Peanut Brittle

“Mother, where do we keep the peanuts,” Son questioned Mother, whose face was buried in a coffee mug openly swelling with red wine.

“Why?” she replied with a grimace, as does a freshly woken alcoholic after a night of binge drinking.

Mother’s mug of red wine had been sitting on her nightstand since she finished her second bottle and subsequently passed out the night before. Her newborn baby crying out into the night, only to be attended to by her older brother, just shy three hours of a full night's rest for his day at school.

“The baby asked for some.,” the son stated.

Son was a young boy, halfway through his fifth year of life. Moderately full of spunk, yet seemingly always exhausted. Sleep avoided him ever since Father had left a few months prior. Mother was sober before then, and Son grew confused as to why he was forced to walk the several kilometers to school in the morning. Before this, Mother used to use the car to take him in thirty minutes early every day. Now the car was missing too.

“Babies don’t eat peanuts, they’ll choke.” She replied.

Sheepishly shuffling his feet, Son looked on at his mother, as her attention never quite met his. With each passing glance at the room, she only met his eyes for a split second before looking away, as if pretending the boy were a stain on the carpet awaiting removal by professional means.

She lit a cigarette. As it dangled from her mouth, she thrusted her hair back into a ponytail with a rubber band found on the kitchen table. The ash forming on the end of the cigarette fell into her wine, unnoticed. She sipped, and accepted the accident.

“Go get ready for school.” Mother announced, taking a deep drag from her smoke.

Son, full of wonder, gazed at Mother and grew more inquisitive as the seconds dragged on.

“But Mother... she... she asked for them.” His eyes shifted to the floor, his nails digging crescent moon shaped indents into the palms behind his back.

“That’s impossible,” Mother, now fixated on a day old newspaper, begrudgingly shouted through her teeth. She was not always like this. Before Father left, she wore sundresses as her exposed skin danced in the warm basking glow of radiation.

Father was a worker, and what little time he had, he spent with his family. Saving Sunday for trips to the park and rides on his shoulders. Son felt like a giant as he peered down at people walking and cycling down the path by the river. A memory, that in years passing will escape him, but for now, remaining in the forefront of his mind like a passage from a picture book. Fleeting, yet vivid.

“I'm... I'm... I'm...” he stuttered.

“Impossible. It means it can’t happen.” She said ashing her smoke on the kitchen floor.

“But it did.” Still sheepish, yet more direct, he stared at his inattentive Mother.

“Go to your room. Get ready. You have a long walk.” she said, still smoking.

Son walked off, head hung low, and stumbled over a shirt on the floor. He picked it up and waved it in Mothers direction.

“What’s this?” he questioned, raising a plaid shirt up from under his feet.

Mother looked up from her paper, and saw an artifact of the past. Left unnoticed and laying on the floor for weeks. Stepped over and ignored. Poking out from underneath the couch at the threshold of the kitchen door.

The last remnants of Father.

Mother gazed at it unappreciative for a second before realizing. Welling up from fear, and slight disgrace, her eyes swelled as tears ran down her face.

She began slamming her head on the table.

Again.

Again.

And again.

A process Son had grown accustomed to. The self-inflicted violence of broken-hearted women.

Son dragged the red and black stripped shirt to the garbage, and stepped on the lever while dropping the shirt inside.

Son approached Mother, still slamming her head on the table, and placed his hand on her lap. Gripping tighter than ever before, he dug his moon shaped nails into her thigh.

Mother paused, and looked at Son. Weeping, she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I’ll go get dressed now. I’m sorry…” Son said with a stone face.

Mother took a deep breath, and only slightly being able to catch her breath, she said,

“Thank you”

Son let go of Mothers leg. He walked off into the living room, as the Baby wailed in the next room over.

Mother took a sip of her wine, and read another headline.