Chapters (43)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Ben Philippe
- Back Ad
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
“Yo, Ma! Do you have the good leave-in conditioner?” I shout, purposely slamming the medicine cabinet a little too loudly.
“Don’t ‘yo’ me, Henri,” she grumbles, getting up and pushing past me to get into the bathroom. Her tattoo, a faded peach (“before the emoji”), is visible on her shoulder. Like I said, very close quarters. There’s something very strange about witnessing your 5' 6" Haitian mother slowly get more ripped than you. All her firefighter training has paid off. The woman is dangerously close to getting deltoids on her deltoids.
When Mom became a firefighter—or rather, became the sort of paralegal that tells her husband and son over dinner that she wants to become a firefighter, complete with a three-page plan of how it is all within grasp for us as a family in the next four years—I hadn’t predicted that I would become a live-in alarm clock. She’s currently a “probie” (probationary)—see also: firefighter in training, rookie, runt, worst schedule, and all kitchen duties. Her hours at the station are, by design, all over. There’s a pecking order. “Probies” are expected to adjust quickly, be they nineteen-year-olds still living at home or middle-aged women with a son and husband.
“Have you ever seen a burnt body?” Dad had simply asked, quieting the table. To him, it was a nonstarter—but all three of us knew even back then that that’s just how things go in this house. Somewhere between what Ma wants and what Dad wants, well, it’s not even a contest. The Haltiwanger household is a matriarchy.
“I’m not due at the station until tomorrow,” Ma explains. “I want to cook us a meal tonight so we can have a good family dinner and plenty of leftovers for you and Dad. So, tell me: what’s next on your busy schedule, then, son of mine?”
I catch the kitchen oven clock through the bathroom mirror’s reflection.
“Debate practice, meeting up with Ming, and then interview to walk a new dog.”
She shakes her head, chin resting on her hand. “I read an article that most kids your age consider six p.m. the end of the day. Free time to play video games and chat on the phone and worry about their crushes.”
“Those are only the kids boring enough to agree to take a survey of what they do with their free time, Mom. Who wants to be that?”
She shakes her head, now fully audibly peeing.
“Mom! Gross!”
“I’ll see you later tonight, okay! Don’t eat out!”
I let the apartment door close behind me, shaking my head and smiling—I still have a few private ones left, no capital S Smiles, no Smile™—and head back toward school.