Free For the Love of Money by Sam Polk

you’d be waiting,” I said tersely.
    â€œOh fuck off,” she said.
    Suddenly, I was angrier than I’d ever been. Blood pounded through my temples. She never respected my time. She ­ always put herself first. How dare she treat me like that. By the time she walked out, twenty minutes later, I was a boiling kettle. As soon as she got in, I jammed the accelerator, and the Mazda minivan shot off down the road. As she fastened her seat belt, I let loose the torrent of words that had built up inside me.
    â€œMom, I’ve had enough of your shit,” I said. “I’m sick of always waiting for you. I’m sick of you wasting my time. I’m sick of all of it. This is the last time that happens.”
    As I talked, she was silent. I had to keep my eyes on the road, but I kept glancing at her to make sure my words were affecting her. She stared straight ahead, but I could tell by the set of her jaw that she heard every word.
    I was looking at the road, about to change lanes, when a clenched fist slugged me in the side of the head.
    I looked over at Mom, shocked. She looked like a demon. Her face was bright red, making vivid the white hairs on her chin. Her eyes were wild. Her jaw quivered.
    â€œMom, what the fuck?” I shouted. “I’m driving!”
    She turned in her seat so that she was facing me directly. Wham! Wham! Wham! She unleashed a series of punches. We were in the middle of traffic going about forty miles an hour, so I had to keep my eyes on the road. I hunched my shoulders to my ears and raised my right hand to block herpunches. One hit me square in the neck. One landed on the meat of my upper arm. She hit me on the top of my head.
    My rage was gone, and I was simply terrified. Mom didn’t seem to care if she killed us both. The car next to me honked as I faded into its lane. I veered back into my lane. Mom’s blows slowed. Her chest was heaving with exhaustion. There was a break in the traffic, and I yanked the wheel to the right and pulled us off the road.
    â€œMom!” I screamed.
    That attack was beyond anything she’d ever done. I started crying. “Mom,” I begged. “Are you gonna let me drive us home? Will you promise not to hit me while I’m driving?”
    She didn’t say anything. With tears streaming down my face, I pulled back onto the road. We had a fifteen-minute drive ahead of us, most of it on the freeway. I was scared she was going to start hitting me again. But what came next was even worse. Mom had gone somewhere deep inside herself. When she spoke, it was in a voice I’d never heard before.
    â€œYou are an ungrateful shit,” she said, “just like your father. You are a terrible son, a terrible person. I wish you’d never been born.”
    For the next fifteen minutes she didn’t stop talking. She listed all the things she hated about me, the ways I’d let her down. At first I responded with sarcastic protestations. “Yeah, really, Mom? That’s really what you think of your own son?” But mostly I stayed quiet and listened as my mom told me how much she detested me.
    When we pulled up to the house, I jumped out of the car and rushed across the lawn. Dad opened the front door. When I saw him, I started sobbing.
    â€œWhat happened?” he said.
    â€œMom kept punching me while I was driving,” I said. “And then spent the whole drive home telling me how much she hated me.” I could hardly breathe.
    He looked stricken. More than anything I wanted him to stand up for me. Do something. Protect me.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said.
    Which meant he wasn’t going to do anything. Mom had gotten into the driver’s seat and I heard her peel away. I went into my room and lay on my bed, exhausted. I felt like a satellite adrift in deep space, connected to nothing, cold and alone.
    In the last week of summer, Edward came out to visit me, and Ben came home for a week. I