Nick Norwood

Dad dead, Mom—back in the bank, tellering— started dressing in cute skirts and pants suits she sewed herself from onionskin patterns and bright-colored knits picked up at Cloth World. Got her dark brunette hair cut in a shag. And she and her single girlfriends from work on a weekday night would leave me to "Love American Style" or Mary Tyler Moore and step out to hear the country house band or now-and-then headliners like Ray Price and Merle Haggard. Mom's blue Buick Wildcat shoulder to shoulder with the other Detroit behemoths in the dim lot around back. Wind skittering trash along the street. Bass notes thumping through the sheet-metal walls and the full swinging sound suddenly blaring when a couple came in or out the door. I know because I'm there, now, in the lot, crouched behind the fender of a Skylark or Riviera, in the weird green glow of the rooftop Ronnie's sign, not keeping tabs on Mom, not watching out, just keeping time with the band and sipping a Slurpee while she dances through this two-year window before getting re-hitched, settling back down. Just twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old, looking pretty, having the time of her life.