Audrey had forgotten about most of this, but now, it all came back. Like a scab reopened, the pain was surprisingly fresh. She felt her throat as she spoke. “My mom is bipolar.” It still hurt to say this, even after all these years.
“I’m sorry,” Jayne said.
“Me, too.” Once again, she’d surprised herself. Her voice sounded bitter. Unkind.
“Anyway, the disease worked in cycles. I came home one day and found her tearing up the kitchen floor with a chef knife she’d stolen from a neighbor. A serious German number, sharp enough to cut through bone. She kept saying she was digging—she thought something bad was down there. In the hole. I remember being so upset, but mad, too. I liked that double-wide, and we got kicked out for what she’d done. And I kept thinking, you know? Maybe it would have been better if she’d turned that knife on herself instead.
“She cut me with that knife. On purpose. Not deep or anything. It was more just upsetting. It was the first time she’d ever done anything like that, and she never did it again, either. But afterward, I hated sleeping in the same room with her. I couldn’t trust her anymore.”
She hadn’t thought about this in a long time, and she knew there was more to the story than she remembered. Something about the hole in the floor, and her mother’s ants. Something about her dream.
“It must have scared her when she saw the blood on my neck, because she ran off. Six weeks. That was the longest she was ever gone. I kept expecting her to come back, but she never did. Those asshole neighbors at that park didn’t share. I was so skinny my knees didn’t touch, and they never even offered their leftovers because they didn’t like my mom. She’d done stupid stuff like spray-paint their cars and steal their newspapers, and she slept with a few husbands. They wouldn’t forgive her for it. Really, they wouldn’t forgive her for being crazy. They were scared it might be contagious. Like one of those sick houses during the Black Plague in Europe. They nailed human skulls to their doors, so people knew not to come knocking. Everyplace we ever lived felt marked like that. Like a sick house.”
She leaned back, suddenly ashamed that she’d started this story. It was a real downer. Not remotely funny. “I stopped going to school—I’d enrolled that semester, passed into my junior year even though I’d missed tenth grade. I started working full-time instead. I told myself it was the freedom, but looking back, I think I was just ashamed. She’d abandoned me. Most kids, their parents care enough to teach them things, and show up.”
“So what happened?” Jayne asked.
“She came back. I still don’t know why I took her back after all the things she’d done. I’d moved by then, and the new place was pretty bad, but we didn’t stay long. We found another town. Except for when I ran away to college at U of N and she couldn’t find me, I took care of her for twelve more years after that…I should have left,” Audrey said, shocked by the words as she spoke them, and by her tears, too. She’d thought she’d outgrown self-pity. “I should have let her die. I’d have been better off.”
Jayne didn’t say anything. Audrey wiped her eyes. She thought about taking it back, but she didn’t. That dream last night, that sad girl. It was time to stop hating her. “So, that’s my embarrassing story. I got abandoned. A lot. Sorry it’s not funny.”
“That’s okay,” Jayne said. She didn’t seem shocked, like Audrey always expected people to be when she told them about how she’d grown up. But everybody’s got troubles. Even rich people in cashmere suits. Maybe they had OCD, or a kid with cancer, or couldn’t find love. Or they were the black sheep of their families for no good reason. It’s such hubris to think your problems are bigger than the person’s sitting next to you, just because they have the fortitude not to complain.
Audrey sat back. The night had gotten late. It was past eleven. She felt heavy, and tired. But good, too. She liked Jayne. “On the plus side, my growth got stunted, so I didn’t have to deal with having a period until college. Actually, I have no idea if I can have children.”