The plastic covering of the mattress was ripped in several places, but I used that to my advantage, as I had stuck a bobby pin into the mattress through one of the tears in the cover, keeping the hair pin completely out of mother’s sight. I’d been changed and put to bed around 9 p.m. And by put to bed I mean mother sent me to the smaller of the two bedrooms and had locked the door behind me.
Sound travelled easily through the walls of the mobile home, and noises made during her nighttime routine appeared like clockwork – the TV blaring on some violent, late-night show. Glass bottles being tossed across the room. The clamor of furniture being shoved around – until I at last heard her bedroom door shut.