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With no choice, I push open the door, rotating her body along with it to make room. I’m able to open it enough to squeeze around the door, and I stand in the tiny space, fighting the urge to bolt.
She’s slumped over, chin to chest. Both arms hang down, either side of the toilet, and, in her left arm, a needle protrudes from one of the veins, clinging on, even in these final moments. Around her bicep is a tourniquet made from red exercise band material. It’s also hanging loose.
I cover my mouth with my hand and let out a harsh bark of a sob. Though my life has been far from perfect, and she hasn’t been much of a parent to me for many years now, I still love her.
Ilovedher.
That I’m now completely alone suddenly hits me, and a tear trickles down my cheek.
I don’t want to spend another minute standing inside this tiny bathroom with my dead mother. I need to get this done.
Holding back my tears, I brace myself for the feel of her body in my arms. I haven’t had an easy life, but this is without a doubt one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
“Come on, Mom,” I say to her, though it’s mainly for myself. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Like me, my mother is tall and skinny. The drug and alcohol abuse means she hasn’t been eating much recently, and though it was horrible to see her wasting away, it means she’s easier tolift. I get my arms under her armpits, much in the same way I’ve done multiple times when she’s passed out wasted, and lift her.
It takes every bit of my self-control to fight the voice screaming in my head that I’m holding a dead body, and I use my foot to fully open the door leading into the bedroom. Then I half carry, half drag her through it and toward the bed, where, with a grunt of effort and a cry of dismay, I manage to get her onto it.
I stand up straight and stare down at her one final time, trying to embed her face to my memory.
“Love you, Mom,” I manage to say, tears threatening again, and then I take my phone from my back pocket and step outside to make the call to the authorities.
WITHIN AN HOUR, MYtrailer and the area surrounding it is swarming with police, paramedics, and an older, slightly overweight woman I can already sense is from Child Protective Services. The neighbors are also overly interested in what’s going on, peering out of windows and lingering by their front doors. I hate that everyone is looking at me.
I’m sitting in the back seat of a police cruiser, the door open, my feet planted on the dusty ground. I have my head in my hands, partly to hide my face from all the nosey people around, but also so I don’t have to watch my mother’s body being removed from the trailer.
“Miss? Have you got anyone you can go to?”
I lift my head from my hands. “I’m sorry, what?”
The woman I’d clocked earlier is looking down at me with an expression of concern. “My name is Ellen Browning. I’m with Child Protective Services. It’s my understanding that you’re still a minor, so I was just asking if you have anyone you can go to. Another family member we can call?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”
She checked her notes. “It’s my understanding your mother was married. Are you still in touch with your stepfather?”
“She was married a long time ago, when I was small. She’s not married anymore.”
She frowns. “According to our records, she was still married when she passed.”
I blink, my attention focused. “That can’t be right.”
“It definitely is.”
I say the words, as though hearing them out loud will make it real. “My mother was still married?”
The reality of it sinks in. Of course she was still married. She never would have gotten herself together enough to fill out paperwork, file divorce proceedings, or find the money to pay for it all. I’m surprised that herhusbanddidn’t file for divorce either, but then I remind myself what kind of men my mother brought home. Whoever this man is, he’s probably as much of a disaster as my mother had been.
“Yes,” Ellen says, “so technically you have a stepfather somewhere.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t even know him.”
“But legally, you have a relation,” she insists.
I can see where this is heading. “It doesn’t count. Seriously. My mother and this guy would have barely known each other. It would have been a ‘get drunk and do something stupid’ situation when they were younger.”
A fly buzzes around my face, and I flap my hand at it.
