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against tears that aren't there.
And just when I think things couldn't get worse, my mother prepares
for the ugly cry. Her face contorts and begins to fold in on itself and turns an
oh so pale shade of violet. Pretty really, on flowers, but not on 40ish women
who have been asleep for the past 10 years.
"Tucker," I say, arms still folded tight. Holding it in. Not seething.
Conversational. But with projection. "Has Mona told you yet? Informed you
that she is not a narcoleptic, probably not even an alcoholic." With gunfight
speed I pull a half-smoked butt out of my buttoned shirt sleeve pocket and a
wooden match from the small front pocket of my jeans. I strike the match
against the doorframe, light the stub, and inhale. "She drinks to sleep and
sleeps to forget. How you like them apples?" I say through the encircling
smoke which looks really cool. I whistle the theme from The Good the Bad and
the Ugly and let them digest it. "Ask her what she wants to forget." I look
toward my mother. She misses her cue. "No? I'll tell you. Me. Us. That she's
burdened. That her daughter is beached, that her son is born and the three of
us are stuck with each other. As for Charity, well, I'm sure even you can imag­
ine the road we've been down before."
bed.
Charity whales, "Why, why, why?" and then thrashes a few times in the
I regret my performance, though only slightly. And only as far as
Charity's concerned. I back out the doorway and notice that mom, for all her
exertion, is either bowing her head in prayer, stifling a sob, or beginning to
doze.
That night, I try to sleep but can't. My bedroom and my sister's bed­
room share a painfully thin wall; our heads are separated by mere inches of hol­
low drywall and I can hear her gargled struggles for breath through that
opaque veil. She has a mighty case of apnea and tries to sleep sitting up, but
every once in awhile the weight of her body collapses on itself and she finds
herself lying flat. I breathe with her, stopping when she does. Long mississippi
holds. Inhale. One-mississippi-two-mississippi-three-mississippi-four-missis- �
sippi-five-mississippi-six-mississippi-seven-mississippi-eight. Squeak, squeak,
gargle, gargle. Exhale. After a few of these breathing exercises I've got a head
rush and my heart is pounding powerful. Bored, but convinced she'll live
through the night, I flip on the thirteen inch and wiggle the rabbit ears until I've
got a semblance of a picture. It's 3:00AM. I flip through the infomercials and
stop at Tucker's. That's how she found him, on T.V. Tucker is sitting in a fat
girl's prissy pink and flowered canopied bedroom. He's holding her pink piggy
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