Page 20 of Verses

Maybe she shouldn’t have named them after something edible. I realized maybe that was why she’d given them away. No doubt she’d told me in a long conversation where I’d tuned her out.

And that was bound to happen now. My mother continued chattering unprompted as she often did, cycling through her entire life like I was her paid therapist. And, once she got started, she wouldn’t need me asking questions to keep going. So I wandered around the apartment cleaning while she rattled on like an engine nowhere near running out of gas.

She updated me on Phil’s job. Then she told me my twenty-year-old sister was engaged to be married. My brother had gotten in a fight with some kid at school and mom had threatened to home school him—but they’d worked things out with the school, because they needed him on the football team. I bit my tongue, wishing I could keep my mom from ever thinking she had the ability to homeschool anybody. Quickly flitting to the next subject, she told me about the neighbors’ dogs (again!), a plumbing problem they’d had, and Phil’s heart issues.

By then, Bill had finished with the doorknob and indicated as much to me with his eyes and posture. “Hold on, mom. I need a second.”

Bill said, “You’re all set. If it gives you trouble again, I’ll probably have to install a new doorknob.”

And just how many months wouldthattake?

“Thanks, Bill.”

After closing the door, I said, “I’m back, mom.”

“Who was that?”

“Just the landlord—fixing the lock.” I moved to the bedroom to clean in there, because I could sense that my mother had more to say.

And she did. “I don’t suppose I told you I’m going to school now.”

Thatwas news.

And weird for my mom.

“What do you mean?” Setting the phone on the nightstand, I started picking up some of the shit Kyle had strewn all over, finally opening the drawer and just scooping it in.

“I’m going to school at the community college. I’m gonna become a dental hygienist.”

Of all the things I could picture my mother doing,thatwas not one of them. “Really? So you’re going to clean people’s teeth for living?”

“Yes. Do you have a hard time believing that?”

I sure as shit did—but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. “No, I think it’s cool. But is it something you want to do?”

“I want to make lots of money when I work—and dental hygienists make good money for not having to go to school very long.”

It all came clear. This was another one of my mother’s get-rich-quick schemes, which meant it would be a distant memory in less than twelve months.

Guaranteed.

As I made the bed, she continued. “The best part is I got a Pell Grant because your father doesn’t make enough.”

My father.The guy she called my father was Phil—and hewasn’tmy father. I barely even considered him my stepdad. But that was one of those things my mother liked to say to get my goat.

I wasn’t going to let her.

Fortunately, she didn’t need prompting to keep talking and was still going strong. “I’ve been taking my basic classes, you know, math, English, science. I’ll be taking a lot of science classes probably…”

As usual, my mom rambled on without urging and I let her as she started describing all her classes in painstaking detail. There was a bright red guitar pick just under the foot of the bed, so I picked it up to put it in the drawer on the nightstand. This timewhen I opened it, though, I saw something I hadn’t seen in a while.

And I’d been looking on the regular.

In the drawer sat a long glass tube—Kyle’s fucking crack pipe peeking out underneath all the other stuff I’d slid in there earlier.

While my mother continued talking, I picked up the pipe, turning it in my hands. I wasn’t sure if this was his old one or not, but I didn’t think so, because this one was clean. In fact, it looked brand new. Picking it up, I sniffed it, but it was odorless.

Was this the pipe Kyle had supposedly thrown away? Or was it a new one? While meth hadn’t been a big problem for him like heroin had, I didn’t think he should be messing around withanydrugs.

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