Paperback Writer

My mother has a crucifix hanging off a necklace stand in her bedroom.  It’s simple enough, plain gold on a plain chain, and growing tarnished with age.  No reason why it shouldn’t be.  It’s been there for almost thirteen years now.  My father gave it to her before he left.  I don’t know if he knew he would be leaving when he gave it to her.  I don’t really know much about that.  All I do know is that one day, he went out for some beer and never came back.

I don’t miss him.  Maybe because he left when I was three.  I don’t remember much from when I was three.  Maybe I’m repressing something.  Whatever it may be, I’m glad I can’t remember it.  I don’t need to.  What would be the point?  We don’t need him; we never have.  We have each other.

Sometimes, though, I wish my mother would get rid of that crucifix.  I can see it from my bedroom.  Sometimes I lie in bed and stare at it until she calls me.  When she opens her curtains in the morning, the sun makes it shine.  I understand why she keeps it.  It’s not because she’s overly religious.  The restaurant keeps her from going to church on Sundays or any other day for that matter.  And even if she didn’t have the restaurant, I don’t think she’d go.  That’s not why she keeps it.  She keeps it to remind herself of him.

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like had he not left.  Would my mother smile more?  I don’t know.  Would she work less because there would be someone else to help carry the load?  I don’t know.  Would I have died sooner?  I think maybe.

All the research says my heart should have given out a long time before now.  Borrowed time.  That’s what I have left.  And that’s what the doctors would tell me if there was an honest one in the bunch.  But there must be something in the Hippocratic Oath against telling the truth to a patient when she’s sixteen and dying because no one’s said it yet.  They always greet us with that mindless optimism but they know the truth.  And maybe they know I know it too.  But my mother doesn’t know it or if she does, she’s not saying anything either.

I’m not scared of death.  I’ve known for a long time now that it’s coming.  I don’t know what to expect just yet but I’m not afraid.  There’s no point in that.  It won’t change anything.  It won’t help anything.  I just worry about her.  I don’t know when my time will run out but I want to know she’s taken care of when I’m gone.

It’s what we do.  We take care of each other.  I’m more subtle about it than she is sometimes.  It makes her feel bad when her daughter is the one looking after her.  It will make her feel worse when I die before she does but there isn’t anything anyone can do about that.  That’s the nature of borrowed time.

So I don’t set my alarm.  Ever.  I don’t need to.  It seems stupid but it’s important to her.  My mother will wake me up.  I know she will.  She counts on it just like I do.  Most days I am already awake when she calls me.  Awake and staring at her crucifix.

I hope it was damn good beer.