so shocked. You must be doing really well.”
“I'm doing alright,” I say with a shrug. “I save a lot, but I wanted to live in a good neighborhood. Somewhere I could go running and feel safe.”
She shakes her head. I don't have to say it out loud because she already knows what I'm talking about.
When I was in ninth grade, a girl from my algebra class went on a run and disappeared. They found her body three days later in the ditch behind the butcher shop. Her murderer is still at large.
“Listen, Miss Attitude,” Mom says. “I did the best that I could. Your father was no help, you of all people know that.”
People always say that they are doing the best they can, but it's not really true, is it?
Most of the time they're just going through the motions and doing what feels good at that moment. Yes, my mom worked, but she didn't exactly look after me.
I was the one who was cooking dinners for us at night from eight years old on. I was the one that was holding her hair back when she puked on Saturday mornings after a night at the bar.
I give her a tour of the house and she quickly moves on from the insult that I supposedly gave her. I don't comment on it either. She has nowhere to go and though she hasn't asked me, I know that she's going to stay here tonight and tomorrow night and who knows for how long.
I have two spare rooms but I don't really want her to occupy either of them for long. I don't know how to have this conversation with her. Now is not the right time.
She has been through a lot and we’re both exhausted from the flight. If we were to talk about anything right now, we would just get at each other's throats.
I sleep well into the afternoon and don't get out of bed until two. My muscles are fatigued and it's painful just to bring my arm up to brush my teeth.
I consider jumping into the shower but decide that it would require too much energy.
I find Mom sitting on the couch in the living room watching television. There's a bag of chips next to her along with some dip that she found in the pantry.
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
“Like a princess,” Mom says, leaning her head against my couch. One part of it is a recliner and she has extended herself all the way out. “Your furniture is heaven. I’ve never sat in anything so comfortable.”
I think back to the furniture that we had when I was a kid. Mom called it eclectic, but it was mainly whatever we got for less than twenty bucks from the local thrift stores.
We moved around so much and we didn't have a truck or any way to take the furniture with us so most of it had to stay. I never knew why Mom couldn't figure out her life in time to arrange for a moving truck or a friend who could help us move, but she never did.
In fact, we often stayed in our apartment until the sheriff showed up and kicked us out. One time, I even came home from school and found all of my stuff on the lawn outside of the apartment building with everyone in the street gawking at us. The locks were changed and we only could take what we could carry.
I was never angry with my mom, with the fact that we were poor. What made me angry was the fact that she had so little thought for the few possessions that we had. She always spent more money than we could afford, leaving us in an even bigger hole.
Later today, I make arrangements to ship my car back here from the extended parking lot.
I use U-ship, which is a service where you can get in touch directly with truckers and get a better deal on shipping large items.
I get a few quotes, but two of the better ones are worried about the liability of picking up the car without my presence. Finally, the last one agrees.
I sign a waiver of responsibility and just pray that the car gets here in one piece. All the way here, I considered leaving it at the extended parking lot, but I didn't want it to be declared abandoned and get impounded by the police.
There's already a record of me flying out of Ontario airport and