down and out at Shady Oaks

 "How is this happening?" Jody snarled her nose like there was a bad odor in the air. Her mom was moving into a crappy apartment that would be horrible to drive out of in the snowy winter. Right now she could hear the birds sing in the woods out on her deck. 

"Just help me unpack," Jody's mom Fan said. She sounded as if it were no business of hers. But Jody wasn't so sure she understood. Her home was always just up from the library in a quaint house with a white picket fence. This was where losers came. Didn't her mom know this?

"Couldn't you have found a better place?" Jody's place with Andrew was tons better to this. There was a pool and a full weight gym.

"Not on my salary baby girl," her mom snickered as if nothing phased her anymore. She did some cooking down at the Senior Center which paid better than her weekend job at the bar.

"Where's Jay?" Jody asked about her older brother who should be here.

"I told him," Fan shrugged unloading the pots and pans.

Her mom's friend Sal who ran the bar brought in another load, but there were more momentos her mother hadn't got from the house.

"What did dad say?" Jody wanted the truth.

"That I'm no good," she said. "And a lot of other hurtful things you'd rather not hear." 

Her mother kept digging out the few things she had. Some of it she'd thrifted. There was no airfryer nor microwave. It was as if her mother would start from scratch.

"Can't you just ..just get back together?" It felt too late to Jody. Her mom on her own. It was like seeing a runaway teen unaware of too many things. 

Her mom shook her head, no.

Jody was certain of it, she was going to have to talk to her Dad.