JT Johnson

There had been bugs in almost everything at Nona's house.

Little gnats stuck dead to the sticky rim of the jam jar.

Flies dropping one at a time into whatever might be frying in the food-gunked skillet beneath the swaying sticky strip.

The bugs were in other parts of the house, not just the kitchen.

Roaches walked up and down the rusty shower rod in Nona's bathroom.

Their long, little antenna twitching and creeping over the edge.

They liked to hide in the folds of the shower curtain, too, sometimes landing on my foot and scurrying around the tub while I struggled to get away from it.

They hid in the hairbrush or on the bed, under the pillow and in between the sheets.

They were everywhere, it seemed.

On the weekends, my mom would come and bring me back to her apartment.

This was on the nicer side of the city, with big windows and no bugs.

My mother was young, and she had no gray in her hair, and she dressed not much different from the girls I saw walking to and from the high school.

When I was with her, it was an endless string of fun.

Music, pizza, movies, rollerblading, and petting puppies at the Humane Society.

She baked cupcakes at 3 o'clock in the morning, drank Coke for breakfast, and when I worried that Nona might find out, she'd shoot me a sly wink that made me feel as though I was in on a secret.

In the days of the bugs and living with Nona and weekending at my mom's apartment, I had come to see Nona as my mother and my mom as something more like a sister or an aunt.

I would relish in the bliss of eating ice cream topped with sprinkles and not having to question if they were little morsels of chocolate or little gnats.

I would ask about my dad, sure, and my mom would always say something witty or flippant.

Oh, that old schmuck?

He caught a one-way ticket to somewhere else, kiddo.