Echoes in the Empty Room: The Waiting Window
Sam pressed his forehead against the cool glass, breath fogging the windowpane of their cramped trailer. At fifteen, he was small for his age, all elbows and quiet eyes, watching the gravel drive for Mom’s rusted Ford. She’d promised, sworn on his birthday cake last month, that she’d be home tonight, six sharp, with pizza and a movie. The clock ticked past seven, the sky bruising purple over the Indiana pines. He clutched her old flannel shirt, the one she’d worn before the pills took her smile, its faint scent of lavender a tether to who she used to be. Outside, crickets chirped, but the drive stayed empty. Sam’s stomach growled, not just from hunger, he knew the pattern. She’d be late, or not come at all, lost in whatever haze she chased now. Addiction wasn’t his demon, but it lived in his house, and its shadow stretched long over his shrinking world.
The Promise Fades
It wasn’t always like this. Sam remembered Mom, Lisa, laughing, her hair a wild auburn mess as she spun him in the yard, her voice warm with lullabies. That was before the back injury, the factory layoff, the prescriptions that started as relief and ended as chains. OxyContin at first, then cheaper street pills when the doctor cut her off. She’d hide them in sock drawers, pill bottles rattling like secrets, her eyes glazing over at dinner. Sam learned early to spot the signs, slurred words, a sway in her step, promises like “I’ll be there” that dissolved into air. His tenth birthday, she’d missed entirely, found later by a neighbor, slumped in a gas station lot. “Just tired,” she’d mumbled, but Sam saw the truth in the pinprick pupils. Now, at fifteen, he waited again, the pizza box from last week still on the counter, cold and untouched. Addiction stole her piece by piece, and Sam could only watch, a boy too young to fight the thief.
The Pill-Strewn Floor
The trailer door creaked open past midnight, a stumble breaking the silence. Sam bolted upright on the couch, heart thudding. Lisa staggered in, her coat half-off, a plastic baggie slipping from her pocket to the floor. Pills scattered, white, blue, a cruel confetti. “Sammy,” she slurred, her voice a stranger’s, “I’m sorry, baby.” Her face was gaunt, lips cracked, auburn hair matted with sweat. Sam knelt, scooping the pills, his hands trembling, not to save them, but to hide them, to pretend this wasn’t real. “You said you’d quit,” he whispered, voice cracking. She sank to the floor, eyes unfocused, muttering, “I will, I will.” He’d heard it before, a refrain as empty as the room. The pills were her god now, her altar the coffee table littered with spoons and lighters. Addiction wasn’t just her hell, it was Sam’s, a war he couldn’t wage, a mother slipping through his fingers like sand.
The Final Silence
Weeks bled into a gray autumn. Sam stopped waiting by the window, hope hurt too much. He’d come home from school to find Lisa passed out, TV static buzzing, or gone, her car missing for days. He’d cook ramen, do homework alone, the trailer an echo chamber of what was. Then came the call. A Thursday, rain tapping the roof, the phone shrill in the quiet. “Sam, it’s Aunt Karen,” a voice said, tight and thin. “Your mom… she’s gone.” Overdose, they found her in a motel off Route 12, a needle still in her arm, pills crushed into the carpet. Sam didn’t cry, not then. He walked to her room, the flannel shirt still on the couch, and sat, staring at the pill-strewn floor she’d never cross again. Addiction had won, its final blow a silence louder than her slurred apologies. She’d chased oblivion, and it took her, leaving Sam with nothing but echoes.
The Hollow After
The funeral was small, Karen, a few neighbors, Sam in a borrowed suit too big for his frame. Lisa’s coffin was cheap pine, closed, no one brave enough to see what the pills had left. Sam clutched the flannel, its lavender faded, as dirt thudded onto wood. Back home, the trailer - The trailer felt like a tomb now, every creak a reminder of her absence. Sam traced the scars of her addiction, burn marks on the table, empty bottles in the trash, and felt the weight of being fifteen and alone. Addiction wasn’t just her demon; it was his inheritance, a darkness that didn’t die with her. It had torn his world apart, a hell that didn’t end with her last breath, and escaping its echo meant surviving the wreckage she’d left behind.
Echoes in the Empty Room - Sam’s Poem
Verse 1
Sam waits still, the window cold,
A boy of fifteen, frail and bold,
Mom’s promise hums, pizza, a flick,
Gravel lies bare, the clock ticks quick,
Her flannel clings, a fading hold.
Verse 2
She’d spin him once, her laugh a song,
Auburn curls where love belonged,
Pills crept in, a backache’s cure,
Oxy’s haze, a grip so sure,
Her warmth slipped fast, the days grew wrong.
Verse 3
The trailer shifts, a creak at night,
Lisa stumbles, lost to sight,
Pills spill free, a cruel parade,
“Sammy, sorry,” her voice a fade,
Sam sweeps the floor, his chest grows tight.
Verse 4
Promises rot, like cake unclaimed,
Birthdays pass, her eyes untamed,
Needles join the bottles’ reign,
A mother’s shell, a child’s refrain,
Addiction steals, leaves him unnamed.
Verse 5
School days drone, he cooks alone,
Ramen steams in a house of stone,
Her car stays gone, the silence screams,
A war he watches, torn at seams,
Love’s a ghost he can’t atone.
Verse 6
The call cuts sharp, rain taps the pane,
“She’s gone,” they say, a soft refrain,
Motel floor, a needle’s sting,
Overdose takes everything,
Sam grips her shirt, a crimson stain.
Verse 7
Pine seals her in, a borrowed suit,
Dirt falls dull, his voice stays mute,
Echoes linger, burns, her fall,
A trailer’s hush, an empty call,
Addiction’s hell, a bitter root.
Verse 8
Years stretch thin, his scars remain,
A boy grown old in quiet pain,
Her flannel fades, the scent is lost,
A life rebuilt at endless cost,
Echoes haunt, a ceaseless chain.
