At dinner Mom was quieter than usual. Mini had always abhorred silent conversation so she was blabbering away a mile a minute. She turned to me and said, “So, I heard that the Guidance Councilor cancelled that session you were going to go to today,” I glanced at Mom to see if she was paying attention. She was. She stopped chewing and glared at me. I quickly looked away and shoveled another fork-full into my mouth. Mini noticed the climate change in the room and she stopped talking. She looked from Mom to me and back to Mom again and said, “What?”
Mom collected herself rapidly and said, “Nothing dear, eat your dinner.” I didn’t look at Mom again through dinner and I retired to my room as soon as the dishes were washed and put away. Mini kept badgering me to tell her what was going on but I hadn’t had time to figure out what I should tell her, if anything.
After Mini went to bed, a light knock on my door woke me. I said, “Come in.” The door opened and it was Mom. ‘Oh fuck. Here we go,’ I thought. She was still in her bathrobe. She walked across the room and sat down on the edge of my bed. It looked like maybe she had been crying. Her eyes and nose were red.
She got right down to it. “You were here this afternoon when Nadia was here, weren’t you?” I quickly glanced at her face. I couldn’t look at her and my gaze bounced all over the room before my eyes settled to her hands clenched in her lap. I nodded. She must have figured that I didn’t actually see anything so she asked what I had heard. I was quiet for a while as I stared at her hands. I looked back up at her face and said, “A lot.” Air burst from Mom’s lungs as she muttered, “Fuck.” She looked away from me to the window. She was biting her lip as she contemplated how to proceed. Her eyes teared up again.
Mom looked back at me as one tear burst from her eye and rolled down her cheek and said, “Your father is never here. He’s never been here. I have needs like anyone else. Nadia is in the same boat with her husband on the road all the time. I love your dad very much but I have needs.” She had a very sad look on her face and I felt bad for her life with a man who is gone ninety percent of the time.
I was silent for several moments after Mom stopped talking. She was just looking at me and I couldn’t return her gaze. Feeling like it was my turn to talk, I said, “Mom, I’m so sorry that I walked in on you and Nadia this afternoon. I should have made myself known as soon as I walked in. I was frozen in place from the erotic sounds coming from your bedroom. I don’t know anything about what you were doing but I could imagine.”
Mom looked away and bit her lip again and said, “I know a teenage boy is very interested in such things. Nadia and I were having sex. We were having lesbian sex and as you could tell we were both enjoying it.” Her tone had changed like she was now in the educational phase of our conversation about sex. We had never had a talk about sex before. Dad had never said anything either. It was just me and my imagination and whatever information could be gleaned from other guys in school, and most of that,I figured, was bullshit.