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And there I was, living in St. Paul before I met Drew, just cozied away in a little house with my mother that she refused to let me move out of, fixing everyone else’s problems except the ones in my own life.
I could absolutely find out where your pallet of post-its got lost. Oh no, did your shipment arrive damaged? I’m the customer service rep to help you solve your problem!
I’ve always been cheerful to a fault, even when I’ve been cursed out for several hours straight. Nothing can get me down.
And then, when I get home to find my mother in a fret about the messy house, I just keep that bright smile on my face. After all, she’s done so much for me my whole life. Which, when she’s tired, she’ll remind me about.
“You know, I’m on my feet all day,” she’ll complain, then shoot a dismissive glance my way. “Not that you’d know what that’s about. So can you please just do the dishes? For once?” And then sometimes she sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “I always thought I’d be able to retire at this age.” A shake of the head usually follows. “But I guess we don’t always get what we want.”
I was never sure how I was supposed to respond to that. Obviously, I am not what she wanted since I am the reason she is still working at this age and not able to live out her trophy-wife dreams. All my surgeries added up, and insurance only covered so much.
Almost all my paychecks I have given over to her for rent, groceries, and everything else. I only kept a couple hundred for myself, to put into a little savings account I was trying to build up.
It always feels like I have been walking around on eggshells around her. So, I thought she’d be over the moon when I came home and told her I’d met someone at the office and that we were dating.
But it was absolutely the opposite.
She freaked out.
She was sure Drew was just using me.
“For what?” I asked, bewildered.
Her face had scrunched up and her voice lowered while she rolled her eyes. “What do you think for? For s-e-x.”
I laughed in her face. We weren’t doing that yet. We’d only shared a couple innocent kisses at that point. He’d been nothing but a gentleman. And to be honest, I sort of thought of him as my knight in shining armor. I imagined him rescuing me from that old house I’d lived in for most of what I could remember of my life, where I felt more and more like an old maid with my mother and her multiplying cats. She has five now, plus Mittens is pregnant.
Looking up at the cold stone above me, I imagine them now. Mittens has probably had her kittens by now. Mittens and her kittens. I laugh a little hysterically.
That world feels so far away, as if it exists in a different realm.
But I suppose I’m the one who’s been whisked off through a fairy gate. Except unlike children’s stories, there aren’t fey princes here.
Just monsters with even bigger cocks—
I reach for the soap.
The thought makes me feel disloyal to Drew. And yes, I’ve had passing moments of guilt since I’ve been here, but I haven’t really been alone long enough to think it all the way through. There’s no going back now, and I’m finally feeling it.
He was my knight in shining armor… Right?
So why don’t I miss him more?
Okay, so no, he isn’t perfect. While at first, moving into his place instead of staying at Mom’s did feel amazing, not to mention he was new, in a life of so much sameness.
And he didn’t seem bothered by it like others had in my brief dating history.
I was shy, and he was outgoing. So, there were never any awkward silences between us, because he would always fill it with chatter.
Drew loved to talk.
And I loved to listen to him. I enjoyed just watching him while he talked. The shape of his jaw. The way his brown eyes glistened when we sat on the balcony off his den as the Minnesota sun set that first summer we started dating, before it was too cold to sit out there anymore.
He isn’t like Mom, either.
Sometimes he asked me questions, too, and not just ones about my medical condition. After it was clear it didn’t keep me from having sex, he wasn’t too curious about it.
He was really excited to hear about my college experience at U of Minn.
He hadn’t been able to finish college and was always nervous it would be held against him. About a month later he was up for a promotion.
I was up for the same promotion since we worked in the same division.
