motherless

So anyway -there it is - the big word that defined me throughout my school days. Motherless. I am not exaggerating, when I say that every other child in my elementary school had a mother. So it was a huge deal to be known in class as that smart girl whose mom died. I was never the girl who could do 50 lemon drops from the high bar, the girl who read every book in the class library, the girl who could throw a baton over her head and catch it - those things were all true - but I was "that little girl without a mother." That is what the teachers said to each other, that is what kids asked me about on the playground. Thank God for Rachel Stovall, who lived across the street and had heard about enough. She knew all the details and couldn't care less - she just wanted to beat me to the monkey bars.

When I move to a different school it is no different. I'm just that girl whose mom died. So in the fourth grade, when Wanda Anderson's mom kicks it too - the school counselor tries to set up a little session for us to talk about it.

I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't know Wanda, I don't know this counselor.

Wanda's mom choked on her own vomit after O.D.-ing on heroin. The counselor keeps telling her that, but Wanda won't believe her. She says her mom choked on popcorn while they were watching cartoons. I am nine - should I even know about heroin? Why am I sitting here during this very uncomfortable psychiatric session? What the hell does this have to do me or with my beautiful, perfect, flawless mother? What a waste of my day - thank God I don't have issues like that.

Oh yeah - except for those two years that I didn't talk - but that hardly counts.