5am

Roberta: Good morning!

Tanya: Jesus!

Roberta: No, mom.

Tanya: Why are you up?

Roberta: Why are you home late?

Tanya: Are you waiting for me? Did you sleep?

Roberta: How can one sleep when their child is missing.

Tanya: Mama, I am 21.

Roberta: Oh! So, you aren’t my child. Good to know, that frees up the list of kids who get money when I die.

Tanya: Ay mama! It is very normal to be out late on weekends, when I was at school, I was always out!

Roberta: School? What is that, you don’t do school remember? Because as you said, school is where artists are brutally murdered, do you remember?

Tanya: Yes, I remember.

Roberta: So, were you out doing art all this time from 8pm to 5 am?

Tanya: I was definitely being creative.

Roberta: Tanya, this is serious, I don’t know what to do with you.

Tanya: There is nothing to do, at least not now, right now all I want is to shower, and sleep.

Roberta: I wanted to sleep too…

Tanya: Oh goodness!

Roberta: But I was up pacing the house, checking my pressure, making sure I wasn’t about to have a heart attack because my child was possibly abducted, I don’t know.

Tanya: Ay Mama!

Roberta: Don’t ay mama me! We need to talk; we have to plan the rest of your life.

Tanya: Now!

Roberta: It’s a perfect time.

Tanya: It’s 5 am, the sun isn’t even up yet, and I smell like smoke.

Roberta: Sit!

Tanya: Okay, what would you like me to be mama?

Roberta: I want you to be a painter.

Tanya: Great, I’ll do that! Are we done?

Roberta: A paid painter, that doesn’t live in my house.

Tanya: Mama, being an artist is not that easy, it’s based on a lot of things, you need to have connections in the world, it is all way too layered for me to explain it to you right now.

Roberta: Tanya please, okay, don’t act like I don’t understand the art world, I understand it, I knit for all my friends. I’m not sure if you understand it though.

Tanya: What does that mean?

Roberta: I never see you paint, I mean you never even draw or scribble anymore.

Tanya: I scribble.

Roberta: When was the last time you scribbled?

Tanya: I don’t know, I don’t keep the tiny pieces of paper I scribble on, I just do it sometimes!

Roberta: What times?

Tanya: Ay Mama! I don’t do art here, okay.

Roberta: Oh! Do you do art out there until 5am?

Tanya: ugh, no…

Roberta: Okay, so, where do you do art?

Tanya: Fine, I don’t do art!

Roberta: Exactly! At least at school you did art, you had to do art. It was a Grade.

Tanya: Yes mama, but school was not for me.

Roberta: Ah Okay, so your plan is to live with me forever, understood, now I can situate my will, you may be a little lower than your siblings but that is only because I have helped you a lot.

Tanya: Ay mama! can you please stop with the insinuations of your death. I don’t have a plan, I just know school was never me, I feel better at home.

Roberta: You feel comfortable at home.

Tanya: Yes.

Roberta: No.

Tanya: What?

Roberta: You shouldn’t be comfortable Tanya, you’re 21, Life is supposed to be challenging and nerve-racking and exciting. If you are comfortable, you haven’t done enough living, you haven’t experienced enough to be fulfilled, to be happy.

Tanya: I am happy.

Roberta: Really! So then why don’t you paint?

Tanya: I don’t know, I get busy…

Roberta: Busy with what Tanya? You don’t paint, you don’t have a job, you don’t go to school, how are you busy?

Tanya: Ma, it’s too early, can we not get into this!

Roberta: We are already in it; I just want to understand why you are so…

Tanya: So, what?

Roberta: So, Lost

Tanya: I’m not lost.

Roberta: Tanya, the day you left for college you declared to everyone you were not coming back home until your paintings were on gallery walls. Were your paintings in a gallery and you forgot to tell me?

Tanya: I was joking.

Roberta: No, I know you, you weren’t joking. I knew something was happening, when I called to check in, you sounded different, quieter, more withdrawn. See your father told me you were probably getting a rough start adjusting and needed some time. When you came back from break you were acting like yourself, so I thought, hey, maybe he was right. But that didn’t make sense to me, your dad has never had a single day, he was right since I met him. So, when we took you back, I knew that something was wrong, when you hugged me. That hug felt like all those “save me mommy” hugs you used to do when you were little, you would grip at me so tightly, I would have to pry you off. That’s why I didn’t give you grief when you came back, I saw it coming, I thought okay she will take some time off sort herself out. But it has been a year and a half and you have not sorted anything out. So now I need to know, what are you doing?

Tanya: Mama If you want me to go back to school, I’ll go back okay, I will go back, maybe even change my degree, something practical, I know you would love that!

Roberta: Sounds good to me.

Tanya: Did you ever think to ask me what happened, or maybe question, hmm, I wonder why Tanya wants to drop out of school?

Roberta: No, I did not question that because you told me you were taking a gap year, not dropping out.

Tanya: Well surprise! I dropped out, I terminated my credits.

Roberta: Ay Tanya!

Tanya: Mama it was hard! It was really hard, those paintings I did before college, yeah, they were shit! In fact, I have an amazing critique from my abstract expressionist professor in red bold ink that says, “lacks connection”. I was failing, so, instead of constantly redoing classes or not graduating on time I dropped out.

Roberta: Why didn’t you tell me?

Tanya: Tell you what, that I got a bad grade? Please, you would find a way to tell me it’s my fault, that I didn’t work hard enough or something.

Roberta: Well, were you the only one struggling? Could you have gotten a tutor for help?

Tanya: There it is, there you go, blame me!

Roberta: No, I am asking a question, if anyone else was having a hard time then you would know it’s your professor’s fault and not yours.

Tanya: If anyone else was struggling it couldn’t have been worse than me, my advisor was actually surprised to see how low my grades for an art degree were, the way that I failed was impressive.

Roberta: So that’s why you stopped painting.

Tanya: Why paint, I’m not an artist.

Roberta: Okay. okay so you’re not an artist, so what, you are good at many other things! You can move on.

Tanya: Other things, what other things? I spent my whole life being one thing, I was so sure I was one thing, then I went to school knowing I was one thing just for them to tell me I am bad at being the only thing I knew I was. How could I move on? Mama, I lack connection in abstract art! All I do is abstract art.

Roberta: So…

Tanya: So…what, what now, what is our plan for the rest of my life?

Roberta: I don’t know, but we have to figure out something, and by we, I mean you.