Her Pen At Midnight

My mother is one of those fucked up fools everyone talks about behind their back. My father, unaware of my existence, left before my mother missed her first period. He made a brief reappearance when she was four months along, supplying her hormonal body with useless sperm and menthol cigarettes. He left for good after coming upon a shoebox full of cash, a discovery my mother made months later when her milk dried up and $4.13 remained in her bank account. Digging the battered shoebox out of the closet, she opened the lid and discovered a single $20 bill. Tears flowed as she retold the memory, one of the few she ever shared. I often wonder if she was crying because of her predicament? Or, were the tears because she was only worth twenty bucks to a guy whose last name will forever be unknown? Your guess is as good as mine.

My mother was conceived on a late winter evening as a commercial boat floated safely in its harbor. Its captain, a generational lobsterman who spent more hours adrift at sea than safely on dry land, was on a rare date with his homemaking wife. The life of a lobsterman is not easy, nor is the life of a lobsterman’s wife. A mistress haunted their marriage, forever beckoning my grandfather with temptation. My grandmother took the backseat each time the ocean called, left alone to deal with life on land.

Old pickup trucks filled the parking lot of the once-white building. The grimy exterior and peeling paint worked in harmony with the roof’s warped shingles. A film of dirt and nicotine blocked most of the neon light radiating from the signs hanging in the windows. The bar’s dimly lit interior was barely visible from the sidewalk, giving a false sense of privacy to those indoors. Music played on the old jukebox as emphysemic laughter mixed with the thick, smoky air. The rundown bar was more of a home to the patrons inside than their legal addresses. Its bar stools molded to the human asses which filled them, the leather fading where the burdens settled. The wooden floor was worn of its varnish by the wet boots of weary men, who spent their money on cheap liquor, escaping the realities of life on land before heading home to their bitch. Salt, equally corrosive in this part of the world, weathers all man and structure, with its abrasiveness. 

Those same bitches were all drunk, horny, and unbitchy, as drunken laughter and flirtatious voices echoed throughout the sparse parking lot as friends said their goodbyes. Light snow dusted my grandparent’s hair as they climbed into the old pickup truck and headed home. A sporadic sex life became reacquainted in those predawn hours as drunken limbs climbed creaky stairs. As they quietly tiptoed past a closed bedroom door to their quaint room. Naked, a lobsterman mounted his wife’s fertile body. Her moans were hushed so as not to wake their six-year-old sleeping on the other side of the thin wall. My grandmother’s mind floated away on a calm sea of desire as her husband reached deeper depths. Her conscious thoughts, praying for a lifeless uterus, as waves of unprotected pleasure seduced her subconscious mind.

Six weeks later, my grandmother realized she was pregnant. She brought the cigarette to her lips as she stared at the ocean outside the kitchen window. Her husband was somewhere out there, as the rare date night played out in her head. She cursed him then, as exhaled smoke momentarily clouded her vision. Anger rose in her body as the fridge door slammed shut, peaking as her fingers pulled back a metal tab, click. Feverishly, she drank. Her anger subsided as the liquid was swallowed, its alcohol mixing with hormonal blood. The quickness of which she drank made her stagger as she dropped the empty can onto the floor and returned the white cigarette to her lips. She puked, whether from her predicament or the chugging of the beer. My grandmother did not fucking care, rinsing her mouth in the sink before opening another beer.

My mother arrived on a cold October night. My grandmother was alone as her daughter- tiny and red, entered the world. Nicotine and beer were daily consumptions as her belly grew and breasts swelled. A cigarette, then, hung from my grandmother’s mouth as she lay in the recovery room. Ash smeared the freshly swaddled blanket held in her arms as my grandmother sucked on the slim cigarette. Her vagina ached from the day’s trauma as she swallowed the little white pill dispensed into her free hand by an overly friendly nurse. Magazines passed between the new moms, their beds lining the walls of the shared recovery room. It was never quiet, babies forever crying as homely nurses rolled portable bassinets from the nursery to the rightful mother. Overly exuberant praising, by the pill-dispersing nurse, of baby and mom each time a perfect latch happened on the nipple of a swollen breast grated at my grandmother’s nerves. Her daughter feverishly sucked on an empty bottle, attempting to extract more nourishment, as the homely nurse rolled the unsatisfied baby back to the nursery. As the day went on, the haze of cigarette smoke thickened throughout the room as the rotation of babies, gossip, little white pills, and magazines flowed freely between all but one of the new moms.

My grandmother resented her predicament. My mother, mere hours old, understood. From her first breath, my mother was a handful, a terrible eater, and an even worse sleeper. My grandfather doted on her every moment he was home, which infuriated his wife. First lost to the sea, she had now lost her husband to a child she did not want.

My aunt tried her best to raise her little sister. Annabelle, herself only a child, as she changed dirty diapers while avoiding her mother’s rage. As she placed ripped-up macaroni noodles onto the highchair, forever worried her little sister would choke. My grandmother sat on the sofa, the television loud in the background, as she tapped ash into an overflowing ashtray and called out for another beer. My aunt, stealing a sip each time she pushed back the metal tab, enjoyed the taste more each time.

By sixteen, my mother was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day and preferred clear liquor over cheap beer. My grandfather enabled her behavior as she grew from a restless baby to a troubled teen. Everyone in town knew Megan. My grandfather named her after his mother. He scooped up his newborn daughter as she lay in a consignment store bassinet, the paperwork for her birth certificate lying blank on the kitchen table when he returned home from the sea. Staring into her tiny eyes, my grandfather saw his mother’s beautiful reflection. He filled out the paperwork that night, sending my aunt to the post office the next day to buy a stamp and mail the official document.

My mother was loving toward her father, overly so when her mother was around. My mother learned how to play men. My grandfather, forever a pawn in her hands, as my grandmother looked on. My mother, smiling as her father’s voice showered attention onto her craving soul. My grandmother opened another beer as her husband handed his daughter the cash in his wallet. A scornful look crossed her face as she cursed his stupidity, bitching about the past due electric bill and his pathetic slut of a daughter. My grandfather gave his wife a look as their daughter watched. A smile grew on my mother’s face as her father opened himself a beer and looked in the direction of his wife. Blind by love and fueled by liquored spite, my grandmother dysfunctionally submitted, forever retreating to the perfectly molded couch cushion.