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mini-statue of the Gods.
    I bet it’s worth a lot of money…
    He continued his scavenger hunt, laughing at his own absurdity. Suddenly, the closing credits blared on the television, waking him from yet another daydream. He’d lost complete track of time, and looked around in a daze, taking note that not a damn thing was washed and on the drying rack.
    She’s gonna kill me!
    He clumsily splashed about, grabbing smudged, slippery glasses and trying to make do with the tepid water. Smoothing his hands over the rim fast and hard, he then rinsed it just so, until the damn thing sparkled, then placed it on the stand. He glanced over his shoulder once more, afraid of what he may see, then breathed a harsh exhale when he noted she’d completely fallen asleep, none the wiser that time was slipping away.
    He looked back down into the water, feeling empty and not inclined to daydream anymore. Sucking his lip, he stood there, pissed about the whole need to cope.
    I’m too busy worried about what Mama will say, worried I’ll disappoint her. I can’t do this shit anymore.
    He looked at the clock, then slipped the stinking sponge into the water, letting it fall leisurely from his grasp. Leaving it all, he tiptoed carefully from the sink into his mother’s small bedroom, walls the color of Pepto-Bismol pink and a small window that displayed nothing but a neighboring brick wall. He crept past her cottage cover printed pillows to the cordless phone on the nightstand to the right side of her bed. When she wasn’t home, she kept her bedroom door locked as if the Holy Grail dwelled within. Picking up the phone, he dared himself to call the number he’d memorized several months ago—the one crossed out so many times in Mama’s little black address book, it was almost illegible. Dad moved around so much, he was hard to keep up with, but he’d stayed in Downtown Los Angeles quite a while, saying it agreed with him. Brent smiled to himself, realizing he could catch his father at his house if he timed it just right. He took a deep breath and dialed.
    Swallowing harshly, he waited and waited, until finally, the answering machine came on.
    “No one is here. Leave a message,” his father’s deep, throaty voice stated, nothing more, and nothing less.
    Shit.
    He didn’t want to talk to a damn machine. He spoke to the man only a couple times a year if he was lucky and it happened typically through his own initiative. During the calls, Mama sat there, monitoring his every word. Mama would never know he’d called for if she did, she’d be hurt…but what could he do?
    “A, uh, Dad…it’s Brent,” he whispered as he scratched the side of his head and looked nervously over his shoulder at the cracked bedroom door. “I wanted to ask…” He sighed, not sure he had the gumption to go through with it anymore. When he played the scene out in his head, his father would answer the phone enthusiastically and then exclaim in an overjoyed tone, “I thought you’d never ask, son! I will send you a plane ticket to California right away!”
    …But that just didn’t happen.
    “I wanted to ask, if, you know, it would be okay if I visited for a while? I haven’t seen you in a really long time and…well, I don’t want to just visit. I want to live with you, Dad. Things are not…things aren’t…never mind. Just…call me, please…okay, bye.” He hung up and made his way back into the kitchen, feeling rather sheepish as he slid past the refrigerator like a ninja. He sighed with relief to see the woman still fast asleep in the same, exact way he’d left her, only now with her mouth ajar as she delivered a light snore. He ran his hand through his hair and simply stared at her for what seemed like the longest—as if he were trying to sketch her image in his mind, make the shit stick, lest he forget. The kitchen sink dripped, and the television kept speaking in its low drone.
    I love you, Mama, and I’m sorry. There’s gotta be more to life