Mother Dearest Read online

he quickly went and shut the Dell computer down, preferring to not leave it running the whole time.

  Tom closed the screen as well, and took up his tray again, the weighty soup pulling toward the ground. He carefully balanced it because of the tea, trying to keep it from spilling. The tray was a tad awkward, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. The doorway was a tight fit, not designed for a person to carry much through there by whoever had designed the house. He scooted by on the tile floor in his socks, and managed to make it to the stairway, a nineteen stet climb that he managed to take two at a time usually, but due to the tray, managed at one at a time.

  On the walls of the stairs were a wide variety of photos, different odds and ends memories that Mother had seen as important when she put them there a few years ago. There was one at the wedding, with Mother when she was young, dressed in white, and Father, who had passed away years ago in a car wreck, looking dapper in his suit. Tom had looked at the picture a million times, and had it down to memory, along with the picture next to it of he and his father fishing when Tom was three, although he had no recollection of the trip, or his of his father, really. He walked by with the steaming soup bowl, passing the pictures of baseball games, and Christmases gone by. Up until when Tom was five, his father was present, after that, it was just the two of them, as it had been for most of his life. Just Mother and Tom.

  Mother’s room was the master bedroom that took up most of the upper floor, right to the side of the guest bedroom and Tom’s own room. The guest had long ago become the study, though nobody did any studying in there. Mother’s door was propped open, and the large box fan rumbled in the corner, directed at the large, queen-sized bed, trying to keep Mother cool.

  He carefully balanced the soup as he went through the doorway, which was no half as narrow as the kitchen doorway, and made sure that the iced tea did not decide to dive for it. If it fell on the carpet, poor Mother would probably have a cow.

  He turned as he walked in the door, and saw Mother was resting on the bed, gazing at the ceiling fan, lost in thought. She looked away as soon as she caught sight of him, and a soft smile came to her face.

  “Supper.” He announced.

  “Smells wonderful.” She replied.

  The first thing most people noticed about Mother was her size. She was not the average woman at all, at almost six feet and two hundred and eighty pounds; she was not the hardest to miss in the room. The old, worn out, sore thumb analogy was hardly sufficient for her. Cruel though it may sound, it was nothing but the truth.

  She had never been a small woman at all. She had been a larger child even, maturing physically faster than the other kids around her, dwarfing most of her class. It had made a lot of things harder for her, but she had managed through it. She always found a way.

  “I made it all fresh. Some chicken, carrots, peas—the works.” Tom set the tray down on the bed, and Mother turned around to glance down in the bowl.

  “I smell garlic.” She said.

  He squeezed his thumb and forefinger together, “Just a pinch.”

  An approving flicker in her eyes, “You know how I like it.”

  “You taught me.”

  “Seems like I did a good job.” A warm smile cut her face in half, and the crooked, never straightened teeth shone through. Mother did have one thing to her credit, perfectly white teeth—though slightly crooked, they were extremely white. Overall, her smile was very pleasant. At least that’s what Tom had always thought.

  “That you did. I gave it a taste, and it is very good.”

  She looked up from the soup at him, in sheepish appreciation. “Thank you Thomas.” She had always called him that, never “Tom” always “Thomas”.

  “Not a problem.” He said.

  “It is a problem,” she countered, “it should be me making you supper. Not the other way around.”

  “You’re sick, Mother. You can’t help that.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I just still don’t like it.”

  “You’ve taken care of me the past twenty one years, I think I can take care of you for a few weeks.”

  “It’s strange how things like that turn out, isn’t it? Funny.”

  “Yes, it is, Mother. Eat your soup, you’ll get feeling better in no time. You just have to have some soup.”

  She nodded. “Okay, son.” She picked up the bowl and set it on her lap, and leaned over it very carefully.

  Tom looked across the room, keeping an eye for anything that might need to be done, he knew that Mother hated things being messy and it would put her at ease if he were to help her out.

  “What are you looking at?” She asked.

  He answered. “Nothing.”

  There, he spotted a stray sock that had somehow landed itself in the doorway of the closet and was halfway behind the door, and halfway out in the floor, leading straight into the bedroom. Mother, who was addicted to order, would never have let that slip normally, but he supposed the sickness had more effect on her than he had originally thought.

  He began to head for the sock.

  “What are you doing?” She queried.

  He moved for the sock, about to crouch down.

  “Oh, don’t bother with that.” She said. There was a trace of something in her voice, he wasn’t sure what it was, and he reached for the sock and prepared to turn around and see what it was, when he heard a rough choking sound.

  Tom turned around to see her holding her throat and breaking into a coughing fit. The spoon fell from her hand and landed with a bitter splash into the soup. Her face turned a bright cherry, and her eyes had begun to bulge.

  Tom moved for her immediately and left the sock behind. Once he reached her side at the bed she stopped coughing and began to heave in large breaths, pulling in air from all around and squeezing it into her lungs.

  “I’m okay.” She finally managed.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, just swallowed a piece of chicken wrong. It’s fine, Thomas.” She flapped with her hand, ushering him away.

  “I guess I should have cut them smaller.” He said, looking at the soup with a solid bolt of guilt shooting through him.

  “No, no. I’m fine, just wasn’t being careful.” She looked at her tea a moment. “Could you get me a glass of water, just to swallow all of this down with, dear?”

  Tom nodded. “Sure thing, Mother.”

  “You’re a good son, Thomas.” She said, casting a small glance at the sock, but not saying a word about it.

  Tom didn’t say a word in response.

  “A real good son. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He was leaving the room and managed, “I’ll get your glass of water.”

  Before…

  YOUR MOTHER doesn’t like me much, does she?” Those were some of the first words that Trisha said to him, as he was about drive her home, a mere few weeks before her disappearance.

  The lights were dim along the road, illuminating her angelic face, heart shaped and framed by flowing brown leather hair. Her almond eyes glowed like twin moons in the dim light, and stared deep into your soul when you looked at them just right.

  —It’s not that.

  —Then what is it?

  —She’s my Mom, and you’re the one who’s going to marry me how did you expect her to feel? She’s a little apprehensive, but she’ll adjust to you, just give it time.

  —What does being your mother have to do with anything?

  —She’s been the only woman in my life for twenty-one years, you showing up was a big adjustment.

  The car had ridden along the deep black roads, interrupted by blocky yellow lines around the edges and dots that flared up the center of the long stretch. He could still remember the way it looked in the dark, and the way she looked in the nighttime.

  —You never had a girlfriend?

  A beat.

  —Never?

  —No.

  It had never come
up in conversation before then, and he had never bothered to bring it up. He wasn’t sure why, it just felt like a subject that he needed to stay off of. It might have been a bit of pride mixed with embarrassment, but he wasn’t sure, he never really could be. It might have been Mother; all that time it might have been her.

  —You never mentioned that before.

  —Never came up.

  —I guess that’s true. Don’t worry though, that’s really kind of neat.

  He paused.

  —Why do you say that?

  She smiled, that sweet, shameless smile. The one that he knew came from deep down inside of her, stemming from her soul. He knew because when he thought of her he smiled like that—he knew how it felt.

  —It means I’m the first.

  That delighted her, and it was good enough for him.

  He knew that she was the first, she was the first girl he had ever loved that way before. He had formed a few small crushes over the years, but nothing serious—nothing like Trisha. Sappy and pathetic as it was, he was a hopeless romantic, and had gone head over heels and all that jazz the moment he saw her. Trisha was the first person that had ever made him feel that way.

  —The only thing is how we met.

  —Church?

  He nodded.

  She laughed, a small chuckle, one that she tried to hold back but was unsuccessful.

  —Would she have preferred a bar?

  He laughed. She laughed with him.

  —Mother’s not a big fan of church.

  —But she lets you go?

  —I’m free to make my choices. If I want religion, I can have it.

  —But she’s not into it?

  —Not in the least. I think she’s afraid you’ll make me worse.

  It had all started when