=A Childhood Memory=

“I’ve got no more,” she says, and turns her cup upside down to show me. She’s sitting up in bed, reading, where she once had sex with my father. Her eyes catch her reflection in the mirror on the dresser across the room. “Not a drop left. See?”

“But, Mom, I’m thirsty.”

“Go ask your father.”

He’s sitting there in his easy chair, looking wise and benevolent, but straight through me, at the TV.  He seems to know why I’m here already, doesn’t say a word, just mutely turns his cup upside down without taking his eyes from the television, a really elegant gesture.

I’m so distraught, so distraught I’m no longer even thirsty. But what can I do?

I run away from home, but after a while I realize the obvious: there’s nowhere to go. So I return home. I see our house in the distance, over the hill. No one has come after me. They knew I’d have to come back.  Where else could I possibly go? I feel like I’ve dropped a burden I didn’t even know I was carrying, lighter somehow, like I could walk without bending the grass, freer, like it never really mattered.