A mother's love

Chapter 6

After returning home from the convenience store, Brian spent the hours until he went to sleep preparing answers for questions about his life that he expected Brenda to ask him. He wasn't expecting to have his preparations tested the very next day. After school Brenda appeared before him in the library again, and at the sight of her all of the answers that he had prepared for the questions he expected to receive from her vanished from his mind, leaving him unarmed and vulnerable.

"I'm impressed you've made it as far into that as you have," she said to him of his continued reading of Gulliver's Travels.

"I think I'm going to finish it tonight."

"My timing's perfect then, I got this for you," she said, handing him the DVD that she'd wrapped in paper and sealed with tape.

"I told you not to trouble yourself."

"It wasn't any trouble, it took me less than ten minutes to find and download; so here, take it," she said, holding the disc out to him.

Brian took the disc from her apprehensively and seemed to struggle with what to say. He gave her a quavering 'thanks' and lowered his head to the ground. Brenda feared that she had overstepped with the DVD and that she needed to say something quickly before the uncomfortable position that she'd placed him in spoiled their time together.

"Are you enjoying it, the book?" She asked him.

"Yeah, the satire's really good, Orwellian almost."

"I love the part about the two nations of tiny people being at war over what's the best way to crack an egg."

"My favourite is the savages mining for diamonds on the cliff face, and what that says about our innate materialism."

"Swift's not very kind, is he?" Brenda said of the author.

"I didn't like the part with the floating island and his suggestion that philosophical thought is foolish and a waste of time; I think philosophical thought has a lot of value."

"You read philosophy?"

"Just a little Pascale."

The discomfort between them all but dissipated, Brenda decided to risk moving the conversation into more personal territory.

"I saw you last night, at the convenience store, you were sitting on the sidewalk and eating something; did you see me?" She asked him.

"No, I didn't."

"Do you always get your dinner at convenience stores?"

"No, yesterday I didn't need to cook for us so I went to buy something for myself."

"It's your responsibility to do the cooking?"

"I told you, my mom works a lot."

"Is it your responsibility to do all the housework?"

"Yes."

"And you don't have anybody helping you?"

"No, it's just the two of us."

"That's a lot to have on your shoulders."

"I can handle it, I've been handling it my whole life."

"How old were you when you became responsible for all of this?"

"About six."

"That's a very young age to be taking on so much responsibility."

"I didn't have any choice, I had to."