youâd be waiting,â I said tersely.
âOh fuck off,â she said.
Suddenly, I was angrier than Iâd 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.
âMom, Iâve had enough of your shit,â I said. âIâm sick of always waiting for you. Iâm sick of you wasting my time. Iâm sick of all of it. This is the last time that happens.â
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.
âMom, what the fuck?â I shouted. âIâm driving!â
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 didnât 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. Momâs 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.
âMom!â I screamed.
That attack was beyond anything sheâd ever done. I started crying. âMom,â I begged. âAre you gonna let me drive us home? Will you promise not to hit me while Iâm driving?â
She didnât 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 Iâd never heard before.
âYou are an ungrateful shit,â she said, âjust like your father. You are a terrible son, a terrible person. I wish youâd never been born.â
For the next fifteen minutes she didnât stop talking. She listed all the things she hated about me, the ways Iâd let her down. At first I responded with sarcastic protestations. âYeah, really, Mom? Thatâs really what you think of your own son?â 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.
âWhat happened?â he said.
âMom kept punching me while I was driving,â I said. âAnd then spent the whole drive home telling me how much she hated me.â I could hardly breathe.
He looked stricken. More than anything I wanted him to stand up for me. Do something. Protect me.
âIâm sorry,â he said.
Which meant he wasnât going to do anything. Mom had gotten into the driverâs 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