Mia were just me watching her spoon food into her mouth, thankful for each bite she took. My body looked sinewy and sunken, and all I had left in me was to cry it out in that bathroom.
Years ago, when I thought about my future, poverty seemed inconceivable, so far away from my reality. I never thought I would end up here. But now, after one kid and a breakup, I was smack in the middle of a reality that I didn’t know how to get out of.
When I returned, William still sat with his nostrils flared, like some kind of miniature dragon. Mom leaned toward him, whispering something, and he shook his head in disapproval.
“I can pay ten dollars,” I said, sitting down.
“Okay,” Mom said.
I hadn’t expected her to accept my offer. It’d be days before I’d get a paycheck. I fumbled in my bag for my wallet and then handed my card to include with hers. After signing the check, I stood and stuffed my card into my back pocket and barely gave her a hug goodbye as I walked out. I was only a few steps from the table when William said, “Well, I’ve never seen someone act more entitled!”
2
THE CAMPER
For Christmas in 1983, I got a Cabbage Patch Kid from my parents. Mom had waited for hours in lines at JCPenney before the doors opened. The department store managers held baseball bats over the shoppers’ heads to keep the mobs from rushing the counter. Mom elbowed shoppers from left to right like a fighter and grabbed the last box from the shelf right before a woman tried to snatch it. Or that was how she told the story. I listened with wide eyes, relishing the fact that she had fought for me. My mom, the hero. The champion. Bringer of sought-after dolls.
On Christmas morning, I held my new Cabbage Patch Kid on my small hip. She had short, looped blond hair and green eyes. I stood in front of Mom, raised my right hand, and pledged, “After meeting this Cabbage Patch Kid, and learning of her needs, I want to make the major commitment of becoming a good parent to Angelica Marie.” Then I signed the adoption papers, which was the key part of the Cabbage Patch Kid phenomenon. It expressed family values and encouraged responsibility. When I received the doll’s birth certificate with my name printed on it, Mom wrapped both me and Angelica, who was carefully cleaned and dressed for the occasion, in a proud embrace.
* * *
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a writer. Growing up, I wrote stories and disappeared with books like they were old friends. Some of my favorite days off were the rainy ones, when I’d start a new book in the morning at a coffee shop, finishing it late that evening in a bar. It was during that first summer in my late twenties with Jamie that the University of Montana in Missoula began wooing me with postcards for their creative writing program. I imagined myself inside the photos, walking through the pastoral landscapes of Montana, somewhere beneath the quotes from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley scrawled above in scripted fonts: “…but with Montana it is love,” he’d written simply. They were words that brought me to the “Big Sky Country” of Montana, in my search for a home in the next phase of my life.
I met Jamie walking home from a bar, where my coworkers and I went after our closing shift. It was close to midnight, and the midsummer crickets hummed from the grass. My hooded sweatshirt had been tied around my waist while I sweated and danced all night. Now I grabbed for it in anticipation of a long bike ride home. The front of my Carhartt pants still had little drips of espresso from the café where I worked, and I could still taste that last sip of whiskey in my mouth.
Outside into the refreshing breeze, I heard the wafted sound of a guitar coming from a park bench and the unmistakable voice of John Prine. I paused long enough to recognize the song and noticed a guy holding an MP3 player and portable speakers in his lap. He wore a red flannel coat and a brown fedora and sat hunched over, gently nodding his head, taking in the music.
Without thinking, I sat down next to him. The warmth of the whiskey stirred in my chest. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi,”