Blue Letter Night

22. Beth reminisses

Another night spent in the tent with Anne and Machelle wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be. It was sort of like a girls night. We used to have them all the time when Anne and I were younger.

Anne, Machelle, and I would camp out in the living room and would watch movies all night, and have competitions to see who could stay up the latest; I always won. Before she died, my mom would've been there, and in the very back of my memory Macy was there too.

One time, when i was six maybe, two years before my mom died, we passed four year-old Max and six year-old Mason on to Robert, and us girls camped out in Machelle's half finished house. We couldn't afford much at the time, Mom and Machelle were single parents, Robert was just starting out at his knew job and Macy was a stay at home mom. So, we sat in the kitchen and Macy gave us all hair cuts, she had learned how in high school in a cosmetology class and was going to be a hair dresser before she married Robert and got pregnant with Mason.

"Isn't she adorable," Macy had said after snipping off the finishing touches on my side bangs. I hated those side bangs. They always fell in my face and looked awkward with the waves in my hair. My mom loved them with the bob Macy always cut for me— she said it made me look like a flapper girl. I didn't know what that had meant, but the way she said it and the way she hugged me made me feel a little less contempt towards my side bangs.

"Oh sweetheart," my mom scooped me up in her arms, I was a small six year-old so it was easy for her to scoop me up the way she did and swing me around until we were both dizzy and laughing. She was carful not to knock down any of the candles Machelle had set up until she got lights installed while she spun us both back to the living room.

"Look at you," Machelle said regarding my hair cut. At the time, Anne was still sporting two puff ball buns on the top of her head, one day I had told her it made her look like a bear. She liked that.

"Mama?" I had whispered. We laid on the sea of blankets and pillows while everyone else was asleep and my mom spoke to me in hushed tones. Nose to nose she she stroked my head.

"Yes?"

"Why does Mason have a mom and a dad but Anne and I only have a mom," it was a loaded question for a six year old to ask, and maybe it was my young naivety, or maybe it was the complete opposite that forced me to ask. I had a feeling about what was going on, a vague six-year-old perception of it.

"Well," she started, "you and Anne both have dads they're just not here right now,"

"Well I know that," I drawled, "but why aren't they here?"

"Sometimes people, even grown ups, make bad decisions. Anne's dad decided he wanted to leave. Your dad made some bad decisions and had to go away before you were born," she said it in the gentlest voice and stroked my hair.

"If dad made bad decisions does that mean I'm going to make bad decisions?" I asked fearfully. The last thing in the world was to disappoint my mom.

"No. You could never do anything wrong," she told me laughing.

"But mom I pushed Mason in the mud today," I reminded her reluctantly. I gotten scolded for that but mostly it was my mom trying to hold back her laughter and keep a stern face. She laughed a little then.

"Oh that's nothing, you and Mason will be friends one day," she said confidently.

"Sure mom," I had learned sarcasm from Machelle and was using it liberally.

"You'll see," she stroked my head until I fell asleep.

As a six-year-old I was sure my mom was wrong, I was also sure that she would always be there. I'm the present, it was only Anne, Michelle, and I at the girls night.