I'm Glad My Mom Died

by Jennette McCurdy

Marcus, but I know how to read her, and I can tell

I wonder if Dad knows. If he purposely had us take our bikes and stop for smoothies because he knows that I hate acting class. Maybe he wants to help me. Maybe he wants to save me. “Eeeeeven more lemon,” he reiterates. I decide that I’m crazy for thinking this way. Dad’s clearly more focused on the amount of lemon in his smoothie than he is on my well-being.

So now, every time she misses work it feels like a personal attack. Every time something exciting happens to her, I feel like she robbed me of having that experience myself.

“Men, they’ll hurt you without ever really knowing you,” she often told me. “But women… women will know you deeply, intimately, and then hurt you. You tell me which is worse.”

“All right,” Steven says with a weighted exhale. “I… am Jesus Christ reincarnated.”

So we just crammed all the words on there. Even Mom’s place of death is cluttered.