Home > The Other Mother(3)

The Other Mother(3)
Author: Matthew Dicks

I say this in my head, too. More red words.

“No, thanks,” Julia says. She is answering for me because she knows how I feel. She does this for me a lot. Otherwise she would’ve said nothing, too.

“Breakfast is ready, guys and gals,” the other mother says, just like my mother would. “Help yourself.”

I will not be eating eggs today. Not from a pan where Asshole Glen has already stuck his fork. Not from a mother who is not my mother. My mother’s eggs are good. These eggs only look good.

I eat toast instead. I stare at my feet. All of this is too strange. I should be calling the police and asking for help, except no one would believe me. If Julia and Charlie and Glen can’t see the other mother, a policeman won’t be able to see her either.

I’m suddenly glad that I’m still a kid. A teenager, really, but close enough. Stuff like this can happen to kids. Weird shit like moms being replaced by other mothers. If I were a grown-up, I’d have to be crazy right now. Mysteries and magic don’t happen to old people unless they’re losing their minds. If I was an adult, I’d probably call the police, and they would take me away to the funny farm, which isn’t funny at all. Only kids and grown-ups in books and movies could believe that something like this could be happening without going crazy.

I see Mrs. Newfang for three hours every week, but it’s not because I’m crazy (even though this asshole in my class named Luke said I was). I see her because I need to learn strategies. I need to learn “to see what people need from me.” That’s what Mrs. Newfang calls it. She says I need to learn to notice when someone is sad or angry or afraid so I’ll know how to behave. Know how to treat them.

I’m not sure if she’s right. I think I see all those things just fine. I just make bad choices. I do dumb stuff and say dumb stuff.

Charlie fills his plate with eggs and toast as the other mother and Asshole Glen head upstairs. I hope they don’t make loud sex like Mom and Asshole Glen do, because I’m not in the mood to hear it this morning. I have too many problems.

My mom is missing.

She has been replaced by this other mother.

I’m scared.

My brother is stupid.

Asshole Glen is still my stepfather.

Sarah Flaherty lives next door.

I have three detentions next week.

Brian Marcotte will be waiting for me to do the thing next week.

I don’t have enough strategies to keep from getting full.

Today is payday.

The letter in the yellow envelope won’t stop being real.

 

 

two

 

I tell Charlie to finish his eggs and meet us in the driveway. Julia and I pull the bikes from the garage and stuff fishing tackle into old pickle buckets.

I used to love the garage. It smells like oil and old books. The shelves are filled with camping and fishing gear and tools of all kinds, and there is a ladder to a small loft where I used to hide when I couldn’t stand the world anymore. I would sit up there above my father’s old cars and read books and eat potato chips. It was my place.

Not anymore. Ever since I found the letter in the yellow envelope, I can’t stand being in the garage for a second longer than I need to be. The place feels like it’s haunted. I can’t even come in here at night. Even in the morning sunshine, I move as fast as I can to get our gear together.

“Hi, Sarah!” Julia shouts as I’m hanging buckets from the handlebars.

I turn. Sarah Flaherty is standing on the edge of her driveway. “Hi, Julia!” she shouts back.

Sarah Flaherty is the girl next door. She has long blond hair and brown eyes, but it’s her face that makes her pretty. And her smile. It’s friendly. It makes you think that she likes you even if she barely knows you. She has freckles, too, and I love freckles.

It isn’t easy having a popular girl living next door. Instead of worrying about what I look like every second while I’m at school, now I need to worry about what I look like every second at home, too. Like right now. It’s so early in the morning that I thought I’d be safe, but apparently not. I’m wearing dirt-stained jeans that are a little too short for me (high waters, a kid at school called them) and a stained white T-shirt.

I look terrible at the worst possible moment to look terrible.

My friend Jeff says I’m lucky to live next door to Sarah because he thinks I have a chance of seeing her half-naked someday when she runs outside to get the mail, thinking no one is looking. Jeff is a dumbass. Girls don’t just walk out of their houses half-naked, and especially for something as stupid as the mail. And what does half-naked mean anyway? Topless? Bottomless? Underwear and a bra?

It makes a difference.

“Hi, Mike!” Sarah shouts.

Everyone calls me Michael except for Sarah. She’s the only one in the world who calls me Mike. I always correct people who call me Mike or even worse Mikey (I find myself wanting to punch those people in the face), but I don’t correct Sarah.

I wave back without really looking and turn around and go back inside to get Charlie. All I want to do is wait inside until Sarah is gone. Maybe she’ll forget how stupid I looked by Monday.

Charlie is still sitting at the table reading his book. His plate and cup are empty. I can hear the sex sounds coming from upstairs, but this time it’s the other mother and Glen, so it doesn’t bother me much. It only bothers me because Charlie can hear it.

Except Charlie is reading, so he probably can’t hear anything. A parade of elephants could march right through the kitchen and he wouldn’t notice if his head was in a book.

Then it hits me. As long as the other mother and Glen are having sex, I can check the downstairs for my mother. I don’t really think Mom is tied up in a closet or locked in the basement. I don’t think she is anywhere in the house at all. I can’t explain it, but it’s the same way I know that the other mother is not my mother even though she looks exactly like my mother. I just know.

Still, I want to look. Better safe than sorry, especially when things are as fucked up as this. When your mother is missing, cover all the bases.

A new rule.

I don’t say anything to Charlie. I let him read as I go through every room, opening closets and cupboards and looking underneath furniture.

Nothing.

There’s no way Mom was jammed under the couch or stuffed behind the easy chair, but I look anyway. In the movies, it’s always the place you don’t look that holds the key to everything.

Then I go to the basement door. I hate the basement. It has three yellow bulbs that swing from cords in the ceiling and a dirt floor. It smells like worms and old leaves. I don’t know if I will hear Glen and the other mother in the basement, but I hear them now and it usually doesn’t last a long time. I need to check the basement. I know that Mom isn’t down there, but I feel like should check anyway.

I open the door. I flip the switch. The yellow bulbs turn the black at the bottom of the stairs to a burned-yellow smudge. I walk down the thirteen steps to the bottom. I hate that there are thirteen steps. It’s the worst number for basement stairs. I skip the last step to make it twelve, even though the universe still knows that it’s thirteen.

The basement has a big room and a small room in the back. The big room is empty. The dirt floor gets wet sometimes, so we can’t put boxes of old toys or winter clothes down here because they would end up getting wet and smelling like dirt. The walls are concrete, with pictures of hearts and smiley faces and little messages drawn in pink and white chalk.

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