When I was a kid, if the air in my home became too still to bear, I’d escape to my friend D’s house and spend the evening playing Oblivion, watching the Big Bang Theory, and riffing on his guitar. I never stayed for dinner, though not for the lack of invitation. I still had the fantasy that dinner at home was some intimate moment reserved for the ones you love, too tender to be interrupted by a stranger.
Occasionally I stayed late enough to meet his mother. She would always be working around the kitchen silently, and she always had a smile on her.
I’d say hello to her. “Hey Mrs M, how was your day?”, and she’d answer back “It was very good, thank you for asking Peter”.
And their life was good. She traded hers to make it so. She had no life, no interest, worked from six to ten. During the day she was as the admin secretary of our school, a post she took up to secure the staff discount for her two children. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of her silhouette through the windows of the admin office. Behind those transluscent glass she was faded. She was frail, and had a tired, but sharp mind.
After moving to this strange country and raising two boys she had brought her rough-tongued mother from her home in India, a woman who like her raised a nest alone, with the animal pride of an ancient lion. There was no memento of a father in their house. Mrs M had banished all memories of him from this den, and D never spoke about him. To provide her kids a comfortable life, she worked two jobs. Once I found her huddled in the couch, eyes glazed over. Exhaustion clung to her. She seemed faded, until her mother yanked her back into the world, demanding loudly for dinner, and she’d comply with a smile.
I felt both pity and admiration for her, each time I left their house, for the immensity of her loneliness. The warm glow beneath the door, the delicious smell, the music, were the sacrifices of a mother made material.
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