Page 49 of Sweet Nightmare

That’s the difference.

Growing up, we couldn’t afford comic books or the shiny new bestsellers other kids took for granted. But every Saturday, my mom walked almost thirty minutes to the public library.

Rain.

Snow.

Heat.

It didn’t matter.

She always came back carrying an armful of classics like she’d just stolen the Crown Jewels.

Jane Eyre.

Wuthering Heights.

Little Women.

Pride and Prejudice.

Joy overtook every single part of me whenever she would surprise me with them. I still remember she used to tell me the best stories weren’t about perfect people.

“They’re about extraordinary humans who survive, Stephen.”

Back then, I thought she was talking about literary stories.

Turns out, she was talking about us.

But she was the extraordinary one. Not me.

She made everything feel possible when we had everything going against us.

Our apartment was a dump.

The heater sounded like it wanted to die every winter and the only couch we had was older than the building. Half the furniture came from church donations and the other half looked like it had survived a fire.

It didn’t really matter to me.

To me it was home.

Just because she was in it.

And every night Ma read to me. It didn’t matter if she’d worked twelve hours, if her feet hurt or if life had spent the entire day beating the hell out of her.

She still showed up.

Every. Single. Night.

She also made me believe stories could save people.

Perhaps that’s why I write songs now.

Ma worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met and she raised me on her own with zero help.

Some nights she’d come home so exhausted she’d sit by the front door before she even had the strength to take off her coat.

I’d pretend I didn’t notice and she pretended she wasn’t one bad day away from collapsing.