Page 52 of A Real Goode Time
She blinked in shock. “Wow. That’s…that’s…”
“It sucked. I think I mentioned there were times we couldn’t afford both groceries and electricity, or electricity and water, so we had to choose, which meant no plumbing for a couple weeks, or no electricity, or no food.”
“So you’ve gone hungry, not had lights…”
“Had to carry buckets a couple miles to the shop where Dad worked to fill ’em up with water, so we could flush the toilets and make Mac ’N Cheese and hot dogs, which, most of the time, we made over a fire in the backyard because it was free.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So you asked before why I want to make a million? That’s why. I won’t ever feel that way again. Not ever.” I let out a breath. “But my relationship with my parents is something that’s hard for me to talk about.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s cool. I trust you.” I waffled, trying to get started. “So. Mom…I told you she worked at a bar. Little dive bar, piece of shit place that served watery beer, dollar store whiskey, and literal backwoods, homemade moonshine, which, by the way, is illegal.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. She worked at a gas station as a cashier in the day, and at the bar at night. The bar was our main income, actually. Dad got paid shit, but it was steady, whereas Mom might make fifty bucks one night and a hundred another.”
She nodded. “I know about that all too well.”
“Right.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “So, um. Yeah. I’ve never told anyone this.” A long, long pause. “Sometimes, if things were really, really tight. Like not enough to payanyof the bills, Mom would, uh…go home with guys from the bar. For money.”
She was silent a long, tense moment. “Like…prostitution?”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah. I don’t really remember how I found out. I think…it woulda been in middle school. Or ninth grade, maybe. I had been out late with buddies, blowing off firecrackers and racing dirt bikes back in the hollers. We’d passed behind some houses—trailers way out there, you know? The places you gotta know are there to know how to get there. And I think I saw her. It’d have been late, like two, three in the morning. I saw her leaving some guy’s house. Standing on the step, shoes in hand, barely half dressed, and he gave her money.”
“You were allowed out at three in the morning in middle school?”
I laughed. “That’s what you fix on? Yeah, I mean, notallowed. But Dad worked early and slept like a dead man, and Mom worked late, so I just did whatever the hell I wanted. If I wanted to hang out with buddies till dawn drinking and cutting up, they wouldn’t know. Didn’t really care, either. Just making ends meet and making sure I had a roof and food was all they had time for. They cared about me, but keeping me fed, housed, and clothed was their only real concern. What I did otherwise was up to me. ‘Just don’t get killed, don’t end up in the hospital’cause we don’t got money for no stitches, y’hear? And for god’s sake, don’t get your dumb ass arrested.’” I said that last few sentences in my dad’s backwoods drawl.
She frowned. “So your mom would sell herself to make ends meet, sometimes. And your dad…knew?”
I shrugged. “I dunno how that worked. I think it was something they just didn’t talk about. Mom would do what she had to do, and if she brought home extra money, great. He wouldn’t ask how.”
“Did they love each other?”
I wanted to laugh at that, but it was an honest question. “Love is a luxury they couldn’t afford, I think. They respected each other. Liked each other. Didn’t fight much and got over it quick. They rarely saw each other, really. Dad worked six in the morning till six at night most days. Sometimes later. And Mom worked from eight till four at the gas station, and five thirty to past close at the bar. So they might see each other in passing, or on the weekends. Sunday mornings, mostly, was their time together.” I winced, and she caught it.
“What?” she asked.
“Well, I learned real early on to get the hell out of the house on Sunday mornings. Those walls weren’t much but two-by-fours and shitty fake wood paneling. Didn’t baffle the sound at all.”
She widened her eyes. “Ohhh. So, they still had that together, at least? Trying to find the good.”
I laughed. “Bless your heart for that, Torie. Yeah, they had that. Loudly. Every Sunday morning at nine. You coulda set a clock by it. So I’d get up early and go fishing, most Sundays. Once I could drive, I’d go salvaging.”
She was quiet, thoughtful, her eyes on me.
“What?” I asked. “You got somethin’ to say, I can tell.”
“When you talk about your parents or Kentucky or your past, you sound more southern again.” She shrugged. “That’s not what I was gonna say, though. I guess…I’m just wondering how you feel, about…your mom. And what she did.”
I scratched the back of my head. “I dunno. Try not to think about it much, honestly. I guess I don’t like it, as you might guess. Everybody knew. It was a tiny place, where I grew up. Not on most maps. Not really even a name to it. No mayor, just a few old retired folks who called themselves the city council made sure there was a stop light and all that municipal shit. So, everybody knew my mom was, literally, the town whore. She wasn’t on the street corner, maybe, but it was common knowledge. You needed your rocks off and had some cash to burn, Della Frost down at the Crooked Barstool on the county line would go home with you.” I gripped the shifter with white knuckles, barely feeling it. “Got teased some for it. But hey, knock a few teeth out and the comments stopped. To my face, at least.”
“God, Rhys.”
“She’s a good woman. Took care of me and Saoirse. Of Dad. Made dinner. Kept the place clean on top of two jobs. I got respect for her, for how hard she worked. But it’s…it’s a complicated thing. I know she didn’t want to. But it was that or we starve, or don’t take a shower for a month ’cause the water bill was so damn expensive. As it was I’d go to school early and take showers in the locker room ’cause it was free there.”