There weren’t any warning attempts, no botched jobs where I walked in on a bloody mess in the bathtub, called an ambulance and held her hand till they arrived. It wasn’t nearly so clean, either. She wasn’t worried about making a mess at that point. I wanted to burn the house down after that but my uncle thought selling it might be wiser. Wise or no, nothing is as cleansing as fire. My father was long gone at this point, having quit on us the same year I was born. I guess not everyone is cut out for fatherhood. Would have been nice if he’d sorted that out before hand, saved my mother and I a lot of trouble. She tried her best, I know she did, but having a kid isn’t easy and raising one alone is even harder. Tack on postpartum depression and a previously crippling bout of good old fashioned depression, and it’s a miracle we both made it a month let alone sixteen years. She made it till I was on my own two feet, till I knew how the world worked and understood what it meant to be a woman.
