BooksBarbecue
Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
  1. :01
  2. :02
  3. :03
  4. :04
  5. :05
  6. :06
  7. :07
  8. :08
  9. :09
  10. :10
  11. :11
  12. :12
  13. :13
  14. :14
  15. :15
  16. :16
  17. :17
  18. :01
  19. :02
  20. :03
  21. :04
  22. :05
  23. :06
  24. :07
  25. :08
  26. :09
  27. :10
  28. :11
  29. :12
  30. :13
  31. :01
  32. :02
  33. :03
  34. :04
  35. :05
  36. :06
  37. :07
  38. :08
  39. :09
  40. :10
  41. :11
  42. :12
  43. :13
  44. :14
  45. :15
  46. :16
  47. :00
  48. :01
  49. :02
  50. :03
  51. :04
  52. :05
  53. :06
  54. :07
  55. :08
  56. :09
  57. :10
  58. :11
  59. :12
  60. :13
  61. :14
  62. :15
  63. :16
  64. :17
  65. :18
  66. :19
  67. 3:46 a.m.

Today, they were somber.

I wonder if she knew then that she was leaving. Leaving us.

After I blew out the candles and ate nearly half the cake, my parents brought in my birthday present. Or should I say, wheeled it in.

A bright red Huffy.

I couldn’t have been happier.

“Dad, can you teach me now?”

I just assumed my dad would teach me how to ride a bike. He was the one who spent twenty minutes a day reading history to me, or quizzing me on spelling, or making me practice my cursive or long division, then another twenty minutes teaching me how to throw a baseball, swing a golf club, do a handstand, cook an omelet, play gin rummy, and every other life lesson.

“You know, your mom is the bike riding expert in this family. Maybe she’ll teach you.”

My dad must have already known.

If she hadn’t already sat him down and said, “Richard, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t handle seeing my son only awake for an hour a day. This isn’t what I signed up for. I’m leaving,” then he’d read it in those jade eyes of hers.

“I do ride a mean bike,” my mother said with a smile.

My mom spent the next thirty minutes teaching me how to ride a bike under the streetlights of the small cul-de-sac where my dad still lives today.

I didn’t realize it then, but when my mother let go of the seat of my red Huffy, let me balance all on my own, it wasn’t just the bike she was letting go of.

When I did a loop back around, it wasn’t my mother, but my father waiting for me.

“Where’s mom?”

“She had to take a call.”

I would never see my mother again.

::::

Over the years, I asked my dad about my mother from time to time, but nothing ever came of it.

“She’s gone. Don’t waste your time thinking about her” is all he would ever say. And he was right, because if I did start thinking about her, I would be lost in a black hole, only to snap out of it and my day, my hour, would be gone. If I were normal, I could have spent hours, days, months, even years, pondering why my mother walked out on us. But I wasn’t normal. I had sixty minutes a day and I wasn’t going to let anyone dictate how I spent those minutes. So I built up a wall. A wall that would make The Wall seem meek by comparison. A wall my mother could never scale.

Or so I thought.

Five years ago, I was trading online. I was looking into buying some oil futures and I came across a stock.

GGU.