nevertheless~

part 34

HARDIN'S POV

"My mother, Trish, used to read to me when I was very young. Until around the age of 7, she read to me before bedtime or in the afternoon. Our living condition actually, was nice, because she used to work and dad had a decent paying job too, so she didn't have to work after a little while. We lived, very grandly in London, in our house, the three of us, Ken and Trish, Me, Smith was on the way that time. She used to read me and I used to listen to her, each day. Looking at her, I never felt love like that for my mother, but then that love turned into hatred. She used to read me on good days, on days that Ken came home drunk, she never let down that. It irritated me, that, just two minutes ago, they were cursing at each other and later she comes into my room, sits down on my bed, and reads to me how Peter Pan stole from the rich and gave to the poor. It was...absurd", Tessa's eyes are on me the whole time as I recite to her the story of how my love for a mother turns into plain hatred for a woman.

*FLASHBACK*

"You are drunk home, again, what is up with you, why won't you stop", My mother's voice resonates through the hallways, and I open my door, just a crack between the door and the wall, to see what's happening.

"It's not like you care, Trish", I hear two steps on the wooden floor and then a thud on the floor, someone fell, who?

"Ken, Ken, get up. Look what you've done to yourself, you're gonna harm yourself", The female says

"Why do you care about me? I do nothing for you. I come home drunk, I never gave you a penny of my salary, I do nothing for our kids, there's just this house, what am I even here for? Why do you stay with me?", he speaks and I hear a louder thud on the floor, and my hands go to the doorknob. She's told me not to get out of the room, I was warned the time he hit the bottle on the wall, that I can't come out but how long before it's too late, I can't let that drunken father or mine do something to that woman I call mom.

"Ken what are you talking about. Get up and have this water. You're too drunk for this conversation", she helps him up and they go to the couch. I hate that couch; I would burn it if I could. It's the same couch my parents take turns sleeping on. My mother sleeps there on nights my father is too drunk and needs to get some noiseless sleep. My father sleeps on that horrendous brown piece of furniture when it's too difficult for him to sleep next to the woman he loves because of guilt in his heart.

"You wanna see the scan I got done today?", her voice is barely a whisper as she sits beside him.

"You got a scan done too?", he asks, within hiccups.

"Yes. The OB-GYN said that he's very healthy and a big baby boy, our baby boy", her voice still holds her love for him. I can't forget the day she came home to tell Ken that she was going to bring me a brother. He spent the next entire week besides her, with one hand on her belly the whole time. They looked so in love, except now it looks like an act. She had said,

'Ken, I have news', my father dropped down the garden hose, which he was watering the backyard with and came back into the kitchen from the backdoor.

'What news? Is everything fine? Your mother is good, right?', my parent's marriage was only 3 years old by then, they were very young, my mother 27, my dad 30.

'We're pregnant again', Mum, had whispered.

'Again?', you mean like...a second baby for us? Are you joking me?', the man had said with such a big smile on his face, he could beat Julia Roberts.

'Yes, again, with a boy that too', his hands were on my mother, before she could have held her tears and they hugged as if any morsel of space between them would eat at their skins.