I reckoned she didn’t realize they already knew we were poor. My faded clothes were a dead giveaway.

When I became old enough to hold a secular job like at McDonald’s, I worked after school and full time in the summer. It helped with the bills, but it didn’t do much for my social life.

Getting to hang out with friends was a rare treat. Between school and work, and then riding out the waves of Sara’s roller-coaster episodes, there wasn’t much time for fun stuff. It sucked too.

As reality spun its bitter web, I discovered far worse things. Sleeping in a cardboard box in the middle of winter under a bridge was on top of my do-not list. A life no child should ever have to know.

Attending school in the same dirty clothes day after day taught me the cruelties of life at a very early age. I was easy pickings for other kids. After a few bloody noses and bloodstained clothes, I began to fight back. I got where I could hold my own.

Despite the harshness of my life, what kept me hopeful were my studies. I was smart, and my scores reflected it too. I understood if I ever wanted to get out of poverty, an education was my meal ticket.

Looking back, I thought eighteen would be the magic number. Free from bondage, no longer burdened to worry over Sara. The problem that stuck like oatmeal to my gut was my conscious. It wouldn’t let me walk away. Sara’s incompetency rode heavily on my shoulders. If something happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. Considering all things, despite my aversion toward my mother, I loved her. She was the only family I had left.

Though my heart wanted to be elsewhere, knowing I was doing the right thing helped me get through the bad times.

When my dad was alive, he’d often say, “A family sticks together through thick and thin.” I knew if Dad were alive today, he’d be proud of my endeavors. For that reason, I held my head up high, enduring her manic outbursts.

Yet at night, whenever things were quiet, I lay in bed wincing from an endless hole sinking deep inside me, and with each new town, the agony magnified.


 

 

 

Seriously

 

It was late into the night when we finally arrived in the small town of Tangi, Louisiana. The night was sultry, and the mosquitos were swarming in clusters. I already hated the place. I began ticking off all the diseases those bloodsuckers carried such as Zika, Malaria, and the West Nile virus. A scowl tainted my face.