The Wrong Guy

Chapter 7 A Mother's Love

                Mom arrived at home about six at night, and it had already gone dark. I helped her bring in the grocery bags to the kitchen and unload them. Mom planned to cook Macaroni and Cheese, so it wasn’t really such a hard job helping her. We just had to boil the macaroni and sliced hotdogs, and you know the rest.

                Mom served dinner right after we finished cooking. We sat and had Macaroni and Cheese. There was silence in the atmosphere aside from the dinging of our forks with the plates as we ate. Mom clearly had so much in mind. She never even had the time to smirk or ask about school. She was most likely tired, having gone through two jobs per day, but she goes to only one during Sundays. I thought I didn’t want to be separated from mom in any way; even that small round table between us made me feel distant. I thought I should talk to her. Maybe she needed somebody to talk, too.

                “Mom.” I said, trying to see how she’d react while her eyes were glued to table. She finally looked at me and gave me a smile, trying to reassure me that nothing was wrong. Well, I believed the impression she gave me.

                “Yeah? What’s up?” she kinda’ panicked. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Have I not been paying attention to you lately ‘coz I’ve been really full lately?”

                “It’s okay, mom.” I smiled back. I wanted to reassure her that everything was fine, too. “I understand your plate’s been full.”

                “I’m sorry, darling. It was just really exhausting at work.” Mom wiped her mouth after she grabbed a bite. It was still really cruel to see mom waste her energy in so much work when she wouldn’t allow me to get a job. She insisted that I just stay home and focus on study while she always went home really exhausted.

                “If you’d just let me get a jo-”

                “I told you not to!” Mom stopped me like she knew I was going to say that. Well, she wasn’t really mad. She just loudened her voice so I wouldn’t talk. “We had this conversation before. We’re not talking about it again.”

                I thought I’d just shut up, and I did. Mom never looked back again, her eyes glued to her plate. I couldn’t eat. I had too much trouble in my mind. I really wanted to kick dad’s ass that night.

                “Look, honey. We can make it through this.” Mom looked back to me. I was sure mom said that to reassure me again. “We saved enough, haven’t we? We’ve already earned enough money you’re your college expenses.”

                “Yeah. No thanks to dad.” I said, completely mocking my father. “He’s been a real help.”

                “Honey.” Mom called to me again, but she never said anything next. She probably couldn’t come up with something good about dad to counter what I said, but I didn’t want to say that; mom could have gotten angry because of that.

                “Fine, mom.” I just agreed. “I also understand that dad has a new family now. And if he prioritized us, his new family would get tighter.”

                “Yeah.” Mom agreed, too. I just thought of saying something positive.

                “But we can do this, right?” I said with a smile. “I mean, we’ve got this far with just the two of us. What’s another five years?”

                “That’s right.” Mom chuckled and somehow sniffed. I didn’t know if a tear shed in her eye, but if there was, I was sure I could have really kicked dad’s ass.