Free Breaker by Richard Thomas Page B

answers. It’s just me talking out loud, the information I need never given to me, my father disappearing, the change in her dark, swift, and terrifying. Unable to leave, but desperate to escape, we existed in unison like oil and water, sharing the same glass, but never actually mixing.
    I turn to her skeleton as it lies reclined on the bed, her skull propped up on a stack of pillows, hands demurely crossed over her pelvis, her long, thin legs stretching out toward the end of the elegant dark blanket.
    “What did you do to me?” I ask her.
    So many memories remain fuzzy: trips to the woods, waking up in her car, Father leaving and then coming back, voices in the night, doors slamming. And then suddenly, I’m growing, up and out and up and out until I fill the space between us, padding my pea brain with cotton. Headaches and backaches, my hands and arms bruised and cut, dirt in my sheets, mud on my boots, and mother sitting by my side, a spoonful of this, a spoonful of that—for my constitution, for the tapeworm.
    For the memories she wanted me to forget, I think.

Chapter 19
    I stand in the back alley, leaning on a rusty folding chair, as the trash can in front of me slowly fills up with sticks—it’s how we make fires in the city, when there’s nothing but concrete and frozen soil around us. I take a walk out to the boulevards in a daze, the old oak trees hanging over the streets, dead limbs reaching for the earth, others snapped off and scattered over the dirt and concrete sidewalks. I carry back the wood and drop it in a pile, over and over and over again. Cars sweep by, kids walking here and there, parents with babies bundled up, out for a stroll, cabin fever pushing them out into the cold. I find a pine tree a couple of houses up, the yard and sidewalk littered with pinecones, and a thrill rushes over me like a child on Christmas morning. I gather them up in my coat and bring them to the back, dumping them all in the can.
    Christmas—that was always interesting.
    As I snap the twigs and break the branches over my knees, I remember what those moments were like, the four of us gathered together, a rare occurrence, a sad little tree in the corner, lights blinking on and off, half of the strand not working, my mother sipping eggnog, my father pouring bourbon into his coffee.
    The last time I saw him he was growing out a beard, his hair turning from brown to gray to white, always running his hand over his face, his forehead, and back across his head. He sighed a lot, my mother and him not making much eye contact at that point in their relationship. She’d started smoking again, something he hated, and she’d blow that smoke in his direction every chance she got.
    If he didn’t leave her for another woman, then I suspect he just left because anywhere but here was something better, with more hope, less defeat.
    I snap the branches and fill up the can, larger ones now, the newspaper wadded up at the bottom hardly even visible anymore.
    That last Christmas, what did we get? I remember the game Clue, and my father laughing, something about needing one, mumbling into his coffee mug, music playing in the kitchen, one old standard after another. My mother never bought us anything fun; from her it was socks and underwear, new jeans, ugly sweaters from Marshalls, and if we were lucky, tennis shoes or boots—something with a bit of style and pizzazz. I’d ask for Nike and Polo and get some store brand I’d never heard of instead. He gave her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and a pair of earrings, simple gold hoops. She gave him a long, black scarf and soft leather gloves—still caring if he froze to death, but probably not much more than that.
    It was up to my father to provide the entertainment. Was that the year he gave us the Ouija board? My mother leapt up, knocking over her eggnog, yelling at him to get that evil thing out of her house. The apartment smelled of turkey, stuffing, smoke, and sweat, but that board, she wanted