True Crime

These vignettes are snapshots collected in a scrapbook. Added all together, they make a short film on a small segment of my life in these last few years. When I look back at the gathered pieces of prose, they give me a tangible view of memory and perception. These pieces are real life, tossed out among fantastic stories of the nearly believable.

I wish these little pieces weren't so easy to believe.

I'd much rather convince the reader that vampires exist and monsters walk among us. Murder makes a far more compelling subject, I think.

These holiday stories, they tell the tale of aging parents and the inevitable conclusion of a major life chapter.

My grandmother wasn't a saint, but that's probably because she didn't live long enough to become a villain. My grandfather did.

I don't think my mother will.

She may not be a villain, but her heroic days are long gone. She doesn't even go to bed anymore. I don't know if that's because she doesn't have the energy, or if it's because she's fine staying in the recliner. I know I sometimes sleep in mine, but I almost always wake up in the middle of the night, drunk with sleep and stumbling into my bedroom.

She seems to sleep all the time.

"What do you want to watch on tv?" She asks, for the twentieth time. She punctuates the question with scrolling down the Dish Network guide page, but she nods off with her finger on the remote. I look over at my stepfather, and he shrugs, shaking his head. This is the new normal.

She sleeps this way for five minutes, ten, maybe even an hour. She awakens with a start, asking if I'd decided what channel to watch. "Whatever you want to see," I answer, thumbing to the next page of my book.

We don't really talk. We never really have, at least not in years. This is our routine, this is our love language: it started in the days of Turtles before it became Blockbuster, hell, it started before chain movie rentals were even a thing. We'd snag enough movies to last a weekend, and we'd make our way through them. Sometimes we'd check out six at a time. Now, we surf the half-dozen subscription services we have on our phones, or maybe we scroll down that guide page on the Dish.

What little talking we do on this trip is about a girl I almost dated. She had a feature in the paper, local lady does good over at the District Attorney's office.

Mom always did want me to be a lawyer. I guess reminding me of the lawyer I let get away is as close as she'll get. (The fact that we never dated hasn't really clicked with Mom for decades, and God knows it doesn't click now.)

So I drive back home, and we begin watching television. Or, we begin looking for something to watch, which actually takes more time than watching what's been agreed upon. This trip, I managed to save a small collection of movies I thought would do. Some of them did the trick, but a few were "too weird," as she puts it.

Big words from a lady who sleeps through the credits and most of the stuff in between them.

I'm not sure of the moment everything changed with these trips back home. I know it began to change back when she got a secondary infection from an operation a few years ago. The anti-biotics did a number on her kidneys.

It's been a slippery slope ever since.

This Thanksgiving has given me a harsh live-action glimpse of life back home. Historically, Mom did all the work in the kitchen. Not just Thanksgiving, but all of it. She was a stay at home mom, her job was to make the house a home. She did this expertly, preparing daily southern meals that Paula Deen or Martha Stewart would be lucky to share.

She doesn't cook anymore.

This thing, this centerpiece of pride, a chore that made up so much of her identity (not to me, but to herself) is gone.

My step-father does all the kitchenwork now, and he prepared the Thanksgiving meal.

For the first time, I saw the ghost of my mother sleeping in the chair where my mom used to sit.

"Things are getting harder," he quietly said to me. We whispered in hurried murmurs when Mom stepped into the master bathroom. "Her mind is..." he trailed off. Shifting gears, he continued, "Her moods are hard."

He didn't say it, but he didn't have to.

Her mind is going.

"Did you decide what to watch on television?" She asks, shuffle-stepping back to ease down into her recliner. I smile, and tell her it doesn't matter to me.

We don't talk, we watch television.

She falls asleep again after putting the TV on a true crime show.

Looking over towards the woman who still knows me, but whom I used to know, I think time is the truest criminal. Maybe this is a story about murder, after all.