JT Johnson

My mom had done something then.

A loud crash of glass and the delicate tinkle of shards dancing onto the floor stopping Nona's words.

You won't, my mom had yelled, something else breaking following her rising voice.

Mom said other things.

Nona did too.

And at one point, my name had been brought up in a spiteful hiss.

My name had been used the way people say fuck and shit.

I'm sure at the time I heard it quite well.

But memory and the mind have a way of carefully boxing away things that hurt too much.

After that, I didn't see Mom for a while.

When I did again, she looked... different.

She had lost weight.

Her already trim figure now looking almost emaciated.

The weekends of cakes and sundaes and rollerblading had been switched out for sitting on broken-down couches, watching talk shows, and eating the dollar store burgers from whichever fast-food place she had decided to work at.

She'd cut her long hair short and had a habit of scratching raw patches into her neck and arms.

Time went on.

Nona got older.

The house got dirtier.

The bugs harder to kill.

For a long time, it felt like my life had been glued to a carousel that could only get worse as it continued to turn and turn.