The Passed Note Issue 10 June 2019 | Page 40

out of each other’s hair sometimes, you know?”

“Is that what this is about?” she asked, pulling her reading glasses up on top of her head. Say what you will about her condition, but you’d be surprised how little gets past her.

“I’ve had trouble sleeping and, I don’t know, I think it might have something to do with being seventeen and still sleeping with my mommy who leaves the TV on-”

“At a very low volume.”

“And the lights on all night too,” I sputtered, compulsively finishing my thought.

“You know I don’t like to be alone with my thoughts because they’re usually fears of moments just like this.”

“You’ve always told me that I need to ask for what I want. You said you wished you had done that with your mother.”

Mom tossed her coupons to the side and stared at the floor.

Between my breath in my dust mask and the rubber of my gloves, I was sweating my ass off. We were in the second-to-least packed room in the house and I rivaled the hoard for the most revolting thing in the room. With most of her collection in plastic storage bins stacked six feet high throughout the room, our task loomed large over us but with a clear path, though the dust was unmerciful. There was mud in the crevices of the bins. The hoard extended through the backyard so I assumed these bins had had a turn out there at some point, expose