JT Johnson

He was pale and thin like Mom, his eyes sunken, the one on the left still sporting a bruise that looked maybe a week old.

He looked at me with the same expression I'm sure I had for him, my throat squeezing as I turned away, seeking out my mother, who had now moved to stand in the kitchen.

The table was messier than Nona would have liked, mail piled up, toppled over onto dirty dinner plates and frozen meal trays.

There was a glass bowl at the center filled with cigarette butts mounted up into little hills.

A larger roach rested at the edge of the table between two envelopes, antenna twitching curiously at me.

I resisted the urge to kill it.

There would be time for that.

But the more pressing questions had finally swam up to the surface.

I turned.

The sink filled with dirty plates and cups.

A thin cloud of gnats swarmed over the trash which had begun toppling onto the floor.

Something small and gray darted behind the refrigerator.

We had never had mice before.

Nona is three months late, her landlady called.

I at last faced Mom, her eyes darting from the pile of envelopes on the table to me, her shoulders twitching three times in fast, shrugging movements.

I just came to get that sorted for Nona.

Mom's face pinched up then, the tip of her dirty thumb rubbing quickly across the flash of discolored gums, her head shaking.

Jesus Christ, you're a full-grown grown-up, right?

It's Mona, not Nona.

Her tone had become pitched and nasally.