[ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ]	“You okay?” I asked as Rob retreated into my bedroom. She stood in the kitchen, poured a glass of wine and guzzled it down like a marathon runner drinking water. As I got closer, she smelled of stale whiskey and tobacco, but maybe the drugs were just heightening my senses. I knew something was wrong; I could see it rising up from her skin like smog, the vapors of sadness seeping up from her pores. She poured herself another glass and I noticed a torn white envelope tucked under her arm. “What’s that?” She set down her glass and took the envelope in her hand, staring at it. “Your father died.” At first I thought it was the drugs talking, not my drunken mother standing hunched over in the kitchen. “What?” “Your father died.” I hadn’t heard the first two words in seven years. My father. I didn’t know him, and I didn’t want to know him really, not knowing how I was supposed to feel. “Do you have anything to say?” The walls seemed to scream at me, my mother’s words ricocheting off the sides of the diminutive room and hitting me from all directions. The fog that was rising from her skin clouded my clarity and all I could bring myself to say was, “So no more checks huh?” “Is that all you have to say?” I came down from my high like a plane crash, my anger taking over my peaceful trip and slamming me headfirst into reality. “What? Am I supposed to feel bad? Feel bad that the guy who ran out on us is six-feet under?”