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Do not engage!
“At least when you were playing soccer, you were staying fit. But what does this give you?”
“Mama!” I swallow my scream and lower my tone. “Mama, is there something you need?”
I glance up at her. She has a perplexed expression as she stares over my shoulder at my desk. There’s my poetry journal, my array of fountain pens, and a bunch of tissues stained with ink. There are ink stains on the white desk, but I don’t care anything about that.
“I’m doing my homework for English,” I lie as I smack my hand over the open page of verses I was working on.
“Ahh,” she replies as she grabs a bunch of old candy wrappers that have been languishing on my desk. Picking up a dirty plate, she makes a tsking sound. “You cannot be so messy, Crina. You’ll be living with your husband, starting your own household, having babies.”
I shudder at the succession of crazy talk coming out of her mouth.
She throws the wrappers into the wicker basket, overflowing with crumpled papers. “It’s bad enough that Marku is messy, but you’re a girl and you’re my daughter. I’m so clean and tidy. You grew up in an organized household.”
Well, actually, I spent half my childhood over in Marku’s disorganized house, but I don’t bother correcting her.
“A woman has to be perfect. One mistake and everything goes kaput,” she snaps her finger. Gesturing to my unmade bed and the piles of dirty clothes on the floor, she gives me a pointed look as if I’m the prime example of what happens when a girl has gone bad. “How did it get like this?”
I thought I had a good handle on my temper but that last unfortunate comment about perfection tips me over.
I whirl around on my swivel seat and jeer, “Oh, a woman’s supposed to be perfect, is she? And you think you’ve held yourself to that high standard?”
She blinks a few times, taken aback by the blatant revulsion in my tone, and answers slowly, “I try to, yes. In everything I do.”
“Everything?” I flick a finger at my unmade bed. “Or just the menial things, like beds and linens. The arrangement of the dishes in the kitchen cabinets. The setting of the dining room table.” I wave my hand around carelessly. “You know… the unimportant things.”
Narrowing my eyes accusingly on one specific pile of clothing, my wedding dress and veil, I continue, “Because those things aren’t that important, but loyalty, now loyalty is the most important thing amafiewoman should possess. Loyalty to the ones she loves.”
Following my glare, she notices the dress and lets out a horrified gasp. She swoops it up and swats at the dark patches of dirt from when I kneeled to suck off Marku in church.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” she clucks as she carefully shakes out the dress and folds it over her arm. “What were you doing to get it so dirty…”
If she only knew…
I look at the ceiling, praying for patience. Nothing good can come from bringing it up now, especially with the way I’m feeling.
“This is not the way to treat your wedding dress.” She leans down to pick up the tulle edged in delicate lace. After tossing it on the floor, I’ve stepped on it at least a dozen times over the past twenty-four hours. “Or your wedding veil.”
“You can burn it for all I care,” I mumble under my breath.
“Crina!”
“Oh my God, Mama.” I rush to my feet so quickly that the chair falls back, hitting the wooden floor. “You’re the worst kind of hypocrite, you know that? I don’t care about beds or dresses or wedding veils. What about weddingvows? Those are what really matter.”
She pauses in her fussing and scrutinizes my face. My emotions are right at the surface, clearly displayed on my face, and I do nothing to hide them. Carefully, she replies, “Yes, wedding vows are one of the most important things in a woman’s life. I hope you stay true to yours.”
“And have you stayed true to yours?” I snap.
There. I’ve said it. I’ve asked the burning question. Or rather one of the burning questions.
Mama stills, her eyes widen. She drops to the edge of my bed. “Why do you ask such a crazy question?”
“Why don’t you answer?” I shoot back, my heart breaking at the thought of her answer.
But instead of going for the truth, she presses her lips together, and doubles down. “I don’t believe my marriage is at question here.”
She’s stalling, her mind racing to work out what I may or may not know.
