Cemetery Street

***

As the weeks turned to months and more bumper stickers spent their allotted time on Saphix, my mother was not heard from. "Maybe she'll call over Easter."

"Why do you put yourself through such grief?" Shannie asked.

"What grief?" I peered out the GTI's window; watching the world race by.

"Don't be a twit. When she doesn't call over Easter, you'll wonder if she will over Memorial day, then July 4th and Columbus day, need I go on?"

"You forgot Labor day," I mumbled.

"You're hopeless," Shannie retorted.

"What if you lost a parent?" I questioned her profile.

"I did, ass wipe!" Shannie punched my left arm. "You're an asshole!"

"I forgot; I'm sorry," I resisted rubbing my arm.

"Don't you think I miss my father?" Shannie whispered - interrupting the hum of the road. "I do," she answered. "You know what? It's really though; Do you know why? I don't know what my father was like. Your mother was a bitch, everyone knows that! If I knew he was a prick, maybe it would be easier. But I romanticize the bastard! To me, he's Prince Charming and King Arthur all wrapped up in one. He's your Grandfather and Clark Gable. He's flawless - expect that he's dead! He's fucking dead!" Shannie paused - her eyes focused on the road. "If he was alive, I might hate the prick, but he's not, so I love him; and I miss him. You know your mother," Shannie repeated. "You know she's a bitch! I envy you Just James! I wish I could hate my father! I wouldn't miss him so much. But I don't know him, I'm cursed to have Prince Fucking Charming as a father!"

"I'm sorry, Bug," I whispered.

"I resent you taking for granite that I don't miss him. You presumptuous shit! God I wish I could hate you!"

***

I still fret, no less than I fretted the following Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday - my seventeenth. When my mother didn't call, didn't write - not even a simple postcard; I fretted even more - filling the following Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor day with knotted stomachs and dashed hopes. When the phone call that I knew would arrive, didn't - I sulked. She may as well be dead, I thought. Maybe she is dead, I worried. If she was dead, she wouldn't have forgotten me!

Shannie and I were watching the World Series when my fretting was hastened by the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake.