Page 35 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. III #10

TPheFrog rince
amused, then put his skinny arm across my shoul- der and let it hang onto my back.
In the morning, I woke up when Mom came crash- ing through the door in mid conversation about being late and how we didn’t have time for break- fast. I rubbed my eyes and saw that Chase was still sleeping.
She was wearing a black dress that came a few inches up from her knees and no stockings. Her legs shone when she moved and I thought they looked stupid, like she’d just gotten out of the pool, but I knew better than to say so.
“Cute shoes,” I said pointing to heels so high I couldn’t imagine playing dress up in them. Not that she’d ever let me play dress up in her clothes.
She rubbed lotion in her hands on her neck and protruding breasts and yelled at me to get up then turned and left the room.
“Get up chuck.” I slapped Chase on the butt through the thick quilts he was buried under. He groaned and I mentioned a giant frog. He stood up fast, covering me in blankets and laughing.
“Jerk,” he said causing his speech impediment to
turn the ‘e’ into a ‘u.’ I imitated him and he jumped on me. I pushed him off the bed and moved toward him when Mom walked past our open doorway then turned around and screamed for us to get dressed.
“She’s in a mood,” Chase said after she’d gone into the bathroom to finish her makeup.
We dressed and put loose pages of unfinished homework in our backpacks. I took out two pack- ages of Pop-Tarts and two juice boxes and hur-
ried Chase into his shoes while Mom looked for a necklace with the phone pressed to her ear and said something about our dad to her friend Karen.
In the car, I passed Chase’s breakfast to him and Mom turned around to pat my knee. “Thanks for making breakfast, sweetie.” She turned the radio up and sang along to the theme song from Friends while I ate my Pop-Tart edges first, then middle, then moved on to the next one.
It was Tuesday and I knew we were going to our dad’s after school, so I reminded Chase and he smiled. Dad’s house meant TV during dinner and take out. He’d read to us before bed and wake us up in the morning for school with a warm bath running and grits on the stove. I smiled back and saw Chase’s face go blank.
“What?” I whispered.
“She’ll be all alone.” He said not pointing to Mom
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