The REASON Series - the Complete Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

it makes sense to go, and I can just stay in my neighborhood tomorrow.  
    When I walk in, the lady at the counter greets me by name. Then she tells me, "She's in the game room."  
    "How is she today?" I ask.  
    "She seems to be having a good day today. Enjoy your time." This is the typical response when I ask about my mother. I nod, and the buzzer sounds.  
    I walk quickly through the drab, white-on-white, hospital-style hallway until I reach the game room. When I turn the corner, I see her sitting in a wheelchair facing the window. Her nightgown is light blue, very old and thin at the shoulders. Her gray hair is about shoulder length. She looks years older than the forty-eight that she is. Years of drugs and alcohol have completely destroyed her body. And her mind. Until she moved in here about five years ago, she had never sobered up. Now they have her on all manner of medication for paranoia, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Most of the time she's pretty out of it.  
    "Hi, Momma," I say as I sit in the chair next to her.  
    She doesn't respond, just keeps staring out the window. This is typically how our visits go. It’s better than a bad day; it’s not pretty when she’s jumpy or freaking out. She can get very violent.  
    Knowing that I’m taking the money back to Mikah today has me on edge. To top it off, a lot of things from my past that I've worked very hard at suppressing keep floating through my brain. Like the way we moved around from city to city, state to state. 
    It seemed like every time my mother got a wild hair up her ass we were off. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Which of course was never a problem: She never let me keep toys, and I only had enough clothes to fill up half of a garbage bag. A few pairs of pants, a couple of t-shirts and a pair of sneakers were usually about it. Even to this day my list of material possessions is so small that I can probably pack everything inside of one box and a trash bag.
    Hell, I moved into my apartment with about three days’ worth of clothes, two pairs of shoes, my journal — compliments of the psychotherapist at Amber’s Place — and my bag. Or purse. Or whatever you want to call it. Since then I’ve also acquired a small pitcher and a cooking pot. Not that they get much use; I’ve got nothing to cook.  
    My tummy rumbles. Maybe I should have had that hot dog before I left. 
    Momma still isn't saying anything, just staring out the window. Lord knows what she’s looking at. Or if she’s even looking at anything. Sometimes I think she’s just lost inside of her own mind, trying in vain to pull herself out. But then again, that’s probably just me hoping. Hoping she will come around. It’s wishful thinking, I know, but it is one of the few things that keeps me coming back here time after time. 
    It’s been about five years now that she had her stroke. We had just gotten into Minneapolis from somewhere in Chicago. We didn't stay there long, so I don't remember too much about it. Before Chicago we had been in Ohio, Michigan, New York, Maryland, Georgia - which is where we spent the majority of my younger years – Florida, Alabama and Texas. She told me that we had been in Arizona, California and Nevada when I was really young, but I don't remember it. I don't remember everything about Georgia either, but that is where some of the few brighter highlights of my life happened. 
    I never went to the same school for a whole year, but I was always enrolled. She found me easier to deal with when I was gone in school for eight hours a day. It meant she was free to do whatever she wanted without me around to bother her.  
    I was able to graduate from a vocational school shortly after coming to Minneapolis. I managed to test out of all the required classes and then some. I actually scored a seventeen hundred on my SATs — which I was told was beyond awesome — and that I could pretty much attend any school I wanted to. I even had a couple of