This is the first story I've posted since I was a sophomore in high school. It hits close to home. Be gentle with me.

I do not own Twilight, though I did once own a sweet black lab named Buster.

I'll never forget the first time I saw her. It was a hot, summer day in mid-July, sweat visible on my face. I was trekking through the woods behind my house accompanied by my childhood best friend, Buster. If I'm being honest, he was the most loyal friend I've ever had, though he passed many years ago. I'm not a religious person, but I would like to think if there ever were a Heaven, dogs would be the first to go. Buster and I had been roaming for hours, stopping to inspect deer tracks that had been left from only a day or two before, and other things like that. Despite how many times we had made that same hike, he and I were always in search of something new, of the next big adventure.

We had just come up on a neighbor's old barn when I heard Mama calling my name. She had a tendency to do that when I was about to get into something fun. I rounded up Buster and we started our way back to the house. I thought of all the reasons Mama could be calling me back so early, as it was only mid-afternoon, the sun barely starting its descent from the sky. I expected her to yell for me at dinner-time, our normal routine, but because it was still so early, I wondered the whole way home.

When I finally made it out of the woods and into the beginnings of the back yard, I squinted my eyes, trying to see if there was anything out of the ordinary that could clue me in to what Mama's problem was, but everything appeared to be as I had left it. Daddy's truck was gone, meaning he was still slaving away, wielding his hammer. My Daddy was a carpenter, and he built houses with a man named Jenkins all around the county. Sometimes he was lucky enough to get a job out of state, but it wasn't an often occurrence. Times were tough around here for the little man, and real estate took a plunge a few years back; Daddy struggled to put food on the table, but I knew he tried. The tan on his skin and roughness of his hands said he tried; said he was honest too. I wasn't really old enough to understand it yet, but Daddy had warned me of men who didn't have rough hands. If a man had soft hands, it made you wonder how often he used them. It made you wonder if he'd ever driven a nail or changed a tire, even. If a man has soft hands, it makes him hard to trust; at least, that's what Daddy says.

I went into the house and found Mama in the kitchen, standing with with two suitcases and puffing away on a cigarette. I swear, she'd look a lot prettier if she'd quit those things, but I don't think she cares. She stopped caring about anything a long time ago. You see, my Mama was sad; that's what the doctor said anyway. He also says I've got a temper problem, but what does he know? What I do know is that my Mama spends half her time laying on the couch in her pajamas when she should be washing mine and Daddy's clothes and cooking our meals, and other stuff mama's are supposed to do. Instead, she does a lot of sleeping and it makes me mad. It makes Daddy mad too. He doesn't think it's fair that he works all day and can't come home to a good plate of food prepared for him by his wife. I don't think it's fair either, but I try to stay out of it and go into another room when they have it out. Sometimes if I put my hands over my ears and scream loud enough, it drowns out their fights. Other times, I march right in the room and tell them if they don't shut up, I'm leaving.

One time, I did leave, and it made me the saddest I've ever been. I took Buster with me because there's no way I would've ever survived on my own. I packed myself a bag filled with a water, a sandwich, a flashlight, some paper and a pen, and I was out of there. I stayed gone 'till dark, but there came a point when I couldn't ignore Mama's hollering anymore. She'd yelled for me until her voice sounded all raspy and I could tell she was crying. I imagined her sitting there on the back porch steps, tears falling down on her face until they went in her mouth. She cried like that a lot. Like she was too sad to even wipe her tears away, she just let them fall wherever they wanted to go. I thought about her sitting there like that and I came back home. Mama and Daddy apologized, said they'd try to do better and let me sleep with them that night, even though I was much too old to be sleeping with them, and the bed was way too small.

Mama finally put out her cigarette and asked me to sit at the kitchen table. She sat down next to me and took a deep breath. I thought if I'd just smoked a cigarette, I'd need to take a big breath too. Except I learned quickly after that, she wasn't taking a deep breath because she needed to breathe. She was taking a deep breath so that she could rack up the courage to tell me she was leaving. When I asked her where she was going, she wouldn't tell me, but said she needed to go. I asked her if I could come along and she said no, that I needed to stay home. She told me to be brave and take care of Daddy, and before I could tell her I didn't know how, she was standing up and grabbing her bags. I started panicking then. My heart starting pounding so fast, I thought it would beat right out of my chest. I followed her out the door and watched her throw those bags into the car. Buster was sort of growling at her and I didn't really understand why. I didn't understand anything that was going on. Before I knew it, Mama was kissing me on the head and telling me goodbye. I could tell she was about to cry because her voice cracked when she said my name. I watched her back out of the driveway and take off down the road. It was then that I felt the tears that were burning down my face, falling right into my mouth. I walked inside to the bathroom, feeling paralyzed, and stood in front of the mirror.

I couldn't believe who I was seeing. The girl in the mirror had wild, impossibly curly brown hair. Her lips were red and swollen from the hot tears that were making trails through the dirt on her face. She was thin, with little scrapes and bruises all over her arms and legs from bike wrecks and briars that licked at her limbs as she walked through the woods. What caught my attention was her eyes: dark brown pools of sorrow and anger. At that moment, I realized I wasn't seeing myself. In those eyes, all I could see was my mother. From that day on, my mother was no longer, "Mama." She was "Renee."

Thanks for reading.

-sally