As she spoke I started to see him in a different
light. The man I’d thought was nothing more than a shiftless womanizer had actually been the prefect son. If everything she said about him was true then he was almost perfect in every way. And she did not gloss over his imperfections.
“He can be mule headed when he gets his mind stuck on something and he loves having his own way, but he knows better than to try that mess with me. You have to be firm with him or he’ll run you over.”
She nodded and patted my hand that was still held firmly in hers again. “But all things considered I couldn’t ask for a better son. I’ve never, not been proud of my boy.” She got a sweet little smile on her face.
“Whether it was my raising or his own inner moral compass that made it so, that boy has always been decent. I never once had to hang my head in shame where he was concerned.”
I believed her, it never entered my mind that I shouldn’t. But the more she spoke the more horrible I began to feel. I’d let my own prejudice cloud my judgment it seems.
I was slightly ashamed of myself for judging him without knowing all the facts. She painted a very different picture to the one I had in my head. And what she said next only made me feel worst.
“He grew up watching me struggle. He saw all the hardships that I faced. Once he came of age, he never stopped finding ways to take care of me. Even when he was away at college, he never forgot to call me.”
“Do you know what that child did with his first paycheck when he went pro? He bought his mother a house and car. He made me quit my job by the second one.”
“The only issue I have with my son is my lack of grandchildren. I’m getting up there in age and he’s not getting any younger. I don’t know what it is with young people today waiting until their forties and fifties to have babies.”
“I know he has a fear of doing the same thing his father did to me to someone else. That’s why I’ve despaired of ever having grandchildren.” She slipped that last bit in there so smoothly that I almost missed it.
“He does?” That sounded so different from what I’d expect. I thought for sure someone like him wouldn’t think too deeply about such things. I wouldn’t think he’d care.
I didn’t see him as the kind of man who would be so conscientious about repeating the mistakes of his father. The way I’m afraid to follow in my mother’s footsteps.
“Yep! He’s always felt guilty because he thought he’d kept me from living my dream. I wanted to be a nurse, but after I got pregnant I had to drop out of school. It wasn’t like it is today with young mothers going to school.”
“Now he’s trying to talk me into going back. That boy is big on dreams. He says it’s because he got to live his and there’s nothing like it.” Her every word seemed to have a double meaning and I was trying to take it all in.
She had no idea that she was ripping away the shield I had in place. Her every word made me rethink things and look at them in a new light. Something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do.
If I accept everything she was saying, what she
seemed to want me to read between the lines, then he was someone I could trust. He knows some of what I’m feeling and have been since the demise of my family.
He had an almost built in reproach for the very thing I am afraid of, betrayal, being left swinging in the wind without an anchor. How could that be? How could he be so close to the only kind of man that I would even consider giving myself to?
After mom died I’d pretty much made up my mind to steer clear of all serious relationships. I knew a lot of it had to do with my anger, but there was a genuine fear inside me that grew over time.
I don’t think even my brother knows the kind of pain mom was in, I never let him read the letter or her private journal that I had found days later. I almost threw up at the thought of the journal that I had locked away in a safety deposit box, so that there was no way of my brother ever finding it.
All my mother’s hurt and pain were on those pages. All the lies and deceit, and the utter betrayal she felt at the hands of her high school sweetheart. They’d been together more than half their lives. And it was all gone in a matter of minutes.