Part V: Snakes – Snake #1 (Chapter 92)

“Sammy!”

Mother waves from behind a roped off area.

I haven’t seen her in seven years – I was 10 when she last visited Sioux City – but she looks the same, except that she seems thinner and smaller. Her hair is still a two-tone color: platinum bangs and auburn locks around her shoulders, the two colors separated by a turquoise hair band. She wears a black, skintight jumpsuit and is heavily made up, thick red lipstick, lots of eye liner and mascara. A slim, 100-millimeter cigarette dangles casually from her fingers, a stream of blue smoke drifting off behind her. She looks childlike and vulnerable.

I can scarcely believe she’s 37 years old – my mother.

“Sammy, over here!”

I wave back and wend my way through the crowd toward her and the strange man, my stepfather Johnny – who’s all dressed up in a pin-striped suit – and two towheaded boys, Georgie and Johnny, junior.

My heart does a little flip; I’m nervous about seeing my mother; since moving to Sioux City, I had been in L.A. twice: when I was 12 and 14, refusing to see her both times.

Has she forgiven me for being an angry child, just as I am trying to forgive her for being an absent mother?

On a long-distance call, I told Mother I wanted to put the past behind us this summer, to make a fresh start, and she agreed that she, too, wanted things to become good between us.

“Bobby’s still alive,” Mother says. She pulls me into her arms. I smell beer, which surprises me since she has told Nana she has quit drinking for good. “I thought you’d want to know. Ma says you took Jack’s death hard.”

“That was almost five years ago.” I kiss her cheek, which smells like powder and lilies-of-the-valley.

“Yeah, but you know how it is. Negative karma and all.”

I don’t know, but I nod.

Mother looks me over. “Honey, where on earth did you get that outfit?” She takes a drag from her cigarette.

I feel my face reddening. “Guess.”

“Goodwill?”

I nod.

“Figures.”

“Believe me, not my first choice.”

“I believe it,” Mother says. “I’m afraid we’ll have to hit the Goodwill ourselves this week, and after we dump this there, we’ll go to Zayres.”

“Samantha, she’s just teasing.” Johnny looks me over. “You look good. I can’t believe we’re finally meeting.” He waits for me to make the first move, and I like him for it.

We hug. I feel as if I have known him all my life, this brown string of a man who seems very tired to me.

But then, I liked Daddy Platts, too.

Mother has a knack for picking men who everyone likes and then discarding them like used tires.

“Hi, Johnny. Glad to meet you, too.”

“God, you’re beautiful, just like my Rosie here,” he says, his eyes on Mother. He obviously loves her very much, but I already knew that from the Special Delivery letter from long ago...

That horrible, painful letter...Johnny Lawrence cutting open his soul to Nana and Pappa...hoping to find help for Mother, six months pregnant with Johnny junior and ill from drinking.

“Thanks.” I look at the two boys who stare up at me, probably wondering who I am. “And you must be Georgie and Johnny junior.”

“This is your big sister Sammy,” Mother says.

Both boys blush and look down at their feet.

Johnny junior’s mouth hangs open, his eyelids drooping and twitching – what’s wrong with this child?

“They’ll come around,” Johnny says. “Once they get to know you. C’mon. Let’s get your luggage.”

I nod as I leave with these people – strangers, really – my new life in their hands.