Member-only story
I Do
When you feel most alone, to whom do you turn?
Pamela approached her mother, Sandra, sipping her morning coffee.
“I’m thinking of moving out, Mom.”
Her mother set the steaming cup onto the saucer.
“None too soon. You’re what, twenty-five?”
Her mother’s reaction didn’t surprise Pamela. She’d heard such murmurings her whole life.
Sandra never forgave the pangs Pamela’s birth gave her. Everything she said to Pamela came wrapped in the burden of her unpaid debt.
“Who you moving in with?”
“Uhm… actually, Carl asked me to live with him.”
“Ohhh no. Seen how that plays out. He gets a live-in maid ’til you fall preggers. Then you’re stuck looking for new digs with a kid in tow.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What you say now… You pop a kid out, who’s gonna watch him? Not Cindy. Not me.”
“I know, mom. I’m watching Dexter now.”
Pamela’s nephew, Dexter, her sister’s four-year-old sprawled on the living room floor, drawing. Crayons were strewn everywhere.
He looked up. “What’s preggers?”
Pamela blinked. “Oh, that’s grown-up talk for P.G… parental guidance. Parents…
