The Cold Night
I wanted for my mother to be happy all this time, and that meant a few things I wasn’t ready to face at the time.
When it all happened that one night, we left with nothing but the clothes on our back and my dad’s pickup truck. Dad was really angry that night, mom had enough, she scooped me up from the living room and we busted out the front door.
Dad yelled behind us; “And don’t you ever come back, your all nothing to me”.
It hurt to hear such things coming from the person that was meant to love you. But as I am to learn later on in life, nothing is ever set in stone and emotions such as love are fleeting.
Mom and I trek to the car, mom yells back at me “Come on, hurry!”
Dad comes bursting through the front door a second later yelling;
“You take my F**king keys, I’m going to kill you”, and back then that meant you better get the heck on. My dad broke bones and never apologized for it. Kind of a menace to mom and I.
Mom screams at me in the car, “If you don’t come on>>>I’m going to LEAVE YOU”.
“No, mom, please wait for me”, I finally make it to the passenger side of the vehicle, I’m getting in when I feel something grab me by my legs.
Dad starts to pull on me and I’m holding on to the door handle for dear life. I look back at my mother and cry “HELP ME...MOO-OOM”
She rolls her eyes and in a curt angry tune she says “MOVE!!”
Mom maneuvers her legs so that they point in my direction. She swishes her flat hand down, signaling for me to lay low. I comply, scared out of my mind.
She starts to thrust one of her legs out and it hits dad square at the top of his head. Dad falls back and mom closes my door right away.
Mom seemed to be ready for anything and everything most times, I look to her for the answers and she most likely will always have one. Smartest person I know and the toughest.
She puts the key in the ignition and we’re off.
Mom was driving in the snow and the slouch was casting a icey film over the car. It was begging to become cold so i reached out to mess with the temperature.
Mom swatted my hand away saying “I’m running on E, don’t touch that”
But mom, I’m cold, can’t we go back to dad’s were it’s warm.
Angrily mom starts to yell
“OH, so you just want to go back and watch your mom get her a** beat for a few hours, BUT AT LEAST YOUR WARM,RIGHT!!!”
I can tell that I better shut up from her tone. I start to cry “Mom I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...THAT!”
My mom just looks on at the road and says “Don’t say your sorry, it looks weak and you are strong, right!”
“Girl if you don’t wake up, this world is going to give you a whole lot of nothing”
“YES, I am!”, I told her this in a rush. I wanted mom to be proud of me, her more than anyone.
“Good, now let me drive”
We go on like this for a while, I lost track of the road and at some point I realized that we were in unfamiliar (to me at least) territory. I looked up at ma and asked
“Were are we going?”
Mom looked at me fleetingly then back at the road and said “Where do you think we’re going”
I just didn’t know... usually mom knew everything,. I looked to her for the answers and no one else. She was leaving this to me, like it was a test.
“UM, I guess we wont know, until we get their.”
Mom looked at me then. The look on her face was pure joy.
I had guessed right, for once I was right of my own volition.
Mom looks back at the road and says “Yes, your exactly right Tilly. We won’t know where we’re going for a while”
It was mom, me, and that cold, cold road for a long...long time.
I hear the breaks sound URRKKK...and mom yells at me; “TILLY!! GET DOWN!”
The car swerves and mom turns the steering wheel all the way to the right.
“OH GOD” Mom steps on the breaks some, to get the car to stop, but it just keeps on going.
