Page 38 of The Trailer Park Twink

“Just a person,” she says with a chuckle, and there’s a softness to it that makes me want to take a step back in retreat.

“The most dramatic person I’ve ever met.

You just commandeered my gun and swam it out to sea when you could’ve just pulled out the bullets.

” The corners of her lips tug down into a contemplative frown. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why she’s sorry, because she’s just as shameless as me. Apologizing isn’t in our nature. “For calling me dramatic?”

She rolls her eyes. “For aiming the gun at you. I may not understand you, and we’ll probably never like each other, much less love one another, but I wouldn’t want to kill you.”

“You’ve been killing me emotionally for years. I have died thousands of psychological deaths at your hand. ”

“See?” she asks no one in particular, considering we’re the only ones outside. “This is what I mean. You’re overly dramatic for no reason whatsoever.”

I nod in agreement. “I am. And I’m happy I’ve finally found people who love me for it and not despite it.” Mom reaches into her pocket and pulls out the truck keys. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah,” she says, rubbing her thumb up and down the key, her hands trembling. “I think it’s for the best. A clean break. We can’t keep doing this.” With a sigh, she turns and walks toward the truck, pausing when her hand touches the door handle. “You win, Austin.”

I know the words are true, but they don’t feel as good to hear as I thought they would. If anything, I just feel really guilty. It’s a reaction I never expected, but there it is. She turns to walk away, and—much to my surprise—my legs follow along after, trailing behind her.

“What will you do?” There’s a strange, queer, bitter sting in my chest that I can’t put into words.

It’s not pain or agony or anything like that.

It’s confusion with undertones of . . . disappointment?

I can’t be sure. I’ve wanted her gone for as long as I can remember, and now that she’s going, it feels like I’m losing a part of myself.

The little boy waiting at the window each day, wondering when Mom was coming home.

The scared teenager who was feeling so many new feelings, and didn’t know where to turn.

Most might turn to their mother, but mine was never there, and when she was, she wasn’t much for advice or motivational speeches.

I raised myself up the way she never could.

Could I have benefited from a happy home life?

I’m sure. But there’s no point in dwelling on if-onlys.

I have the mother I have, and no amount of dreaming or hoping for maternal affection will change that.

He’s still with me though. I’ve tucked him away in my secret heart, protecting him from pain all these years, and now he’s clawing his way to the surface, demanding to be heard.

“Why couldn’t you just love me?” I shout, but it’s done as a means of being heard, not to convey my anger.

The wind is whipping through the trees around us, shaking their limbs, sending golden leaves raining down from above.

There are so many of them, I feel like I’ve just been told I won a television talent contest, and this is the moment where they rain down dazzling sparks, illuminating every inch of darkness, and I’m standing right in the center, claiming my prize.

I’ve won, so it’s apropos, but it doesn’t feel like winning, and this doesn’t feel like a celebration.

It feels like a death. She pauses ahead of me, and I slowly step forward, worried I might scare her off like a frightened doe.

Once I’m close enough that I no longer need to scream to be heard, I quietly ask, “Did you ever love me?”

The question catches her off guard, judging by her expression once she whirls around to face me. Her mouth is hanging open like she’s trying to form words, but nothing is coming to her.

After an uncomfortable moment of silence, she answers my question with the very same question, asking, “Did you ever love me ?”

I have to pause and think about it, because I can’t remember a single moment not spent despising her.

The way she would go MIA for weeks on end, leaving six-year-old me to fend for myself.

How she chose her drug of choice over her son’s safety every time the choice presented itself.

Worst of all, stealing the only forms of happiness I’ve ever known. My Dallas and my dogs.

Then I remember the only birthday I ever celebrated before Daddy came along.

I just turned eight, and I was obsessed with the neighbor girl’s Barbie dolls.

When Debbie and I used to hang out at her house on the other side of the trailer park, we would dress them in stunning gowns and exquisite shoes.

We mixed and matched their ensembles endlessly, never actually playing with the dolls.

Then I would go home and tell Mom all about it.

She always rolled her eyes at me like I was less than nothing for being a boy who played with Barbies, but she never actually teased me for it.

Not out loud, at least. On my birthday, Mom surprised me with a Barbie birthday cake.

Though we’ve never been huggers, she hugged me that day.

She loved me that day. Two hours later, she relapsed, and I’ve never seen that version of her again.

Neither of us answer the other, not that we expect it. Our relationship has always been built on bitten tongues and unaddressed resentment, and I don’t think this is going to be the place where we finally air our hurt for the creatures of the surrounding forest to hear.

“Have a safe trip,” I say when the words I want to say won’t come. I place a hand on her shoulder and gently squeeze.

To my surprise, she lifts her hand and places it on top of mine, squeezing me back. Then she breaks our connection, heading toward the truck, and it’s almost like I can feel each cord of her maternal tether snapping, splitting slowly down the middle.

I wish I could have known her when she was at her best, before drug addiction and festering resentment settled in her soul, deep down to her blood and bones, spreading like cancer, malignant and unrelenting.

Most of all, I wish she could have known me.

Who knows who we might have been had we not spent the past twenty years at war.

She cranks the ignition, then—as she’s done so many times before—my mother leaves me in a cloud of dust and emotional unfulfillment.

A strong pair of arms wrap around me from behind. I didn’t even hear Dallas come outside. “Are you okay? ”

I shake my head, because I don’t think I am. I will be, though. Soon enough, I’ll be a happy boy again, but for now, I’m going to wallow in my resentment. Leaning back, I melt into his embrace.

“What do we do now?” I whisper.

He kisses my neck. “We live happily ever after.”