Free Under the Dusty Moon by Suzanne Sutherland

pointing my weak left hand at her to sit back down. “Would you just — can you, like, listen to me for a second?”
    She sat back down next to me on the examining table, kicking her sneakered feet. “What’s up?”
    â€œI don’t want you to go to Japan,” said my drugged-up mouth, to the great surprise of my brain. I mean, sure, it was what I’d been thinking, but I didn’t have any intention of telling Mom that.
    â€œOh, honey,” she said, giving me her charity-smile like she knew I was stoned out of my gourd. And, I mean, I was, of course, but that smile still totally pissed me off.
    â€œSeriously,” I whined. “Why is it so important? It’ s-it ’s … stupid. What’s so good about Japan?”
    â€œSushi, for one,” Mom said, retracting her pity.
    I couldn’t believe that after all I’d been through that day that she still wasn’t taking me seriously. That she couldn’t just for one second be a normal mother.
    â€œYou’re the worst,” I whine-yelled like some spoiled four-year -old who’d been told they couldn’t eat candy before dinner.
    â€œ Ohhh-kay ,” she said, reassessing the situation and getting up off the table to stand in front of me. “What’s really bugging you?”
    â€œIt’s you!” I said, giving in and letting my drug-induced neediness take total control. “You just — you just leave. You keep leaving. You leave me here. With Gran. And I hate it, I’m sick of it. It’s stupid.”
    â€œYeah,” Mom said, unmoved, “you mentioned that.”
    â€œAnd you never listen to me when I’m upset!”
    â€œWell what do you want me to do?”
    â€œI want you to stay,” I said in my smallest voice ever. I couldn’t look her in the eyes, so instead I studied the intricacies of the hospital floor.
    â€œBut you know that I can’t, right?” Mom said, her voice almost as small as mine.
    â€œYou could quit.” I was pushing it, I knew. This wasn’t going to end well, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it to.
    â€œAnd do what exactly?” Mom asked. “Work at Sal’s place every day?”
    â€œYou could get a real job.”
    I was going for blood. Or my tongue was, anyway. I couldn’t stop it. It was flapping of its own free will.
    â€œThis is my real job,” Mom said, for once using a serious parental tone. “Lots of people travel for work. I mean, I know it sucks sometimes — and believe me, it sucks for me, too, this isn’t just about you. It gets lonely on the road. And it gets boring and — but, anyway, it’s what I love. It’s who I am.”
    â€œFor now,” I said. The venom kept coming.
    â€œLook,” she said, “I’m sorry if you don’t always like it, but this is who I am, all right? Your mama’s a wandering wind.”
    â€œOh good,” I said, speaking slowly to make the sure the arrows of my words stuck hard in her chest, “you’re writing song lyrics while waiting for your daughter to get a cast put on her shattered arm.”
    â€œLet’s talk about this later, okay?” Mom said, suddenly looking as exhausted as I felt. “The doctor’s waiting for us. And I don’t think they were exactly planning for a monster family brawl in emerg tonight.” She was pulling mom-rank . And sober-rank . All I wanted was to be able to cross my arms.
    â€œFine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    â€œCome on, Eeyore,” she insisted. “Time to hit the casting couch.”
    I wouldn’t even meet her eyes, I knew they’d be wide with delight at her own terrible joke and I couldn’t believe that she was still trying to be my best friend.
    â€œWorst. Joke. Ever.”

    They put the cast on — plain white, despite Mom’s insistence that I choose something more interesting — and told