“He’s the boy,” Granny said, as if that settled it.
“But I’m older.”
“Girls shouldn’t sleep alone outside.”
In the pause that fell between us, so much was said. She had to know this new sleeping arrangement left me vulnerable, but she remained silent, daring me to poke our family’s secret.
“But what about me?”
“You have your own room now.”
“But what about—”
Granny cut me off. “You can stay in our second bedroom if you have to,” she said. “But don’t make a habit of it.”
Rather than admonishing Mom, holding a family meeting, or seeking professional counseling, instead of trying to figure out how to help Mom, Granny papered over the problem by getting Matthew and me panic rooms. Her solution tacitly reinforced Mom’s behavior along with the idea that Matthew and I were the ones who needed to adapt to her unchecked moods. Mom couldn’t cope with her own life, so Granny did it for her. My brother and I were remnants from a former life that Mom wanted to erase from memory. We were constant reminders of a future that was ripped away from her, our very existence making her feel an inexorable sense of failure. Granny’s loyalty lay with her child; she would do whatever she could to soothe our mother and keep unpleasant realities away, even if that meant removing the unwanted burden of us from her.
I ducked back into the trailer and shut the door. I took a seat on one side of the dinette opposite Matthew. He had a dazed look of someone who had just lost something that was in their hand a second ago.
“You’re so lucky,” I said.
“I guess,” he said.
“Did you ask for your own room?”
“No.”
“Do you want to stay out here?”
Matthew shrugged. He was as perplexed as I was, but just as powerless to change it. He pointed to a ledge that hung over the dinette.
“I can put a stereo up there,” he said.
I was about to ask him where he was going to get a stereo when someone knocked on the door. Matthew opened it and Mom nudged him to one side and let herself in. With three inside it was like standing in a crowded elevator.
“Nice place you got,” she said, turning in a circle for the full view. Then she reached for me. “Come here,” she said sweetly.
She wrapped me in a warm hug. Despite my raw fear of her, I felt myself instinctively relaxing into her embrace. Her warm tears dropped on my shoulder. “I haven’t been getting any sleep,” she sniffed.
She released me and tilted my chin away from her to look at the fading scratch marks.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
She looked out the open door and spoke with her head turned away from me.
“I love you, you know. But sometimes you make me so mad.” I could hear her vigorously rubbing her stuffy nose. “I hate it when we fight. Let’s not fight, okay?”
Her personality change was bewildering, but I went along with it to avoid any more trouble. “Okay,” I said.
She hugged me one last time and stood to go. As she exited, Matthew and I watched to make sure she was leaving. She took a couple steps and then turned back around. She wore an impish smile.
“Hey,” Mom called out. “Do you love me?”
I stood in the doorway and nodded.
“Oh yeah?” she said in a baby voice. “How much?”
This was one of our childhood games that we used to play in Rhode Island. She’d repeatedly ask how much I loved her, and I would answer, “This much,” holding my hands farther apart with each response until they were as wide as they could be, my whole body in the shape of a T proclaiming my love.
I held my hands a foot apart. That much.
“How muh-uch?” she cooed, drawing the last word into a singsong of two syllables.
“This much!” I shouted, reaching my arms as wide as they would go. I felt like an actor playing me in a movie.
“Me, too!” Mom answered, beaming. And thus Mom decided everything was back to normal. As I watched her walk back to her house, I knew that I would never feel right about us again. Her house was not my home; it was a dangerous place where I needed to keep my wits about me, and a survival plan in place. Starting now, I would simply hang on and wait until I graduated high school and could make my escape. Meanwhile, I would go through