I was in such a black hole I couldn't see the way out. I wished for a yellow canary to tell me if I was getting too deep. Was this too deep? Was the death building up around me? God had abandoned me, and abandoned my mother, with her knees covered in the dirt of our shared pain.
Suicide crept in my brain. An idea with no light bulb, just creeping black ink pooling in the base of my skull. Nagging me with this guise of peace. Just a shot, a swallow, a slash; pick your ending. I wished on eyelashes for the courage, but I'd been failed by many men in my life, and they all still haunted me, but I couldn't let them down like they did me. I would be no better than my daddy, betting our house payment and walking home with one hand empty, and one hand clutching a bottle of something stronger than him.

I shut my eyes and tried to picture his last bit of life. It was morbid but I wanted to know. I never dared ask, but I felt the deep need in me to understand why. The images were so vivid I could feel the cold, wet fog. Walking down the side of the highway, sometimes thoughts of us were busying his mind. Sometimes it was lyrics to a song he just couldn't stop humming. But in my mind, his last thoughts were always blissful. Then the blow, a bat in the back of his head, hard and cool. Then black dark, no pain, no suffering. The ending was always okay, always painless, it had to be. I had only heard stories of him, I was three months old when he died. He gambled away everything, he was a drunk, and always gone. The one thing I remember was the smell of his tobacco. Still, when I walk past someone smoking the smell blows a calm over me, I feel warm and protected like I haven't in years. It was a waste of time, and the sun was shining in full blast, like it was noon, warming the wood floors. I pushed myself forward, toward the slivers of lit up wood, and put my bare feet down to feel the heat.

The strumming sound of my mothers autoharp in the kitchen broke my train of thought. I walked into the kitchen and got some eggs out. She stops playing, and turns to me.

"Genny, were gonna all be playin' cards t'night if ya wanna stay in"

"Alright mommy"

"Is Clifford goin be commin'?

"I don't think Clifford's gonna be comin' to much of anything anymore momma"

There was silence, and she took up strumming again. Something soft. Anger welled up in me, and the spoon clanging in the steel sink broke the easy morning.

"He just writes a letter sayin' he doesn't want to risk gettin' sick. Like I've got rabies or somethin'. Like this isn't enough and God just had to pile something else on me! And no one wants to say anything about anything. Everyone just goes on like life hasn't been permanently damaged, and changed! There aint nothin' in my life that will ever be the same! Mommy, I think God gave me more than I can take this time."

There was a pause as the chair creaked. Mommy put down the autoharp and sighed. For a minute, I thought she was going to cry, and I didn't know how I'd handle that, but in her typical fashion she gathered up strength and spoke to me.

"Baby it hurts us all. Everybody deals with it in their own way. If you ever want anythin' now you know you can talk to me. I may not offer it up, but thats just me. I keep things between me an God. He's the only reason I'm still here raisin' up my babies all by myself. He's the only reason I have this house, and the food your eatin'. If you wanna think of that as God failin' you darlin' go right ahead. But I'd say he's risen to the occasion quite well."