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Maybe someone forgot to leave it open.
So, I turned the knob, finding it wasn’t locked, and gasped when I saw Mom standing at the sink with a bottle of medicine in her hand. She turned on her heel as she tossed something into her mouth and swallowed quickly.
“S-Soldier!” she shouted angrily, her eyes squinty and her cheeks red as she stuffed the medicine bottle into her pocket. “Goddammit! You'resupposedto knock!”
I hurried backward a couple of steps. “S-sorry. I'm sorry.”
My heart was beating so, so hard and fast. What was shedoinghome? She was supposed to be at work; that was why she couldn't be at my party. That was what she had said, so … what was she doing here now?
“Hey, buddy, don't leave your friends hang—” Grampa stopped talking when he saw Mom in the bathroom. “Diane, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at work?”
Mom's eyes moved rapidly from me to Grampa. “I, um … I-I got off early.”
“O-kay.” Grampa used the same voice on her that he had used when I told him I ate all my broccoli at dinner the other night when he knew I had given it all to Sully.
I hated broccoli, but Gramma kept giving it to me.
I was never ever, ever going to eat it.
“What's that in there?” He pointed at the white cap of the bottle sticking out of her pocket.
Mom shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “I have a headache.”
“Oh, yeah? So, what are you taking for it?”
“Something for a headache.”
“Let me see.” Grampa held out a hand and waited for Mom to give the bottle to him.
I didn't like this. I didn't feel good. My heart was going to blow up, and Mom was going to yell. I could see it in her frowny mouth and tomato-red face.
“How about you just mind your own fucking business?” she shouted, proving me right once again.
Grampa squeezed my shoulder. “Soldier, go downstairs and eat your pizza with your friends. Tell Gramma to come up here.”
“B-but … but I have to pee,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was five again, not eight. Eight-year-olds weren’t supposed to sound like they were going to cry.
“Go pee downstairs,” Grampa ordered.
My bottom lip began to wriggle like a stupid baby. “B-but, but, but—”
“Fucking hell, Soldier! Why the hell are you like this?! Get the fuck out of here!” Mom yelled at me, pointing her finger toward the stairs.
I took one look at her angry eyes, and then I ran.
I ran down the stairs to the bathroom with the baby-powder soap, slammed the door behind me, and wished so, so, so hard that my friends hadn’t heard my mom yell at me. I bet their moms didn't yell at them. I bet their moms didn't fight with their grammas and grampas.
I peed and washed my hands with the gross soap and hoped my friends didn't ask me why my mom had yelled at me on my birthday. Mostly because I was embarrassed, but also because I didn't know why she had yelled in the first place.
“Why the hell are you like this?!”
Like what? What did I do? All I said was that I had to pee.
I wiped my eyes, opened the bathroom door, and almost ran right into Gramma.
“Go eat your pizza, Soldier,” she said in a hurry as she ran up the stairs.
Grampa and Mom were still yelling at each other up there, and I wished my friends weren't here at all.
