Danny's Mom

That gnawing feeling, a second or sixth sense, those unfathomable signs that we have, yet so often seek to ignore

 

         The night it happened, the moon was full, maybe that is why it was so emotional an event. There had been no warning signs in Danny’s life; no reason for his leaving. And yet, his unmade bed told a story his mom had suspected deep in her heart.   Danny had left Oak Ridge to find another way of life. He didn’t care for school like his brothers and sisters. He wasn’t much of a worker either. What he did like to do was “fish”. Yet, in this landlocked country town, there wasn’t much fishing to do. So he decided to leave the hills for the coast with a small bag and enough of his allowance money to get him by for maybe a few weeks.  He had been secretly doing extra chores and favors for neighbors and friends at school for pocket change. It just seemed to add up, along with his aversion towards these country hills.

 

        His mom knew it was something he had to do, like scratching an itch, no matter what she said or did. On that moonlight eve, Danny’s mom locked her bedroom door and tried to forget her full failure as a mother while crying herself to sleep and talking to no one but the moon.