I’m used to being yelled at. In our house we call it parenting. An outsider might not see the difference between an angry yell and an ordinary yell. Of course, I’ve had loads of practice so I’m pretty much 100% on target. We live close to the bone which is the main reason for the yelling. When you have to think about money every single day of your life, it makes you edgy. Now here, you might assume I’d say something like, that’s not going to be my life. I’m going to make something of myself, become successful and have plenty of money, designer clothes, big house, fancy car, etc. etc. Except I know it doesn’t work like that. Oh, sure, some millionaires started out without a nickel but not many. The 1%, well those people want it to stay that way – even better if it’s .05%. It’s never enough unless you’re a saint or you’re lying. If I can live in a place that doesn’t have mold crawling up the walls like a scribble of snakes, I’ll be content. Ha ha. That’s bullshit. I’ll want a nice carpet without stains everywhere and a toilet that flushes every time and next thing you know, a Porsche.
I am named for my grandfather – my mother’s father who was Joseph and dead before I was born. I guess she loved him though my Uncle Jerome says he had a temper and a half. Mom has that too – quick to anger it’s called. She does make an effort to control it most of the time. It’s hard when she comes home tired after a day at work and wants to bite the head off the whole world. I have never known a boss who wasn’t an asshole, she says. Never, ever – it’s just a matter of degree – a Grade A Asshole down to a Grade D Asshole. It’s a prerequisite, she says, which is a word I had to look up though my guess was pretty close.
Tomorrow Mom has a doctor’s appointment. She had tests. She doesn’t know I know but not a lot gets past me in this house. I know she’s worried and trying to hide it, to act normal. I’m hoping her nerves keep her from noticing that I’m worried, which I think I’m good at hiding because I’m a good actress. It’s not just me that thinks that. Mr. Riley said it last year. I was in the play – not the star or anything but he said I had real talent. I don’t think he was just trying to make me feel good but who knows. I’m going to try out this year too, unless Mom is really sick which I don’t want to think will happen but we’re not the kind of people bad luck skips over. It finds us. There’s always worse, I know. There’s a girl in my class – Rosie – whose dad was just taken away by those ICE guys. He’s lived here 20 years and her mother has a condition and can’t work. What’s up with that? They must be the meanest fuckers around, ripping people away from families like it’s nothing. Rosie is crying all the time.
I have a younger brother – Kieran -- who, for better or worse, is a cheerful kid. He has no idea Mom is sick or worried and I won’t tell him, at least not before I have to. Childhood can disappear in a flash. Mr. Hardy, our old neighbor told me that a long time ago, before I had any clue what he was talking about. I thought he meant something like Clark Kent becoming Superman – swoosh! Now I see it not so much as disappearance as being pulled apart, stretched in unnatural ways, causing frayed thread and holes, so you can never go back to normal. I will try and stop that happening to Kieran as long as I can. If it turns out Mom is sick – seriously sick – I’ll have to tell him. And then we’ll make a plan.
Mercedes Lawry has published short fiction in several journals including, Gravel, Cleaver, Garbanzo, and Blotterature and was a semi-finalist in The Best Small Fictions 2016. She’s published poetry in journals such as Poetry, Nimrod, & Prairie Schooner and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. She has a book forthcoming from Twelve Winters Press. Additionally, she’s published stories and poems for children. She lives in Seattle.