“…and the dead lay in pools of maroon below” 

My mother and I would come to spend our Saturdays together. We would go out in the early afternoon to different stores or the mall, or to a park, or the beach during the summer. We’d go to a restaurant for dinner, maybe Friendly’s, and we’d be home before network television’s prime time lineup. My mother would usually fall asleep sometime during Empty Nest (1988-1995) or Golden Girls (1985-1992), and I’d be up laughing by myself. She was my best friend– if she didn’t have me, she’d have been alone.

We would come home to find my father passed out– if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was dead. The remnants of the dinner he made for himself would be on the stove. He liked salisbury steak. My mother would use these Saturdays as a reprieve from the brutality of her week. My father would use them to drink. He existed separately from us. He was alone.

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