Free My Lost and Found Life by Melodie Bowsher

don’t know what’s going to happen. If worse comes to worst, I can put the house up for sale.”
    â€œWhat? What’s wrong with you? How can I come home at Christmas if you sell the house? Have you lost your mind?”
    She buried her face in her hands, so I could hardly hear her words. “I’m so sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am. But I’ve made some big mistakes and now I have to pay.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about,
you
have to pay? It sounds like
I
have to pay. You always said my happiness was the most important thing in your life. How can you do this to me?”
    She came over and stood directly in front of me, her eyes boring into mine in desperate appeal. “You have to understand, honey, I can’t help it. I wish I could.”
    But I was too angry to answer that appeal. “You are pathetic!” I screamed. “I hate you! You are a complete failure as a mother.”
    That’s when she slapped me. My mouse of a mother slapped me. I stared at her, both shocked and furious, then spat out the words, “Fuck you!”
    Then, before I could say another word, she burst into tears. She was shaking uncontrollably.
    But I was too wound up to stop now. With my eyes blazing, I spat out the words I knew would hurt her the most. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you. You’re a loser just like that drunk you called my father. The minute I can, I’m moving away and never coming back. You’ll never see me again.”
    My mother staggered as if I had stabbed her. Her greatest fear always was being alone again, the way she had been when my grandparents died.
    â€œI can’t stand it here. I’m leaving,” I said, and ran out the front door into the pelting rain.
    She followed me like a crazy woman, oblivious to the fact that she was wearing only a thin nightgown. Behind me I heard her say, “It’s never enough for you. No matter what I do, it’s never enough.”
    As I backed my car out of the driveway, I saw her standing on the lawn, soaked to the skin and sobbing.
    I drove around for an hour or so, until I calmed down. Then I came home. By this time I felt guilty about what I said, yet I was too stubborn to apologize. When I walked down the hall toward my bedroom, I saw the door to her room was closed. So I walked straight past it and crawled into bed.
    â€¢ • •
    The rain stopped and my sore jaw went away, but my bleak mood continued. Tattie called and wanted me to go out with her. I told her I was sick. Truthfully, I was sick, sick at heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about the argument with my mother and hating myself for driving her away. She had deserted me because I was a horrible, evil person. I knew that now—maybe I had known it all along. I couldn’t pretend or lie to myself anymore. My head and heart hurt so much that I couldn’t move off my bed.
    As the daylight vanished and night began, I lay awake remembering and reliving all the times I had treated my mother badly. When I finally closed my eyes, sleep didn’t bring me any relief. I dreamed my mother was chasing me in her nightgown in the rain, only in my dream we were both running down a highway. Out of the darkness a big truck with blazing headlights bore down on her and struck her with a loud thump. I yelled, “Momma!” and ran back toward her. But after the truck roared past me, I saw only a dark and empty roadway. She was gone.

Chapter Eight
    The ringing kept bouncing around in my brain until I finally realized it wasn’t a dream. Someone was ringing the doorbell. I pulled myself out of bed, stumbled through the house, and opened the front door.
    Facing me was a young Asian guy wearing sweats and a Giants baseball cap on backward.
    â€œAshley Mitchell?”
    â€œYeah,” I yawned.
    â€œYou’ve been served.” He thrust a folded piece of paper into my hand and departed, leaving me staring after