“Thank you,” he said, feeling momentarily confused, unmoored by the affection he felt from his mother. I love you, Mama. He tried it in his head before he said it out loud. It felt right for once. He wasn’t sure she’d heard him. The music, the beer bottles, a man and woman laughing in the background, Bell asking for a light for her cigarette. He heard the paper burn as her lungs filled, heard her blow out a stream of air as she might have done to cool the sting of alcohol on a cut when he was young if she’d raised him, been present for any of his pain.

“That’s right,” she said, soothing him further. “Mama’s got you.”

Another drag on the smoke, and then: “Speaking of which, Puck is asking about rent again. He saw the cable company come through, that flat-screen you bought me, and he’s saying three fifty ain’t gon’ cut it no more. He wants five hundred a month from now on.” Her voice ended in the lilt of inquiry.

“And you want me to pay it?”

“What the hell have we been talking about for the last ten minutes, Darren?” She sounded exasperated, but no more than he felt on the other end of the phone line. Something between them, some hope he’d allowed himself to touch, had been broken, and Darren felt wronged anew. It seemed every time he was ready to lay down their history and start over, to build on the love that was in there somewhere, every time he reached out to forgive her everything, he got his hand slapped. She made her demand. “You think you could run by and pay him for me? Fisher and I gon’ be here at least through the weekend,” she said.

“I’m working, Mama, heading north to Jefferson right now.”

“Well, get that little pretty girl of yours to run it up the highway to my place. We family now, whether she understands it or not—”

“I told you, Mama, she likes you.”

She clucked her tongue, her mood souring every second she wasn’t getting what she wanted. “Well, family helps family. Don’t make me have to do anything to remind you of that fact, Darren. That little pistol of Mack’s can stay where I want it…or not.” Then a word or two to Fisher or whoever in hell she was with, none of it that Darren could follow. His head was spinning; he was dizzy from this emotional roundabout. Forty-plus years on this road with her, and he was right back where he’d started. “Love you, son,” Bell said. Love you too, Mama.

Part Two

Part Two

5.

5.