mikit40
Still, if I could've swept the whole conversation under the rug, I would have. It was strange, I thought, that she was seeing my reluctance--maybe--as an attempt to control her; it occurred to me that maybe she was right.
Control. Okay, so I got the genes of two people who wanted to stay in control, when everyone knows only one person can be in control. In a situation like that -- a marriage, or whatever it was.
"Today's as good as any," she said. "And it's something you should know about, him always having to control me. It wasn't about money; it was about that: control. You've got his genes and mine too, so that's something you need to know, isn't it?"
"Why did you pick today to talk about him?" I said finally, wanting to avoid talking about him myself. She gave me a look. Another look. I thought maybe she was going through some kind of mid-life crisis, except that it was a little late for that; she was 65 after all.
"Basically," she continued, "I just couldn't stand it any longer. It wasn't only his own money he was hanging on to like grim death, but he wouldn't let me spend any of what I earned either."
"He was cheap, that was the only problem," Mama said as she stirred honey into her tea. "And that got to be too much of a problem after a couple of years, okay?" She looked at me with a kind of "do-you-want-to fight-about-it?" look, and I looked down; I didn't want to fight.
"I like my coffee strong and black," she said with a smirk. I wanted to slap her, but one doesn't slap a prospective employer, especially if one has to make her own coffee weak and tan to make the rent payments.
Well, now the tables are turned for sure, Ezzie thought as she swept up the mess on the floor. There was a time when Harold would've wept to see his mother's china bowls lying in shards, but that sure wasn't the case any more.
The color, the taste, the dripping fruit as I cube it into a bowl, the stringy seed I suck dry, all of this in February as snow flies outside the window brings an early summer.
There was a wall outlet beside my bed, and I plugged in my lamp--my special lamp--while my husband turned over in the other bed grumpily. It wasn't a cheap hotel, but they'd given us the kind of room we wanted.