Hand Me Down Read Online Free Page B

drawers and making piles. A few minutes later, Mom opens the door without knocking. She stands there silent for a full two minutes, and then she scoffs. “You don’teven like living here, with Terrance, right?” She throws out her hands. “Why is this such a big deal?”
    “Are you serious?”
    She says, “I thought you might be glad to get away.” She sounds almost hopeful.
    “This is supposed to be my home.” I strangle the T shirt I’m holding and imagine strangling Terrance, my small hands around his neck, like squeezing mud through my fingers. “Anyone else would make him leave.”
    Mom says, “He needs me.”
    My throat closes around a spike. “What about us?” I say. I lower my head and let my hair fall into my face. “We need you, too.” I collapse on the edge of my bed.
    Mom sits next to me and uses the back of her hand to push my hair behind my shoulders. “You’re always telling me you don’t.”
    A sob rises up in my throat like a geyser, and even if I could put this sorrow into words, all my voice manages is a garbled, “You’re our mom,” before I’m bawling like I haven’t done since I was a kid.
    Mom gently draws my head toward her, and I close my eyes and surrender to my convulsing chest. I let her wrap her arms around me as I lean into her shoulder. She smells like gardenia perfume and Suave Fresh Rain shampoo just like she did years ago when she still played games with us and read us stories before bed and rented PG movies the three of us could watch together on the couch sharing a big bowl of microwave popcorn.
    “Shh.” She wipes tears from my cheeks and says, “I’m still your mom.” She presses her hand over my ear and temple, hugs myhead. “I will always be your mother,” she says and I cry harder because she doesn’t understand. A mother is a child’s home even more than where the child sleeps, and she is forcing me to give up both.
    “It’s your job to take care of us,” I say, wiping my eyes.
    “I’m trying,” she says. Mom opens her mouth like she wants to say something but doesn’t. In the living room, Terrance burps like he’s in a beer commercial and laughs. Mom sighs. “You always took such good care of yourself,” she says. “And of Jaime. I know you can handle this.” She squeezes me, and I ache to curl into her belly like I used to, sink into the safe softness of the body that made me.
    But I duck out from under her warm arms and say, “That doesn’t mean I should have to.”
    “We’re all making sacrifices,” Mom says. Terrance laughs again.
    “He’s not,” I say.
    She says, “How many times can I tell you I’m sorry?” She presses her forefinger and thumb to the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know what else to say.”
    “Say you’ll let me stay,” I say, but I know she won’t.
    She looks down at my flowered bedspread, shakes her head left and right over and over like a bobble-head doll, and tears trail down her spongy cheeks. I stare at her tired skin and developing wrinkles, the gray strands at her temple, her low-cut blouse, and wonder what happened to the whirlwind of force my mom used to be: taking beatings from Dad and walking with her bruised face held high. In the silence, our heartbeats start to sound like drums, the ominous thuds in movies that signal an execution.
    “I love you,” Mom blurts out finally. She hugs me again and at first I remain stiff. But when she starts to pull away, I recognize this is good-bye, and I tighten my arms. Mom whimpers and holds me closer, her shoulder against my wet cheek, her strong hands rubbing my back. “I love you so much,” she says.
    I wipe my nose on her shirt and let go. October wind breezes through my open window and I inhale the freshness, the earthy scent of dried leaves and wet grass and pine. Chilly air settles around me like a cloak, and I try to mimic that coolness. “Okay,” I say.
    “Okay,” she says, patting my knee and half-smiling. Her eyes are puffy. She nods