Jason Hill - MOVING PARTS

I WAS STANDING IN Mamas living room, hoping we had not arrived too late for whatever she had planned, when she came out of her bedroom and almost immediately started going off on me. It was dark outside. A brisk December chill followed my daughter and me into the house, and wed hurried to get there once we realized (duh) that of course there were no thrift shops open on New Years Eve, as wed hoped. I was content to skip a perfunctory third holiday family get-together anyway and just go back to the apartment with my little girl, with whom I was recently reconciled after a long estrangement.

Robbie, my daughter, stood glum and worried a few feet away in the middle of the dining room while her father tried not to fly off the handle. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but her father had already pushed through the door. Robbie had on round white-framed glasses and a denim jacket to stave off the frigid temps and was about to take it off when her grandmother, a diminutive yet old and strong woman, commenced her minor tirade. Mamas short hair was streaked with gray, uncombed and unkempt, and her eyes had black circles around them, but still she reminded me of the Mama shed been when I was a boy, selling Mary Kay and performing in plays and theater productions. Even her cheekbones were headstrong, but the skin was peppered with blackheads and darkened from all those summers exposed to the San Antonio sun.

I was concerned about Christina, thats all, I said from the island in the kitchen.

Well then for Chriss sake you coulda checked with me first, Mama muttered. Its my car. She was in her bathrobe and barefooted. When she came into the living room and raised her objection, I found her dressed in it, the body of the womb that carried me in a long pea-green robe and house slippers.

Plus, she has to be there by seven in the morning and its all the way in Stone Oak, I said. I feel sorry for her, geez! I thought thats why you got a second car, anyway, so we could do things likes this, help each other out, if needed. Were supposed to be celebrating and happyits New Years Eve, for goodness sake, but all you have is piss and vinegar!

Christina started crying and came over to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. She hadnt done that in years. I pulled out a twenty and a five-dollar bill and gave them to her. A late Christmas gift. Mama was taking stock. Oh, so now Im the bad guy! Mama said, shaking her head ironically in her pea-green robe, coming closer.

Im leaving, I said. I turned to my daughter. Do you want to stay here, Robbie, or come with me?

With you.

It had been almost five years since I spent any real time with my daughter. Not since that terrible night four and a half years ago that disintegrated our family and began the nightmares. I pulled out my cell phone and ordered a Lyft and Robbie went into her room and began packing.

We walked up the stairs to my floor. Princess was meowing, as she did whenever I came home, signaling she was thirsty for water, and the apartment was silent except for the intermittent squeak of the fire alarm signaling it was thirsty for a battery replacement. I put some Tyler, the Creator on the Bluetooth, hoping the music would lighten the mood.

I looked around the room. Everything was in order and chaos. There was the pull-out sofa sleeper Id gotten for forty dollars back in August that she could sleep on.

The position of articles in the kitchen and the refrigerator had never bothered me before, but as Robbie examined the contents of my pantry and cupboards and whatnot, now I was painfully conscious of it. The pantry was not being used for its designed purpose and utilityfoodstuffsand instead was stuffed with papers and notebooks. Robbie shook her head. She said she would take me shopping the next day for staples, as she called them, and some much-needed household cleaning products.