She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, so I sat across the corner from her and looked into her eyes gently. “Mom, you know you can talk to me,” I said, letting her know I loved her and wasn’t buying any bull crap about her feeling fine. “I’m eighteen. I’m an adult. And he left me, too.”
This seemed to make Mom even sadder.
“I know, honey,” she nodded. “It’s just that… I don’t want to burden you with my troubles.”
“Mom, your troubles are my troubles, too,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “After all the things you’ve done for me my whole life, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“It’s just… I don’t know, I’m still in denial mode,” Mom said.
I smiled, “I’ve moved on to angry mode.”
“I think I’m in a lot of modes,” she laughed. “Denial, anger, frustration…”
“Frustration?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, quickly pulling her hands away and moving to the kitchen counter. I followed, of course.
“You can’t confide something you feel and then not explain,” I protested, always hating when people did that.
“It’s just personal, honey,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
“Personal, shmersonal! Mom, you can tell me anything,” I offered.
“It’s just…” she began and paused.
“It’s just what?” I asked.
“I feel like such a failure,” she admitted, although I could tell that wasn’t what she really meant.
I pulled Mom into a hug and said, “Mom, you’re not a failure. Dad is. He’s a failure as a husband and as a father.”
“Oh, honey,” Mom said, bursting into tears again.
“You deserve better than Dad,” I conditioned. “He treated you like a slave.”
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” she wailed through her tears.
“All you did was love your children and get older,” I told her. “You’re better off without him. We are better off without him. Dad is an asshole!”
“Hannah!” Mom gasped.
“Mom, he is, and he always has been!” I insisted.
“Hannah, please don’t speak about….”
I interrupted, now angry not only at him, but at my mom for trying to defend him, “Mom, be thankful he’s gone! He was a terrible insensitive husband and a useless father. It’s only thanks to you he was never a child-beater, too!”
“Hannah, it was never that black and white,” she continued to defend him.
“Mom, ENOUGH!” I shouted, slamming my palm onto the counter, a technique my father had often used to silence Mom.
She looked at me in shock as I took control, took her hand, and led her to the couch.
“Mom, no more defending him,” I lectured, not holding back my anger. “He’s an unfaithful, insensitive, arrogant prick of a man and we both deserve better,” I ranted so vehemently I could feel my face turning red.
“But he’s your father,” Mom pointed out.
“He’s my sperm donor,” I corrected. “No more, no less. Well, actually far less. Any damn fool can ejaculate in a cunt.”
“Hannah, language,” Mom scolded, swearing not something I usually did in front of my mother or she in front of me.
“Sorry, Mom,” I apologized much more softly, putting my hand on her nylon-clad leg. “I just hate how he still makes you feel worthless. You’re a special woman, and you deserve to be treated like a goddess.”