"The Blessing of a Drunk Mother"

It is a good week later and I can hear Mr. Johnson’s droning voice soldier on about Shakespeare. But I am not listening. I am too busy drawing hearts with Anthony Cipriano written carefully inside each one—mini-hearts in lieu of the two dotted i’s.



If this week were a cake, it’d have many tiers, each one sweeter than the last. First, there was the morning after mom’s Manischewitz Mayhem. She’d called Jack and me into her bedroom, and asked us to get her a wet towel.


“Please, lower the blinds, Amelia,” she asked, pressing the cold towel to her forehead.


“They’re closed, mom. They’re already closed,” Jack said.


“Crap-ola,” she sighed. She knew we had to go to school. Her FBI role was, for the moment, blessedly screwed.


“Seth can take me to school,” I said in the most aloof manner I could muster.


“Yeah, let’s do that…”


I held my breath, waited for pigs to fly.


She tried to sit up in bed and slumped back down in defeat. “Okay and what about you, Jack? I’m going to have to take you,” she said and moaned her way to a sitting position, again.


“Vinny can take me. He finishes at the radio station before I even have to be at school, remember? You stay in bed and I’ll get you something to eat. Oh, first I have to call your work, right? I know that number by heart. Or do you want to eat first, mom? There’s Fruit Loops and— “


I can’t remember who told Jack to be quiet first. But it didn’t matter anyway, because I was too thrilled to care. Finally, after almost fifteen years on earth, I was getting a ride to school without my mother!


Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was seeing that we returned home alive, but my mother decided to let Jack and me continue to get rides from Mr. McGee and Seth.