Category: Graphic Narrative

We admitted we were powerless

this is called visitation.

 

I made a family of the towers. The one with a heart in her center and the pointed tips of a hat, the mother. In the summer weeks that were his we rode in the car for an hour, backpacks with coloring books and dinosaurs, quarters for vending machines.

 

We followed the power lines out to the river, past signs for evacuation routes. Gas stations with tanning beds, boiled nuts in greasy bags, bathrooms we weren’t allowed to go in. We pretended to work, typing newsletters on typewriters, wearing headsets not connected to the phone.

 

I want to be involved in raising the child/ren.

*

We came to believe

 

Only her mother could talk about him in a natural way

 

*

 

Restore us to sanity

A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points

 

I believe visitation is in the child/ren’s best interest.

*

 

We made a fearless moral inventory of ourselves

 

“Just what was your father’s line of business?”
“Some kind of scientist, wasn’t he?”

 

*

 

Another human being

 

“When would you go, if you could time travel?”
“I’d go back and see my parents when they were younger.”

 

*

 

We’re entirely ready

 

I woke up when a man in a black cowboy hat got into the car parked next to ours. The familiar. A slamming door. My sister, asleep in her car seat, a slow drip of apple juice, crushed crackers against her legs. The sign from the building made a pink blur on the back window. Hours later, my mother returned. She smelled like someone else.

 

I have a safe place for the child/ren to stay during visitation.

 

*

 

To remove

 

My mother asked about my dog. A name of some vague relative.

 

She would be happier in the countryside, without fences, away from the apartment with two bedrooms and twin beds.

Years later I learned she was bred, litter after litter. When I was sixteen, my mother pointed out the house as we drove by—a fence and a chain, the grass worn away.

 

*

 

We made a list

 

*

 

To do so would injure them or others

You and the child/ren will know when you can spend time together.

 

She knew that if her father could not get her through
the wall
he would stay

 

*

 

We continued to take

 

I will support the child/ren as ordered by the court to the best of my ability.

*

 

To carry that out

The court will send you a letter

 

“Do you think things always have an explanation?”

 

 

*

 

To carry this message

 

This is not a fairy tale.

 

I swear that I am able

to take care of the child/ren
listed above.

I am

a fit and proper
person.