Little Ole Town

My mother played our town well. She manipulated everyone into thinking she was this great mother and wife. Her friends didn't even know that we would barely get a word from her the second she would enter the house. She would just bat her beautiful blue eyes and her white teeth smile in her usually too short of a dress. She knew she made heads of every man in town turn. Even ones with wives at home. Our town was small where everyone knew everyone and everyone was in everyone else's business. Half the women hated our mother and the other half were too holy to treat her like the bad person she was. The town was full of fake smiles strolling down the sidewalks, careless hellos and meaningful goodbyes. My parents owned the little yellow house on the end of the street with a big red door and an ugly round mailbox with my dads favorite football team name on it. We had the house on the street that seemed good on the outside but inside those walls, we were going through hell. We didn't get the mother she once was, or the friend that the town gets to see. She was a completely different person. I was taking care of my brother while dad worked. I hardly made it to school three times a week. And friends? Never had the chance to keep one. I saw my father depressed and run down while my mother was drunk and not home majority of the week nights. How could she not care? how could she just switch up? I couldn't help but blame myself or Derek.