Like My Mother

Chapter Five

"Emma! Get your ass up now!"

My eyes pry open and I look around my room that has shadows accompanied with sun beams dancing all on the walls. It has to be at least noon.

"Emma!!"

"I'm coming!" I yell back. It amazes me that my mom is actually up this early. She usually sleeps on until at least 6:00. I push myself out of bed and walk downstairs, the house still smells like marijuana. My mom is in the kitchen with a celebratory cigarette in her mouth. She usually smokes these after she gets some action the night before, which is usually every other night.

"Emma, where is it?" she asks me in her raspy voice, eyes completley bloodshot and hair greasy and in need of a dire wash.

"Where's what?" I have no idea what she's talking about.

"Where's my gin? I looked for some this morning and my stash looks like it's been raided. My gin is gone."

"I didn't take any of your gin mom." I say as I walk past her and open the fridge. It's unsurprisingly bare.

"Don't walk away from me you little stealing shit!" She waltzes up to me and nearly stumbles. She spins me around to face her and I get a whiff of her breath, a mixture of usual morning muck and alcohol.

"Mom, I didn't take any of your stash! It was probably Syrie!"

Mom smacks me across the face, "Don't blame this on Syrie, you know she's too young and sweet to ever get of my gin. You, you like to walk around this house and act like your better than any-fucking-one. I've got news for you bitch, I can see right through you! You're no better than your father!"

I hold onto my red cheek, I suppress the tears but just barely. "Mom, I promise you I didn't take any of your stash." my voice has shrunk to a whisper, she always has this power over me.

"Hey, hey there's no need in all this." I look past Mom's head and see Daniel, in nothing but tight underwear, walking towards us.

Mom turns her head to look at him, "It's fine, there's nothing going on baby." she winks at him and I can see her hand sneakily slither behind him to rest on his butt.

He smiles at her and then takes both of her hands in his, "How's about I make us all breakfast, to clear the air."

I watch as my mother melts at the sight of his smile, "Sure baby, do you think you're going to need any help?"

"No, I know my way around the kitchen. Both of you just go in there and rest, you've had a wild night." he winks at me and I pray that my mother doesn't notice. But instead she must think that it was directed to her, she smiles even wider and then reaches up to kiss him. And she kisses him, and kisses him...and kisses him, I grow tired of listening to my mother try to extract his adam's apple with her tongue so I go into the living room and sit on the couch with my back towards them. Finally my mom releases Daniel from her tongue's wrath and sits in the chair while Daniel begins to cook breakfast, still in his underwear.

Eventually Syrie rumbles downstairs with an evident hangover, but of course mom doesn't notice that her daughter smells more like gin than she does. Syrie climbs onto the chair on mom's lap and mom strokes her daughter's hair. I turn my head and try to control my anger, it infuriates me that my mom hates me and loves Syrie, when Syrie is more a dirty lying stealing shit than her own mother is. My blood pressure sky rockets because my anger is like a dossile monster, it only comes out when provoked and when it does come out, it doesn't hold back. But before I lose control, Daniel calls us to the kitchen. We all walk into the small room and see a wonderful sight on the table.

"I made french toast and sausage, I hope everyone likes that." Daniel announces while he unties the apron from behind his back. We had an apron?

My mom just can't hide her amazement, "Oh Daniel you continue to surprise me, and I thought after last night that I knew...everything about you." she says those last words with a seductive chuckle.

Daniel doesn't say anything, she's obviously caught him off guard, which is exactly what she wants. We sit down and don't waste time digging into the food which is surprisingly tasty. I look over at Mom and can see that she's interested in more meat than just the sausage on her plate, I can tell that she's doing things under the table to Daniel. And I can tell that he's enjoying them whether or not he wants to admit it; I can hear his breath start to getting heavier when he exhales it. My mom just smiles, her cheeks begin to get red from being squished under the pressure. Of course Syrie is oblivious as she nibbles on her food and keeps rubbing her sore head. Finally after everyone's done, Daniel and Mom run up to her bedroom and I hear the door slam shut.

"Well that didn't last long." Syrie says as she leaves her plate and goes to lay down on the couch.

"What did you expect? They were practically doing foreplay at the table." I sit down on the chair and Syrie turns on the TV and turns the volume down low. "Syrie, did you get into Mom's gin stash?" I ask her.

She takes her time to look at me and inhales deeply before huffing, "Yea, what's it to you?"

"Holy shit, mom was yelling at me because she thinks that I got into it! If you were going to raid it, couldn't you have left some behind? I mean seriously, no one said you had to be a gin pig." She didn't even care.

"No one said you had to be such a whiny bitch about it to, I can't help it that mom is nuts." Syrie turned back to the TV and I watched get slowly zoned out into it.

I'm just getting frustrated, I start towards the stairs to grab my bag, I just want to get out of here. I get into the hallway and stop when I see my mom's bedroom door open. Daniel walks out with his clothes on and he smells like fresh cologne. It forms a cloud around him that spreads out into the hallway. He kisses my mom one more time before whispering something in her ear that makes her giggle. She closes the door back and he walks down the hallway towards me.

"It was nice to meet you Emma." he says holding out his hand.

I hesitate, but then grab it and shake, "It was nice to meet you too."

"So hopefully I'll see you soon huh?" he says.

"Yea, sure."

He smiles and then makes a bold move, he takes my hand that he's still holding and pulls it up to his lips. I feel them form a kiss on the top of my hand and then as soon as I feel it, he lets me have my hand back. "Bye Emma." he winks again and then walks down the stairs and out the door.

I linger in the hallway looking down to where he just walked. He just kissed my hand, should I care? I shiver in place and then walk to my bedroom and grab my bag and sketchbook, I really need to get out of here...