Rootless

You'd could say he's my 'dad' but I have trouble with that word, and "Daddy," and...well...even calling her "Mom," feels like a cramp.

He's a merchant marine, out there, somewhere, who seldom called or came home but who sent the occasional post card or gift and always to me, not my mother. For him, she and I were just ports in the storm although his ship seldom seemed to find the harbor of our house when I lived there.

For her, a lime-green plastic tumbler was...is the constant port in my mother's storm or fair weather, with 20 ounces of wine, 2 hands-full of ice and 4 ounces of 7-Up, brimming the giant cup so she has to lean down to sip before she can pick it up without a spill.

I kept to myself, pretty much, piano lessons, playing the flute he sent me in third grade, doing gymnastics, and losing myself in my homework which has now been replaced by a well-paying job I can't stand.

I got my name from his favorite redneck band's "Sweet Melissa," which I hate because he only ever called me "Cookie," making me wish all the more I had someone I could have had...could have to call 'Daddy' or 'Mom' with some meaning.

It's late, my flight was late into LAX and customs was slow, and a lady cop pulled me over just now, a few blocks from the house: "Ma'am, the only reason I'm stopping you is because this isn't the best area for a woman to be driving around, alone, at this time of night," and I tell her my mother's place is in San Pedro, and feel silly for the small wave she returns as I pull away.

The light fog casts an eerie feel to the quiet streets, yellowish glow coming from the light poles like auras of angels as I wind through the slumbered neighborhoods.

My parents' is a small, meticulous 1940s house near the Navy Fuel Depot. Its iron bars over the windows may have been called decorative when they were installed, but the message of their purpose is doubtless.

It's as doubtless as my purpose in coming.

The light is on over the kitchen sink, but who knows what time she passed out and, sitting here in the misty darkness, you'd think emotions or memories would surface but it seems I'm just suspended here like the fog on the night. Morning will be better for both of us, she out of her fog and me well rested, and I let the car creep away with some self-praise for pre-programming the rental car's GPS for my hotel.

[Published on 6S, 8/21/11 at 7AM as "Rootless (in two half-dozend)"]