𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐒𝐇// 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐗𝐎𝐂

𝐥𝐢𝐯. ✭ 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐑𝐄

JULY 26, 1975; CHANCE
9:24-9:33 a.m.

"Can I have the blue one after you?" Eddie asked, wiping his nose against the sleeve of his T-shirt. I spied the yellow crayon clutched tightly in his fist. My coloring page had a sun empty of color printed on it.

"Sure." I shrugged, rolling mine on the table. It spun toward him. "If you go tradesies with me for that yellow."

"Deal." He nodded, sending over his crayon. A half-smile had inched up his face. We continued coloring peacefully, paying no mind to Mama stretched out on the couch with a bottle of rum cradled in her arms.

She was asleep, clothed in glittery club clothes with her hair messed up. I knew she had snuck out the night before. I had caught her leaving. As soon as she thought Dad was asleep she dressed herself up and was on her way out.

When she heard that creak in the floorboard, letting her know that her daughter was there, standing in the doorframe of her bedroom, my mama simply raised her index finger to her lips  and sent a wink my way.

This wasn't the first time. Mama's outings for getting fucked up to weren't a pattern, they were part of our Friday night routine. Not only for me but for Daddy when he woke up every Saturday morning, rolling the sleeves of his nightshirt up as he walked out of his bedroom.

Everything was regular. The morning was going to plan. Our only difference this week was my new addition. Eddie, the neighbor boy I had befriended the week prior, a fabulous new detail to pencil into the routine.

He didn't say a word about Mama. When he had come knocking on our door and I had let him inside, Eddie only hovered over the sofa that Mama had taken over, tilted his head, and uttered.

"Your mom smells like my dad." The boy then turned to me and earnestly asked. "Does she need a blankie to keep her warm?"

We found a quilt in the linen closet and threw it over her. After that, we decided on coloring, the perfect morning art activity to occupy two silly little kids.

"Why's your picture all neat?" I had scooted over in the booth of our dinner table, sidling alongside Eddie. His was perfect. A piece of childish art. "Why doesn't mine look like that?"

He peered over to my work, pursing his lips before pulling my page toward him. "Here. Try like this." Meticulously, Eddie pressed the yellow crayon down on the border of the sun's lines. He was creating a contained color shape for me. To make it easy. For me. Adorable. "Just stay in between the dark lines."

It worked. Once I steadied my hand, I could keep the color from skating out of the cheap design. It was a miracle. My coloring page was becoming pretty. Eddie had performed a six-year-old's miracle.

"Mistyyy, not again" My daddy groaned, his bountiful patience waning when he made his morning appearance. "Are you serious?" He delivered that line weekly. Every time he came across the hungover body of my mother sprawled anywhere in the trailer but in their bedroom.

As usual, Daddy started for Mama to rouse her in order to start the next step. Him carrying his wife to the bathroom to force her into the shower. That is until he caught sight of something else. My new detail.

"Morning, Daddy." I greeted him, giving an upwards glance before returning to the pressing matter that my coloring provided me.