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“Sure. ” She steps into the cool night with bare feet, leaving the wooden door open. From the living room, the final round of Jeopardy begins.
Mom retrieves the pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter from behind the glass jar. “Do you mind?”
I shake my head, and Mom sits on the step of the stoop. She pulls out a cigarette and flicks the flint of the lighter three times, curses and jiggles the lighter before trying again. Growing impatient, I yank my lighter out of my pocket and light the cigarette for her.
“Thanks,” she mumbles. After a long draw and even longer exhale she says, “I don’t have money to give you. I live on a tight budget, but I’ll have something next week. ”
Jesus Christ. The weight of what I’ve done forces me to sit next to her. “I’m not interested in your money. ” Not anymore.
She taps the ashes to the ground. “I named you after a person in the Bible. Isaiah—a prophet of God. Did you know that?”
“No. ”
“Your grandpa, my dad, was a reverend. ” She inhales a long draw from the cigarette, leaving a path of red ashes. “He died three years ago. ” Mom dangles the cigarette. “Lung cancer. My mom died a few months later. Probably from a broken heart. ”
“Sorry,” I say. It feels weird to hear I had family. “They didn’t want me. ”
“I told them not to take you. ”
I raise an eyebrow. “They agreed. ”
“Yeah,” she says. “They did, but it killed them. Me, Momma and Daddy were prideful to the point it hurt. ” She sucks away the rest of the cigarette and smashes it against the concrete. “Why are you here?”
“You had something you needed to say, and I think I’m ready for you to say it. ”
She slides the broken lighter in her hands. “Funny. I seemed hell-bent on saying it until now. ” Mom has a soft Southern accent. Not normal for someone raised in Florida.
“Did you grow up in Florida?” I ask.
She tilts her head as she looks at me and almost smiles. “You remember?”
I shrug and lie. “I remember the beach. ”
“I was raised a few counties south of here in a town with one stoplight. When I was sixteen Daddy took a new job in Florida and I ran away to be with the guy I loved. ”
“My dad?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She stares at her painted toenails. “Sorry. No. Good thing, too. Turned out the bastard was married to a crack whore. ”
Taking another cigarette out, she gestures for my lighter. I refuse to give it to her, but I do light the cigarette for her again.
“You’re real protective of that,” she says.
“I had a good home once. ” I return the lighter to my pocket. “The guy gave it and a compass to me before he and his family moved to California. ” The same guy who called me a dragon. The compass was for me to find my way. Both tattoos are for him.
She sighs. “For ten years, I thought about how I would explain this to you. I made up lie after lie, and when I got out, I couldn’t face you. So I spent two more years trying to think of something else to tell you, and now that you’re here I realize it’s still not good enough. ”
“Try the truth. ”
She laughs. “I’m not sure I know what it is anymore. ” Ashes drift into the breeze. “I slept with a couple guys, Isaiah. Not knowing for sure who your dad was, I decided to raise you myself. Me and you did okay for a while. I had a job, but then I lost it. ”
The smoke from her mouth billows into a ball. “I went home and asked for help. Daddy wanted me to repent in front of his congregation—to tell them how I was a sinner. I thought that made you look like a sin, so I refused. I ripped you out of that house so fast that I had burn marks on my hands. I said I was protecting you. Daddy said I was stubborn.
“We came back here. We needed food. Money. So. . . ” She shrugs. “Do you remember?”
I do. “I liked the houses that had cable. ” Mom broke into houses during the day with me by her side. Images of walking up long driveways and heading into backyards fills my mind. The sound of a window being slid open and the feel of the cool central air hitting my face as she pushed me in.
My heart would hammer as I walked through the silent house to open the back door for my mother. As she rummaged through the house, she’d let me watch TV and eat whatever cookies she found in the kitchen. I thought it was great. . . until she got caught.
