Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction

“‘It’s okay. You know why I’m teaching you how to drive in a cemetery, right?’ ‘Because everybody’s already dead.’” 

In this exchange between Jarrett and Joe, Jarrett highlights their affectionate relationship (they share a word balloon containing the line ‘Because everybody’s already dead’; Jarrett, a teenager, rolling his eyes, has definitely heard this one before). He also shows a hint of foreshadowing: This is going to be a story about the dead, and about how the past affects the present.

“And my mother? I stopped counting on her a long time ago. If I am ever in a pinch, I know I can ask her. But I hate to. I don’t like asking her for anything.” 

These lines from Jarrett’s internal monologue spread out across five panels of images from his driving lesson, giving a feeling that they’re part of a reflective and familiar pattern of thought for him. They’re also the first sign of the trouble Jarrett has with his mother. The Prologue hints that something is wrong in her life and in their relationship.

“There are a lot of empty plots at the bottom of the hill. Maybe that’s where I will go someday. It would only make sense for me to end up near them—they raised me, after all. And my mother? Who knows where she’ll end up. Honestly, it’s surprising that she isn’t here already. And my father? Who knows if I’ll ever even meet the guy before either of us make it to the grave.” 

Jarrett stands on a hill in the graveyard and muses on both the past and the future here. Again, his internal monologue lays out some of the major conflicts of the story. It’s notable that he doesn’t say any of these thoughts out loud to his grandfather, who’s shown walking past in the background: There’s a degree to which Jarrett has to carry the pain he hints at here all by himself.