Autumn Lotus

- I -

With his lips set in a straight line, Gage tucked the results of his most recent English Composition I exam into an envelope addressed to his mother back in Tallahassee. Although he loved her dearly and missed her (for the most part), he sometimes questioned her sanity and emotional health in recent days. Ever since his admission and subsequent relocation to the University of West Florida a few months back, Violet Silveira had devised and executed every possible desperate strategy to bring her son back home.

The first occurrence was before he even left. He had been in the middle of packing his suitcase and preparing to move into the dorms on campus. Violet marched into his room and began squawking about college costs, from tuition and books to his undoubtedly impending porn subscription and condom funds. He just stared at her in utter shock and revulsion, at a complete loss for words.

The second occurrence was while he was attempting to get from Point A (his front doorstep) to Point B (his vehicle). It was proving to be a most difficult task, what with his mother physically clamped onto his arm and all. Speaking in her native language of Portuguese, she began laying out the guilt trip about how he had been such a rebellious teenager the past year or so, sneaking out every weekend (she could never remember that he was a volunteer for the local Big Brothers Big Sisters program) and then applying for college without even telling her, and now leaving her all alone in a "cold, empty house."

"I even grounded you, and here you are running off to Pensacola!" she had wailed. "You're so disobedient, you ungrateful child!"

"Woman, it's for college! Plus, I'm already eighteen! You shouldn't be grounding me anymore!"

She also threatened to take him back to Brazil with her. Fortunately, his friend Ryan Lorrens had stopped by to see him off and he hurried over to help pry Violet off her son's arm. Gage promised to call her every week while he was at college. He had felt remorseful during the four-hour drive to Pensacola, his mother's scrunched-up face and gush of tears burned into his memory.

The third, fourth, and fifth occurrences happened one after another via phone calls over the course of his first week at UWF. During the last occurrence, Violet had launched into a frantic symphony of (shouted) reasons for him to come home, the finale entailing her dramatic portrayal of a heart attack. Gage calmly hung up and called Ryan to verify his mother's health. His dependable friend reported that Violet was actually currently in his parents' backyard for a social gathering, lounging on a lawn chair with a margarita in hand.

Despite his mother's increasingly eccentric behavior, Gage felt some degree of responsibility for her insecurities. He was, after all, her only child and only immediate family member in the United States. While her frenetic description of a "cold, empty house" was a bit extreme, she was indeed living alone now even though their family friends made it a point to visit her often. Furthermore, his busy extracurricular life had strained their relationship, as his weekly disappearances had implanted in her the belief that he was in a stage of juvenile mutiny.

As a last-minute decision before his high school graduation, he began applying to several universities and colleges, and was surprised when the University of West Florida responded first with his acceptance letter for the fall term. Unlike Ryan, he had already resolved not to go to Florida State University in town since he wanted to attend a smaller school with a better student-faculty ratio. The hardest part was breaking the news to Violet, who of course resisted the idea with every fiber of her being.

She punctuated her protests with the excuse that he owed it to her to be around since he had accelerated her aging by distressing her, but he suspected that she was just afraid of being left alone. To this day he still knew nothing about her story with his father, other than the fact that she may have been a mistress to a Native American casino owner from the Southwest who abandoned her once she became pregnant. He didn't particularly care to learn the truth at this point, but his mother seemed to possess some attachment issues.