My Baby Boy

He’ll withdraw when he finds me in the garage, one end of the garden hose stuffed in the exhaust, the other rolled up in the window. He was hard-headed as a boy, defiant as a teen. But I always knew how to make him stay. You’re hurtin’ this heart of mine, I’d say clutching my chest. The year he had the nerve to ask if he could spend his summer at camp, I shoved his daddy’s pistol in his hand—go on ahead and put me out of my misery. Now he wants to go to college. All your daddy’s schoolin’ did nothin’ but drive him away from us, I reminded him when he showed me the acceptance letter.

I put my face in my hands and lean against the steering wheel. It’s easier to breathe than I expected, the hum of the engine nearly therapeutic. I wait for the garage door to open, for a frame of light to fill the dark space, for my baby boy to find me and hug me in his arms. Glazed eyes check the rearview, I’m sleeping now, as is my boy in the backseat.