Mother's Driving

My mother was a domineering woman. Not in a bad way. Not in a bad way at all. She’d  walk into the house and tell us where we’d be going for the night or what we’d be eating,  and most of the time, it was lovely. Terribly lovely. It wasn’t a hard grip on the wrist so  much as a hand on the steering wheel of our backs. She lost my sister young. Too young.  She never much talked about it, but I found out. I found out they were at the park, and  my mother was smoking with one of her parent friends, and my sister was on the  monkey bars. Swinging. You have to swing when you’re a kid. So she swang. She fell.  And maybe her hands were sweaty, but she fell. Busted her lip right open. Lots of blood.  Thin blood, you know. The type you make from water and food coloring. But it wasn’t  slippery hands. No, not slippery. She just passed out. They went to the ER. I never  heard what it ended up being that got my sister. Something got her. Mom wouldn’t listen  to what it was. So she was domineering with me. She wouldn’t lose a second one. No.  Every meal, every friend, every outfit. She pressed her hand to my back and steered me  to the right choices. Dad would weep and hold the back of her shirt and she led us. Led us  down the paths she knew were right. It’s hard as a kid with a weak parent to think your  strong one is also caught somewhere else, but all my mom ever saw was my sister. Bright  moon faces, hazy fog people, walking street signs, they were all just her.