Misery Loves Company

Track 48: Speaking Terms

Misery Loves Company

By: theinkslingerr

Track 48: Speaking Terms

"I didn't...I didn't do it to punish you," my mom said quietly.

"Then why?" My eyes dropped down to the plastic bag stuffed with shoes she didn't actually need. "Why?"

The first time I asked her, I was still learning how to read. I was learning that people and animals and objects weren't the only things words could describe. That words could look the same, but sound different or have multiple meanings. I'd trudged up to her in the kitchen (back when she cooked), armed with a dictionary and my tears. I'd pointed to my name and asked her if she knew it meant bad things.

To this day, right down to this very moment, I could still hear the resignation in her voice when she said, "Don't think about it too hard. Words are just words."

I waited to see if she'd say the same thing now. If she still had the same mindset.

"Your dad was in the delivery room, you know," she began slowly. "I was scared to tell him I was pregnant, but when he found out, he was actually...happy. Excited. There was this place on our college campus that made really bad burritos. I mean, notoriously bad. And they'd load them up with tons of cheese to mask the taste. When I got pregnant with you, I started craving them." The tiniest smile graced her lips. "See, even back then you could eat anything. They were open till all hours of the night, so whenever you made us crave one, your dad would get it. Didn't matter what time it was or what the weather was like."

I sat back in the uncomfortable hospital chair, cautiously, so I wouldn't interrupt whatever was happening. I'd never seen my mom look so...soft, so nostalgic. And she'd never talked this much about my dad in one breath.

I was still angry and hurt, but felt like I needed to see where this went.

"Your grandparents were less than thrilled. They told me I'd derailed my life and I'd never be able to get back on track."

That shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did since I'd never had a relationship with my grandparents.

"But I ignored them," she continued. "Because your dad and I were a team. We planned everything and got our lives ready for you. The only thing we couldn't agree on was a name. My water broke in the middle of class and it was a tough delivery, but your dad was there every step of the way, telling me to breathe and letting me crush his hand. After, when he held you for the first time, something changed." She faltered, the memory obviously getting to her. She wouldn't look me in the eye and bent over to slip off her crocs. She pulled the ones I brought her out of the bag, ran fingers over the holes before putting them on.

I felt a mix of things as I watched my generally impassive mother use the act of switching shoes to keep it together. Sadness for the young woman she'd been who'd witnessed that disconnect between the love of her life and their child. And sadness for baby Misery, because she'd done nothing but be born.

It swirled with a heavy, cold numbness that blanketed everything like freshly fallen snow.

I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but I asked anyway. "What changed?"

"I don't know," my mom whispered. "Maybe the responsibility of being a father finally hit him, and he realized it'd be more than burrito runs and massaging my swollen feet? All I know is after that, he was gone. I had the nurses looking everywhere for him. I called, texted. Nothing. I had to beg your grandparents to come pick me up, and when they realized what happened, they let me know how foolish they thought I was. How reckless and naive. I had to drop out of school for a little while, figure things out now that I was a single mother. I...I couldn't look at you for that whole first month, and you went unnamed for just as long."