Sixty-Four
before
Shiloh’s mom had never married.
She worked as a waitress and then as a bartender.
She had Shiloh when she was twenty.
They lived with Shiloh’s grandmother, who left them the house when she passed.
Shiloh’s mom moved into the first-floor bedroom after that, and Shiloh stayed upstairs. Shiloh knew not to come downstairs
in the morning if she could hear a man’s voice.
When Shiloh was in grade school, her mom had a boyfriend named Grant who used to take them out to dinner at Bishop’s and sometimes
to the movies.
Grant was all right. He drank too much. He lasted about a year.
Most of the men came for the night and never came back. Her mom didn’t go to their houses—or at least, Shiloh didn’t guess
that she did. Her mom came home every night.
She started dating Jack when Shiloh was in high school. He owned the bar at the airport. He was married.
Shiloh got the feeling that a lot of her mom’s men were married. She wondered if her father had been married. If he’d come
for the night and moved on.
Her mom didn’t want Shiloh to get to know any of them. Not even Jack, and he’d stuck around for years.
The men who came into the house never got more than coffee and only came upstairs to use the bathroom.
There was a lock on Shiloh’s door, and her mom started reminding her to lock it before Shiloh could wonder why.