When I was 18 years old, my mother left us. Or rather, my dad kicked her out. She’d been cheating on him, not with one other man, but several. He’d tolerated it for some time, but finally had enough. I was glad to see her go. She’d never been a real mother to me. She was never home, spending many nights away and coming home at dawn, drunk and mean. She was a horrible woman, and I hated her. How often I longed for a mother like those of my friends. My dad and I cooked all the meals and handled all the other domestic chores. I never knew why it took so long for him to get rid of her.
Now, it was just dad and me, Ron and Jeff Snelling, carrying on as always with our lives, but without her. It took several months for dad to get his nerves settled down and realize he had his life back. He was only 38 years old when she left, and it was only after that when I could see the color come back in his cheeks and a more frequent smile sweep over his lips. His sense of humor returned and he began to look younger. He’d been a champion distance swimmer in college and still had that drop dead gorgeous swimmer’s body