Sincerely Yourz

Daddy Ain't No Rollin' Stone

Shay

As soon as I walked into the house I called out to my mother and we played a quick game of Marco Polo until I found her in the kitchen. As soon as I saw her cleaning the stove I knew something was bothering her.

I'm an only child. I didn't have the privilege of having siblings that would distract me from learning minute details about my parents.

For example, when my mother was trying to work through something she cleaned. The more she cleaned the more distressing the issue. Cleaning the stove meant that whatever was bothering her was something she'd probably been thinking about for a while.

The stove was one of her last places to clean. She always cleaned as she cooked so it was never dirty enough to satisfy her cleaning urge. Making it to the stove meant she'd run out of other places to clean. The only other option was to clean the attic.

Things rarely got that far. My father or I would address it, or she'd figure it out. The last time she'd reorganized the attic was seven years ago. She'd found a lump in her breast.

"Ma, what's going on?"

I plopped down in a bar stool and watched her closely. She removed all the burners from the stove and had the drip pans soaking in the sink. She fiddled with her cleaning rag for a moment before wiping her hands on her apron and turning her attention to me.

"Why must something be amiss if I decide to clean? Maybe I just don't like the smell of burnt food when I'm trying to cook," she said dismissively.

I wasn't fooled.

"Must we do this song and dance? What's on your mind?"

"I made fresh lemonade. Are you thirsty? I think I'll have a glass," she responded.

She didn't even wait for me to respond before a glass of lemonade was sitting in front of me and she was stripping out of her apron. I followed her to the family room and watched as she carefully placed her glass on a coaster.

"It's going to drive me crazy if you don't tell me," I groaned.

When I heard her sigh I knew I won. She knew I was too stubborn to let it go. She blamed my dad for my stubbornness but I'm okay with it. He blamed my nervous cleaning on her. Again, I couldn't deny it.

"I think your father's having an affair," she just blurted out.

The accusation just flopped on the floor at my feet waiting for me to respond to its existence. At first, I was stunned but it didn't last long. I'm such a daddy's girl that it was hard for me to imagine him as a mere mortal. I'm thirty years old and that point of view hadn't really changed.

"Mom, daddy wouldn't do that. He worships the ground you walk on," I defended.

She sighed and sipped her lemonade as if the conversation left her with a dry mouth.

"This last month he's been different. It started when he went back to that location a town over. I know that place is special to him, but he's been different," she confided.

I listened to the waiver in her voice and it made my heart hurt for her. I couldn't imagine being with someone for as long as my parents had been together and feeling like he was betraying me. It had to be excruciating.

"You said it yourself, that store matters a lot to him. It was his first expansion. How many times has he told people the story of how no one believed he could do anything with the car washes. And they laughed when he opened that place," I continued to defend.

"I know that darling, but it doesn't explain his behavior," she said flatly.

It felt like she wanted me to convince her she was wrong. And that's what I was going to do. I didn't want her thinking about my dad in that light. I couldn't stand the thought of her hurting so much and him possibly being the cause.