Driving Me Crazy (Next Tall)

I’m driving along in a fog, which is my life in a nutshell.

A year ago when I divorced Stanley, I expected heroes to line up outside my door to worship at the shrine of my pot roast and my crotchless panties. What I got was one hot hunk who loved shrines but hated commitment and one geriatric who drooled his soup and peed on the toilet seat.

After I finally fled a marriage I couldn’t fix, I saw my future self as happily re-wed, gainfully employed and skinny. I’m none of the above. What I am is forty-one and lost–in more ways than one-and even if I had a map, I couldn’t see the road. Fog shrouds everything, including my Jeep, as I inch down what I hope if Highway 371 to rescue Mama.

That’s me. Maggie Dufrane. Rescuer of stray cats, wounded dogs, latchkey kids, lonely old farts, sick neighbors and a seventy-five-year-old mama.

~~~~
Mama is stretched out on the floor with Jefferson lying beside her, his big head pillowed on her chest.

“Don’t just stand there,” she says. “Help me up from here. I’ve got to get to the hospital.”

The thing about Mama is that she’s going to take charge, no matter what. When the time comes, I can imagine her sitting up from her casket saying, “Fluff up this pillow, it’s hard as a brickbat. And for Pete’s sake, go out and buy yourself a new dress. I don’t want any daughter of mine looking tacky at my funeral.”