First Visit at the Loony Bin, mom and sam
mom wore her good wool coat, the one she wears to church and to doctor's appointments. she looked tired, like the before people in the before and after pictures of her magazines. she started massaging her forehead as soon as she walked into the reception room.
sam looked scared and excited all at once. he also seemed skinnier than ever; even though he was wearing a bulky red sweatshirt, hi inhaler made a big bulge from inside his front shirt pocket. he let me hug hi, then shoved a card at me. “i made this for you,” he said. the card had pictures of cats. cats dancing. the card, which i hid under the mattress in my room, says “hop your feeling beter.” it's signed by Sam and Linus. Linus is our cat.
we'd make small talk. but i don't talk, small or otherwise. it was weird not saying anything to Sam when he handed me the card. i patted him on the head instead. then my mom started sniffling, so i was able to walk away and get her a tissue from the coffee table. that's one good thing about this place. there are tissue boxes everywhere.
i knew Sam was too sick to go to school again. which meant my mom must be more upset than ever. which meant my dad would be spending more time than ever at work- or more time out with customers, or people he hoped would be customers but somehow never turned into customers.
