Page 7 of Grease's Guide
“Mobsters, mom. Not alley cats.” I rub my tired eyes as she continues, not even glancing at me.
“Yeah, yeah, monsters. Anyway, I figured I could distract them with some good old cherry pie. If you know what I mean,” she says, shaking her butt at me. I roll my eyes and can’t help but smile. Then her words hit me, and the smile fades.
“Mama. I need you to promise me something, okay?” I ask her quietly.
“Of course, sugarplum. Anything.” She’s still rifling through bags as she answers me.
“I need you to swear that you'll run if they find us again. This is my fault, mama. I can’t put you right in their hands.” At that plea, her hands still. She doesn't look at me, but she responds in a harder voice than I have ever heard from her.
“No.”
“Mama…” Before I can finish, she turns, and for the first time, I think in my whole life, I see fury on her face.
“I will tell you this once, Lyra Loretta Lynn Leman.” Yes, that is my full real name. Tongue twister, ain't it? My mama saw her moment to use Loretta Lynn when the doctor said girl, and she took it.
“Don't you ever… ever say nothing like that jibber jabber you just juggled right out of your lips again, ya hear me? If thosemeatballs show up again, and there is nothing standing in the way of you and their pistols, I'll put myself there. I won't walk; I’ll run, baby. If they come for you, I will take on the entire army to make sure you get away. I will throw my whole body in front of their car just to buy you seconds as a speed bump. Don't you know I would give my life for you in a heartbeat, baby girl?” she asks, all the anger leaving her body and a look of devastation taking over.
“Of course, I know that, mama. You already did. Your whole life was about me. You were a child raising a child and doing one hell of a job, if I do say so myself.” I puff my chest out proudly, wanting her to feel like she didn't fail. Then I look around and quickly deflate.
“Well, I mean, if you don't count the whole running from the mob part. Yet I took away your chance to be free to have your own life by bringing you into this mess. You shouldn't still be giving up your life for me, mama. You deserve to be happy,” I tell her, now on the verge of tears.
“First, you stood up for a baby who was being beaten. That is not failure; that is grit! You made me so darn proud that day. Second, don't you know you are my life, baby? Have been since the moment I saw that test. You are what gave me a purpose. You are what saved me from the pits I was raised in. You have been the only shiny spot in my life, honey bear. I would have stayed in that…” She pauses, not wanting to face the thoughts, or more accurately, not wanting me to face the thoughts of what her stepdad did to her. She finally continues, “…abusive home until someone killed me or I broke down and took the first thing offered to me. That was my life… my future before you, baby girl.”
“You changed everything in the best way possible. These last few years without you… I might have kept up an act on the phone when we had our little secret meetin’s, but honey sugar bear, Mama wasn't doing good. I had sunk so low…” She pauses, looking around like someone else is in the seedy motel room to hear her confession, “I didn't fluff my hair for a year,” she whispers that last part, and I gasp.
Not to be dramatic, but out of pure shock. My mama has never not fluffed her hair. I have never seen it unfluffled. Like, in my whole life. I swear, even waking up in the middle of the night and running to her with nightmares. Most people have a rat's nest, a cowlick, or something, but my mama's hair? Nope, her hair was perfectly fluffed.
“Mama, I’m so sorry,” I tell her, letting the tears finally fall.
“It’s alright, baby girl. We are together again, and that is all that matters. Just…” she pauses and waits until I make eye contact with her this time. “Never ask me to make that promise again. What you don't seem to realize, even with all that good book smartin’ you got at that fancy college I helped pay for. If your life ended, baby… so would mine. I couldn't be in this place, on this earth, in this existence, without you.” She smiles, and I sob before leaning into her comforting arms and letting her hold me.
She is the best mom ever. If there is one thing about my mama I wish I could change, it's how she always puts herself down. She purposely acts dumber when she gets emotional; it's her defense mechanism, and I recognize it. If you play dumb, people can't really see when their words hit or when they’ve really affected you. They underestimate you when you play down your smarts as well, but in my mom's case, she does it because it's what she's been told her whole life by that little town we grew up in. She wasjust the ditzy, dumb, trailer trash whore from the wrong side of town.
No one ever cared that she was my world. That she never spoke to or of a man my whole life. That she worked doubles and slept three hours a night to make sure I had everything the other kids at school had. That she tried everything to protect me from the truth, but word gets around in a small town.
Did it change how I saw my mama? Nope. Not in the least. She was and is the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She raised me all on her own when her mom kicked her out. She had to quit high school, and she was a waitress at the sleaziest strip club on the outskirts of town, only getting paid in tips because she couldn’t legally ‘work.’
She was there. She made cookies for every school occasion. It wasn’t until I was older that I noticed the other moms throw them away when my mom turned her back. They also made sure to exclude her, gossip about her right in front of her, hold tight to their husbands whenever she was near, and purposely tell her wrong information to make her seem like a horrible mom.
I hated them. All of them. My mom never once uttered a bad word, but I could hear her crying at night when she thought I was asleep. All she wanted was friends, but they were so mean to her it was unreal. So.. I became her best friend. It was kind of natural, seeing as we had to grow up together and we only had each other. I still remember the tiny one-bedroom, single-wide trailer we lived in. I would give anything to go back in time to those days, just me, mama, and that trailer.
Throughout the years, she's never strayed from the woman I've always known and loved. The kind-hearted, crazy, and maybe a little bit dizzy mama that's been my rock. Willing to help anyone,anytime, no matter who. The woman who held her head high for over fifteen years in a town that painted that scarlet letter on her.
She was, and is quite simply… my hero.
I take in another big whiff of her signature Bombshell perfume, remembering all the good times, feeling at home in her arms, and only wishing I could have introduced her to the family and that man I love with all my heart. They would have loved her, Halle especially, and she’s already fallen in love with them from our rare conversations I was able to sneak in.
“Now that all the emotional woes are out of the way. Rambunctious Red or Precocious Periwinkle?” Mom asks, pulling back and grabbing two boxes of hair dye. I roll my eyes at her.
“I know you’ve already chosen which one you want, so just give me whatever you weren’t thinking.” I smile when she ducks her head but passes me the periwinkle. I lift a brow at her choice.
“Oh, come on, sugarplum, you know I’m the rambunctious one with the good ra ra,” my mama says, all five foot nothing of her bouncing up and down in her six-inch heels and shaking her ‘ra ra’.
Yup… my hero.
“So, Mom. What’s the plan from here?” I yell just as she peaks her head back out the bathroom door.
“Oh, it’s a good one. You’re going to love it!” She smiles widely as I raise a brow.