The mattress was old and floppy, so the effect, as I was hauling my end of it down the apartment stairs, was the top half of it resting over my thirteen year old head so that I could barely see.
Suddenly the progress toward our descent stopped. My mother was having a moment of indecision. To stay or to go…the mattress was our only possession and it would be hours still until HE was home from work, so I figured we had time. I lowered my burden to the ground and leaned against the iron bars of the staircase while waiting for her to decide.
“No…lets stay…" she said, almost convincing me she had finally made up her mind this time. I turned around and hauled my end of the mattress up the stairs yet again, for what I hoped was the last time.
Sure enough, right as I reached the top of the stairs and the door to HIS apartment, she froze.
“No, we can’t, I can't go in, we should go” and the decent began again. Yet as her feet left the last stair and touched the ground leading to the parking lot, the car and our liberation, she stopped again. “Ohhhhhh! Ursula! I just don’t know what to do….what should I do? Should I stay or not….. What do you think I should do!?”
Mom looked very vulnerable in that moment leaning against the mattress at the bottom of the stairs and breathing heavily from exertion and confusion. I knew then that what I said would decide our future.
So of course I took the chicken way out and played neutral. To be honest I hadn’t a clue either. On the one hand was poverty, starvation and mother struggling alone each month to pay for me, school and her degree with Juan, the perverted x boyfriend, living next door to mother and down the hall from my room at the co-op,…. And on the other was Ron. A man we barely knew who had fallen in love with her.
None of the options looked good to me, but I knew mother longed to be taken care of and Ron had offered to do it.
And I didn’t want to go back to the co-op and live within 2000sqft of Juan. But I wasn’t sure yet that Ron was a better option. After all mom was (obviously) …er…earning her keep so to speak, but the verdict was out on whether or not I would be allowed to stay, so I pretty much felt like a squatter.
Finally we hauled the mattress up the stairs for what proved to be the last time. “Hey mom”, I said gasping for breath as we struggled back through the door with our mattress.
“I wouldn’t mention this to Ron if I was you…..”