67 Memories

My mother was two people. No matter how flawed she might have been, she was the matriarch of our family. On one hand, she managed to keep the household together without the presence of my father and little money (mom never held a job that I remember). She was a meticulous housekeeper. Mom was the one who helped relatives in trouble or a friend in despair. Many of them found their way into our home for an undetermined amount of time. But on the other hand, she drank, sometimes heavily, and I never knew which mother I might find. At first, I thought that my father was not at home because he worked two jobs. His day job was at DuPont and his night job was at the Broadway Drive-In Theatre.... I don’t know how many times I fell asleep in the back seat of that old Plymouth. However, one of those nights when I had fallen asleep, he woke me up and took me into a strange house. He sat down and put me on his lap. He introduced me to a woman I had never seen before and several sleepy-eyed children who looked as perplexed as I was. I lowered my head not saying anything. What could I say? They were the reason he worked two jobs and they were the reason he was gone all the time. Even a little girl could figure that one out. This was his other family.