“I saw someone I went to school with today.” I was visiting my mother from the city when she said it. Of course, it isn't that much of a surprise to hear this from her, especially considering that she never left the town where she grew up. It's always how my mom opens these visits. I could finish the rest of two hours myself, any hope of it being different disappeared. Next she'll say how glad she is that she didn't turn out like them. Than, a great thirty minute talk about how unfortunate that person must be.
It's not that my mother is a recluse or antisocial. /she just thinks she's better than everyone else. Of course, inheriting the land the town is built on, as well as living off the rent from it, would have that effect on anyone. When everyone you see essentially works for you, even my noble nosed mother is going to start finding faults in other people.
“I'm so glad I didn't end turn out like them,” said my mother. “They're still just like they were in school.” I leaned back in the chair and stopped paying attention, glad for the respite of pointless conversation.
“Roger, could you please go get the door?” I had been thinking about how great it would be to have a recliner like the one I was in at my office, when my mother said this. I asked if someone was there, but as my mother glared back at me, realizing as she always did that I hadn't been listening to her critique of the clothing choices of Mrs. Howser, I heard the knocking I had been so kindly ignoring. At the door was a woman about five years younger than me, a handkerchief tied in her hair. She was obviously just as surprised as I was, at what we found on the other side of the door, and neither of us could respond to the others' silence. My mother pushed past me and grabbed the wrist of the woman, pulling her into the kitchen, where my mother forced the woman's hand into the sink. I had been wondering about the water sitting there, having spotted it in one of my many trips for a drink while my mother had been talking about the disrepair of the town.
My mother began complaining now about a woman named Miss Freders, who apparently had moved here after I went to college. She worked around the town, doing various chores for people, and apparently never looked fit to be out of the house. She also had sex with any man she could, didn't like to garden, and had never read a book in her life. My mother told me all this while I watched the woman work away slowly at the build up of dishes. She was apparently the daughter of Miss Freders, and was pretty good at it too. Everyone new sentence my mother started, which were all very long because she was classically trained, caused her to straighten her back for just a moment. Of course, I took the side of the woman, both because my mother was a horrible judge and as well it was my mother, and I was already sick of hearing her complain about other people.
“But she was the only one who I could find in this town who would work for a proper amount, and I've just been too busy lately to do anything around the house.” My mother, of course, was talking about how she hadn't raised the wages she paid her maids in thirty years, so the poor woman was probably still working for four dollars an hour. As well, if my mother had been to busy to clean, it hadn't been because she had started anything new. It was just taking her longer to do what she always did. She was getting old, and just kept coming up with different ways to describe it.
I managed after some persuasion to move my mother back to the sitting room, where once again I joyfully sat down in my most comfortable seat, with an angle of the kitchen so I could watch Miss Freders daughter, and still be able to see my mother. I wasn't even pretending to listen anymore, and she didn't really care.
It turned out, quite by chance, that my visit with my mother ended at the same time Angela, which was the name of the woman, ended hers. I was standing outside smoking beside my car when she left the house, and as she walked by me, I remarked how horrible my mother could be. Angela starred at me, before turning around and replying, “Maybe she wouldn't be so horrible to other people, if she didn't had a son who didn't listen to her, instead sitting there day-dreaming about his playboy life in the city, which he ran away to, leaving his mother behind.” I was surprised at how much Angela knew about me, but I coolly took a drag of my cigarette while she glared and walked away. Her hands were still red from washing the dishes, which was apparently all my mother had hired her to do. Maybe when I wasn't around my mother had Angela do more work, not wanting to appear old in front of me. Or, I thought, as I drove back to the freeway that took me to the city, maybe when I wasn't there Angela spent more time talking to my mother when she came to clean than I did. I counted the words I had said to my mother as I crossed by golden fields, and worried that I'd have to step it up, on my mothers next birthday, when I came to visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment