The silence was unexpected, and it changed everything.

There was no yelling, no protesting on her part – something I hadn’t been fully prepared for.  The image which had been played out over and over again in my mind since having made the decision to confront her had been one of utter chaos. I had imagined screaming, and tears, and even, perhaps, the errant thrown object. I imagined desperate attempts to keep me from leaving.

But instead she sat, silently, seemingly processing what had just been unloaded upon her with a deliberate, pensive look in her eye.  She didn’t seem shocked at all by my declaration of deeply-rooted ill-will, and I found this unsettling, having only armed myself to deal with an emotionally-charged outburst.

“You cheated me out of a childhood,” I had flatly stated to her, “and for that, this has to be the end of our relationship.” 

Close to thirty years of turbulence, manipulation and abuse had managed to finally culminate into this one, final scene of the mother/daughter relationship that could’ve been, with my mother and I gravely sitting across from each other in cheap, metal folding chairs on her back porch in the still-sweltering sun of late-September Houston.   

“I see,” she said coldly, her face starting to redden as she held back instinctive rage. “That’s a shame.”  I wondered if she fully understood the weight of accusation, or the severity of its consequences.   

Without another word, she stood up from her chair and marched up the back stairs to the house, turning towards for a moment as if to get one final word in.  As if sensing the futility of it all, she silently turned back towards the door and was gone. It was over.  I was finally free.

My arms and legs felt weak as the morning’s rush of tension instantly slipped from my body and a surge of overwhelming relief washed over me.  I took one last look back at my mother’s house, before turning my back on it once and for all, and walked to my car for the three-hour drive home.

Tweet This Post Stumble This Post

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.