I hear the front door slam from my room. I look at the clock and it’s after 2am.
“Sharon!” I yell.
I’m considering telling my mother about my findings. She may think I’m crazy but at least she’d have to listen to me ramble this time instead of having to hear her talk about her new lover.
She doesn’t respond when I yell her name so I get up and walk to her room. Her door is shut and I can hear her crying from behind it. There must be trouble in paradise. I knock to get her attention.
“Go away Zenny! I’m tired,” she yells.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
“I said I’m tired. I don’t want to talk right now!”
“Whatever.”
I start to walk away and I can still hear her whimpering. Even though she has never been there for me an unusual feeling of family connection makes me want to be there to console her. She’s been dumped before but she’ll usually vent to me and rely on a bottle of whiskey to get her through it. This time she’s locked herself away.
I turn back around and burst through the door to the room to find her sitting on the edge of the bed with her head down and buried into her hands. The last time I saw her distressed was when my father left. Even though I was a little girl I can still remember all the days my mother was in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask as I stand there tensely. I know she’s not okay but what can I do to help her?
“I’m fine Zenny just please go away,” she speaks in between sobs and turns away from me. She’s trying to hide her face.
“Mom…” I say, “tell me the truth.”
I step closer to her. She slowly lifts up her head and keeps her gaze set on the floor. I see that her eye is swollen shut and bruised.
“Oh my gosh!” I yell. “What happened? Did that man do this to you?” I shout.
“Calm down Zenny. I deserved it,” she shakes her head. “I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. I said something I shouldn’t have.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve said that would make it okay for a grown man to punch you in the face!”
“He was angry! I made him angry. It was my fault!” she yells.
“I’m calling the cops!” I make my way to the phone but she grabs my arm to stop me.
“Don’t you dare! You want to make things worse for me?”
“I think you’re doing that on your own,” I fire back.
She looks at me and starts to cry again. My mother shouldn’t have to go through this and I shouldn’t ever have to see her this way. It’s hard to ignore that her bad decisions have been affecting my whole life, but I can only hold resentment against her if I choose not to learn from her mistakes. In her own way she’s being a good mother because she’s showing me what not to do.
“I won’t call them,” I say to her calmly. I set down the phone and wrap my arms around her to hug her tightly. This is the closest I’ve been to her in years.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” I say. “How many men do you have to go through to realize that the type you tend to choose is not what’s going to make you happy? It’s like these men know you’re weak and prey on women like you.”
“I take what I can get Zen,” she says. “You know for a long time this wasn’t just about me. I’ve tried for so long to find someone who could be a good father for you and your brother. I never wanted to give up. I know how important it is for a kid to have a family.”
“Then be my family!” I yell out of frustration. “Do you know how many nights Nathan and I would spend crying for you? We needed you. We needed someone to take care of us and you were never there! Who cares about having two parents when you don’t even have one?”
She sits up straight and stares ahead at nothing. I had hoped to provide her comfort but seeing her in her current condition causes me to unleash a harsher truth, maybe in hopes of causing change. I grab her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No,” she says. I wait for her to reprimand me. “You’re right. I haven’t been a good mother. I never knew what I was doing or how to raise the both of you. There was a point in my life where I realized I could teach myself how to be a mother, but by then I had already given up. It amazes me how you and Nathan turned out to be good kids. No thanks to me. When I saw how you and your brother managed without me I was convinced that you didn’t need me and then I got scared that maybe nobody needed me.”
She turns to look me in the eyes. I cringe and my heart breaks as I see her puffy face and swollen eye.
“You know at your last school when your Principal called to tell me what you had done, I was furious. But I wasn’t angry at you I was angry with him. I told him that they were lucky to have a Moone child at their school! They had no idea what kind of life you were living and how you’re a fighter that never gives up.”
I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back. She has no idea of how I was going to give up in the most extreme way. Maybe I really have lost myself.
“I hope you know that I’ve always been proud of you and your brother. With or without me you were destined to be something special.” She smiles and wraps her arms around me. “Things are going to be different from now on. I promise,” she says.
It’s unreal at first. I can’t remember the last time my mother has hugged me. Her sincerity washes away seventeen years of distance created between us.
Then the words of Dr. Bloom run through my mind, “There will be a time when she needs you more than you have ever needed her.”
Suddenly her cellphone begins to ring. I recognize the ringtone. She sits there and stares at it. I realize she’s going to need all the help she can get.
“Mom,” I start and break her attention from the call. She turns back to face me. “Will you pray with me?”
As much as I used to make fun of the people who would choose to pray in times of distress, at this moment it feels like the only thing I need to do.
She looks at me for a moment and at the last ring of her phone she looks back at it and then back at me. Her expression looks frightened. She grabs both my hands, closes her eyes, and then bows her head.
I smile softly and do the same. Before I start to pray I say “Thank you” to God in my thoughts. I think I’ve just received another miracle.