1 Living, With My Mother

I am in the living room with my mother. She sits across from me in her pajamas.

It’s very late. I am 16 years old and she has just picked me up from the local police station.

2 hours ago I was caught on the roof of the local high school. They accused me of trying to break in, which isn’t true. I told them I was just exploring, seeing what I could do.

I am staring at my hands, moving each finger around and finding the movement of the skin and the tendons I can see fascinating.

My mother can’t stop staring at me with those red eyes. She asks me what I’m doing with my hands. I can’t really say. They’re not hurt, I’m not hurt I tell her.

This will be the only time in my memory when my mom will try to understand me.

She keeps asking what I was thinking.

She wonders why I would leave the house at 11 o clock at night and ride my bike the 8 miles to the school in the dark.

She wonders if my bike even has a light on it. It doesn’t. It never did.

When I was at the police station and they started to call my parent’s house, I hoped and prayed that my dad didn’t pick up, that even if he did pick up he would send my mom in his place. She says he never even stirred when the phone rang.

I tell her that I couldn’t stay in the house after what happened with dad. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t keep reading like nothing had happened.

Less than a week later she takes me to a therapist to be tested. For what? She never tells me. The therapist tells us in a typed letter that I have a slight learning disability but that I’ve mostly already overcome it. The letter mentions being lefthanded like it was a disability.

I can’t stand how she keeps looking at me. Like if she looks hard enough and long enough she will see the gears moving in my head and then things will make sense.

She sends me to bed without unveiling anything new. She mentions something about what my father will think like it will make me willing to explain myself.

I never close my eyes that night.