Roy was the second man to move out on my mother. The first man was named Dermot, and I knew very little about him other than that he lived in Utica, New York, and that he was Matt’s and Karen’s father. Matt, as soon as he’d graduated from Merritt Island High School, left home and took a bus up to Utica, and not long after that, Dermot started calling our house to complain about him. I answered the phone one morning before school and heard a clotted voice say, “Teresa?”

I started laughing. “I’m not Teresa,” I said. “I’m a boy.”

“Just put your goddamn mother on the phone.”

I got my mother, then lingered close enough to listen to her end of the conversation. She said “All right, Dermot” several times, and “All right,” and then, “If you don’t want him getting into trouble, maybe you should think about what sort of example you’re setting.” Dermot’s voice, coming through the receiver she held away from her ear, sounded like a tiny car engine trying to turn over. “No,” she said. “Matt’s an adult. He’s eighteen and he can do what he wants. Besides, it’s my understanding that when he called you, you told him moving up there was a good idea.… Well, you ought to know by now, Dermot, that you shouldn’t tell your child something you don’t want his mother to hear. If it doesn’t come out in confidence, it’ll come out in an argument.… Maybe something like ‘If she’s that crazy, then you should get away from her.’ Sound familiar?… Oh, don’t feed me that bullshit!” She slammed the receiver down hard enough to make the ringer chime. Then she closed her eyes, let go of the phone, and crossed herself: Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

She wasn’t so tough with us. That is, she gave orders—told us to come to the table, straighten our rooms, get ready for church—and she yelled if we didn’t follow through, but she didn’t really seem to care anymore. Karen, who, at seventeen, reigned supreme now that Matt was gone, did nothing she was told and had turned mouthy. “So?” had become her favorite refrain. “It’s almost time for mass,” my mother would say, to which Karen, legs splayed open on the couch in front of the television, would respond, “So?”

“So, I’d like you to get up, get dressed, and come with us.”

“So?”

My mother would work her mouth around a string of unsaid words, then finally spit out, “Fine. Stupid me for suggesting it.”

She wasn’t a wife anymore; she’d been fired from that position—twice—and motherhood was the work she’d been stuck with.