Remember Me

Nineteen

I shut the door behind me, slowly tip-toeing along the wooden floors. As I enter the kitchen, I can already feel the tension arising. My mother was sat in a chair at the table, far out from the actual table. Her hands, finger nails perfectly painted, were sat on her lap. Her eyes were telling everything; the awkwardness of the situation. Noah stood at the frame of the door, a bed head on him and a baseball bat in his hand that was lowered to the ground.

"Hi." I smile cheerfully, suppressing my laughter like sardines in a can.

"Auden, what the fu- I mean, hi. Hi Auden." Noah greets me, biting back his anger. I'm guessing he got a scolding from my mother; who was quite proud of her daughter when she was informed the apartment was absolutely immaculate and shiny.

Or maybe he's just embarrassed. Noah has quite the bed head!

"Noah," I greet him icily, offering him a broad, evil smile as I make my way towards my mother.

She outstretches her arms and hugs me tightly. "Hi, mother." I play innocent child.

"Darling, how are you?" my mum quite loudly asks, arousing my suspicion. It was loud. Like, wake up the dead loud.

"I'm good!" I pause, sticking my tongue out at Noah. Hugs were the perfect time to pull faces behind someone's back. "Yeah, my project is finished."

"That's great, Tilly-dewdrop!" Another pet name. Mum then brings her mouth to my ear. "You unlucky woman. He's a slob – a slob!" she mutters in a low voice to me.

I stifle a small laugh. "I'm used to it. Auden cleans, Noah messes. Isn't that right, Noah?"

Noah just narrows his eyes. He mouths something along the lines of 'this calls for payback.', but I couldn't pick up the exact words. He runs his fingers through his hair before spinning around and disappearing into the small hallway, probably off to hide in his room like a sulky, hormonal teen.

I grab a sponge and make my way through the mess. My mother joins me, pushing up her very pink sleeves and grabbing some rubber gloves from her Gucci bag.

"Why do you carry rubber gloves with you?" I scoff, shaking my head at my mother.

"Living that OCD life!" she replies. Don't do it mother, don't do it. "Yo!" she adds, bending her knees and waving her hands about - doing exactly what I had begged in my mind not for her to do.

I raise a hand to her shoulder. "No – mother, stop."                                                                                                         "Why?" my mum asks, laughing. "I'm down with it!"

All I do is blow some soap bubbles from my hand to her face, and shake my head with disbelief and exasperation. Her face lit up like a star in the sky when the soap reached the tip of her nose. "Auden Baker!" she shouts playfully, scooping a piece from her face and throwing it back.

I let out a chuckle, batting the soap from the air so it doesn't reached my face. We get on with the jobs, me chipping my royal blue nail varnish, and my mum in style with her pink rubber gloves with the feathers on the wrist of them.

***

An hour later, most of the mess has been cleaned, and mum and I were catching up over coffee (decaf for mum, the good stuff for me) and biscuits of some sort in the Joyful Brew.

Noah had gotten in the shower before we left and I haven't heard since. Gina had joined us for a while to chat with her best friend, but then she was called away on a job and had to leave. Whilst mum is halfway through the story of how Isaac's boyfriend broke up with him, my phone vibrates from the pocket of my jacket.