JT Johnson

She had looked sad, sad and fretful, before telling me it was just how it had to be.

She once explained to me while changing out one of the sticky traps that my mother had always loved parties.

Big ones, little ones, birthday parties or the holiday ones.

Your mother loved them.

She would say this with a smile before dropping the fly-infested trap into the wastebasket.

But for your mother, the party never ends.

She just goes to a different one.

Not truly, but you know what your Nona means.

She'd look at me after saying that.

Old eyes the color of moss pushing into my own.

And babies, my darling.

They don't belong at the parties that never end.

As I got older, I tried harder to keep Nona's house, our house, clean.

I kept most of the food, even the cereal and bread, in the fridge.

I wiped clean the sticky jam jars and made sure to turn over the blankets to check for the roaches.

I sprayed the aerosol cans with the dead bugs on the label.

I fought with the landlord about the unlawfulness of renting a home with these conditions.

For years, I went to school praying a roach hadn't snuck in with me, hidden in my hair or in my backpack.

By the time I had reached high school, my weekends with my mom had become strained and far apart.

Indeed, the party never ended for her.