, but to give her one-on-one time with her Ammaw and Papa. Subconsciously, maybe it was a misguided motivation to help my mom stay sober. 

“Are you coming with us to bring Annabelle back?” my father asked the unmoving form lying on the bed.

“No,” she murmured, lips barely moving.  

He left my mother in the same bed in which she’d soon die. Several hours later he would stand in my kitchen with me and explain why she wasn’t there. We both simmered in the familiar disappointment and anger. 

“If she thinks she’s coming up when the baby is born, she is very wrong,” I said. “She made that decision for herself.” Dad just nodded somberly. 

“If you want to see her from now on, you’ll have to visit her in her apartment,” he said. “She isn’t coming back to the house anymore.” I returned his nod.

He got back in his truck for the return trip that marked the start of his nightmare. For the second time that day he would find her still body in bed. When my father called to inform me that normal life had ended, I blurted out, “I can’t imagine feeling that kind of hurt.”

Of course, I couldn’t, because I was immersed in my own hurt. But her hurt was real, too, and I can’t help but wonder if we’d spent more time surrounding her with love and support and less time trying to parent the alcoholism into submission, maybe that morning would have gone differently. Maybe she would have woken up to find Annabelle making a mess in the kitchen, then made her some peanut butter toast and started a cartoon on the tablet for her to watch. Then, after going to church, the three of them would have driven Annabelle back up and I would have hugged her at least one more time. 

***

Dear Mom,

I’m not disillusioned—you still would have been an alcoholic no matter what steps we took. Your trauma preceded us by decades. You probably still would have been the mom who got drunk on mouthwash while substitute teaching my high school class or who had to be carried to the car after my wedding reception. 

But you still would have been my mom. 

Cory disagrees with me and maybe it’s the irrational thought of a grieving mind, but I told him the other day that maybe we should have just let you drink. Would it have been so bad? Even intoxicated, you were never cruel or hateful. Really, any embarrassment or danger came from imposing such strict restrictions that caused you to resort to stupidity in order to rebel. 

What if we would have just taken away the keys and let you be? 

While you were still alive, I often had a silly, wistful thought: While many of my friends were reaching the age where they spent time with their mothers at wineries, treating themselves to a fancy cocktail at dinner, or even engaging in a little old-fashioned drunken bickering over Christmas I knew I would never have that milestone. I’d never share a glass of wine with you. It’s inconsequential, in the scheme of things, but I think it speaks to a bigger, yet childlike desire: To go back in time and save you from the monster who stole so much from you as a child, every shred of innocence, not just once but time and time again — and still had the nerve to call himself family. What’s worse, the people who mattered knew and they turned away from the little girl in front of them who was loudly crying for help. I want the impossible; I want whatever chewed you up and spit you out, damaged and terrified, to have never existed, so that I could have a mother who still did. 

 I was robbed of the mother-daughter relationship I craved. Crave. 

We were never a family that said a lot of “I love you’s,” but that mistake ends here. I will tell my daughters I love them every day until they’re sick of hearing it and then I’ll tell them some more. I’ll also tell them about their Ammaw and how she loved them both so much that you could see it welling in her eyes when she’d talk about them—even Adeline, whom she never met. On that last Christmas you hastily hung up an extra stocking and pinned a slip of paper with Adeline’s name, even though we weren’t sure yet of the spelling. I treasure the few times I heard her name come off your lips and I grieve so hard that I couldn’t bottle up that sweet sound and play it for her. 

Adeline’s middle name is Kay, after you, and I hope that isn’t all she gets from her grandma. I hope she has your fierce kindness and subtle sense of humor that was both eye-rollingly lame and refreshing. I hope she searches for similarities with others, not differences. I hope her silent presence is just as comforting and that she isn’t afraid of her emotions. Your emotions were what made you so strong, stronger than Dad, even. Your weakness was that you didn’t believe it. I hope both of my girls love in the face of great impossibility and hardship, just as you did for all your life, and I hope that, like you, they never give up. 

Because you didn’t give up, Mom. You fought like hell for decades to overcome sexual trauma and PTSD, depression, anxiety, bulimia, alcoholism, and a sense of both geographical and relational isolation. You survived. Demons just seized your reason when you were most vulnerable. 

“Let’s not end it like this,” you whispered to me at the breakfast table that last morning as I wrestled a screaming Annabelle into her booster seat. “Just let her be.”

I, too, must now let you be.

“I know that I am gone.” – The last text my mother sent my father.

Paper | By Kerby Caudill

It wasn’t even close to a decent time to wake up but I couldn’t ignore the rumbling coming from the other side of my bedroom wall. The whirr, whirr, whirr sounded like semi-trucks parading through my room. I banged on the wall as hard as I could. “Oma! Stop pulling the toilet paper!” The noise stopped and I put my head back on the pillow. After a few minutes of silence, the whirr, whirr, whirr began again. 

“You’re going to clog the toilet!” Now completely awake, I had to get up and assess the damage. I’d counted six whirrs. That could produce a lot of toilet paper. I hopped down and landed on the hard wood floor, shocked at how much colder it was than my warm bed.  

I inhaled deeply, held my breath and opened the bathroom door. Oma was perched on the toilet, pajamas at her ankles, holding a giant wad of toilet paper over her nose that was still connected to the roll, like a party streamer. 

“Oma, you’ve been in here long enough. Are you done?”

“My name’s not Oma, it’s Annie.”  

My family had seen the play Annie at a local theater and it became a family joke that Oma was the lead, our dog Jack was Sandy, and naturally, even without the fortune, our Dad was Daddy Warbucks. The part that wasn’t funny was our mom became known as the abusive Miss Hannigan. Although we knew Mom loved us and did all of the dutiful mom-stuff like cooking and cleaning, we knew she didn’t really like to do it and we often felt we were a nuisance or burden, just like the orphans. And when provoked, our mom’s high pitched rage could be heard all the way in the cheap seats, just like Miss Hannigan in the play. I never got an official role, but by default I was Molly, Annie’s side kick. We referred to the play on and off for a few years, but after our family finally got a VCR—we were definitely the last people I knew to get one—we rented the movie and watched it over and over. Little by little Oma decided she was Annie and by her seventeenth birthday that was the only name she answered to. It was never changed legally, but to us she became Annie. Her headstone reads Oma “Annie” Kunstler. 

 “Well, when you’re bad, you’re Oma. When you’re good, you’re Annie. And if Miss Hannigan sees this she’s going to flip.” I helped her up, made sure her butt was clean as we sang our new getting dressed anthem, unabashedly stolen from Bob Marley: “get up, stand up, stand up for your pants.” 

My sister used to be able to go to the bathroom alone just fine, but gradually her left side stopped working. Doctors said it was because she had series of mini strokes. They were amazed she was still alive, but they didn’t offer answers or treatments. Nothing happened suddenly. As she changed we changed with her, adjusting our routines as needed, until eventually our whole lives were transformed. 

The bathroom was by far my least favorite part of our new routine and made me appreciate being able to grip things firmly with both hands. She didn’t have the strength or mobility to hold the roll steadily enough with one hand to be able to rip off a normal sized piece, so she would try to use her right hand to pull it hard and rip it off— the result being enough paper to cover a man-sized mummy or a high school enemy’s house. She piled it so high in the toilet that you could actually see the top of the paper mound above the rim. To this day I can’t eat mashed potatoes and gravy. 

We looked down at the mess. “Sorry,” she said with a slight lisp—which was another side effect of the strokes—as she looked up to me for a solution.  She had started wearing the kind of cotton turbans that old ladies wear instead of her hand-made bonnets. Her wide and innocent doe eyes shining brightly from that turban disarmed any anger I had over the disgusting task that lay before me. Bambi was always one of my favorite movies. 

As I helped her wash both of her hands, our reflection in the mirror confirmed Annie’s biggest fear. Her little sister had become bigger. Her medications and lack of mobility continued to add to her weight gain so I was tall and skinny and she was short and plump. She started to resemble a Winnie the Pooh balloon from Disneyland with half of the air let out—still cute and cuddly enough to make you smile, but sad enough to make you wish you could go back to the time when it was fully inflated.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll take care of it. Go back to bed.” I rubbed her back and massaged her shoulders while pushing her towards our room.

“I’m not tired.” The warmth and sympathy I had for her cute little face was starting to disappear as it usually did when she made things unnecessarily difficult. Her childhood bossiness was growing into full on authoritarianism as she grew older and weaker. She brought toys and blankets into the living room like we used to, but now she would stretch out with them on the couch so there was no space for me to sit while we watched the shows only she was allowed to pick. If it was my birthday, she would be so upset she’d put her head on the table and mope, so eventually she started to get a pile of presents for my birthday, too.  I couldn’t complain. How could I dare? For my birthday I once got a (used) root beer-colored three-speed bike I could ride gleefully throughout the neighborhood. She got my old bike with rusty training wheels to ride very slowly back and forth in our driveway.  Things were never fair between us, but I don’t blame our parents. It’s hard to make things even for your kids when the world didn’t. 

“Go draw or something,” I said. Then it dawned on me. “You know what, it’s Mom’s birthday. We forgot to make her a card.”

“I’ll make a masterpiece,” she said. Although she probably wasn’t thrilled she wouldn’t be getting any presents today, she didn’t mind our parents’ birthdays as much as she minded mine, so she was happy to draw for our mom. 

I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I know you will. I love you.” 

When your mom is an artist and wants to keep her kids busy so she can paint, she buys you a lot of art supplies. Annie turned out to be an incredible artist in her own right. Although her human figures looked like Mr. Potato Heads with circles for bodies, eyes and teeth, her abstract drawings were covered edge-to-edge with rainbow colored shapes and scribbles coming together to make magical, mystical terrains I wished I could run through. 

I didn’t have the imagination she and my mom had, but I used to draw all the time. Once when it rained on Mom’s birthday and I could tell she was really depressed. I thought the sun would cheer her up, so I drew and cut out a big yellow one and drew a happy face on it. Then I traced it with gold glitter and hung it on the fridge. While she thanked me, the drawing didn’t cheer her up at all. Years later, when she checked herself in and out of several mental hospitals, I found out she’s bi-polar, but back then I just thought she didn’t like us very much, that we were not enough to make her happy. 

“You good now?” I asked once Annie was all set up at the kitchen table with her pad and fairly new box of 64 crayons. 

She answered with a thumbs up and went to work. So did I. I got a plastic grocery bag from under the kitchen sink and went back to the bathroom.  I held my breath and used the toilet brush to shovel the heavy, drippy mess into the bag. Once I got enough out to allow the toilet to flush, I used more paper to wipe up all the drips from the floor and toilet, tightly tied up the bag and took it outside to the trash. The bag was leaking toilet water so I had to run. I retraced my steps to wipe up those drips with a hand towel, collapsed in a chair next to my sister, and watched her draw. 

 I heard the hiss of a match being lit. It was Mom lighting her cigarette first, then the pilot light on the wall heater near her bedroom. I peeked around the corner and down the hall. She was sitting on the floor in front of the heater smoking and crying, the mauve-colored velveteen robe we bought her for Mother’s Day tied tightly around her thin waist. She must have taken an early shower because her hair was dripping down her back in long black tendrils, water darkening the robe like blood. She often sat there and smoked, but this morning she seemed especially sad. Birthdays were hard for her. Maybe she counted up the years and they didn’t amount to what she wanted them to. 

Later that night we went out to celebrate at a Japanese restaurant. This was a big deal for because although walking wasn’t the easiest for Annie anymore, she refused to try a wheelchair. Taking her places was becoming more difficult she walked more slowly, got tired easily and then sometimes even a little grouchy. 

“This is like a palace,” Annie said while we waited for our table. Her wide eyes slowly took in the golden paper screens depicting peaceful images of cherry blossoms and cranes flying over lakes and the shimmering pink and blue kimonos hanging on the walls.  Although l was a young teen out with her family, I had to admit I liked it too. 

“Well, you are all my princesses,” Dad said as he bowed to us. Mom coughed loudly. “And my queen of course.” He kissed her hand and bowed to her. Mom smiled and reluctantly curtsied. 

“I can take you to your table now,” said a lovely young woman. Our dad dropped Mom’s hand and gave the hostess his full attention, chatting with her as they walked to the table as if she were his date. Mom’s smile dropped but when her eyes met mine she tried to play it off. 

The table sat in front of a mural of Mt Fuji and was very low to the ground. Around it were four silky cushions the same colors as the kimonos on the walls. 

“Where are the chairs?” Annie asked loudly.

“Those cushions are your chairs. Here, I’ll help you.” The hostess, trying to impress our dad, took Annie’s arm and tried to help her sit.  She didn’t take into account that Annie was heavy and was surprised when she fell limp into her arms almost knocking them both down onto the wooden table. Somehow she wrestled Annie to the ground and Dad took her arm to help her up. She pulled away from his grip red faced and said our server would be with us shortly. Mom didn’t sit down with, us but instead walked away.  

“I’ll be right back, ladies,” Dad said as he followed Mom.

“They’re fighting,” Annie said.

“It’s not that bad. They’ll be back in a second. Mom probably had to smoke.” Just like Mom, I tried to hide how embarrassed I was. 

“She should call Schick,” Annie said.

“I know. You’re right. Let’s play I Spy,” I said.

We played a few rounds. It was easy to win because she always picked whatever was right in front of her vision. Each time it was my turn I correctly guessed: chopsticks, water glass, table. She got frustrated quickly. Annie was never good at games. Most of the time I would just let her win or say she won even if not one checker was moved properly. But she was good at Hungry, Hungry Hippos, because all she had to do was slam that little handle down and try and get as many marbles into the mouth as you could. I usually pushed extra marbles towards the mouth of her hippo but she had no problems gobbling them up on her own. When we went to an arcade I’d set her up in front on Pac Man but wouldn’t put in a quarter. She just moved the joystick left to right with no idea she wasn’t controlling it. That may seem mean, but it saved a lot of quarters and she had a ball.

Our parents returned smelling of freshy toked pot and were much more relaxed. “We’re back. Sorry for the delay my royal highnesses,” Dad said as he lowered himself into a cross legged position. He was limber enough to do it in one move even though he was so tall. Mom was at least a foot shorter than Dad and sat down with the ease of a yoga instructor. She smiled graciously when our waitress, a much older woman this time, came to get our order.

 “I’m starving. Let’s get one of everything!” Mom said.

We didn’t get one of everything, but when the food came it seemed like we did. 

“This is delicious!” I said as I stuffed my mouth with meats and vegetables covered in sauces I’d never had before. Dad took us to a lot of authentic places he found when he filled their cigarette machines, but this was by far my favorite. I forgot everything else for a while as I happily ate and talked to my parents.

“I got an A on my essay about the Amish,” I bragged to my parents.

“Good job, Nick,” Dad said. I didn’t choose that nickname but I loved Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, so my Dad called me this a lot. Still does. I was glad I had graduated from being called “Ina,” which came from the sound I used to make when I sucked my thumb. 

They changed the subject to my Dad’s upcoming gig with his Reggae band and I lost interest. I picked up an origami paper crane table decoration and flew it around my water glass. Annie and I got an origami set as a gift once and neither one of us could make anything good from it. I couldn’t figure out the directions and Annie couldn’t follow them anyway, so the delicate paper went in with our arsenal of art supplies. I flew the crane towards my sister but she wasn’t there. She had lain down completely flat, right from where she was sitting, making a perpendicular angle from the table so that her head almost hit the cushion of the person sitting behind her. 

“Mom, Dad, where’s Annie?” I whispered.

They couldn’t see her at all from where they were sitting and looked panicked. They were pretty high so they may have actually thought she was gone. I pointed down at her and they leaned over the table. We watched her big belly rise up and down like a hibernating bear sleeping at the foot of Mt Fuji. Her hat had come off slightly and you could see wisps of thin brown hair float over her otherwise bald head. The peaceful scene was interrupted when Mom let out the huge laugh she had been trying to suppress from deep within her throat. Dad and I joined and we all laughed until we cried. Most strangers had a hard time figuring out where to look or what to say when they saw Annie, but the kind family behind us noticed something strange was going on and laughed along. They even scooted over to give her a little more room. 

Mom wiped away her tears with a silky napkin. “Oh Annie, what would we do without you?”

Criminy Sakes Alive | By Jody Rae