too immature to have a so-called stable life. It's hard,
if not downright impossible, for him to develop a
family and work on the road the way he does," she'd
argue.
Daddy would shake his head. "You're just as
bad as he is. Your family's last name should have
been Rationalization,'" he added, but he smiled and
shrugged and made no more of it back then. Was he right?
> Had Mama finally come to the same conclusion
now?
"It's all right," she told inc. "Everything will be
all right," she chanted, her voice drifting off into the
emptiness her own eves saw for herself.
Little did I realize then just how far she had
fallen into that big black hole.
9 Growing Up Fast
. I was surprised and disappointed to discover that Mama had not returned to her room after breakfast to dress and get her things together for our trip. Instead, she had gone back to bed,
"Mama! What are you doing? Why aren't you Zetting dressed?'" I asked from her doorway. "We have to get started. We want to settle in and have some lunch with Brenda and Celia before going to the game. Everything is planned."
She goaned.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"It's my back," she said. "I have a pocket of
arthritis at the base of my spine, and it kicks up from time to time. I would be so uncomfortable sitting in a car and later in the stands. April. I'm sorry."
"You never told me you had arthritis." "I didn't want to mention it to anyone. I don't need to have you and your sister worrying about it. There isn't much to do about it but take some painkillers and rest."
"How do you know? You went to the doctor?"
"Yes," she said.
I stood there staring at her. my face fall of skepticism.
"I did," she insisted. "I had an appointment when you were at school. There are my pills," she added, nodding at a pill container on her nightstand.
My shoulders drooped. I had been so looking forward to this trip. I needed it almost as much as I believed Mama did.
"But I want you to go anyway. April," she said, surprising me. "What?"
"Just go. Instead of staving at a hotel, you'll stay with Brenda and Celia. I've already called and spoken with Celia about it, and she said she would cancel our hotel reservation. They have a room next to theirs that they are permitted to use for their guests. She checked, and no one else on their floor has requested it. It all works out fine."