Stray

3.

3.

It all started with a missing alarm.

Well, not so much a missing alarm. More like Antonio neglected to charge his phone, and his alarm never went off. His sister, Rachel, went to wake him up. He was running late, but not so late that he would miss the bus. If he'd of hustled he would have made it. But he didn't - he bullshitted, which has been his MO for the last couple of weeks. Drag his feet, miss the bus, abuse his privileges. In that order.

Because mom will take me, so it's totally okay if I miss the bus. I don't have to maintain a schedule, and be responsible or anything like that. I'm only eighteen years old. This is the only thing that could have been going on in his mind at the time. And I almost - almost- grabbed my keys and took him to school. Except I didn't. It was high time he heard what I had to say about his entitlement complex.

I send him out to the car to start it. I drive a beater with transmission issues. In cold weather, it needs to idle for a while or you can't even get it out of the driveway. It won't budge. While we waited on the car I would lecture him.

That was the plan.

I go on about my morning. I pack Marisa's lunch and walk her out to the bus stop. I deposit her in the yellow rolling hunk of metal, and I turn as it rumbles down the street. I notice the back of the car and discover that it isn't running. He never even bothered to put the key in. And well, you know, that did it -on like, a billion levels. I'd had enough.

This was no longer about sloth - he'd decided that he wasn't going to school. Antonio was in no position to make that choice.

I couldn't wait to get inside the house.

~~**&**~~

"Why isn't the car on?!" I snap at Antonio's back. He's sitting at the table with his back towards the door. I cross the kitchen to get a look at his face. My eyes narrow so that the skin on my forehead feels as if it's about to split. "I told you to start it twenty minutes ago!"

He replies that he's not going to school with the nonchalant ease of a forty five year old calling off work because he needs a 'mental health' day. Again: NOT his decision.

"I realize that you are eighteen, but you live in this house, not your own. If you don't want to go to school, then rent an apartment and drop out there - because you won't be allowed to do it here! I don't get you Antonio. You don't do anything that's asked of you. I let your dish days go because you work - all you have had to do is take out the trash and you don't do that. I do! You are a child. Get it? A child! Adults don't behave the way you do! Adults can get themselves out the door on time! Adults can remember to take out the garbage!

"Adults", Antonio replies, "don't drive beat up cars, and have to depend on their ex husband for money."

'Antonio ... you have to get it together, okay?" I say to him exasperated. Then I focus, via gut punch, on what he just said.

Wait ... what? Did he just insult me?

"What are you talking about?" I ask in a semi-daze. This is coming dangerously close to sounding like an opinion.

No. Not an opinion.

Stinging words.

A judgement. An ugly, hateful judgement coming from my sons mouth. A judgement about me, as a single stay at home mom that's been left holding the bag for other people's decisions. Why can't he see that? And when did he become such a snot?

"Antonio that's not fair. Also - you need to be careful right now ... "

I offer my statement with as much confidence and authority as I can muster, but it's hard when I'm being swarmed. I just want to run for cover.

"No", he continues as if talking to a three year old, "You need to be careful before you end up like grandma. No money, nowhere to go and constantly talking to yourself." Antonio leaves through the back door. He's not even bothered.

I stand at the kitchen sink for at least ten minutes. I guess I am doing dishes, but I'm not really sure. I don't think that washing a plate, rinsing it, then putting it back into the dishwater counts. Neither does stacking, and then restacking dirty cups.

It's official. The previous state of semi-daze has turned into full on shock. My mother's plight gives me Bag Lady nightmares in endless supply, but our lives couldn't be farther apart. I am nothing like her.

Am I? Am I? Am I like her?

My kids don't look at me that way ... do they?

I drain the water from the sink. I'm not cleaning right now. I have a tendency to clean when I am troubled and thinking, but not today. My brain has blown a fuse that I didn't know it had. I'm drained for the moment. I decide to sit down.