Motherly

It’s been two months since she died, but the memory of Ash’s mother hangs around her like a wet, heavy wool cloth that won’t dry. Seeping and dripping into everything.

It was hard to be with her for her last few weeks, but there wasn’t really anywhere else Ash could go. She didn’t have enough money. So, she had to suffer through her mother criticizing her, ordering her around. She’d done that her whole life, and Ash had learned to just take it. The hit was more fervorous than usual when her mom was on her death bed. Her mom was about to die, but she was still treating her like shit. Shows how much she cared.

It drove Ash into more debt just to give her mom the funeral she insisted on and buried at the St. Theresa’s cathedral cemetery site that she demanded. Dying is expensive. But, her debt is not what drives Ash to the casino on her nights off. The seductive, starry-eyed promise of winning and winning big. No, Ash stopped having energy for things like hope a long time ago.

It’s the whirl-tick of the machines. The bombardment of color and sound. The familiar smell; like an island breeze. Don’t ask her why these things are comforting, but they are.

Before getting out of her car and heading in tonight, Ash does what she always does. She flips on the light in her Honda, pulls out her little black notebook, and writes. Writing is another thing that sustains her. Something about the visceral exchange between her pen and the paper as she translates bottled up feelings into stories. And being able to see her own handwriting. Still sloppy, with each “f” having a real mind of its own, but it’s hers.

After some time she stops writing and heads inside, and as she does: a refreshing wave of island paradise. She makes her way to her usual spot: a slot machine in the back corner.

She greets the worn-out leather brown seat like an old friend. Knowing its curves. She takes out her money and starts counting. Twenty. She’s got twenty to bet tonight.

The sounds off to her right suddenly erupt in bells, whistles, and a surprised shout. Someone won something. It happens. Not often, but it does. Not to her, though. Once she’s won a few hundred dollars. If she happens to win anything tonight, she will probably just put it towards making a dent in the thousands she owes for her mother’s burial and funeral expenses.

The noise level returns to the normal tick + whir as Ash starts to play. She bets twenty-five cents, her go-to. Less to win, but more rounds. She isn’t really here to win, so the amount doesn’t matter to her. What she’s here for is a break from the assembly line of her life and to feel something reassuring. The space to just zone out and not think.

The symbols spin on the screen as they pass each other by. At this point, and since Ash always goes to the same slot machine, she knows the images so well. There is the King with the red crown and elaborate brown mustache. The Queen with snow white hair, holding up a rose. And then there is the Jester, who is the “Wild” image on this slot machine. A goofy, cartoon-looking face with a huge grin and a jester hat falling down around his face that makes it look like he has bright-colored octopus tentacles for hair. He always looks too happy. No one is that happy in real life, Ash usually thinks to herself.

Her mother used to berate her if she ever caught Ash with any kind of grin on her face. This, of course, was years ago. When Ash was a tween and still had any impulse to smile. She can remember one jolted memory like it was still living in her flesh. She came home one night after a middle school dance. She had finally asked Laura, a girl she had been crushing on, to dance with her. It was a slow dance, and though, they didn’t get all up next to each other and put their arms around one another like the boy and girl partners did, it still felt special to Ash. Laura had smiled at her, and it lit up every cell in her body with a warm glow she hadn't known was possible. She came home spinning and grinning, dreamily. Her mother was in the living room watching tv.

“What the fuck you have that grin on your face for? Wipe it off, before I make you.”

Like Ash’s joy was such a threat, that it needed to be squashed immediately. The verbal blow struck Ash across her face, taking her smile with it.

She is gripping the edge of the brown leather seat without realizing it as the machine waits for her to enter her next bet. Ash relaxes her grasp and lets out a sharp breath that she wasn’t aware she was holding.

As she starts to play again, something weird begins to happen on the screen, that at first, Ash discounts. She starts seeing gold coming out from the Jester’s mouth. She blinks, thinking it will go away. It gets brighter, bigger, spilling out of his wide grin. It starts to take over the whole screen. Ash’s body shoots back, impulsively, like the gold is going to come for her and then she quickly looks around. Everything else in the casino is normal.

She looks back at the screen and it’s gone. The Jester’s face is still grinning, but no gold. She does her best to shake it off. Startling and random but not completely unexplainable. She could just be tired. Maybe someone was smoking weed near her, and she inhaled some. Ash knows she’s seen some folks doing that in this casino.

Ash has never been one for drugs. Even as a teenager, when everyone else was experimenting, she just wasn’t all that interested. Drinking alcohol made her feel less control over herself and that was scary, so she didn’t do it. Sober wasn’t fun, but at least she had more control. Besides, when she was younger, her mom told her she used to talk to people who weren’t there, imaginary friends, but some of these imaginary friends were deceased family members. Ash didn’t want to take a chance and bring on that kind of disorder, or whatever it was, if she could help it.

She starts another bet. She’s about to routinely select the twenty-five cent option, when abruptly the button for the two dollar bet starts glowing and jumps off the screen. Her body shoots back again, and this time she lets out a small cry. Fuck. Whirling around again to see if anyone is watching her (no one is), she returns to the screen and the two dollar bet button is still lit up and reaching out towards her in a surreal way. Without warning a wave of chills wash through Ash’s whole body, and she feels woozy. Somewhere deep down inside of herself, she knows that if she plays this two dollar bet this time, she’s going to win. It’s like it’s already happened before.

Most of her life Ash has done her best to keep herself under control. Don’t smile too much or it might bring on her mother’s wrath. Don’t tell anyone that she liked girls because they would beat her for it. Don’t drink too much or it might bring out the disorder where she sees shit. But, tonight, it was like the carefully constructed dam that was holding her together had suddenly sprouted a crack. The heavy weight of her life threatened to let go, and it felt oddly freeing. Her mother was dead. The weird visuals were happening anyway. What else did she have to lose?

With every cell feeling like a forest on fire, Ash chooses the two dollar bet and enters eight quarters. She presses the button to play and watches as the symbols spin. Everything that happens next moves as if through a thick, slow motion molasses. The symbols stop with 5 Kings in a row. The machine explodes in a warm cataclysm of sound and color as it announces she has hit Jackpot. $20,582.68. The cacophonous ringing attracting the eyes and bodies of other people in the casino. The attendant rushing over to her, congratulating her. They hand her the check. Her name is announced over the loudspeaker. “Can we take a photo for Facebook?” A bright flash. Ash doesn’t snap out of it until she is in the parking lot, almost to her car, and the chill of late winter stings her skin.

She looks down at the check in her hand, with thawing wonder. More money than she has ever had in her whole life. 



And then her mother appears in front of her. Leaning up against Ash’s car door. As if she had been standing there all along, waiting for her. Smoking. Her hair is pulled back, and she’s wearing one of her floral nightgowns. The edges faded. She has slippers on. Her favorite. And her expression is tired. Tired, tired. Big bags hang underneath her eyes, and the lines on her face are more pronounced. As if her mother has aged even more since she died. Ash flinches, like someone punched her in the face. Mom?

Her mother flicks ash with the end of her pinky finger, a move Ash has seen her do all of her life. Yes, this was her mother.

“Congratulations, dear.”

Dear; the only nice nickname her mother had ever given her. She had given her lots of other nicknames. Foul ones, that stank when you said them and made Ash feel bad about herself.

“Mom?”

“Listen, I’m dead.” Her mother says with her usual frankness. “But for some reason you can see me now. I’ve been hanging around, watching you, since I died. I know it sounds like some thing out of a fucking late night sci-fi thriller, but it’s true.”

Ash’s mouth goes numb. Her childhood ability has come back with a full vengeance, and now that she has given it some room, it’s uncontainable. She's leapt off a cliff; there is no going back now. She's strangely never felt more alive.

Her mother continues. “I guess you were always a little, special, you know what I mean? Talking to grandma when you were little.”

Silence.

“Listen, I want to tell you something. I get that I wasn’t the best parent to you. I mean, I was a pretty crappy one. I know it can’t make up for it, but, I just… I just want to say, I’m sorry, Ash. I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”

Her mother heaves a deep sigh and puts her cigarette out. The bright, orange spark extinguishing on the pavement. It looks so real.

Her mother has never apologized to her before. Ash has longed to hear these words her whole life, but hearing them now, her insides are contorting, tension rising between the fury she feels towards her mother for never loving her and the love she feels for her mother, because, well, she is her mother.

“Promise me something, okay? Promise me you will use some of that money to go take a writing class or something for yourself. Don’t use it all on paying for my stuff. You’re always writing in that mysterious notebook of yours.”

And just like that, her mother is gone. The ash of her cigarette lingers on the ground. Trembling, Ash pulls out her little black notebook out of her pocket, puts the jackpot check on top of it. A tear wets the check as it falls, glimmering, from her face. She opens her notebook to a new page and allows herself to dream, even for just a moment, about what a writing class might feel like.