Headlights
The last time I saw my mother was fifteen years ago.
She is two minutes late.
I blow icy breath rings from my cigarette into the cold Detroit air. My lungs hurt from the frigid night each time I take a breath. I rub my legs and inch my fingers to the cherry end of the cig. They burn but I don't care. I was told to wait by the Denny's on Hawthorne where the windows are so frosted with ice every pane is a snow scene of impossible down hill ramps.
Technically, I do not know my mother. I mean in the classic sense of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and homemade Halloween costumes. Last time I saw her, my baby eyes were weepy and inexperienced with emotional shapes. She was by all accounts a reticent mother, ill-equipped for the demands of the every day needs, like diaper rashes and left me at the door of St. Luke's in downtown Detroit. Unhappy with the unwelcome gift and the Northeast chill in the air, the shivering Clergyman closed the doors leaving me on the door step. In a few minutes, he peeked out hoping the divine blunder had disappeared.
Five minutes and counting.
Jump up and down and up and down and my circulation returns. I light another cigarette. I don't care what she thinks of me. It was her deal anyway, her big idea to meet this way at a Denny's. My foster family tried to hide and not appear 'too pleased' at this sudden rush from the past. I could see the lift in Lyla's bulbous shoulders. She weighs a ton. She has to have special chairs on wheels. Everything is an ordeal with her, from going to the bathroom to putting on clothes, although she only changes clothes every three days. 'God deliver our prayers' she said to Jim the night I got the call. She thinks I can't hear them in the next bedroom. But the place is a cardboard condo. Jim speaks few words, he didn't even answer her. He takes up even less space in the house than I do.
Twelve minutes, now.
Hey, a pair of headlights…they must be lost. She won't come. She's chicken shit. She left me at St. Luke's for a reason. And the reason was I did not have her laugh or her cry. I did not have her luxurious hair, or her movie star teeth. I reminded her of the love she squandered on a blonde league bowler who was married to a redhead who painted her nails orange.
Nineteen minutes and there's no ice on the road.
There goes her weather excuse. It's cold, but not treacherous. She will say she took a wrong turn, she left a message at the Denny's or with Lyla who doesn't ever pick up the phone. But she would never know that. You had to know Lyla's habits by living there. Her voice to me tonight as I got out of the car whispered 'God Bless,' but what she really meant to say was good-bye. It's not that Lyla thinks I dope up, steal hair gel at the Rite Aid or hang with guys who honk outside rather than ringing the bell. I'm not that girl. It's just that when I got myself born the certificate said healthy but in tiny scratched print was a word. The word was loser. There should be laws against adding comments on a birth certificates. Lots of laws need to be written about leaving kids on cold door steps of hostile churches; letting fifteen years past between bottle feedings; signing away your flesh and blood no matter if they are a loser or not. I wouldn't do that to my kid, no matter what jerk I'd slept with in a drunken stupor.
Twenty-four minutes.
In five minutes, I'll walk away for good and never look back. In four minutes, I'll get up and get a Coke at Denny's. In three minutes, I'll smoke one more cigarette. In two minutes, I'll walk home.
Oh shit. She's here.
