A Flame From The Past

27: My Dearest Mother

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My phone blazed a cold demeaning sound, my hand moved to the side of the bed, searching for the annoying chunk of technology I wish I didn't have now. I grabbed the phone, holding it near my ear, as I let out a weary yes, still yawning with tiredness.

"Are you sleeping?  Don't you have a job?" This voice rocked me off guard, I was wide awake now. My childhood moved through me, grouping that distinct voice with the feelings of neglect, disappointment, feeling like I never was enough.

I panicked now, it had been six years, I left after I had gotten into college and I never went back. It had been six years since we had last talked, I had told her I had gotten into college and she still pressured me with that idea of being a high and mighty surgeon like her.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded off into the phone, the tone changing as the anxiety rushed through me. What would I say? What was there to say? What was there to do? This phone call couldn't save us.

I panicked and without answering back, I clicked the off button, watching the screen go black and the call go dead.

I laid there frozen, as the light sleeper next to me rolled over, hovering over me. His eyes weren't open yet but I was on the verge of crying.

"Who was it?" He asked, cuddling into my back, and inhaling the scent of my hair. I couldn't say the words, I had feared for so long. I remembered the first time I had fully understood everything she had done to me. I was taking a family relations class in college and as soon as I got home after the lecture, I broke down in tears.

"It was my mom", I said, getting ready for the tears to well in my eyes, I hadn't called her that in such a long time.

"Your what?" He asked, surprised at my answer, probably wanting to hear it again. This whole time he had known, I wasn't close to my family. I avoided talking about them, just like he did. And now she had just called me out of the blue, for what.

"My mom", I repeated, still unsure of this information myself. How could this be true? Or even real? I figured she and I had settled on this mutual agreement that we both didn't want to speak to each other.

His hands grasped onto me as he understood my pain and absolved it into his.

"Did she say something?" He asked, probably wondering about the aspects of my mother and I's relationship, very tethered relationship.

"We haven't talked since I left for college, she's never even tried to call me... she asked me something about my job", I mumbled as he listened to me closely in the darkness of the early morning.

"Why do you think she's calling you?" He asked me, rubbing his hand down my arm, as I leaned into him. Something about him comforting me, felt like the most intimate moment I had ever had with someone. We could be so naked with each other but in the sense of comfort. There's something about feeling the heat of another person, as you bare your feelings to each other.

"I don't know, she's never reached out, even when I was younger", I told him, and he nodded his head against mine. I think he knew our relationship had been so rocky, since we had never talked up until now, if that was considered talking.

My phone started buzzing again, and a tear trickled down my eyes, as I took the phone in my hand.

"Let me talk to her, I can make her stay away from you, she'll never call again", he said, his overly protective self kicking in, as he took the phone from me, but I took it back, answering it and raising it towards my ear.

"Did you hang up?" She asked, with that tone in her voice, that made anything she said sound like a condescending comment or a passive aggressive compliment.