"The Fool on the Hill" by the Beatles

    She opens her eyes to a gray ceiling, pain immediately shooting through her body. She starts her days by rolling off her futon (perpetually folded into couch-position), and shuffling to the bathroom. I’m sure she takes vitamins or a gummy- that won't work- while she’s in there. Maybe she’ll shower, but it’s not a given. Maybe she showered the night before, but it's not like she needs to rush. It’s not like she has to go to work today: that’s only on Sundays... surely a welcome change to her once intense work week. 

    So, she stands at the kitchen counter while the keurig hums, checking for the texts messages she may have received in the night. She makes her coffee with non-dairy powdered creamer (a habit she hasn't broken despite how disgusting she's always claimed it to be, or the fact that she doesn't actually dairy intolerant). She takes her mug- one that she used when I was a child, no doubt- and makes her way to her bedroom. Her days and nights are flipped, most days. Nights.

    She flicks the lights on as she sits on the edge of her bed, and swipes open her phone again. She'll sit here and putz around on Facebook, and Candy Crush, and Gmail, and whatever else, for however long. 

+

    I open my eyes to a gray, almost-popcorn ceiling. Immediately I realize my muscles are sore. I roll off of my mattress (no headboard, as not provided by Landlord) with a groan, and shuffle to the bathroom. I take vitamins and my medicine, daily. I like to think the vitamins work, and I'm inclined to say the Wellbutrin works. Most days.

    Sometimes I shower in the morning... mostly when it isn't not too cold. I don’t have to rush; my schoolday doesn't start until 11 a.m. I have something like five hours to get myself together. 

    I mosey on into the kitchen, and set the keurig to brew. I sit at the nearby dining table as the machine spittles. I stir in some sugar and cream when my coffee is done. I make my way into my bedroom- am careful not to spill- and scooch to the center of my bed.

+

    I think about her all the time (my mother). I live alone in my apartment; she lives alone in her apartment. When in doubt, I sweep my floors, but upon some shallow introspection, from whom did I learn that? The answer is not someone that I am proud of.

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    One time, at a First Communion party for my cousin, a mother of my mother’s friend came up to me. She was arm in arm with my mom, and proceeded to gush:

    “Oh, let me tell you: Marguerite? You are so lucky to have her as a mother. Anytime she was at my house, she’d be doing the dishes. Ugh, I loved it!” The woman’s eyes are slightly glazed and crazed- she had been drinking, they both had- my mother is cutely sheepish, yet proud. Smalls laughs that are convival, still.

    “Any time I would get into fights with Grandma Pat I’d go to her house to do dishes,” my mom explained to me as the other lady sipped at her drink, more checked out than when the conversation began. This adage was probably boring her. I don’t blame her; it was boring me. “It always calmed me down,” my mom giggled.

    She was definitely drunk. The other woman was drunk. All of the adults at this First Holy Communino party were drunk. Drink, drank, drunk, so much so that even my mind was swimming. She could have reacted to reaction to this boring story, but it wasn't like there was ever a way for me to tell. I.e., the rest of the night is still in limbo. 

    See, I keep quiet during small menial interactions such as these because me giving a charming, quippy response could turn into me getting cracked across the mouth, and quickly. That doesn't mean I didn’t care that my mom was revered for her dish cleaning skills any less. The angry woman that used her children as outlets for her aggression has always been an angry woman that requires an outlet for her aggression? What a shock.

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    Pathetically, she tries to replicate old recipes of her mothers. And the thing is, she used to be a great cook. Somewhere along the line, the boxed Chablis turned into coconut Svedka over ice turned into shitty weed cookies. The trays of baked ziti, the lemon drops, all stopped long ago. Now, when she tries to tell me about the “sunday sauce” she made, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Sunday sauce for one, or two, if her boyfriend is hanging around.

    I couldn't even try to replicate her old recipes (let alone Grandma Pat's) if I wanted to; to my knowledge, she isn't much of a scribe, anymore at least, and her family has ostracized her to the degree of not giving her any of the Squicciarini Family recipes when Grandma Pat died. 

    Besides, she hates baking... which are the kinds of recipes I'd be eager to inherit from her (if I wanted to), anyhow.

+ 

    Does she think about me, though, just randomly? Does she dwell on me? She might, but I try not to think about her. It makes me sad to think about her, because then I start thinking about myself. I think about how my life, at this moment in time, is as similar to hers as it’ll ever be. The only difference is that I am on the come up and she is on the downtick, but I am the child and she is the, what exactly? It’s hard to say these days. 

    I don’t want to think about how one of the only things I've managed to consistently work against is being like her- that's it- and in trying so hard, I might have sabotaged my own efforts. I didn’t see that I was turning into her backwards, or maybe it would be upside down? I morphed into the side I empathize with first, which is exactly how it happened, like metamorpheses; I woke up one morning and I was sucking down cigarettes, adult-greedy for weed and wine. Greedy like almost sick, sometimes. 

    I thought I would be safe from the dread I can safely assume she feels, I thought I had time at the very least. 

    I’ve watched her sob into her hand on the couch, babbling about how bad of a mother she is, has been, how she’s sick of the sorriness that she feels is life. I think, ’ve thought, I could never be so pitiful. But then I catch myself high out of my mind at 4 PM, clutching a National Grid bill, or I catch myself heartily announcing, "I need a drink!" after any win or loss (from making the Dean's List to losing a long-term job) and I realize some bias is stopping me from seeing myself as pathetic as my mother. Unfortunately, no matter how I spin it, the parallelism is glaringly obvious... even down to our respective daily lives. 

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    Her night begins with leaving work at the fish market and pulling a hard right into the liquor store. For liquor. We are way past the Chablis-scented water bottles in days of yore.

    And scratch offs. I don't what came first: the Seatide Market employees pooling together $500 ("It's only for payday!") for however-many LUCKY DOG ($5) scratch offs that amounts to, or her plain and outright love for and dependence (for an enjoyable evening, for a sort-of secondary wage, who knows) on the things. 

    On a normal Wednesday, she buys about $50 worth of scratch offs and her liquor of choosing, though. Sometimes a handle. Sometimes a pack of those little airport shooters. Sometimes, it could end up being a seasonal release: for example, the elusive Smirnoff Peppermint Twist! 

    She stands under the awning outside of the liquor store and lights up a Newport, juggling her several totes, bottles and keys rattling. She stuffs her phone in pocket and digs out a dime, for good luck. For Papa Mike, she has always said. She walks home, and for the fifteen minutes she’s on the move, she is scratching away. And somehow, she wins! It's easy to win when you buy so many. 

    She makes it home, steps into her house and groans as she shuffles to the kitchen table. She sets her bags down, minding her fragile wares, plops down in a wooden chair. Not comfortable. She toes off her shoes as she goes over her winnings. 

+

    I start my night by clocking into a shift at the bar/kitchen downstairs- I don’t even have to make any extra trips to a liquor store, but I find liquor to be so specifically intolerable. There's no physical time clock; I'm supposed to write a "4" on the timesheet, but I always do my best to get away with putting a "4.5". 

    Immediately, I hit both of my vapes and push my way past regular patrons into the bar kitchen. One time I had a pumpkin spice Geekbar. It was terrible, but I got it because it was Fall. I like to try a new one each time, too. I throw my purse on top of the chest freezer. My phone is close to dying. 

    Over the course of the four hours that I am working, I make about $30 in tips on a good night. There’s always lots of quarters in the jar. I close up the kitchen, I hand the pencil case of money to the bartender. I walk up the stairs, sighing with effort. I step into my house, mindful to lock the door behind me, and fall into the armchair nearest the front door. I shrug my purse off my shoulder. I reach into it for my wallet, reach for the tips in my pocket after. I toe off my shoes as I count my earnings.

+ 

    We are all sitting in the living room watching the The Office finale. It is mine and my siblings' first time seeing it, since we were too little to watch it in real time. Family TV nights were pretty nonexistent in the Boccone family, but every now and again, there was some sort of very special episode (more likely Wipeout or Dancing with the Stars) to bring us all together.

    My parents watched the Office as I grew up, I watched them watch it, hungover over the occasional greasy plate of diner breakfast. Convivial in ways they aren't anymore. 

    I then went on to watch it on my own time, as did my siblings, as did everyone, . It connected all of us. Sure, and if you look at things that way, the whole world is emotionally tangled up. It's not a bad philosophy to hold, not even when you're thirteen... As I sat there on the couch emotions ran high, and I internalized what it meant that the show was ending. For us in the livingroom now, but what did it mean when it ended originally? For me, for everyone? Things were over before they started? The vague symbolism had me misty-eyed, and though I did my best to save face, I looked up and saw eight glassy eyes all trained on the TV. 

    And then Michael Scott appears on the screen, at the wedding. You know.

    “YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” My mother exclaimed, literally rising out of her seat, fists in the air a little. She really said the word, “yay”, being the only one to make any sound at all.

    It was such a genuine reaction. It was what everyone else was thinking, TV shows were meant to move you. I know I was thinking it. Feeling it... but we all turned to her and glared. I’m pretty sure my father shushed her. I watched her face crumples as she lowered back into her seat. I remember rolling my eyes at what I could only then assume was drunken hysterics. 

+

    Getting ready for bed that night, I felt a pit in my stomach open up. I felt a quiet panic rise, a panic that cut deeper than they normally did at thirteen. Why were we all so mean to her? Why was I so mean to her? In that moment, she became human to me. I realized for the first time- and with dread- our sameness. 

    Michael Scott turning up in the The Office finale should be rendering feelinsg of familial love and memories of warm togetherness, not feelings of shame and memories of bandwagoning unknowingly! She broke the silence and ruined it. Or I ruined it, with my own ruminations? Doesn't matter; it was ruined. 

+

    And then my phone will ring an hour before work as I’m trying to put myself together, and I will look at the screen, and it will read, “mom”. I will answer the phone and be bombarded with questions about work (yes I have it. Yes tonight. Yes. yea till 1 AM.) and then struck with silence on her end, the interrogation lapsing. 

    She’ll ask what else is up, and I’ll be dumbfounded, because how can you ask someone that when you call (sometimes drunkenly, but not so often that I wouldn't answer) them every 3 months. What do you mean, “else”? You don’t even know the first thing! 

    And then she’ll give me an annoyed, "Hellooo?" and when I snap with a, "what?" back, she’ll start to beg off the phone. I’ll feel sick. I don’t know what’s up, I’ll tell her- trying to hold her attention- That I’ve just been working, I guess... Which isn’t even true, won’t ever be true, because I do so many other things. The one thing that she can remember is work. My job. My hours. What I do, how it compares. To my sister, my brother. My roommate, my cousin. She'll say she doesn't care about how successful I am, and she won't know how insulting she's being. How much do I make, do I remember when I worked with her? When am I working. She'll remember when I used to sing, she'll ask me to sing, and then I am trying to beg off the phone. She tries to hold my attention, too, peppering me with questions about: my job. My money. Do I need another job? She might know a guy, but she'll ask what I'm majoring in, again? first. How she wishes I never quit singing. And how this is my life now, my job. Her life her job my siblings their jobs her boyfriend her job her life her weed her job my job. I am her daughter. 

    “Okay…” I’ll say, “Anything else?” She'll sigh. 

    “No, Gianna. I guess not.” 

    clicks.