The Wonder Years

I grew up with a mom and a dad and a brother 2 years younger.
dad worked and mom stayed home... for a while.
She spent a lot of time on that corded, rotary dial phone, telling me and my brother to "go out and play".
The neighborhood was a good, safe one and a lot of friends lived close by.....

When we would get home for dinner, mom and dad would be yelling.... that's all they did. I never have figured out what it was about, but that is all they did.
She got a part time job as a bartender at some point, working at a relatively nice restaurant.
She would sleep on the couch. I remember getting up more than once to get breakfast and she would be there, so I would be quiet... I had to go to school. I would get my brother up too, and sometimes my dad. He would ask if mom was there. If I said she was on the couch, we would tell me to get my brother set up and get off to school. I was 9.

She left.

When I was 12

Saw her about once a year after that.

when she left, I became responsible for my brother.... 12 years old and now, the father of a 10 yr old. My dad would sequester himself every night in his room with a few cases of beer. Lunch money would be left only if I badgered him from the minute he walked in from happy hour until he went to his room. groceries were not in the fridge, not because there was no money, but because no one got them.

So I started asking for money for food. I started the shopping. And I had to walk. It was only a mile to the store, but your shoulders start to hurt after a while carrying all that. I went every few days because I could only carry so much.

So I start high school, and the sports that go with it. I chose football for the fall. my brother now became responsible for getting me up because it was my first time at it and your body really takes a beating, so I would sleep a little harder that I used to.

One day, he wakes me up and said there was no lunch money. I told him to pack one. He said "there's no lunch stuff".

I got up, and there wasn't. Dad had eaten everything the night before. I had the change left from the previous day of shopping, so I gave him a few bucks to buy lunch and realized how things had turned.

I got a job.
And played football
and lacrosse
and went to school
and gave my brother money for lunch
and cooked dinner
and cleaned (kind of)
and started paying some of the bills
homework fell by the wayside

Dad had stopped drinking so much by the time we were both in high school and was running and taking care of himself. But the damage was already done. I was my brothers surrogate father. I had provided when we needed it. I kept the lights on, I kept food in the house... I even helped pay the mortgage sometimes.

So he meets someone and gets married. She has a daughter my age and I get moved to the basement, so the new girl can have the room I grew up in because it is more comfortable.. go figure. I was still "responsible" for paying some of the luxuries I had introduced...like cable tv, and the world exploded when I had it turned off if I was the only one paying for it.
I started drinking heavily to the point I went to rehab at 16... Lost scholarships out the ying-yang because I was athletically ineligible my junior year.

Delores met me the following year... in all my misguided glory. And I met her. And have never forgotten.

My new step mom kicked me out the summer I turned 18... the summer I fucked up with Delores. I was "not appropriate" for a family environment.....

That was the place I lived when I called Delores and she came over... and left in the middle of the night while I was still sleeping