“If you want something right, you have to do it yourself!” My mother grabbed the dishtowel from my hand and body slammed me out of the way. “Just get the hell out of here and out of my sight! You’re just a useless lump.”

I tried to make myself as small as I could and crept behind her and out of the kitchen, fleeing upstairs to my bedroom and shutting the door as quietly as I could. I could hear her banging cabinet doors and throwing plates and glassware onto the floor while she screamed “Unclean! Unclean!”

This was the worst she had been in a long time and I debated calling my father. I knew he would come, buy I also knew his wife Maryanne would give him a hard time about it; she greatly resented his time spent trying to deal with his ex-wife and his thirteen year old daughter. I lay down on my bed and hoped Mom’s anger would run out of steam or she’d start in again on the Vodka and soon be in a drunken sleep.

I pulled out “Little House on the Prairie” and tried to lose myself in the story of the perfect Ingall’s family and their prairie life. The noise downstairs quieted after about an hour but I waited another hour until it was almost ten p.m., and then I decided it was safe to go back downstairs.

Mom was predictably passed out on the sofa, the bottle of Vodka tipped over on the floor. She had thrown my dinner into the trash when I asked if I could have a slice of bread and I was really hungry. I had to pick my way through the broken dishes and glasses all over the floor, but managed to find a couple of hard boiled eggs in the fridge and an open package of saltines that I hurriedly wolfed down.

It was up to me to straighten the kitchen or there would be worse hell in the morning, so I checked again to make sure Mom was still in a comatose, boozy sleep and swept up the mess she had made. I guess we’d be taking another trip to Goodwill tomorrow to replace the stuff she’d destroyed in her rage. It was a pattern by now and I had gotten used to it, but I felt tears prickle my eyes and I refused to cry because this was just my life now.

After I got everything in order in the kitchen I grabbed an apple and quiet as a mouse headed back up to my room. I shut the door and got into my pajamas and then read another chapter of my book. I fell asleep with the thought in my head, “I wonder if Ma Ingalls ever got mad drunk on homemade cider?”