“I would take them a few times, feel my emotions and sense of reality fuzz, and look at my mother who had been doped up on them since we moved to Chattanooga. I would see her blank, hazel eyes, and her bright, but empty, smile with chronic, artificial, exaggerated cheer, and become scared. I often wondered if she was buried under layers upon layers of southern sugar. I would make bitchy, inappropriate statements and look for her. I would say something, anything to shake her and look into her eyes for something real. I saw it when she was upset or afraid. I saw it when she’d spot me exiting my bathroom, hair tied back, knowing what I’d done. I saw it when she found out I was raped. I saw it when I told her about the drugs I used. I saw flickers of a real person, but she quickly disappeared within herself once she gathered composure. I decided not to be like her. Even if it meant embracing my demons, I wanted to be real. After a couple doses, I would toss the meds in the garbage.” FamilyMedicationMaggie Young QuotesMaggie YoungJust Another NumberJust Another Number QuotesSouthern Families Author:Maggie Young
“No mother and daughter in Perdido were closer than Mary Love Caskey and Sister. But it was not to be supposed that either told the other everything she thought or knew. In fact, each of them liked to keep little secrets from the other. Secrets which could be sprung at some opportune moment to produce a grand effect, rather in the manner of a little boy tossing lighted firecrackers beneath his sister's bed while she napped on a hot summer afternoon.” Southern Families Book:Blackwater, Vol. 1: The Flood / The Levee / The House Source: Blackwater, Vol. 1: The Flood / The Levee / The House