When

11-08-2014

THAT WEEKEND WAS TERRIBLE. Stubby remained distant and didnt't call or even text all day saturday. Not that I really noticed, because my hands were full with Ma. She had a really bad day looking online, trying to find a job, when there didn't seem to be anything good available.

   Then I caught her on the phone with Donny, asking him if I could do a few readings a month, and he'd blown a gasket. I could hear him yell at her all the way across the room. After a few minutes, she slammed the phone down and headed straight for her stash. "Ma!" I snapped, once I saw her filling the big plastic cup. I couldn't take it anymore. "If you're going to get a job, don't you think you should try and cut back a little?"

   She glared hard at me, and before I knew it we were yelling at each other. Getting angry had never gotten Ma off the bottle, but I couldn't help it. I yelled and yelled at her, and them I threw my hands up and headed upstairs. When I came back down a few hours later I realized she'd left.

   I checked the pantry, and sure enough, all the vodka was gone, which implied she'd taken off to replenish the stock. But by seven o'clock she still wasn't back, and I had a bad feeling.

   I went to the front window and peered out. I hadn't seen that familiar black sedan all day-it seemed that my least-favorite agents took Saturdays off. Next, I checked the garage, and thankfully Dad's vintage T-Bird was still inside. Neither one of us was allowed to drive it because we couldn't afford the insurance after Ma got her second DUI and lost her license, but Ma refused to sell it even though we really needed the money. She and Dad had had their first date in that car,and I think she was convinced that someday she'd get her license back and come up with the money for the insurance and be back driving it again. Still, I knew that sometimes, when she was really missing Dad, and she was sick of taking the bus everywhere, she would sneak out and take it for a spin. It scared me because Ma was never sober. She woke up and the first thing she did was poor vodka into her morning coffee. All those agents had to do was call the cops, and Ma would go to jail and CPS would be back at our door.

   Donny called my cell as I was pedaling up and down the dark streets looking for her. "I can't find Ma," I confessed as soon as I answered the call.

   I heard him sigh on the other end of the line. I knew he was pretty tired of conversations like these, I'd gotten better about not calling him in recent years. "How long has she been gone?"

   I blinked hard. It wasn't just the cold misting up my vision. "I'm not exactly sure, but I think she left sometime after one."

   "Did she take the car?"

   "No. It's still in the garage."

   "Where're you?"

   I braked and came to a stop. I was near the park about a mile from my house. "I'm out looking for her."

   There was a pause, then Donny said, "It's not even eight o'clock, Maddie. She's probably at some bar, and she'll find her way home just like she always does. Go back to the house and get warm."

   I looked up and down the street, my eyes searching for Ma in vain. I knew most of the bars she liked to go to, all within a bus stop or two of the house, but I'd been by them and she wasn't there.

   "Maddie?" Donny said. "You there?"

   "She doesn't have her coat, Donny." I could feel myself getting emotional, and had to swallow hard to simply talk. I felt guilty about our argument, and I was so tired of this. I wanted Ma to see how tired I was. How worried. How afraid. I wanted her to choose to look  out for me for a change. I wanted her to stop pulling stunts like this, because I knew that she knew they were really hardest on me.