Momma's Story

Click-clack went momma's needles, just like they always did this time of night. 'Specially during the winter when it got dark early. She'd light up the little fireplace, sit herself down, and knit from when it first got dark 'til she fell asleep in her armchair.

She used to chat all night the time she was there. Friends would come around, talk about what she was knittin', who she was knittin' it for. Then they'd talk about all the folks they all knew, mosta who I never met. As years went on, they talked more and more 'bout friends they used to know, them who'd passed on. Then folks came less and less themselves.

Now momma don't have many to talk to, 'cept me, when I could be here. I got a job now, so I can't be here every night for her. But I try. I don't know what she'd do if she never had anyone to talk to but that creepy ol' Jeffrey. He still came around. We'd prob'ly have chased him off if he wasn't the only one left 'round to keep momma company when I was on shift.

Lately, momma takin' to telling stories about the good old days, when “things were young and bright,” as she said. She never used to do that. Always stuck to stories about us kids, or our poppa – God rest 'im – and his stories from the war. We didn' believe half of those, but we listened and nodded and enjoyed it all the same.

These stories about herself, though, they something diff'ren all together. To listen to her, she'd been a dancer, a jewel thief, a street thug, a boxer, and who knows all what else. Said poppa saved her from all that, straightened her out to be a proper woman. I gotta wonder if she's starting to fade up there in her head. But she's clear as glass the rest of the time. Doctor's don't say nothin's wrong.

If she tellin' the truth, well... I wish she'd tell more. Maybe we'd write a book together. Nobody'd believe it, but it'd still be somethin'. Give her a way to occupy her time, a way to talk when there weren't nobody there to talk to.