Since You Left Me by Allen Zadoff Page A

balance,” I say. I look around. The guru is gone. His stuff is out of the living room. “In fact, I’m feeling very balanced right now.”
    “What do you call your little outburst this morning?” Mom says.
    “I’d say that was an appropriate reaction upon finding a strange man in your kitchen.”
    “Not so strange. You’d met him before.”
    “Not in my kitchen.”
    “First of all, it’s not your kitchen. You don’t pay the bills in this family.”
    A dead man pays the bills in this family. At least the tuition bills. But I don’t say that to Mom.
    “Forget it,” Mom says. “I’m not having this fight again.”
    Mom unfurls a yoga mat and lies on it on the living room floor.
    Her answer to everything. Kundalini.
    “Join me,” she says. “I’m not in the mood.”
    “Please, Sanskrit.”
    “It’s not a matter of please , Mom. I just don’t feel like it.”
    “Why not?”
    “I had a big breakfast. I don’t want to be upside down right now.”
    “Where did you eat?”
    “At Starbucks. I had a breakfast sandwich with extra bacon.”
    Mom makes a face. I call it her meat wince. She pretends she doesn’t care that I eat meat, that it’s my own personal choice and her only job is to inform me so I can make a good decision. But if I dare to walk in the house with an In-N-Out Burger bag, she can’t control her reaction. It’s like a beefy form of Tourette’s.
    “You can’t do one little posture with me?” Mom says.
    “I cannot. I am incapable of it.”
    Mom pushes up into a headstand. Now we’re looking at each other eye to ankle. It’s like a docking maneuver on the space shuttle. I imagine Mom and me lost in space together. I wonder what it would be like to be alone with Mom, nobody to interrupt us.
    “Are you on drugs?” Mom says out of the blue.
    “Are you kidding?”
    “You’re not addicted to bath salts?”
    “What are bath salts?”
    “My yoga blog talked about it in their Parent Corner. All the kids are doing it now.”
    “I’m not doing it.”
    “Well, everyone else is.”
    “Something else I can feel bad about. I’m not on drugs, Mom. They’re not even popular in our school. Kids are more worried about Israeli politics than getting high.”
    Mom examines me upside down, trying to determine if I’m lying. “I made an appointment for you with Dr. Prem,” she says.
    Dr. Prem is not really a doctor. He’s Mom’s chiropractor.
    “No!” I say, even though I like Dr. Prem. He’s just weird like everyone else Mom knows.
    “I’m trying to help you.”
    “How does getting my back cracked help me?” Mom pinches her fingers together and gestures from her toes to her head. “Flow,” she says. “I don’t want to flow.”
    “It’s already done. Two o’clock today. Your father is going to take you.”
    “Why aren’t you taking me?” I say.
    “I’m giving the guru a tour of the city,” Mom says.
    “Like you gave him a tour of your bedroom?”
    Mom opens her mouth to respond, then takes a calming breath instead.
    “You don’t think I’m doing a good job as a parent?” she says.
    I feel a drop of sweat pooling on my forehead. It hangs there for a moment before rolling down the side of my face.
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “But you’ve brought it up,” Mom says. “A few times now.”
    I wipe my forehead with my sleeve.
    “Don’t wipe your head like that,” Mom says. “It stains the fabric.”
    “Sorry.”
    “You don’t appreciate what I do for you. I bought you that shirt.”
    “I know you did.”
    “Dr. Prem is expensive. So is your sister’s doctor.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m trying to keep this family’s head above water. I’m killing myself to build up the Center. I’m working all the time. You think I like being away from my children so much?”
    “No,” I say, even though I think the answer is yes.
    “I even invited you to teach a class with me.”
    I stare at the floor.
    “I’m doing my best, and you have the nerve to stand here