Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones Page B

it’s almost Halloween. There’s a St. Bernard on the side lawn, looking at me, not barking, wagging his tail.
    Inside this house, it smells like blue paint and beef stew and cinnamon tea. Inside this house, it smells like a big Swedish and Irish family where most of the kids have grown and gone. Inside this house, it smells like love and incense and soil for flowers to grow in.
    This house is Dylan’s house. I stare at it; stare at his bedroom window with the curtains still drawn. That’s not normal. Dylan’s usually the first one up, singing good morning like a bird in a tree greeting the day, that’s what his mom used to say.
    His mom, she thought we’d get married. She’d laugh when I came over and ruffle my hair and say, “How’s my future daughter-in-law?”
    I wonder how he’ll tell his mom. I wonder how he’ll tell his dad. I wonder how he’ll tell his older brothers. I wonder if he’ll get the chance or if someone will tell them first. Maybe they’ll learn in a hushed whisper, an angry hiss of hate.
    “Oh, Dylan,” I say aloud. Only the wind answers me, whistling the leaves, telling me to give it up, to turn around and to ride my bike home. I do.

    My mom’s up and humming, shuffling around the kitchen when I get home.
    “Good ride, honey?” she asks, hugging me hello.
    She smells like coffee. I used to love coffee before I had to give it up. Coffee and gum are my addictions. Now I’m a Postum and Tic Tacs girl.
    My mom puts my favorite mug, a Halloween ghost mug, into the microwave and presses the minute button and says, “I made your Postum for you.”
    I slide into a chair, stretch out my legs, flexing my feet to loosen up the aching muscles. “That’s sweet.”
    “You want any toast?”
    “Yeah,” I start getting up, but my mom puts out her hand.
    “I’ll do it. This morning how about I pamper you?”
    I smile at her and knead my calves. “Okay.”
    She makes my toast and pulls my Postum out of the microwave.
    She starts singing, the wrong lyrics, of course, like she always does. It’s this old Led Zeppelin song, “ Stairway to Heaven .”
    “There’s a feeling I get when I look at my waist,” she sings as she stirs.
    “Mom,” I say and roll my eyes. “It goes, ‘There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west.’”
    “Oh,” she laughs and smiles and runs her free hand through her hair.
    She doesn’t have much hair. It’s thin and dyed red and floaty. It’s old woman hair really. My mom had me when she was twenty-two, which makes her . . . what? Thirty-nine? She’s a bit plump, but she has dimples when she smiles and when she laughs and she likes to laugh. She worked so hard for so long doing the kind of job that would kill anybody’s soul, but a couple years ago she got a new job at the hospital. Before, she was the receptionist at this dental supply company. She worked by this cabinet where they have rows and rows of pretend teeth, all different sizes, all different shades from super-star white to tobacco yellow. They use them for caps and dentures. When I was little, I’d have nightmares about those teeth coming after me in the dark, attached to jaws of course, and chomping, chomping, chomping away.
    I shiver and just then my mom hands me my peanut butter and honey toast along with my Postum.
    “Thanks,” I say while she kisses the top of my head.
    “You betcha.”
    She walks over to the counter, sips her coffee, stares at me, and I brace myself for the Mom Moment, the moment when my mother tries to be the kind of mom you see on sitcoms and old tv shows, the Uber-Mater, Herr Reitz would call it, the super mom.
    “Is everything okay with you, sweetie?” she asks.
    “Yep,” I lie, take a bite of toast.
    “No seizures lately?”
    “Nope.”
    “Good, I’d hate for you to have to go on that medicine again.”
    Before they knew what caused my seizures, Dr. Dulli put me on medicine. He tried a million kinds, but something always went wrong. My blood would