Antoine's Double Trouble

Excerpt:

The next morning when I got up to use the restroom, I heard my Mother in the study. I walked to the door and stood watching as she kneeled scrubbing the wall along the baseboards. My stomach quivered. I felt like a little boy caught doing something wrong. She sensed my presence and turned around.

“A rat pissed on this wall. Before you leave, I want you to buy some poison and put down some traps. I told John there were rats in this house. But nooo, he didn’t believe me. And when he finally saw one, you know what he said?” She looked at me. I shrugged. “He said they were God’s creatures. If Noah could tolerate two, we can tolerate one.” She laughed. “That man was a mess.”

The belt lay on top of the desk, where I had left it. Mama continued scrubbing the wall and talking to herself. “I will not have rats in my house. He would leave me to have to deal with this, do what he should have done when he was alive. Rats pissing all over everything, just like his sisters think they’re going to piss all over me.”

I picked up the belt. “Why didn’t you stop him, Mama?”

“Oh you know, your Father was as stubborn as ten mules. If that man didn’t want to do something, he didn’t do it.”

“Not the rats--this.”

She looked at me holding the belt in my hand. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Mama looked away, dipped her sponge in the bucket, and sloshed sudsy water on the wall. She ignored the mess she made on her pants. “Put that thing away. Your Father is dead. Let him rest in peace.”