Returning Home

I was most definitely not ready to return home. Especially, for the reason I was

I was completely lost in thought, as I mindlessly tucked my rolled socks all around the border in the suitcase. I was most definitely not ready to return home. Especially, for the reason I was. Letting out a breath, I stood up, catching my reflection in the mirror. It made me stop in my tracks. Staring back was someone I didn't recognize. I looked like someone who hadn't eaten in a month. My body looked lanky and frail. Without clothes on, I'd get lost in a snowstorm. I was completely devoid of all color. Gravity had taken a particular interest in my cheeks, pulling them down as taut as they possibly could go. Here I was going to a funeral when I looked like the one who should be lying in the coffin!

I could hear them all now. Whisperings and murmurings behind my back. It wasn't enough for them that my father, looking like some wax mannequin, was lying stiff in a coffin; no, that wasn't enough for them to gossip about. They had to put a whole dramatic spin on the situation. Their nonstop prattle was why I left in the first place. Nothing was ever bad enough for them; they had always to poke and prod until they blew something up a hundred-fold. And Lord forbid if all was going well. That just would not do. They had to have drama to make them feel alive.

I swept my black, curly, unkempt hair out of my eyes. Glancing down, I can almost see my reflection in my black patent leather shoes. My knuckles turn white from grasping the side of the coffin so tightly. I roll my eyes up so very slowly and still gasp aloud when my eyes land on my father. His face is stoic, unchanging. It doesn't look like my father. How could it? His eyebrows aren't arched into a scowl, posed above angry, scrunched-up eyes. I can still remember his foul words, yelling at me as I hurried out of the side door, "If you walk out that door, don't you even think about coming back home. You're a no good, son-of-a-bitch!"

"Don't worry, Dad! You'll never have to see my fucking face again!"

And he didn't. That was our last time seeing each other.

"Oh, my poor brother. Oh, Stanley, what are we going to do without my dear, dear brother?" Aunt Janice grabbed me by my black lapels and, with the surprising strength of a gorilla, gathered me in her arms like I was nothing but a rag doll. She buried her chipmunk cheeks into my chest. My body vibrated with her hugger-mugger movements. My satin black shirt was sticking to my chest. Wet with her tears and dare I say, her snot. Wrapping my arms around her, trying to keep us both in a standing position, I try to quiet her. "There, there, Aunt Janice. It's going to be okay, you know, he was ready to go. He was tired. You'll see him again."

I rubbed her back in fast, jerking movements. Trying to pull her away from me. When Mom approached, she finally let go of me and clung to her. Mom was handling herself. Holding her head high and her back straight. But one look at her face told you all you needed to know. She was barely holding on. One little wrong move or wrong remark and she'll collapse.

When Aunt Janice finally pulled away from Mom, Mom made her way to me. "Hello, Stanley. I'm glad you're here. Dad would be happy to know you came."

Mom's green eyes glowed with moisture. Her eyes drooped with weariness. I pull Mom close to me. Her body finally gives in, and she collapses in my arms. Her cry was quiet. Throaty. But her body heaved with the weight of the world. "Stanley, what am I going to do without him?"

Holding her arms, I lightly push her away from me. I gently hold her chin in my hand, gazing into her eyes, I tell her, "Mom, as long as I'm here, I'll take care of you. You won't have to worry."

"If only that were true, Stanley. How can you take care of me when you look like you're a step away from joining your father? Stanley, that stuff is killing you. Your father may not have handled it right, but he was right. If you don't quit the dope, I'll be at your funeral next. And Stanley, the way you look right now, that's not going to be too long."

"I know, Mom. I have quit. I haven't done any heroin in two months. I'm going to get well, Mom. I'm going to get well, and I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to worry, I promise."

"Oh, Stanley, how I pray that to be a true statement. It'd be so wonderful to have you home and healthy again. Especially, since your father is no longer here."

With those words, she buried her head in my chest. Her tears were hot and almost burned my skin. She was burning up! I held her tightly as her shoulders heaved up and down almost violently. When she shed the last tear, she made her way to a chair in another room and collapsed.

I followed her out. "Mom, you're burning up. You need to go upstairs and get into bed. Everyone has just about gone home. Aunt Janice and I can finish up here.

As Stanley saw the last people out, he started straightening up the house. He made his way upstairs to check on his mom. She was fast asleep. Tip-toeing up to the four-poster mahogany bed, he gazed down at her sleeping form. How small this strong-willed woman seemed. She almost didn't look like the same woman who raised him. He reached down and gingerly felt her forehead. With a stark, he turned and ran for the thermometer in the master bathroom. Racing back, he held the thermometer close to her forehead and pressed the button. Her temperature came back soaring at 104.7!

"Aunt Janice! Aunt Janice!"

"Stanley, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Call the ambulance! Mom's burning up! Mom, mom! Wake up." He shook her gently at first, but when he got no response, he shook her harder. Her eyes remained glued shut. She didn't stir.


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Three days later, Stanley said his final goodbyes to his mother. A sepsis infection had invaded her body, following a urinary infection. She had waited too long, leaving her body too weak to fight it off. Three days after she buried her husband, she joined him.

Stanley handled all of the arrangements in a state of shock. He was on automatic, not remembering the details of how he got to this point of laying his mother in the ground. At thirty-eight years old, he felt sixty. The last few weeks had aged him quicker than years of on-and-off again drug use. Stanley mourned the loss of his parents but almost just as much mourned the promise he wouldn't be able to keep for his mother. He wanted more than anything to take care of her. To prove to her that he loved her enough to keep his promise.

Instead, he leaned back in the recliner in his parents' home. Now his. A home without a family. A family he obstinately walked away from, and now could never get that precious time back.

He reached into his backpack and took out a kit. Reaching in, he pulled out the brown smack, spoon, needle, cotton, and lighter. He poured the heroin onto a saucer, finely chopped the powder, and added it to the spoon with a little water. Heated it thoroughly from the bottom, then placed a small ball of cotton into the liquid. The liquid soaked into the cotton. Stanley then injected the needle into the cotton and slowly pulled up the liquid within the cotton ball. Tapping the needle and pushing the plunger up a tiny bit to rid the bubbles, Stanley then took a deep breath. "Mom, Dad, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I'm ready to come home."

It would be the last smack kit that Stanley ever needed.


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