Love, Mommy

    I’m naturally a fearful person. I have many fears and often am surrounded by them. I can actually pinpoint where it all started.
    I was five and stuck was home. If you remember being a five year old, you remember how annoying it was being kept inside on a sunny day. It’s the worst, probably worse than actually being sick. My mom had rebuked me and somehow convinced me that the only reason I was sick was from going outside. In hindsight, I should have called her out on it, but at the time I believed her. Vowing never to go outside again, I stared out the window and laughed at the kids risking their lives for a few rays of sunlight. Deep down I longed to be them.
    The only thing keeping me from stepping out the door was my promise to my mother. The fear that she would be mad or disappointed in me if I broke it. She used to stroke my hair while she was tucking me in at night and tell me how proud she was of her son, how well I listened. I craved her attention. It became the fuel that powered me.
When I was eight, she told me about how my father left her when she was pregnant with me.
“Went into the outside world, leaving us forever. I just thank God my little Justin
will never leave me.” I just smiled uneasily. It was then I came to the
sickening realization. I was my mother’s keeper.
    I found out later that my father didn’t leave us. Well, he did but not in the traditional sense of a man stepping off his stoop and leaving his cares behind. My father was a cop. One day he was called out to stop a gang riot. My mother begged him not to go, to give the job to someone else. He tried to reason with her, explicating it was his job, but she was adamant. He ignored her pleas and left anyway. He was killed by crossfire from a gang leader.
    My mother never got over it. According to my aunt, she started staying in the house more and more. She complained that the neighbors were talking about her. The only people she still talks to are my grandmother and my aunt Lettie. My aunt and grandmother visit every week with groceries. Grandma talks to Mom while they fix lunch and Aunt Lettie and I talk upstairs. She tells me of my mother’s life before my father’s death. How kind and full of life she was. It wounded me to think of her then and her now. She was accommodating and energetic. Now, she is feeble and too fearful to leave the house.
    I don’t want this for my life.  I don’t want to stay in this house and deteriorate. I want to run and play. Go to a real school, instead of being home schooled. I want to fall in love, kiss a girl, experience the camaraderie and do all the things most sixteen year olds are doing. I really don’t want the only memory of me to be a blurred sighting of me in a dirty window.
    I had to get out of here. Tonight. After I’m sure Mom is asleep, I crept downstairs. The door never seemed so big. It looked as though I wouldn’t be able to stretch my hand around the knob. Sweat formed in the small of my back. My breath became shallow and harsh. It seemed to burn as I inhaled. I reached out, praying I didn’t faint. The brass was felt foreign on my skin. A bead of sweat trickled down my brow. Doubt swept over me. What if I can’t do it? What if she wakes up and notices she is gone?
    Throwing my worries aside, I swiftly turn the knob and threw open the door. The cold air caught my breath. I stepped out on to the porch. Tears started to stream down my face, converging with the sweat. The garden, even in the dark, looked like it was in a pathetic condition. It makes sense. I can’t remember it was weeded. Dirt and weeds peeked out from underneath the brown lawn. My eyes took a while to adjust to the lack of light. Standing at the edge of the porch, I tried to get my leg to move down. It felt like pure lead, stiff and heavy. I sighed and watched my breath float in front of me.
    After a few minutes I heard a noise come from behind the house. It could have just been a bird, but I didn’t want to risk it. I terminated my trip and quietly slipped inside. I continued this ritual for about a week. Each time was at night and for a little longer. By Friday, I had stayed out for twenty minutes. I started feeling better, my body in full accord. I planned little trips in the neighborhood during the day. This was the pivotal start of a new life for me. I was a new Justin.
    One day at breakfast, after my longest outing ever, my mother strode over to the cabinet and grabbed a key. She brought it over to the door behind me and, to my horror she locked the door. She sealed me in the house, ensuring my ultimate tomb. Mom turned around. She had an inexplicable, sickly sweet smile on her face. My hands started to shake and the familiar sweat returned to my brow.
      “Justin, We need to talk about something.”