One big run on

My father bought the house for them years ago. Her husband paid my father the reasonable rent regularly. He went to work. She raised dogs and sold the puppies. She made a garden, tended flowers. For a few years, their lives were okay, even good at times. When my father died, my mother paid off the mortgage and gave the house to her. They started drinking again. He lost his job. There were fights, emergency calls in the middle of the night. Police were called. Often. Emergency Rooms were visited. She kicked him out and moved another in. He brought his unemployment and addictions with him into the house. There were more fights, more police calls, more Emergency Room visits. She wouldn't kick him out. Her divorce was finalized. Her ex-husband would return to protect her or to get his things or to get drunk with them. One night he returned very drunk, got out of his car, fell on the driveway and never woke from the coma that resulted. He died months later. She kicked the new guy out. He returned. She called the police. He left before they arrived. Repeat day and night. She got drunk on her own. She was lonely, she said, so lonely. She allowed him back in, someone to drink with. She was lonely. Out of the blue, her high school boyfriend called her, visited her, treated her well, fed her, tended to her, helped her get sober then moved her to Austin to live with him. She took what she wanted from the house and left behind what she did not want.

I found a realtor. A sign was put in the yard.

Today I drove by to check on the house, check the mail, assess what I need to do with what she left behind. I walked through the rooms, noticed the thermostat on 69, turned it off. Then I noticed the back door open wide and walked into the dining room. And there he was standing in the kitchen, drunk and shaking, holding on to a wheelchair in front of him, cooking something in a pan on the stove.

My nerves raced the chill up my spine. You know you're not supposed to be here, don't you?

He mumbled something I couldn't understand, something about being there to fix something. He was out of his mind. I didn't take a step farther. I had my cell phone in my hand, keeping my friend on the line with me as security when I had walked in the house, in case he was there, relieved that I'd thought of it. She heard me talking to him, told me to get out of the house, which I did. Then she said to call the police, which I also did.

And then I got into my car and started crying and I couldn't stop until I got home. I cried out of fear and I cried out of frustration and I cried because she left this responsibility on my shoulders and she doesn't understand what that means or that I don't want it, but mostly I cried because this is not what my father had in mind when he bought the house.