Surviving Valencia

“To remember her by,” she said.

“But you couldn’t stand her.”

“That’s not true. Where would you come up with an idea like that?”

“Well, you wouldn’t let Valencia date Rob.”

“How do you even remember these things?”

“What do you mean? It was just a year ago.”

“It was several years ago,” she said.

“Anyway, I didn’t think we liked remembering stuff like that here.”

“Fine. Enough.” She went over to the refrigerator, removed the obituary and dropped it in the garbage. Then she opened her mouth as if to say something, then snapped it back closed.

“What?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

“What were you going to say, Mom?”

She drew in a deep breath. “You are obviously too young to understand about any of this.” This was her go-to insult for me because she knew how desperately I wanted to grow up and be taken seriously.

“Death? Is that what you mean? I understand plenty.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she went to the laundry room and reappeared with her big headphones over her ears. Their cord dangled, shoved into her pocket. As if I didn’t understand how they worked. Then I watched as she strapped on her ankle weights, leaning down, her fat butt like a blue jean billboard in my face. She grunted a little. I guess the waistband was cutting into her stomach. Next she touched up her lipstick in the blurry-mirrored side of the toaster, discreetly sniffing her pits as she did so. I had been growing suspicious of her. How could someone power walk this much and just keep getting fatter? Who wore jeans and loafers on a walk? Weren’t you supposed to wear sweatpants and sneakers? The lipstick was the final straw. I slammed my math book shut.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No. My walks clear my head. Keep doing your homework.”

I ran over to the door and stuffed my feet into my shoes. “I said, I’m coming with you.”

“And I said no.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

She opened the backdoor, prepared to just walk away from me. I wasn’t having it.

“What’s the matter Miss Lipstick Face? Nice jeans for your walk, Mom. Walking three hours a day doesn’t give you a butt like that! That’s a sitting-around-eating-Twinkies butt! Don’t you think I hear things? Don’t you think I know about you? Tell me where you’re really going!”

She gasped and spun back around. Then, with the fines

se of a cheetah, she lunged at me and grabbed the back of my neck. She slapped her other hand over my mouth. I was too shocked to bite her.

“Shut up. Shut up right now,” she said. It was more of a terrible little hiss than actual spoken words. She looked at me with such seething venomous fury that I was frozen. She quickly scanned the room for my father. “So you think you want to go for a walk?” she asked, murderously. Her hand was a cold, waxy paw against my lips.

I shook my head No, which wasn’t easy with her hand glued to my mouth. She yanked me outside and dragged me behind the garage.

“How dare you talk to me that way?” She slapped me hard across the face and just like that, I was crying. “Didn’t I raise you better than this?”

Raise me? That almost made me laugh. People raised chickens or beef. I’d heard of barn raisings. Had someone been raising me? I just kept crying though.