I sat on his bed while he zipped his duffle bag closed, light filtering through the blue shark curtains I’d sewn eighteen years ago. My boy, absorbed in the mental checklist of leaving–airplane ticket, ID, mask, wallet–pushing towards his future. I walked him to the door, hugged his lanky frame, the bones I’d had in my belly at their first moments of development. I watched him hoist his bags over his shoulder, place them in the trunk, and drive off with his father. Tomorrow, I wouldn’t know what he ate for breakfast, what he wore, how he’d slept.
Debbie Chase is a nonprofit consultant, restaurant cook, drummer, and mother. Her writing has appeared in Jacobin, Under the Gum Tree, and The Cincinnati Review.