(MONROE SONG)
An excerpt from Like Shards of Glass Chapter 2
God, please, give me some wine and a bed, and I could make it to tomorrow.
Force me to sit and smile and listen and be, I would only cower away like demons to light.
“Mom,” Karter whispered. He gestured toward some dinner guest – a man whose name I had forgotten.
Mom. I hated that word.
“Monroe, what do you need, love?” Kat's slightly parted mouth, and the way she cocked her head told me I had worn out my welcome at the dinner table. I wasn't eating, could hardly keep up with the conversation, and was probably reaching for my wine far too much.
“What did I miss? I'm so sorry.” I shook my head and looked down at my plate. “So sorry.”
“Sorry why?” Dominique's eyes seemed to glow as he entered the kitchen. Built like he spent his days and nights in a swimming pool training for the Olympics, his shirt stuck to his chest and abdomen.
Kat's attention switched to her son, and a layer of tension melted from my shoulders. Her husband, Lonnie, threw up his hand and mumbled hello as he bit into his roll.
“You're late, baby,” said Kat. “I'll fix your plate. Will you really sit there sweating like that? Clothes stuck to your body? At the dinner table.”
Dominique responded with a grunt and reached for a roll.
“You heard your mom. Go wash up.”
Another grunt. A sound most young men and boys made when nagged by their parents. Suddenly, I had no control over my eyes, and as they welled with tears, I wondered how I would get through dinner watching them fuss over their son, when my boys …
“He was asking you how much of the city you've seen,” Karter whispered.
I could give a damn about this city.
Karter had always been too polite, overly concerned with who was watching and what people thought. Yet lies poured from the mouth of this mannerable boy like lava.
I finished my glass of wine and looked at him as if he spoke a foreign language.
“You need a nap, Mom?” he asked.
I cringed.
“I said, I'll get his plate. You sit down and relax,” said Lonnie.
The tears came, again. They were a perfect couple, if perfect ever did exist. Lonnie was an average-sized man, with what I imagined was a Goliath-sized heart. He was quiet, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly, as if deep down, he knew that time was far too valuable to waste on impatience or rushing around like ants. A bit scruffy from working long hours at the hospital, Lonnie was quite handsome. Both he and Dominique bore a complexion like agave, identical under bites, which were nearly undetectable, and five o'clock shadows. Kat, a hefty woman who did not look a day over eighteen years old, was a gentle spirit. She spoke in what could be considered a whisper, but nearly every sentence she spoke had some sort of double-meaning.
I watched as Lonnie leaned down and urged his wife to relax. He squeezed her shoulder and told her to let him help her, that she had been on her feet long enough. It had been one month since Carter stole my life. It had been several months since I had been spoken to or touched as delicately as Lonnie touched Kat; the thought of being touched made me ill. I observed them as if I watched a movie, and felt a tremor in my legs. Placing my hands in my lap, I squirmed in my seat. The tremor moved to my hands. My body ached. And without my permission – without my knowledge, a tear fell from my eyes, followed by more tears. I scooted my plate around and pushed my fork off the edge of the table. Moving quickly, before Mr. Mannerable, prince of knavery, could fetch it for me, I leaned down, wiped my tears on the table cloth, and grabbed my fork.
Dominique sat down across from me, disregarding his mother's request that he change clothes. He peered at me, then averted his eyes. I knew he could see the tears. Again, I was reminded that I was painfully “alive” for all to gawk and point at me.
After clearing my throat, I said, “Excuse me.”
I moved with purpose and walked as if I was late for a business meeting. Once I reached the bedroom, I collapsed at the edge of the bed. Then, using aching, trembling arms and legs, I crawled to my nightstand.
Meds. Wine. Sleep. Meds. Wine. Sleep. Pour pills in hand. Open bottle. Guzzle. Close your eyes. Vanish.
Forget the bed; the floor was fine. I pulled down the comforter and curled up with the bottle of wine. This was the moment when my boys knocked on my door and bothered me about snacks and boredom. Karter would shoo them away and tell them I was sleeping, then turn around and beg me to let him off punishment, so he could go to some silly party. Wasn't this supposed to be the moment when my decorated hero came and lifted me off of the floor and placed me gently on the bed? Was that not what I deserved? If I am a mother, why am I on the cold, hard floor, drugged, shaking, tired, unable to sleep?
When do my boys call me mom, mommy, momma, and bother me about new shoes? Didn't I give birth? Aren't I a mother – a mother of four boys? No? Then who am I? Who am I and why am I here? Somebody make it all stop and tell me why the hell am I still...
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