That time of year

I grew up in a rural town, where EBT cards were swiped more frequently than debit cards at the local Walmart, and a night on the town meant driving someone’s rig into a mud bog behind the local dump until everyone had had one too many beers and passed out in the woods. My parents were hippies, or at the very least liberals to a point, and they believed in getting back to nature along with my father’s American dream of owning land. His working-class Irish roots had made him crave wide open spaces and cowboy boots, along with zero income tax and good schools, so we ended up in eastern Washington. Me, my brother, and my mother, a career artist moonlighting as a school art teacher.

My childhood was a four-season, white Christmas type of fantasy. There was always food in the fridge, but just enough that you better not eat too much or mom would have to drive thirty miles into town to buy cheez-its. My parents brought out the best in each other mostly, until they were sordid enemies in battle. More often than not I took my father’s side in things, because he was only around half the time with his out of state job, and my mother was far too constant in my life, so I was a daddy’s girl.

Looking back now, my mother was the center of my universe for as long as I can remember going back. She still would be if she wasn’t ashed up in a vase tucked behind my father’s unused suits in their bedroom closet. As kids are obligated to do, I took my mother for granted.

She wore a forest-green velvet plus size bathing suit lined with creamy pale neoprene that contrasted well with my mother’s tanned legs. I can picture this swimsuit clear as the summer days she spent in it swimming halfway across Pierre Lake with a persistent breaststroke that felt so soothing next to mine. We were meant to be, as mothers and daughters often are, destined for a love that lasts. We were diabolically similar in nearly every way, aside from physical appearance, and the traits that I carried from my father only complimented our relationship more.

In 2014, she cried in front of my brother and I. Me and Dyl sitting side by side and mom and dad standing before us, as though they were the afternoon matinee for our viewing pleasure. I can recall our living room was painted cold robin’s egg blue at the time and it was about 11 am after breakfast, probably a Sunday. Their story was a sinister melodrama with a twist at the end that no one could have seen coming. She told us there was a tumor, and there was a surgery date, and it was too early to tell and all the other things one says when they are trying to break death gently to the ones they love. I was 13 then and Dylan must’ve been around 21. We were both more concerned with ourselves than much else around us. Dylan was the first to tear up but somehow I stayed stone cold. I didn’t even know what a cat scan was or radiation for that matter, or what caused a tumor. My public school education hadn’t offered me a biology class that explained what evolution was let alone this deadly disease or its treatments.