When we woke up I don’t think either of us wanted to leave the room. It felt like the last place in the house either of us could be safe. We got ready together, and we decided to both go to the kitchen at the same time. Eli usually woke up pretty late when he was hungover.
Sure enough, it was just my mom in the kitchen. She looked like she’d had a worse night than I had. I started getting an awful lump in my throat watching her try and make breakfast. She went to crack an egg and she got some shell in the bowl. Usually she would laugh about something like that but she started crying. Bawling. I never know what to do when someone starts crying, so I got up to give her a hug. She waved me away, but when I started turning around she reached out and wrapped her arms around me. We just stood there hugging for a long time. She got tears all over my shoulder. I never washed that shirt.
Santos scrambled the eggs for us, and we all ate together. We told her about the movie, and how we’d gotten kicked out. She thought that was pretty funny. She told us she wanted to get a guy’s phone number once, so she sat with her friends behind him in class and threw paper airplanes at him. They had messages on them asking if he was interested, I guess. Turned out one of the airplanes did the thing where it spiraled around, and it landed on the wrong kid’s desk. She ended up going to prom with that kid cause he was so excited and she didn’t want to break his heart. They had a great time cause they dated for a long time after that.
Then she remembered that the kid was Eli. I don’t think I can even describe the face she made. It wasn’t really sad, but it was certainly not happy. I think maybe a little angry. But that’s the only face she made for a while after that.
A couple hours after we went to work on the farm, Eli shouted out the back door at us. He said since Santos made the work go faster he was going to buy a couple more sheep for breeding. We said okay and finished our work for the day.
When we went back inside, my mom still seemed upset. I wish I knew how to make her feel better, cause I tried telling some jokes and acting goofy. That usually makes her laugh. One time I got her to crack a smile, but that was it.
The next day, a trailer with a couple of male sheep showed up. They showed us how to set up the equipment for them and talked to Eli about how to get as many lambs as he could. They said even though it wasn’t the right time of year he might still get a few with the way the weather was.
The next few days we spent a long time figuring out the new equipment and moving things around in the barn to get ready for lambs. I guess Eli thought if you made space for them it was good luck so we had to set up a nursery really early.
When we were done every day, I tried to talk to my mom. She was so upset though. One time she even said to go away cause my black eye reminded her of Eli. Santos was really starting to get worried about my mom, too. He said she probably had some kind of demon, but that made me really nervous so I told him to shut up. I hate superstitious stuff like that. What the hell do you even do about a demon anyway?
I knew my mom liked to talk with Mrs. Glass, so I called and asked if she could come over. Mrs. Glass didn’t even skip a beat, I just said my mom wasn’t doing good and she drove her station wagon right over. My mom talked with her for a while. I pretended I was busy in Eli’s doomsday prepper storage room cause I really hoped Mrs. Glass could make my mom feel better. There was a lot of crying and sobbing. I had a high school teacher who told me God would hold a man accountable for every single tear he made a woman shed. I pictured Eli burning in hell and felt a little better. But it still sucked to hear my mom cry like that.
While they talked, Mrs. Glass said something I never thought of before. She told my mom she had better end her marriage. Eli told me once that only men can ask for a divorce, that God doesn’t want women having that kind of power. Said he read that in the Bible. But there was Mrs. Glass, telling my mom to ask for a divorce. I just hoped that if that happened I would get to stay with my mom.
Imagine how angry a divorce could make Eli. He’d kill my mom and me both, I swear.