Keep Her Safe(2)

Kicking my dusty sneakers off, I drag myself all the way to the back of the house. “Hey, Mom,” I offer as casually as possible, passing her hunched body at the kitchen table, a cigarette smoldering on the edge of a supper plate, a half-finished bottle of cheap whiskey sitting within her easy reach, her gun belt lying haphazardly next to it.

I don’t know why I was hoping for something different tonight. I’ve been coming home to the same scene for weeks now.

“Where were y’all at tonight?” That Texan twang of hers is always heavier when she’s been drinking.

I yank open the fridge door. “It’s Wednesday.”

She tilts rather than lifts her head and spies the basketball tucked under my arm. “Right. I can’t keep up with you.”

I could point out that there’s not much to keep up with. I’m a creature of habit. If I’m not at work, then I’m with my friends, at the gym or doing laps at the pool, or tossing a ball around. I’ve been going to the same pickup courts every Wednesday night since I moved back to Texas to go to UT seven years ago.

I twist the cap off the carton of orange juice and lift it to my mouth instead. Wishing she’d berate me for not using a glass. That’s what she used to do, back when she didn’t beeline for her liquor cabinet the second she walked in the door from work. She’d also remind me not to dribble my ball in the house and to throw my sweat-soaked clothes through the hot cycle of the wash right away, so my room doesn’t smell like a gym locker.

Now she doesn’t even bother to change out of her uniform half the time.

As if to prove a point to myself, I let the ball hit the tile once . . . twice . . . seizing it against my hip after the third bounce, the hollow thud of leather against porcelain hanging in the air.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Nothing. Not a single complaint from her, as she sits there, her eyes half-shuttered, her cropped blonde hair unkempt, her mind preoccupied with something far beyond the oak table’s wood grain that she stares at. She doesn’t give a shit about basic manners anymore. These past few weeks, all she does is sit at the kitchen table and listen to the radio crackle with robbery reports and domestic assault calls and a dozen other nightly occurrences for the Austin Police Department.

Her police department, seeing as she’s the chief. A female chief of police in one of the biggest cities in the United States. A monumental feat. She’s held that position for two years.

And, up until recently, seemed to have held it well.

Coughing against the lingering stench of Marlboros, I slide open the window above the sink. Crisp spring air sails in. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the smell of lemon Pledge and bleach.

“Don’t forget to close it before you go to bed. Don’t wanna get robbed,” she mutters.

“We’re not gonna get robbed.” We live in Clarksville, a historic neighborhood and one of the nicest in a city that’s generally considered to be safe and clean. I can’t blame her for being cautious, though; she’s been a cop for thirty years. She’s seen society’s underbelly. She probably knows things about our neighbors that would make me avert my eyes when passing them on the street. Still, even the worst parts of Austin are a playground next to typical city slums.

I frown as I peer down at the filthy sink. The stainless steel is spattered with black specks. “Did you burn something in here?”

“Just . . . trash.”

I fish out a scrap of paper with perforations along one side. It looks like a page torn from a notepad. April 16, 2003 is scrawled across it in writing that isn’t my mother’s.

“Biggest mistake of my life.” She puffs on her cigarette, her words low and slurred. “I should have known Betsy wasn’t the only one . . .”

“Who’s Betsy?”

“Nobody anymore,” she mutters, along with something indiscernible.

I fill a tall glass of water and set it down in front of her, using it as a distraction so I can drag the bottle of whiskey out of her reach.

She makes a play for it anyway, her movements slow and clumsy. “Give it on back to me, Noah. Right now, ya hear me?”

I shift to the other side of the table, screwing the cap on extra tight, though she could probably still open it. For a woman of her stature—five foot four and 130 pounds—she’s all muscle. At least she was all muscle. Her lithe body has begun to deteriorate thanks to the daily liquid supper. “You’ve had enough for tonight.”

“What do you know about enough? There ain’t enough whiskey in the world for what I’ve done.” She fumbles with the four silver stars pinned to her uniform’s collar, looking ready to rip them off.

So it’s going to be one of those nights. But who am I kidding? Those nights, when she starts in on this incoherent rambling, about not deserving to be chief, are more and more common lately. I miss the days when all she’d complain about was stupid laws and lack of department funding.

I sigh. “Come on, I’ll help you upstairs.”

“No,” she growls, a stubborn frown setting across her forehead.

It’s half past eleven. She’s normally passed out by nine, so this is an unusually late night for her. Still, if she downs a few glasses of water and goes to bed, maybe she’ll be ready for work by the morning, only a little worse for wear.

I fold my six-foot-two frame into the chair across from her. “Mom?”