Good Lord, I’m glad she’s gone! What a mess! She and hubby fought for her whole visit, the munchkin didn’t get one nap in three days, I ran off half a tank of gas running her around, and she left owing me more money than when she came. And she wants me to think about letting her move in. Yeah, I’ll think about it. When looking for reasons to blow my head off.
Okay, this isn’t supposed to be about my beloved m-i-l. But what can I say? I haven’t written a word. I’ve barely managed to get online.  Every time I did, I had to get off, she needed to use the phone. I got scolded the first night, because I was online for hours, when she was trying to call so I could come pick her up from her friend’s house where she’d spent one fourth of her monthly income doing illegal drugs. How do I know how much she spent? Because I cashed her check through my bank account, of course, and had to run to the ATM for her. Why do you think I went and stayed online?
And then she brought a blasted bottle of booze home with her. Never mind that her son is an alcoholic. She needed a drink. It’s not her problem if he can’t control himself. She’s a big girl, she’ll drink if she wants to. She doesn’t need a mother.
No, she doesn’t. A keeper, yes, but not a mother.
Tonight I took her back to her camp, out by the truck stop. And as I stood there, alone by my car at 10 pm, waiting while she carried her stuff through the bushes, the two of us the only humans for miles not doing 55 or better up on the freeway, I thought how easy it would be, if I were that kind of person. We were already way out there, where, as my friend puts it, “no one would find the body.”
But if I were that kind of person, her son, my beloved hubby, would be long gone, and she wouldn’t come around anyway.