Baby Dearest

Crutch

May 25, 1996

"Nicole," her shrill voice called for me. My feet dangled off of the brown love seats arm rest as my baby brother sat across from me on the matching recliner. We watched re runs of The Rookies downstairs as my mother kept calling from her room upstairs.

"Nicole just go," my brothers sighs vexed by my mothers weak and annoying cries. I sucked on the back of my teeth and quickly swiped my feet off of the couch, walking towards the kitchen. "Why don't you ever grab her crutch, Joshua," I mumbled under my breath. He craned his neck to look at me as I bent over to grab a few beers for my mother. We all knew what that lady cried for. "She'd have my neck if I brought her alcohol," he said in an angered shock before turning back to the television bought by our mothers ex boyfriend.

Kane. Kane Jackson. He had actually bought the entire house, with his brown hair that was always somehow tamed. The man never had a bad hair day.

I took the three beers in my hand upstairs, three steps at a time. April, my mother wouldn't stop her incessant whining that reminded me so much like a tornado siren. I elbowed her door open to see her slouched over in her bed as empty bottles of whiskey and beer surrounded her bed and bedside table while her eyes were trained on the television. She was watching the same show as my brother and I downstairs.

Sometimes I would spend time with my mother, even when she was like this. April stayed home and wrote shitty, half hearted articles for the local newspapers and returned home to continue her days of drinking and self loathing. My mother's drinking was already above average once my father left her and only got worse after more and more guys came and left. But it was something about Kane that broke her. She simply snapped into a fragile and ugly version of herself that would now never find anyone to give a damn about her, and I hated her for that.

As I climbed onto the bed with my mother, horrible thoughts of how her neediness would cause me to never amount to a thing crossed my mind. April couldn't take care of herself at this rate and if she didn't die soon, she wouldn't meet anyone, leaving her to be my problem... not necessarily that I wanted my mother to die, I just didn't want any part of her need to drink herself to death. How my mother didn't already completely give up on life at this point, I didn't know.

Daydreams crossed my mind as I watched the show filled with cops living in California, a life completely opposite to my boring one stuck in Oklahoma. Soon I began to stare at my mother without her notice as she blankly watched the television in front of her. Her shoulders were bent over and her neck cranked out almost as if it were broken. Her mouth was slightly ajar and her nose flared and unflared from time to time.

I took one of my mothers hands in both of mine as she barely acknowledged my existence. It was clammy and cold with sweat while it laid in my hand limply. She had fallen asleep so suddenly. Her eyes were closed tight and her head was slightly to the side as a few grey curly hairs covered the side of her face. I waved my small, dark honey colored hand in front of her eyes and got no reaction. She was out cold.

I turned completely towards the small tv in the bed that my mother shared with countless men and rested my head on the headboard of my mothers bed. Before I knew it, I was out quicker than a light.

---

I woke up to the sound of a gasp in my face. My head shot up as I saw my brother in the doorway of our mothers bedroom. Her hand was still in mine as his eyes got wider and wider. "Oh my god," he cried out. I was ready to berate him for using the lords name in vain until I caught a glimpse of what he was looking at.

My family hadn't been to the lords house in years, and with this sight at hand, I now wish we had.