As you might imagine, they had had a complicated relationship, and looking back, he could think of only one time he enjoyed being near her. They were in the pool, and he was riding on her back with his hands around her neck as she walked through the water that was too deep for him to stand in. He remembered it feeling good to be that close to her, but also strange. He craved more of it, but other than that one time, he couldn’t remember a single hug or affectionate touch from her in all his childhood. Instead, she moved around the periphery of his life, always off to someplace without him, occasionally letting him know how much of a burden he had been to her, how much he hurt her. And the more he thought about it, the more it felt real. Maybe it did hurt her to be with him. Maybe she would have been better off not having him at all, with the abortion her mother wouldn’t allow. Even as an adult it seemed she couldn’t stand being near him. He’d been back to visit once from California. After his stay, she drove him back to the airport, chain-smoking and going off about how the blacks were fine but it was those goddamn niggers that were ruining the country--that maybe things were better when the neighborhood watch was dragging folks around behind their cars. He sat quietly and listened to her until she paused to light a cigarette. In the silence he told her he was glad he had come to visit. Hearing that, she kept her gaze straight out the windshield and looked like she wanted to vomit. She didn’t speak for a while after that--not until she saw some wetbacks, criminals, peddling for work on the side of the road. When they got to the departures gate, they both got out of the car. She was telling off the bellhop who was informing her she couldn’t park there while he slung his backpack over his shoulder. Before going into the terminal, he gave her a hug. She kept her arms at her sides, rigid and tense, her face malformed as if touching him physically hurt her.

And he was still hurting her. Picking her up off the couch and lifting her to the walker, she’d scream like a sow birthing shards of glass. She’d curse him, remind him it was his fault. That time he was five, maybe six years old, bouncing playfully on the vintage flower print sofa to have some fun with his mother. She was sitting on the floor in front of him watching TV when he jumped onto her back and she yelped out; he ran and hid in his room. You did this to me! she’d spat venomously, blaming a lifetime of chronic pain and degenerative disease on the playtime of a small boy. It wasn’t until his mid-thirties that he realized the pain wasn’t his fault, but sometimes, he wanted it to be. He’d imagine shoving her into the walker, leaving the evil cunt screaming and writhing on the floor, the pathetic invalid, cursing and wriggling like a dying rattlesnake. But he never acted out toward her. He steeled himself to his duty, day after day, until one morning he found her sitting in her favorite recliner chair, a long chain of cigarette ash dangling from the filter. She looked to be peacefully asleep. Seeing her like that, he saw how weak and frail she really was. All this time, she had been like a small, scared dog, yapping hate and fear at everything that crossed its path. But now, quiet and calm. He watched her like that for a moment, and with a heavy sigh and tears welling in his eyes, he finally felt it. Relief. Like the time he discovered--and then decimated--the private upstairs restroom at the local YMCA.

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