A big smile appeared on her face and she bent down to give me a hug. “Thanks! I knew you’d see it my way. We’ll start tomorrow after I buy something proper to wear.”
***
And so it began; every so often my mother and I would meet in the open area of our garage to work out. It started out simple enough, with her wearing sweatpants and a thin sweater. I had her doing basic exercises to begin with, such as a warm on the stationary bike, followed by light weight-lifting and stretching. Or we would spend the entire session doing strictly cardio.
And as time went on, months and months, her fitness casually progressed and so did the confidence she had in her already beautiful body. She started wearing tight spandex pants along with more tightly fitting sweaters on top. And I had her doing more intermediate exercises to go along with all of that.
She always made a point of thanking me whole-heartedly after every workout because she still had assumed that me being her ‘personal trainer’ was still a real drag on my time. But what she didn’t know, and what I obviously didn’t want to tell her, was that I was starting to enjoy our sessions a lot more than I was letting on. It’s one of those things where you don’t know how it happens, but it just does. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we became even closer with the extra time we spent together. Or maybe it had to do with how good and vivacious she looked each time.
***
“That’s it, one more rep!” I yelled in encouragement as my mother finished her dumbbell rows.
She dropped the weights when she was done and shook her arms around like I taught her, to relieve the tension.
“Phew!” she sighed, breathing heavily. “You’ve really been stepping up these workouts lately. God, I’m exhausted, but I feel great. I don’t think I’ve worked out this hard even when I played sports in college.”
“Well, it’s only because you’ve been improving so fast and your endurance keeps getting better. You’re a real natural at this.”
She smiled and lifted her arm to flex her bicep through her clothes. “Thank you. I guess our family has good genes.”
“If that’s the case, we better hurry up and finish up this last part of your circuit while your heart rate is still up,” I said, pointing to the workout bench for her to do her dumbbell presses. “You get better results that way.”
“Hold on a second, this sweater is killing me.”
My mother casually turned around to pull her thin sweater off and placed it neatly on a nearby table. She stood in her sports bra and took a sip from her water bottle, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in awe over her sculpted body. My eyes quickly glanced around the trickles of sweat glistening on her lower & upper back, shoulders, and her arms. And after she finished her drink, she turned back around to focus on her weight lifting again and I shifted my eyes away as fast as I could.
“Oh, pardon the attire,” my mother said, alluding to the fact that she caught me looking. “I feel a little overheated. Plus I feel more confident wearing something like this, now that I’m in better shape.”