Serving Pride by Jill Sanders Page A

stressed that he hasn’t found a job
yet.”
     
    “Mama, did he hit
you?” Robert had been asleep for the first part of the fight. All
the sugar and running around during his party had worn him out.
He’d actually gone to bed an hour earlier than
normal.
     
    “No, baby. He just
yelled.” His mother sat up and turned on the light. Robert saw that
her eyes were swollen red from crying. She still had on the dress
that she’d worn for his party. It was her happy dress, as Robert
liked to think of it. The pale yellow reminded him of better times
with his father, for some reason.
     
    She patted the
mattress next to her and he climbed up next to her on the bed. When
she wrapped her arm around him, he felt comforted. He loved the way
his mother smelled, as fresh as a field of daisies. That’s what his
father had always said, and Robert had always agreed with
him.
     
    “I’m sorry to wake
you. Did you have fun today?”
     
    Being the
eight-year-old boy that he was, he fell for the change of subject
his mother provided and proceeded to talk for a few minutes about
his party and all the cool presents he’d gotten that day. He fell
asleep again, there in her arms, and she carried him back to his
room and sung to him as she laid him back in his
Spider - man
bed.
     
    The next morning
when he woke, she was gone. There was no note, no goodbyes,
nothing. Roy had come back and had fallen asleep on the couch, face
down. When Robert tried to wake him, he’d just turned over and put
the pillow over his head.
     
    Robert thought that
maybe his mom had gone to the store, so he got ready for school. He
made his own lunch and grabbed a few slices of bread and some
cheese for breakfast. Roy didn’t move, even though Robert was being
very loud in the kitchen.
     
    When he left to
walk for school, his mother still wasn’t there. Leaving the
apartment complex, he saw by his mother’s car still parked in the
parking lot, and for a second, he wanted to run back in the
apartment to see if maybe she had just been hiding from him. She
couldn’t have gone anywhere without her car. He thought that maybe
she’d taken Roy’s truck, but when he looked, he saw that it was
parked out back behind the apartments.
     
    It took him twice
as long as usual to walk to school that day, because he was so
occupied by his thoughts. When he finally did make it to class, he
was fifteen minutes late and received his third tardy that
year.
     
    Walking home with a
note that needed to be signed, he stepped in to find Roy still on
the couch face down. He’d forgotten to check and see if his
mother’s car was there, but he knew instantly that she wasn’t home.
She was supposed to work until midnight that night since she’d
taken off the day before for his birthday
party.
     
    Walking into his
room, he dumped his bag on his bed and got to work on his homework.
He had an agreement with his mom. If he kept his grades above C’s
he would get to play Xbox after dinner. Since his mother was at
work, he could eat dinner as early as he wanted, which meant more
time playing games.
     
    That whole evening,
Roy didn’t move. He’d walked by him several times to make sure he
was still breathing and was slightly disappointed when he heard the
man snoring.
     
    The next morning,
he rushed into his mom’s room to find it empty. Roy was no longer
on the couch. When he got home from school, neither of them were
there. Since it was Friday, he called for pizza delivery and paid
out of the money his mom hid for him. He spent the weekend playing
video games and eating junk food.
     
    When he went into
school on Monday, he still hadn’t heard from either his mom or Roy.
Instead of going to his class, he’d walked into the principal’s
office and sat out by the receptionist. He told the older woman he
needed to speak with Mr. Kent, man to man, before
classes.
     
    Finally, a few
minutes later, Mr. Kent walked out and nodded to him to follow him
into his