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to our door, my heart would race for fear it was someone to come take both Rodney and me away and put us in some institution.
"Granny came by often as she could, but she and Momma got into arguments about the way Momma kept the house and how she took care of Rodney. She knew Momma was starting to drink again, too.
"By this time, Momma was hiding booze all over the house. She was drinking vodka because it didn't smell as bad and she had it in shampoo bottles and even in a hot water bag she kept in the closet. For months and months, Daddy didn't discover it, but soon she became sloppy about hiding it and he would find a glass of orange juice or cranberry juice and taste it and know she had vodka in it.
"When he complained, she screamed about how hard her life was with two children to look after, one being a twenty-four-hour responsibility. Of course, she brought up money problems continually, and then he would accuse her of wasting what little we had on her booze habit. She claimed it was the only thing keeping her sane and he said if she was sane, then he didn't know what crazy meant anymore.
"I'd come home from school and find Rodney lying there in unchanged diapers. From the rashes and irritation on his legs and little behind, I knew he had been like that almost all day. Of course, that made him scream and cry more which sent Momma to the bottle more. She got so she could sleep right through him wailing away. I guess she was really more passed out than sleeping. I'd find her everywhere like that, even on the floor in her bedroom sometimes."
"She should have been locked up," Jade said.
I stared at her for a long moment and then I looked out the window at the drizzle that had begun. Maybe Jade was right, but it hurt to have someone else say it.
There were lots of worse things in life that could and maybe would happen to us, but hating your own mother had to be at the top of the list.
"She's right," I told Doctor Marlowe, "but I don't want her to be."
"I know," she said softly. "That's why you're all here: to find an alternative to hate."
"Why do we need to?" Misty asked with that little sarcastic turn in her lips.
"Because I think you all know by now, that you can't hate your parents without hating yourselves:'
No one had to agree out loud. We could just look into each other's eyes and see that Doctor Marlowe was right.

2
    " W hen Rodney began to crawl and then stand, things got worse because he was a curious baby from the start and he would get into places and things in a flash. One afternoon, I came home and found Momma had left him alone while she went out to get herself a couple of six- packs of beer. I guess he was asleep when she had left and she thought he'd be all right. I didn't know it, but she had left him alone many times before and once when she was with a girlfriend, Maggie Custer, they had left him in Maggie's car and a policeman had seen it and nearly arrested her.
    "Anyway, this time Rodney woke up, crawled out of the cot-bed we now had for him and went looking for her. He wandered into the bathroom where Momma had left some of his rubber toys in the tub. There wasn't any water in the tub or he'd' a drowned for sure because he managed to fall into it when he tried to get to his toys. He hit his head on the faucet, I suppose. At first I thought Momma had taken him out with her because it was so quiet, but when I walked into the bathroom, I nearly jumped out of my skin. There he was lying on his back very still, his eyes wild and full of terror. I found out later that a head wound usually bleeds a lot, but at the time it turned my heart to stone. I saw all the blood around his head and I started screaming. I was familiar with calling nine-one-one by now. I told the operator my little brother had fallen and put a hole in his head. It didn't turn out to be that bad, but he did need ten stitches.
    "The paramedics were there before Momma returned. She met one of her barfly friends who had talked her into just one