“Thanks,” I say, then slap him five and head back. Jason’s shots ring loud through the stifling heat when I make it to my car. I get in, speed out of the driveway, and race home. I make the usual ten- to fifteen-minute drive in five. The driveway is empty. I walk into the house and put the gun back in the drawer, covering it with clothes as I had found it. On the dining room table are five empty beer cans, and crumpled beside the trashcan are another three. An hour has passed since the argument. There’s nothing for me to do but wait. I turn on the television, watch it for five minutes, turn it back off. I walk outside and sit on the porch swing and stare at the light traffic, waving and saying hello to those who walk by. The smell of manure becomes too strong and I go inside and punch the bag still hanging from my bedroom ceiling.

Four hours later, after the sun has set, my mother returns home, looking as she did when she left, smiling, happy, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She’s carrying two bags, one in each hand.

“How’d it go?” I ask.

“Was very nice. You should have come.”

I nod and agree. “Is everything okay with Dad?”

“Yeah, why?”

“He was really pissed off earlier and started an argument with me for no reason. He’s been drinking pretty heavily.”

She brushes the notion aside with a flick of the wrist. Why wouldn’t she? We’ve both seen it a hundred times before, if not more. “When isn’t he angry?”

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure. He seemed pretty bad this time.”

“It’ll be fine, I promise. He’s probably drinking it off somewhere now.”

“Cool,” I say, and I think nothing else of it.

My mother showers and changes into a large tee that falls to her knees, then talks on the cordless phone for a half hour with her bedroom door shut. She’s beaming when she comes out. We sit on the living room couch together and watch a scary movie that’s so bad we laugh through most of it. She drinks a glass of white wine and I drink water. When the movie’s over I brush my teeth and change into mesh shorts and do two hundred sit-ups and push-ups. She watches from the couch, and I know she’ll probably sleep there, as she does most nights. When I finish I stand and point at her in a funny way and say, “I’m going to make you proud someday, Momma.”

She smiles her crooked smile and the soft light shines upon her freshly scrubbed face. “You already have, Bubby,” she says.