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“I’m sorry your father is such an asshole,” her mother said.
Kendra laughed and grabbed a plate. The buns were done in her eyes, the frosting all but dripping off the pan while it melted. She needed to fill her face with one of her favorites if she was going to talk about her father.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry your husband was such an asshole too. I wasn’t the only one that was on the receiving end of his selfishness.”
Her mother snorted. “He is that. Not everyone is cut out to care for another person. I don’t need someone to hold my hand. I’ve told you that for years.”
“I understand, Mom.”
“I don’t know if you always do. Those first few years it was hard, but now we are in a routine. I get around fine. You check in with me daily and don’t need to do that.”
“Of course I do. It’s nothing more than popping my head in the door on my way to or from work to see if you need anything.”
She didn’t think that was her caring for her mother all that much. That was being considerate.
“I know. And it’s taken years for you to get that way. I enjoy the time we spend together, but it’s time you start building your own life.”
She sighed. She’d heard this before. “I am. I went on a date.”
“One date,” her mother said. “I hope it’s more.”
“It will be,” she said. “I’m going to spend New Year’s Eve with him. Not the whole night. I’ll be home.”
“Don’t come home,” her mother said, laughing. “Maybe you’ll loosen up if you stayed the night with a hot guy. You said he was hot, right?”
Her jaw dropped. Her mother had never talked to her like that before. “Mom. I can’t do that on the second date.”
“Don’t be a prude, Kendra. Put your contacts in and wear a nice outfit and show him the other side of you.”
“No,” she said. “There is no other side of me. I like who I am.”
“You are who you are. I know that. It seems Ivan likes that too. But there used to be a fun side to you. One that liked to dress up more and go out with friends.”
“That was before Dad turned into more of a dick than he’d been before.”
Yeah, she hadn’t always been frugal. She hadn’t always been boring and blending in.
She’d been a typical teen. Not a popular one, but she had friends she hung out with. She went to the mall. She bought clothes. She wasn’t frivolous by any means and she did like to look pretty.
It’s amazing how one turn of events could change your entire outlook on life.
It’d been a wakeup call that she had to figure out how to care for her mother and her in the house when all her other friends were more worried about what boy they liked or who was having a party that week.
As for boys, she’d dated and had some relationships, but most fizzled out because she had other responsibilities and many didn’t care for that.
She supposed she couldn’t blame them back then.
She was older now and hopefully she could find someone who understood. Which was why she’d told Ivan right at the beginning about her mother. She wanted no secrets and nothing to hold either of them back.
“That was years ago,” her mother said. “We’re in a good place. Both of us. We’ve got plenty of money and you know it. We both have good secure jobs. We aren’t rolling in it, but we live nice simple lives and have a nest egg for emergencies. I refuse to collect disability at fifty years old. I’m going to work as long as I can and I plan on doing it twenty more years if I can.”
“You don’t need to work until you’re seventy,” she said.
“You know what I mean. Live your life, Kendra. Don’t worry about me. I’m happy, healthy, and am in a good place. You need to be too.”
She remembered that advice hours later when she was back in her apartment trying to find something to watch on TV when her phone rang.
She saw it was Ivan calling and a smile filled her face. “Merry Christmas. How was your day?”
