“It’s okay, Amber,” Mom says, alcohol on her breath. “We won’t be on this bus forever. I’m working on it.”
I want to tell Mom that I really don’t give a crap about living on a school bus, but that the world is beating me down and I feel like I’m battling everyone and no one is putting any fuel back into my tank and I’m not sure I’m going to make it to adulthood unscathed and still believing in hope because JC isn’t doing me any favors as of late and everything is so frickin’ messed up—but I can’t stop crying, so I just let my mom hold me and pat my back for a half hour or so of pathetic sobbing.
When I finish crying, I open the McDonald’s bag and find an ice-cold child-size Happy Meal: small Coke, a handful of fries, four chicken McNuggets, and some stupid toy promoting some stupid kid’s movie.
“Did you eat?” I ask Mom.
“Oh, sure,” she says, and then takes a sip from a Coke can, which I know is filled with vodka, because I can smell it.
“Mom, if you love me,” I say, my stomach growling with hunger, “will you please, please, please eat this meal while I watch?”
“I bought it for you, Amber. You’re a growing girl and—”
“Please, Mom,” I say, tears suddenly streaming down my face again. I hold a chicken McNugget up to her face and say, “Please eat this. Please. For me, Mom. Please. I want to see you eat.”
Bobby Big Boy is watching me from an adjacent seat, wanting to eat the chicken nugget himself, but he’s too good of a dog to go for it, so I don’t worry.
Finally, my mother takes the piece of chicken from me, bites off a tiny bit, and then chews.
Mom swallows, and then says, “There. Are you happy? Now you should really eat—”
“Eat the rest. The whole meal, Mom. For me. Please.”
“Amber, you have to eat something yourself and we only have—”
“I ate like—ten pounds of hamburgers at Donna’s. Please let me watch you eat the rest. I’ve had a bad day, Mom. Please eat. Try. For me.”
Slowly, my mom nibbles at the food, sorta like a suspicious mouse might nibble on rat poison, as I watch.
Mom really does try to eat, which makes me proud of her.
After ten minutes or so, she gets down two and a half chicken McNuggets—and then she starts to throw up.
By the time I get her off Hello Yellow, she has puked three times. After another bout of puking in the bus yard—which scares me a lot—finally Mom stops vomiting.
When she asks for her cigarettes, I get them for her and let her smoke. I even bring her the Coke can of vodka, because I’m terrified now, thinking my mom might die right here and now, and I know that vodka is what she most needs.
There are paper towels and some sorta blue spray cleaning stuff under the driver’s seat, so I clean up Mom’s throw-up, which is full of blood and tiny shredded pieces of chicken.
I gag all the way through.
I try to think of something nice to take my mind off the present reality, so I think about all-time Amber-and-her-mom moment number two: I’m tiny.
I cannot talk.
My arms and legs are wrapped up in a sheet—like a mummy.
I’m in a baby stroller and it’s late summer.
I’m shaded by one of those baby awnings above me—that rounded half dome that covers half of the baby stroller.
Bob is pushing the stroller and Mom has her elbow linked to my father’s and I hear the cry of a seagull, so maybe we are near the beach.
Suddenly—we stop moving.
Bob leans down and kisses Mom.
Baby me watches Bob and Mom kiss—baby me smiles.
Now, I know that there is no way I could remember this moment because I was only a few months old when my dad took off, and he probably wasn’t so in love with Mom before he took off, because why would he take off if they were actually in love?
So maybe I made the memory up?
It’s still my number two—regardless.
Back in the present moment, while I was trying to remember, while I was cleaning up puke, BBB has been hiding on one of the back seats, because I have been sobbing the whole time, and that scares him.
By the time I am finished, I reek of throw-up, and since there is no sink or anything around, I’m going to smell like puke for the night unless I wash with the dirty black slushy snow in the bus parking lot, which would make me smell like gas and bus emissions. I don’t even have a water bottle tonight. Nothing.
When I go back outside to throw the puke towels into the woods, BBB follows and starts his jumping routine—and I just can’t take it right now, so I scream, “Stop jumping!”
He stops.
He looks up at me with his little ears pointing straight up—like I hit him or something.
And then he starts whining, as if he is crying too.
So I throw the puke towels over the fence, into the woods—erasing Mom’s mess—and then I pick up BBB and give him a kiss on the lips.
“I’m scared, Bobby Big Boy. I’m scared. I can’t keep doing this.”
“Rew!” he says in agreement before we walk back to my mom.
“I have to go out,” Mom says, exhaling mentholated smoke.
“Where?”
“I’m going to get medicine for my stomach.”