When I saw my little boy sitting alone at the bus stop, crying and clutching his backpack, I knew something was terribly wrong. But I never imagined how deep the truth would cut. Folks think Alabama heat only lives in July, but it sat with me year-round: under my shirt collar, inside my shoes, around my worries.
I was forty-six, ran on gas-station coffee and discount mascara, with gray roots I called “sparkles” because my boy liked the word. I worked mornings at the diner and nights cleaning offices, and every time a chair scraped or a mop bucket squeaked, I counted it as progress toward rent and peanut-butter sandwiches. “Mom, your sparkles are showing,” Noah said that morning, squinting at my hair like a tiny inspector.
“Wise sparkles,” I grinned. “C’mon, boots.”
He thumped his little boots, six years old and all elbows, the way boys are when they’re mostly made of hope. My ex used to say my shape made me “tired to look at.” That was back when I was swelling with Noah and throwing up between grocery aisles.
Travis once said he wanted a life with music and patios and women who didn’t ask for help moving laundry. He wanted “living, not existing.” I wanted prenatal vitamins and a fan that actually oscillated. That was years ago.
Finally, the only music I heard was the fryer beeping at the diner. Just then, my phone buzzed on the counter, Travis’ name lighting up the screen. I answered on the porch where the spider plant hangs crooked.
He sighed as if the favor cost blood. “My mom’s been badgerin’ me. She wants to see him.
I’ll swing by three-thirty, but I got plans at six.”
“Plans, meaning a woman with a ring light?”
“Plans, meaning my life. Don’t be late.”
Noah tugged my sleeve. “Is Daddy nice today?”
“He’s… punctual,” I said.
“You be nicer than he knows how to be.”
***
Travis’ truck rolled up at exactly three-thirty. He leaned across the seat, sunglasses on, though the sun had quit showin’ off. “Buckle him good,” I said.
I kissed Noah’s forehead through the window. Travis revved like a teenager and peeled away. Sometimes I still saw him as the boy with a guitar and a summer grin.
Mostly, I saw a stranger who measured women in inches and decibels. By six, I’d finished mopping at the office and texted Travis: Off now. On my way.
No answer.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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