I Am A Hot And Heavy Night That Summer Essay

It was a hot and heavy night that summer, the summer I was thirteen, and everything around me was alive. The cicadas cried through the open windows lining the back of my house and the air was full of electricity. Upstairs my sister Alex was in her room, her thumping rap music pulsating through her closed door. Everything was loud. Too loud. Sitting downstairs at the kitchen countertop, I wanted to cover my ears with my hands like I was five years old and it was all just a storm. I stayed put. In my lap my fingers were clasped around our home phone. Bright yellow numbers throbbed the time through the cracks in my grasp. 9:20 pm. Where was she? I wondered. The shuddering sound of the garage door closing answered my question. Body caved forward, my mom trudged through the entryway and into the kitchen. At 5 foot 5 and a laugh that could make anyone smile, my mom had a presence that awed me. Growing up, I’d always had a deep connection with her. It was like an unspoken language between us, and with a hand on the shoulder, or smile from across the room, I felt grounded to her in some way. She had always been there for me, somehow appearing after every scraped knee and bad day to brush her fingers through my hair and tell me everything was okay. But as this frail hunched body heaved a work bag through the door, my mother wasn’t there. The freckles that covered her face looked painted against her pale skin. My stomach writhed in knots and I swallowed. Rounding the corner, she…