“Come on in. Are you hungry?”
Jaime followed her inside, gritting her teeth at the familiar scent of lemon polish and old wood washing over her. Jaime warded off memories that would draw her in like quicksand if she let them.
“I can make you something to eat. If you had told me you’d stop by, I’d have already prepared it.”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, OK.” Her mother shuffled to a stop, her expression almost lost. What to do when you can’t serve anyone?
“Maybe eggs and toast?” Jaime relented.
“Sure. Coming right up. Go sit down, dear.”
Jaime dropped in the chair at the breakfast table. “How have you been?”
“Oh, you know. Same old.” Her mother opened the fridge to put the egg carton back.
“Good, good.”
“I got a package this morning, and of course the delivery man was a foreigner who didn’t speak a word of English.”
Jaime said nothing, bracing herself for the next few lines, and sure enough…
“Did you know that every fifth person in our country is now a foreigner? Imagine that! One day, we will be the minority and then they will chase us away from our own land! They get more money than our own citizens!”
Jaime suppressed a sigh. She didn’t know when this had started, and it wasn’t like her mother had been a ray of sunshine before, but for the last ten years, her mother loved and petted grievances. Not her own, no, the injustices she perceived to be happening in and around the country and the world.
“Now, I’m all for helping people who suffer! There are enough starving children in Africa no one cares about. But all these peoplewho come here for economic reasons and end up costing us taxpayers? That’s just not right.”
“You realize most settlers also escaped economic hardship. It’s understandable to want a better life for yourself and your family,” Jaime said, though she knew it would be in vain, just like pointing out the irony of ‘foreigners’ chasing people from their own land.
Her mother waved her off. “That’s different. Life was different then.” Her mother plated the eggs and toast and placed them in front of Jaime. She settled into the chair across from Jaime and started talking about her neighbors—about Tammy, who couldn’t control her children, and John, whose dogs barked endlessly at all hours.
Jaime’s gaze drifted to the windowsill and the painted clown standing with a forever smile on his frozen face, collecting dust.
Her mother hadn’t always been like this. Growing up, she’d had hobbies, like embroidery and ceramics—the blue and green clown, one of her creations. Her mother used to have fun, and she had friends. Or at least Jaime thought so, for this was her youth and perhaps she recalled what she wanted to. People so often saw the past with rose-tinted glasses.
Now though, that person—imagined or real—was gone, and only this ranting and raving energy vampire remained. Jaime didn’t really listen, or maybe she did, but it meant nothing because it was always the same. Worse, now her mind sought refuge in contemplating Olivia, and Jaime couldn’t decide which was worse.
At first, when her mother’s grievances came to life, Jaime had compiled evidence to the contrary, trying to show her mother that hersourceswere flawed. She’d been prepared to discuss how to make sure you get your information from reliable sources, but none of it mattered.
Her mother refused to listen, or acted likeJaime’ssources were the biased ones.
She’d sit on the couch with furrowed brows, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose, her cell phone hanging loosely in her hand. She didn’t trust public television or traditional news outlets—they were all lying.
Jaime wasn’t sure where she got her news, but she knew she’d never vetted a single one, only stalking information that confirmed what she already believed. Everything else was a lie.
After her failed attempts to combat her mother’sinformation, she’d told her she didn’t want to discuss politics, that she didn’t want to hear about her frustrations with the refugee crisis. Yet, it never lasted. Her mother would find her way back there, and Jaime only offered scathing remarks in her head.
Meanwhile, her mother continued to sit on the couch, devouring tales of misery and malfunction, inhaling conspiracy theories while delighting in mocking the ones she considered responsible.
Sometimes, she’d shout into the room, yelling in indignation, bemoaning the wrongs and ills the government was forcing upon its people. Her face would turn crimson, while her self-righteous outrage climbed forever high.
Jaime stayed silent, at least most of the time, though sometimes she offered resistance, more a token protest than anything else. After a decade of talking to a wall, there seemed to be nothing left. She didn’t have the energy anymore to push this stone up the hill, only to watch it roll right back down.
Jaime knew her mother had lived a hard life and had suffered a lot. She’d been abandoned more times than she could count, yet she persevered and, with support from her own mother, she’d made a life and given Jaime everything she could. She loved Jaime so damn much, and although Jaime loved her mother, loving her was a chore.
Jaime had seen endless memes saying you should never let anyone tell you that you were hard to love. She wished these memeswere a universal truth because the mere notion that loving someone could be difficult offended her soul. The idea should be nothing more than a vicious, mean-spirited lie.
