It was just a thought.

After everything happened and Andy had the boys, Autumn was in Pennsylvania already, and everything from my mom's townhouse was in a storage unit off of Shawnee Mission Parkway. The storage unit was I think in my mom's name at first and that's why Andy and I couldn't get into it for a while. Eventually, months had gone by without a payment from my mom and so she put Andy's name on the lease and he paid for all she owed and came to owe at the storage place and because of that, we could get into it. Some guys from Andy's church who had a pick-up truck met us and Mrs. Bilyeu who could take some things in her minivan at the storage unit one August afternoon. The unrelenting Kansas humidity suffocating us, we opened the big silver garage-styled door, the remnants of my life-our lives-crammed into the smallest (cheapest) unit available. Everything of monetary value had been hauled away already in the bed of my mom's new boyfriend's pick-up truck. The storage unit manager told us she had been there earlier that day and turned in her keys. She had everything of value to her. We could have all that remained. I walked through the dark garage, furniture which used to be in our home randomly placed about, the yellow hutch-the centerpiece of my mother's 50's styled kitchen- adjacent to the blue suede couch-the only piece of furniture my mother let Andy pick out-which I sit on now as I remember this. Boxes of kitchen ware (I suppose crack-heads don't eat very often, let alone cook) stacked upon boxes of books, Christmas decorations, photo albums, 75,100,150 dollar doodads and trinkets ordered from a Pottery Barn catalogue (things I think she needed to make her plastic life appear a bit more homey.) I felt sick at myself, at all of us. I felt like we were vultures, picking at the carcasses of our deceased lives. I felt sick at my mother. Boxes upon boxes of pictures, handmade Mother's day, Christmas, birthday cards all of use once proudly presented to her, our eyes scanning her face for signs of approval, left behind. The summer camp projects we brought home every summer- the book made from the paper I made myself one week at camp, the bamboo flute I cut my right palm carving (the first time I was captivated by the tickling bubbles of hydrogen peroxide,) the first teeth we had lost and she had replaced with dollar bills (except for that one time when the tooth fairy forgot to stop at the ATM.) All left behind. The televisions, the dvds, game systems, my brothers' bikes, the Christmas presents my grandmother mailed to my mom in return for her promise to give them to the boys when she saw them on Christmas (she didn't call, see them?! Good one.) All gone. I saw her posts on Craig's List later. "Youth bike, great condition! Looking to get rid of today! $10!" She took only what she could sell. The paintings, pictures, letters left to her from her deceased father all left behind. As I hauled box after box of family pictures, mementos of our childhoods, and family recipes back to the pick-up, my hate for her hardened into a shell around my heart. I don't think I ever hated her more than that day when I rescued all the things that meant so much to me and so little to her. "You can see her state of mind just by looking at the things she left behind," Mrs. Bilyeu said. "It's the drugs. You know she wouldn't have left all of these things behind if she were her normal self." To me, looking at all she left behind, confirmed to me that we had never meant anything to her. Nothing more than props in the picture of perfection she wanted to paint for the world. When she decided living a life of drugs and no responsibilities was far easier than trying to make the world believe she led a life she so didn't lead, we were useless to her. We drug her down. She hadn't any love for us nor remorse for what she did to us. She didn't care to take anything to remind her of her children. Not a single thing. We were nothing to her anymore. Years have passed without a single phone call. My phone number hasn't changed since before-when everything was "normal." Needless to say, it's been a very long time without word from my mother. You know how sociopaths are people born without consciences? I think my mother is that and something else. Something far more wicked.  Some how, she was born with an inability to love. In some terms-heartless. Nothing was sacred to her. She viewed life as a game, and we were all pawns. She manipulated to place us where she needed us to be. She changed the rules as she went along and spared nary a thought for me, my siblings, or even her own mother. When I last spoke with her, she told me she stood behind what she did 100%. And so between me and Andy, we have the family pictures, the video tapes of first steps and first floaty-less swims, school art projects and ornaments from our once family tree. My mother continues to sell what she rescued from storage on Craig's List. Drugs make people desperate, desperation leads to low prices! Check out her posts if you're looking for bunk-beds, television sets, or children's Wii games. Of course you'll have to pick them up in Kansas City, MO so wear neutral colors, bring a black friend, and keep your finger on the 9.