I waited as Momma locked the front door of her one-bedroom condominium. She blew air kisses goodbye to her neighbor Gladys and bent down to nuzzle Milo, the community tabby cat.
“Let’s go, Momma! Gotta hit the 10 before rush hour.”
I grabbed her Samsonite. It barely weighed anything.
“Did you pack enough stuff?” I asked as she checked her empty mailbox. “We’re gonna be gone two weeks.”
“Oh, are we?” she asked nonchalantly.
I sighed and ran into her house and grabbed some extra clothes and toiletries. On my way out, I noticed a photograph of me and Johnny in 1978. I had pigtails and a brown corduroy pinafore dress Momma had made me. Johnny was holding a rubber ball and grinning. Looking at the two of so young, I suddenly wished for the innocent, uncomplicated days of our youth. Momma had the photo hanging right by the front door so she could see it every time she left the house. I wondered what she thought when she saw it on her way out this time.
I rushed back out of the house and tried to usher her into the car.
“Come on! We gotta go!”
“You’d think we’re off to the races the way you’re rushing about. Didn’t I teach you anything growing up?”
To punctuate her question, she stopped, pulled one of Gladys’s tangerine colored roses to her nose and took a luxurious inhale.
“Johnny is waiting for us,” I implored.
“Aren’t Gladys’s roses to die for?” she asked.
Without answering, I ushered her into the car and closed the door firmly.
After two hours of driving east, with Momma knitting a wool shawl in the front seat, I passed a sign that read, “Welcome to Georgia.” Momma saw the sign and perked up.
“Abeline Williams just moved to Atlanta. We should stop in and say hello! Sweetie, take the 75 to Atlanta.” She reached over and grabbed the steering wheel. She pulled it to the right, causing my old Beetle to veer into the next lane. Luckily the road was empty at that early hour, but it didn’t stop my heart from revving up and almost splitting my rib cage.
“Momma stop it!” I shouted, grasping control of the wheel. “We aren’t going to see Abeline or anyone else along the way.”
I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope and threw it down on top of Momma’s shawl.
“You seem to have forgotten the purpose of our trip. Well here’s a reminder.”
She stared at the envelope addressed to “Joan & Momma.” She’d read it before. She knew what was in there. The begging words of my brother to come rescue him from yet another “bad situation.” Except this one was worse than all the ones before.
I could tell Momma didn’t want to touch the letter, maybe for fear of validating its existence. But I saw her eyes turn shiny with a layer of held-back tears.
“I don’t want to see him like this again,” she said softly.
“I know.”
It had always been obvious to me that Momma felt responsible for the way Johnny had turned out, but she would never admit it. It was true he’d never managed to get his life on the straight and narrow, and it was true he had disrupted our lives many times before in his moments of crisis, but was that really Momma’s fault? A person is exposed to a world of influence beyond his mother’s nest.
I reached over and grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Johnny’s a 36 year old man who’s made a lifetime of his own choices. And you’ve been there through thick and thin. You are a constant in his life. Maybe his only constant.”
She wiped a tear and sighed, a lifetime of memories swirling in her head.