The taxi left me off in front of the familiar small house in which I had grown up and then moved out of as soon as I was eighteen and emancipated from my folks. I had lived on my own for ten years in St. Louis, Chicago, and most recently the Valley outside Los Angeles proper. Now I was slinking back home unannounced, with a roller bag and and a large duffel of my meager belongings collected and saved from my ten year odyssey from the comforting confines of my childhood home.
I tentatively rang the doorbell and heard the muted chimes of the inner bell. After a minute or two, I pushed the doorbell again. "Maybe she isn't even home." I thought to myself dejectedly.
Just as I sat down on the stoop and hung my head in my hands, I heard the door open behind me.
"Janie?" My mother asked in wonderment.
I quickly turned my head to her. "Yeah, Mum." I said as I got to my feet.
"Baby, come here to me!" My mother cried with outstretched arms.
"Oh, Mummy." I sobbed as I fell into her arms. "I'm home."
And so I was. At home in the small Missouri town that had been my best place and my worst place growing up. All those memories came flooding back to meet me as I embraced my mother on the top step of our family's doorway.
"Come in, come in." My mother cried as she helped me with my baggage. "Why didn't you call?" She asked me in bewilderment as we dumped the bags in the small foyer.
"Oh, Mum, please don't ask questions. Not yet." I said as I ran to the family room to collapse on the old couch.
"Can I get you something?" Mum asked as I reclined, letting the exhaustion of the long return trip overtake me on the soft couch.
"No, just let me lay." I said softly. And then I was asleep.
I felt a soft shaking and my Mum's soft voice waking me from a sound nap. "Janie. Janie, honey, wake up."
I shook the cobwebs off my head and opened my eyes to a soft light of table lamps. It was dark outside now. I must have slept for hours. "OK, Mum." I said as I opened my eyes and tried to re-adjust to my new (old) surroundings.
"It's dinner time. I fixed your old favorite." Mum said with a soft smile.
"Meatloaf and macaroni?" I asked, still half drowsy.
"Yes, baby girl. I remembered."
Even though this return trip was an admission of a young life somewhat wasted through self-indulgence, I appreciated Mum's thoughtfulness and felt warm all over at being home after so many years in the wilderness of big city life.
Mum helped me off the couch and walked me to our small kitchen table with her arm around my waist. She sat me down at the head of the table. The spot usually held by my father when he was still around. I sat down remembering the bastard who made me want to leave here as soon as I could.
"So, tell me about your life, all the adventures you had." Mum said as we ate the meatloaf and macaroni.
I didn't want to tell my Mum the truth of my existence for the past ten years. It was filled with many strange experiences that she wouldn't understand and wouldn't approve. There was the teen prostitution year in St. Louis when I first hit the road on my own, the two years in Chicago when I worked as a stripper, escort and call girl, and finally, the seven years in San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles where I did video porn and more escorting - even getting to have sex with some minor celebrities, both male and female.
"Oh, it's been great but I just missed home." I lied to Mum.
"It's so nice to have you home. I wish you had called more often." Mum said.
One part of me wished I had called more, too. But the sex, drugs and alcohol of my fringe existence had blotted her and Dad from my life. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Mummy." I said as I took a big forkful of macaroni into my mouth.
Mum began talking about all the goings-on in the hometown and after awhile I tuned most of it out. I am not a good daughter, I thought to myself as I ate and daydreamed while Mum went on about all the small events of her life and the small town she lived in and I had left so long ago.
"Mum, is the Golden Circle still open here?" I asked, interrupting her monologue.
"Uh, yeah, I think so. But why do you care? That's a strip joint." She answered with a laugh.
"I need to make some dough." I said, continuing to eat the meatloaf and macaroni before me.
"Janie!" Mum sounded shocked. "You..."
"Yeah, Mum. I could do that to earn my way here." I said, never lifting my face to hers as I answered.
"Baby girl, you don't need to do that." She said. Then her voice lowered an octave and whispered hoarsely, "Have you...done that...worked...in those places before?"
"Yeah, Mum." I said trying to sound nonchalant about it to the mother who had raised me as a good Midwestern girl.
"Oh, Janie." She muffled a sob. "You shouldn't have."
"Well, Mum, that's what I did to get by." I said, leaving out the farther phases of my adult "career" positions.
"You were always a pretty girl and still are." Mum said in a more upbeat voice, the denial of my admission evident in her response.
"I got on very well in St. Louis, Chicago, and L.A." I said, still eating the delicious dinner before me.
"Oh, Janie." Mum answered, with resignation as she began to realize or imagine (not fully) what I had been doing after I left home a decade ago.
I finished the big plate of meatloaf, mac and cheese and pushed it away from me on the table. Mum immediately rose to clear my dish and took hers in her hand as she walked to the sink.