By Colleen Mayo
Long before you made a habit of hating me, your mother proposed. We were at a steak place. I wore a suit. Her, a red dress— my favorite color on her. She kept swirling her finger along the rim of her wineglass as if it might sing. My head about flew to the ceiling when she popped the question. She said she loved how I made her feel. It all sounds so corny until it’s directed at you.
“Like I have nothing to hide,” she said.
“Oh Dawn, me too, me too” I whispered. If the boys back in Little Rock could have heard me coo like that, they’d have doubled over. I’m not known for being an emotional guy.
Still, your mother’s finger, around and around. Back then, the flesh off her pinkie was rougher than
the callus on my big toe. I never minded it. I’ve got rough hands as well, made thick from working the machines at Remington thirteen hours a day. I believe all good hands should tell a story.
Then she looked up at me, nothing but eyelashes and trust. I knew then what it feels like to be so happy that your heart aches. The both of us sensed this was some kind of moment, a picture we’d forever return to in our minds.
“When should we do it?” I asked.
She leaned her fork over my plate and shoveled up a heap of garlic mashed potatoes—Dawn’s appetite back! I’d trade in three years just to see her go to town on a basket of fries and onion rings.
“After I talk to Sally,” she said.
“For now, we’ll move in together.”
She touched my leg underneath the tabletop. I paid the bill quickly. My stuff was at y’all’s place by the end of the week. You weren’t thrilled, but you seemed to get over it. I was once a simple man, easy to live with.
Quickly, Dawn got me into the jewelry business. I started crafting metal baubles that sold well at all the fairs. We’d work the Central Texas circuit clean from December to June, then we’d pack up our camper and take you out on adventures the whole summer long. Moab, Yellowstone, White Sands—it was downright glamorous. This pattern for six years. We’d joke about my life before and after Dawn, B.D. and A.D., which we all thought was pretty cute.
B.D., I worked as a Preventative Maintenance Specialist out at Remington in Lonoke, Arkansas. I was good and we had a decent crew, but one slip-up is enough to bring the whole assembly line to a halt and—rip—a limb or worse can be lost in two seconds. It’s quite stressful. I don’t have to tell you that. The lot of us used to head down to this joint Smokey’s once or twice a week to drink it out and share stories. Some of the men could get competitive about the gore, which I never liked.
I had this coworker named Christian. We were both on shift when a bad batch got cased. The explosion made national news. Two guys dead, five banged up badly. Christian lost his left eyebrow hair, yet, to hear him talk about it, you’d think he survived Afghanistan. Sitting at Smokey’s night after night while Christian reenacted our dead buddies’ faces melting off didn’t go down well. I’m a vet myself. I started to feel a bit offended. I’ve surprised myself much more than the night I crashed a pool stick against Christian’s head. Let me be clear: I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t proud either. I woke up the next morning, called in sick, and b-lined it for Texas. The goal was Houston, then in Austin I really did surprise myself.
You were fifteen the summer she started misplacing shit— normal things at first, like keys and receipts, the sort of stuff you chalk up to a bad night’s sleep. Meanwhile, you’d turned difficult, all slouch and sarcasm. But we made it Jackson Hole in time for snow. When you saw it all, you looked back at your mother and me as if we’d given you a great gift. I felt for a moment what it would have been to see you as a child. You cartwheeled around the white hills, pausing to lick the wet off your hands and smile at us with a disbelieving, magical grin. You ran up and pulled us both into a hug, pressed your cold fingers against the back of my neck while Dawn kissed my check. Life had become something I’d never even known I wanted. But I wanted it, you need to know that.
Names started to get funny shortly after your sixteenth birthday. She’d call you ‘Susan’, or me ‘Barry’, or sometimes her mind would go somewhere else entirely and she’d talk to me like I was her father or ex-husband. Then her temper started to flare up something evil. That’s when we really started to worry. She’d ask me to pass the salt, then throw a knife at my head if it didn’t come fast enough. Your English teacher called the cops after she ate three fingers of chalk and turned over a chair over during their parent- teacher meeting. I couldn’t trust her at the booth alone for fear she might lose it at a customer.
It was sometime during this period when I left. I was gone one and half days. I’d driven back to Arkansas, parked myself up at that familiar corner in Smokey’s to throw back more beers than
my stomach remembered how to handle. It’d been nearly a decade; no one outright recognized me. I knew some—Christian, yes, and a few others—and I shut my eyes to listen to them share their stories, which hadn’t changed a beat from the gore and other talk. I left a good tip.
I swear, every exit called to me— from I-30 to I-35—and maybe if I’d been soberer I might have turned around back to Arkansas. I hope you never make a habit out of the stuff, but sometimes drink does give you courage.
When the diagnosis finally came, your mother was stoic. She sat in front of the doctor and nodded at the charts. “Yes,” she said softly. Her eyes stayed locked on the series of lines and numbers while her thumb stroked the back of my hand. “Yes,” she repeated with a terrible, patient smile, “this makes sense.”
We told you. You didn’t cry. You did nothing. You walked away.
I guess you could call the time it is now A.A.D.: After, After Dawn. She’s still physically here, of course, and sometimes the film of this sickness slips from her eyes and she looks up at me from her bed at Eastwatch with a near-sane intensity like are you fucking kidding me, Gary? This is how it turns out? I lovehate these moments. It’d be easier without them. I’ve let myself imagine what it might have been to like to grow old with her rather than grow old taking care of her, what a fantasy, what a useless mindfuck.
And, yes, I’ve let myself imagine what it might have been like never to have met you both. Never to have these bills, this commitment, this terrible dearth of love from a daughter who shares none of my blood, from a woman who doesn’t remember my name.
Sometimes I wish I’d actually made her my wife, you my daughter. It wouldn’t have made a damn of difference.
Read our interview with Colleen Mayo.
About the Author:
Colleen Mayo’s writing has appeared in Crazyhorse, The Sun Magazine, The Rumpus and others. She was a 2017 winner of the FSU Creative Writing Spotlight Award for Nonfiction. Born in Texas, Colleen now lives in Tallahassee where she recently graduated with her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University.