The Day I Realized I Could Never Make My Mom Grow Up

My stepdad always kept my mother’s mental illness and alcoholism under control. But after he suffered a massive stroke, everything went haywire.

Illustration by Dola Sun

I’m in the car with my husband when my friend Courtney calls, asking if I’ve seen the newspaper from our hometown.

“My mom asked me if that’s your mom in today’s paper,” she says.

I’m surprised that her mom has seen it, but mine already told me about what happened.

“I talked to my mom yesterday, and she said her neighbor assaulted her,” I say. “I told her she should press charges against him. Are you talking about the police reports?”

Courtney is silent for a moment. “The paper says that she was arrested.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. For what?”

“Firing a gun near a school bus stop.”

It’s my turn to be silent. “That makes no sense. Let me read it, and I’ll call you back.”

I hang up and pull up the newspaper’s website on my phone, and there it is. The story reports that my mother had been arrested the previous day for firing a gun while intoxicated at 7:30 in the morning.

I’m baffled. I spoke to my mother yesterday and she said nothing about being in jail. Her sto…