"Overdosing on Ambien"

“Today was hard for mom, so very hard for her,” Jack says. I jump from the shock of his helium voice in the dark kitchen. He is leaning on his spear like it is his obedient, silent wife. “Last year she swallowed too many Ambiens, remember?”


“What are you talking about?” I mumble through the hands on my face. He sits down next to me, the spear protectively on his lap. His eyes look down at the project I’m too upset to hide.


“Don’t you remember the day she made us oatmeal for breakfast—dad’s breakfast? It was still warm and you complained that it was too hot to eat oatmeal, but mom wasn’t making the oatmeal because of the weather.” He shakes his head like he’s had one too many espressos.


“Was that the day she fell into her bowl of oatmeal and started snoring?” I laugh and blow my nose with the edge of my sweatshirt. We’d had to call her work, and called ourselves in sick to school. She’d woken up mid-afternoon with dried oatmeal all over her face and hair (We’d removed the oatmeal bowl and left her at the table. We were too afraid to disturb her slumber—Jack out of consideration and me out of a desire to play hooky from school!). When she woke, groggy and confused, she’d said, “I guess I caught some kind of stomach bug.” And I’d believed her.


“That is just gross, Amelia. That is just gross.” He pulls his chair back and moves the spear further in on his lap. “You just don’t get it do you?” Even from the porch light I can see Jack’s bug eyes are suddenly shiny. “That day she took too many sleeping pills was mom and dad’s anniversary—fifteen years. And this year,” he points a bony finger at mom’s closed door, “is sixteen years. That’s two years without her husband, two years, Amelia! Can you understand that, please?” He is massaging his spear with the mindless tenderness common to mothers of toddlers. It is a painful thing to witness.


I am too busy blaming myself for being so stupid that I am surprised to hear Jack’s voice, again. “You know, you can say you don’t like mom all you want to, but this tells me the truth.” He points to the scrapbook just lying on the table between us.


“How did you get to be so smart?” I do not need to ask him to keep the scrapbook a secret. To do so would be to insult the genius of a midget who looks at me with a love I’m not sure I’ll ever have for myself.


“Come to bed. You need your rest. Rest is so important,” he says and takes my hand. And I let him.


The last thought before sleep mercifully takes me away is the realization that our mother invited Meeka Jones over on the same night as her wedding anniversary. The thought is a fuzzy, warm thing that soothes me into unconsciousness.