Ashtray

    Sarah took another deep drag from her half smoked, home rolled cigarette.  After inhaling the smoke and holding it in, she released the smoke in a thin  stream.  She flicked her ashes into the wobbly green ashtray that her daughter, Jane, made in her third grade class.  Every year, at Jane’s school, the kids were asked to make father’s day and mother’s day present’s for their respective parent’s, Jane inevitably made both presents for her mother.  Sarah had become pregnant while she was still in high school, and the father had become spooked.  Normally Jane made the typical type of stuff, cards, paper flowers, cute stuff that lasted about a week before it was thrown away.
         The ashtray had been Sarah’s annual father’s day gift, and had managed to survive for about three months so far.  The ashtray was different in one simple way; it was practical.  The ashtray wasn’t anything spectacular to look at, it wobbled and some of the dark green paint had obviously started to drip before it was dry.  Still it kept the ash and the butts off the already greasy glass table. 
         Jane’s teacher sometimes asked her all sorts of questions during lunch, recesses and while they were waiting for the bus.  Jane was the skinniest girl in her class, and her teacher, Ms. Blakely, would often ask her what ate for dinner the night before, or if she had eaten breakfast that morning.  Seven times out of ten Jane’s answer would be Macaroni and Cheese, regardless of whether the meal was breakfast or lunch.  Other times Ms. Blakely would ask Jane about the pictures she drew.  The one Ms. Blakely asked the most questions about the picture of her mother asleep on a chair.  Unlike the other kids who always used the peach or brown crayon, Jane drew her mother by using thick yellow lines over spidery gray ones.  Also, more interesting to Ms. Blakely, Jane drew a large, red, needle sticking out of her mother’s right arm.  When she was asked about the needle Jane just said that her mommy was sick, and that her medicine made her sleepy.  That was the day that Ms. Blakely quit contemplating calling Social Services and actually did it.
         The social service people came and took Jane away two day’s after Ms. Blakely’s phone call, and three weeks after Jane had given her mother the ashtray.  The caseworkers placed Jane in a foster home in a different school district.  At home there wasn’t anything left of Sarah, besides the wobbly ashtray and her blue Mac & Cheese boxes.  Sarah had even stopped buying the cheesy pasta at the store and had resorted to a diet of crackers and microwavable chicken patties.  As her money continued to go to child support checks, Sarah’s money for her medicine dwindled, and she was left only with her foul American Spirit home rolled cigarettes.  Every morning it was the same thing, wake up and roll a cigarette, then tap the ash’s out into the misshapen ashtray, until the cigarette was gone and the ashtray was full.