It was just a thought.

There came a time about six months to a year into my mom and Andy's relationship when Andy, being the saint he is, told my mom to quit both her jobs, stay home with me and my sister, and he would provide for us financially. They told us one day when they picked us up from daycare and I remember only thinking of construction paper. Packages upon packages of crisp, colorful construction paper. All I could envision were all the crafts I would make with my mom and sister all day long. All the time we would pass together, eating snacks, playing games, making crafts. There were no snacks, no games. No crafts. Of course, Andy had bought me hundreds of sheets of construction paper but I had no use for them. Because that wasn't what my mom had envisioned. She took this new found stay-at-home-mom role as an opportunity to watch Days of Our Lives and drink BudLite out of the can. My sister and I, 3 and 5, landed summer jobs that year between kindergarten and first grade, as her personal bar tenders. From the time I woke up and kissed my Mommom and Mike good-bye for the day, Mom plopped herself onto the blue velvet recliner in front of the television all day long until Andy got off work at five and came over. We sat there on the couch, watching Stefano trick Hope and Bo yet again, getting her beers when she said and vowing to say she only drank Pepsi all day if Andy were to ask. In between soaps, she would call Cindy and they would talk for hours as Autumn and I sat bored out of our skulls, yearning to put something on television but knowing better than to change the channel even if she wasn't watching anything. I'd watch the sun shine from inside the living room, longing to go outside and play. But Mom needed me to get her beers and pop them open for her. I grew to become afraid of that smell of beer. That swirl of cold steam that curls up from the lip of the can. I would sit there, confused as to how she could drink so many of them. Many warm, half-full cans of Coke had been abandoned, fallen soldiers, by me on many dinner tables, and cola was sweet. I had tried beer before accidentally after I denied Mike's advice and took a big bite of hot wing that left my mouth smoldering with a flame so great I reached for the nearest thing to extinguish it. I remembered my mouth twisting from the taste, a taste even worse than the cat food Christian once convinced me was tuna (it was tuna, just not people tuna. ) How she drained can after can of every last drop was beyond me but I dutifully brought her more. Andy would come over shortly after I had said goodnight to the sun and any prospect of playing outside, and with him came hope and noise. Hope that he may take us out to eat or anywhere out of the house. Noise from the fights that erupted between he and my mom when he realized she had spent the entire day drinking. And they would fight all night, and me and Autumn would go upstairs and play with our Barbies, creating a world for them that was far different from our own. Sometimes their fights would end early and we would all go to Bubba's or Hobo's for dinner. Other times they would fight through the night, Andy calling a time-out for a few minutes to sneak upstairs and tuck us in, apologizing always for the noise, and to kiss us goodnight.  As Pennsylvania said its farewells to summer and Lanco and KMart started advertising notebooks, pens, and other school supplies, a family moved into the white twin house across the street from me. I saw them moving in one Saturday while I was out running errands with my Mommom and I saw they had kids. Three girls. All blonde, all pretty, all smiling. That whole week, I begged my mom to take me there to introduce myself. I rarely asked my mom for anything but for a reason I couldn't explain, I was drawn to that house. Maybe it was the sight of other kids. At first, I had been excited about the prospect of putting my day care days behind me, but I was growing to feel lonely, isolated. I was becoming nauseous from the monotony of the days. And so maybe it was the fact that they all looked so happy that drew me to them. I didn't understand why they all were smiling. Even the mom. And the mom... The mom looked like a tv mom. Beautiful and smiling, soft and loving. When I saw her, I thought of honey and lilacs. She looked so warm. So gentle. She looked like the sort of person who would be sad for you if she saw you crying. I remember one time I was outside in my plastic playhouse and the roof fell in on me, knocking me to the ground, making my nerves flare up in pain. I ran crying into the house, finding my mother's bosom in the kitchen and instinctively resting my face against it, searching for comfort. I recounted through sobs what had happened and she drew me away from her, chuckles graduating to guffaws rippled out of her as she pointed at my head. "Look at that big goose egg! It's like a separate head!" My heart deflated and warmth sprang up violently on my cheeks, hot tears pricked my eyes. I went up to my bed with a bag of frozen peas and laid there, icing the smart lump on my head and crying lonely tears into my pillow. This mom looked like she would have iced my head for me and held me close to her while I cried, kissing my forehead and brushing my tears away with a gentleness only a mommy has. I needed to meet her. I begged my mom every day to walk me across the street to that house. Finally one day, she gave in. I turned off the tv before she could change her mind and slid my light up Barbie sneakers on my bare feet, not caring to tie the laces, and stood by the door, feeling like Daisy, my German Shepheard, when she's waiting for my Mommom to come home. The mom greeted us at the door, introducing herself as Sonya and the three girls who peeked curiously around the door were Lynae, the oldest who would be starting the first grade at Springfield Elementary School with me that year, Kayla, who was just a year older than Autumn, and Roslyn, who was a year younger. Retrospectively, my eagerness to know these people resulted in me being quite rude and presumptuously inviting myself to dinners and play dates but if Sonya minded, she never showed it. I think that when she saw my mom, half-drunk at noon on a Thursday, standing on her front stoop wearing a Swiss cheese Kansas City Chiefs t-shirt, hair frizzing out of the cotton scrunchie it was so effortlessly pulled back in, she sort of got my life and she provided a sense of normalcy for me. She invited me to Pioneer Girls, the Wednesday night church group for girls my age, and I looked forward to it every week. I earned badges my mom never ironed onto my vest, and learned about God, a person (or so I assumed) who sees your life and cares. Once I got a taste of life outside of that miserable little farmhouse, it was unbearable going back to it, so I rarely did. Sleepovers turned into week-long sleepovers, Lynae and I going to school together, dropped off in a car, not a bus. Sonya made me a lunch with the rest of her kids and ensured my homework was done. She'd make me go back home and say hello to my mom and grandparents for a couple hours, but was ready with supper for me when I got back. Lynae and I rollerskated on the hardwood floors of the living room while Sonya videotaped us and laughed. My sister became quick friends with Lynae's sisters and so it was like our pretend family. With normal parents who loved us and entertained us and cooked us dinner. And Lynae's parents never drank, so I never had to worry.