My mother wondered out loud why I wasn’t married. We were standing in the window of her country kitchen watching her fourth husband hunt small birds in the driveway of their California cul-de-sac.
My stepfather, a man who hated anyone with an opinion other than his own, was wearing a camouflage tracksuit, lace-up combat boots and a Nascar hat turned backwards.
He crouched angrily in the gravel with tiny pigeons caught in the cross hairs.
“You should get married,” my mother offered.
I squinted at the dull red flag on the mailbox at the curb. Was it up, pointing at the cloudless sky, a few minutes ago? Or was it stuck like that, mail or no mail?
“You can always get divorced,” my mother announced.
I grunted towards the mailbox as my stepfather’s elbow scrapped the rocks.
The birds froze.
“I don’t think so,” I said evenly.
“It’s just a little paperwork,” my mother replied.
This was not the first time my mother had reduced the joining or separation of two lives to a signature. Perhaps it was because she had been married and divorced so many times that she equated it with a quick autograph and a visit to her local notary.
I stared through the homemade curtains and seethed at the horizontal related-by-marriage lump as my mother sipped instant coffee from her ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is‘ mug.
In the silence, the smell of meatloaf hung on us like beefy sweaters.
