The Unknown Known
Can you ever trust an addict?
Can you ever trust an addict?
The caller ID came up as “Unknown.”
I answered.
She wasn’t invited.
She never has been.
She never will be.
She is an addict.
But . . . she is his mother.
I listened to her tiresome and all too familiar “This time it’s different” stanza.
To call her an absent parent would be doing a disservice to graduates of the Piss Poor School of Parenting.
I hung up hoping, praying, that this time it was true.
It would be different.
Later, the braying of her beat up brown Camry announced her presence.
I sighed like only a parent can and put the magazine down as the dog ran to the front door, tail wagging.
The car collapsed more than it stopped as our progeny ran down the stairs informing me that his mother had arrived.
“Yes, so I hear,” I acknowledged and stood up. My sense of dread running parallel to their double dose of excitement darting around me.
She came to the door as the boy sprinted by me to grab his bag.
She knocked.
I walked to the front door and took a beat to think maybe I had it wrong. Neither of us were saints when we were younger.
I grew up out of necessity.
She remained frozen in time.
I knew that people could change.
I hoped she would change.
I opened the door just as she removed her sunglasses. She smiled that smile. I noticed it was different — the stench of cigarette smoke and booze didn’t slap me across the face.
This time her pupils were the size of saucers.
We stared at one another with aggressive indifference.
Where there was love, there is now that.
A mother has a right to see her child.
Right?
“Just make sure he’s home by 6.”
The boy pushed me aside and shimmied by the dog to get out.
She slammed her heels together, shot her right arm upwards in a mock salute and in a German accent replied, “Jawohl, mein Führer.”
Without breaking my eye, she put her sunglasses back on and then looked down at our son, “You ready buddy?”
“I was born ready Mom.”
She smiled that smile again.
The one that melted my heart.
“Indeed you were,” she replied as he reached up for her hand.
I felt my stomach drop as I watched them walking hand in hand towards her braying, beat up brown Camry. The car whined and coughed its way to starting — then convulsed out of sight.
Closing the front door, I could only hope I had it all wrong.
Later, I heard the sirens first.
The caller ID came up as “Unknown.”
I answered.