Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
My mom stills. She stares at me with parted lips, surprise washing over her features. “Is he going to support you?”
My voice scrapes in my throat. “No.”
She continues to look at me with bafflement, and then she bursts out laughing.
The reaction catches me so off guard that I give a start.
She throws back her head and slaps her thigh, laughing until tears run from her eyes.
Hurt tightens my chest. I hoped for a little sympathy even though I knew it was a stretch to wish for anything supportive from her, but I didn’t expect her to make fun of me.
It takes a while before her hysterical fit subsides. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she says, “Imagine that. Getting yourself knocked up. You’re not a very clever girl, are you? You’d think you would’ve learned from my mistake.”
An old, familiar ache opens in my chest. “I’m not a mistake, Mom.”
“Ha.” She looks at the window and mumbles, “You were nothing but a ball and chain around my ankles, nothing but a fucking weight dragging me down.”
No, I didn’t drag her down. She was always down. You can’t go lower from where she’s been. I learned to vacuum, do the laundry, and wash the dishes before I was old enough to go to school because our house was a contamination hazard for the neighborhood.
I stand. “I’m sorry you feel like that.”
“Stupid girl,” she says, chuckling as she shakes her head. “You should’ve spread your legs for a rich man. At least you would’ve gotten good money for child support.”
What she’ll never understand is that my pride won’t let me take money from a man who won’t give it willingly.
That’s the problem. We don’t understand each other. We’ve never been close, but I always tried to put myself in her shoes, to imagine the hardships she went through as a single mother without a penny to her name. Yet, ironically, now that I’m in the same situation, her attitude and behavior make even less sense. I’ll never understand how a mother can’t love her child.
I take in her olive, wrinkled skin, her broad, flat nose, and the deep grooves that line her round face. Unlike me, she’s sturdy and tall. The only thing I got from her is her hair. She’s always kept it short. She dyes it now and brushes it back to hide the bald spot growing on the crown of her head. I study the woman who gave birth to me, searching for a shred of gratitude or love in my heart, but all I find is pity.
As if feeling my gaze on her, she turns her face toward me. Her lips twist in a sardonic smile as she watches me with sunken brown eyes. “I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” She laughs again. “For all your haughty airs, you’re just like me.”
No, I’m not like her. I already love my baby more than myself.
“What?” she says. “You got nothing to say for yourself? What do you want from me? To say that I’m sorry for you? Well, I’m not. I can’t be sorry for you if you’re fucking stupid.”
I know when she’s searching for a fight. The verbal abuse is an outlet for her frustration, but I long since stopped being her punching bag.
“I hope you’ll feel better tomorrow,” I say before taking my bag and walking through the door.
In the empty hallway, I lean against the wall to find my composure. No matter how detached I am from my mom, her words still inflict damage. As hard as I try not to let her get to me, her cruel statements do hurt.
Perhaps she hates my father for leaving her after she fell pregnant, and she’s projecting the blame on me. Or maybe I resemble him, and every time she looks at me, I remind her of the man who abandoned her.
She never told me his name or anything about him. I won’t be surprised if the reason she never revealed his identity is because she doesn’t know who my father is. She’s always had a string of boyfriends, and none of them lasted long. Whenever I asked her the question, she told me to mind my own damn business. She’s always been tightlipped about her past. I’ve never met any of her family.
From the little she shared with me, I pieced together a haphazard history. At best, it’s a vague story with a lot of holes. My mom grew up in the system. She never knew her parents. Her mother abandoned her at birth. My mom has no friends or colleagues because she never had a job and she only left the house to buy alcohol, cigarettes, or pills. She got a little money from Supplemental Security Income due to her hip dysplasia. I grew up in a house in the Bronx that belonged to one of my mother’s boyfriends. When he died in a motorbike accident, his parents pitied us so much they signed the deed over to my mom. That’s the only reason we had a roof over our heads.