She hadn’t asked, she’d told me. Typical Holly. She was already walking toward her garage, expecting me to follow. She pulled the garage door up with one hand. I hadn’t seen anyone do that since I was a kid.

Another small crummy car sat in the shade of the garage. Two chairs faced each other. She sat in one and said, “Mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead.” I dragged the empty chair a couple feet away from hers. It had been too close.

Holly brought her lighter to her cigarette, flicked it, and breathed in. “Next time you come over I’ll make sure Bruce is settled,” she said. “Next time you’ll come in for coffee.”

I felt like Gulliver, surrounded by teeny people swiftly wrapping strings around each of my limbs, shooting tiny darts into my pants and shoes.

Holly met my eyes. “Did you know Mom was murdered?”

I nodded. “I saw it on Facebook a few weeks after it happened.”

She sucked on her bottom lip and thought about that, why I hadn’t contacted her. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you, but I have so many questions. I’m angry too. You ditched us, and I haven’t forgiven you for that.” She was direct and said what’s on her mind: that was Holly. She probably slept like a baby. “It tore them apart when you cut us out. Why did you do that?”

“I had to.” I’d spent years digging up my resentment, and my well was dry. I couldn’t come up with a succinct answer anymore.

“No, really. Why?” She really had no clue. It made me feel dizzy and lopsided, as if I’d made up my whole childhood. Was that possible? I mean, I had holes in my memory, acres of trees completely wiped out. I had that in me, that confusion. Was it possible I was one of those kids that made up a crummy childhood?

I reached for memories of my mother. In so many of them, she was passed out drunk in various unsavory positions. They say vodka has no smell on the breath, but metabolized vodka oozing out of a woman’s pores hours after she’s slushed, the smell is bitter. I was in middle school when she first asked me to make her a drink. She’d said, “Go ahead and make yourself one. We’re all ruined, why the fuck not?” She glared at me, hate in her eyes.

No, you are not making it up.

She wasn’t all bad of course. No one is. Some mornings, she’d make pancakes, the smell of burning butter infusing the air, and she’d hum commercial jingles. Kiss a little longer with Big Red. I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys “R” Us kid.