Leo: Jas?
Leo: You still there?
Mina: Sorry, I was washing the dishes.
Leo: For twenty minutes?
Mina: I had a shower too.
Leo: A cold one?
Mina: I’m heading to bed. Goodnight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mina
“You’re late.”
I considered driving into traffic to avoid coming here, Mother.
“Sorry,” I settle on.
My mother scrunches her face up and ushers me inside. “Hurry up. They’ll be here any minute.” She looks over her shoulder at me as we head into the kitchen, and I almost wither away under her scrutiny and the condescendingtskspaired with the shake of her head. “Do you have nothing better to wear?”
The cherry on top of her comment comes when she pinches the loose skin of my arm through my tight long sleeve that hides all of my tattoos.
“What have you been eating?”
Translation: you’ve gained weight.
I say nothing. She doesn’t actually expect a response. She speaks to hear the sound of her own voice and get her point across without anyone’s input.
My skin crawls the moment I cross the threshold and leave my shoes at the door. There’s always been something off about this house. I’ve thought it ever since I was a child. I used to think it was because the place never seemed to get much sunlight, which always left every room perpetually cold—even in the height of summer.
I now know it’s because I’ve never felt welcomed wherever my mother is. Whether it’s in her car, at her work as a substitute teacher at a nearby school, at church, or quietly eating dinner at her friend’s house. It always seems like she doesn’t want me there, yet she keeps insisting on seeing me.
At twenty-four, I haven’t learned to say no. And so, the toxic cycle continues.
Anxiety skitters through me as I follow her into my childhood home. It feels like something bad is about to happen—usually because it does. Mom always finds something new to poke at that sends me home crying. I’m way past walking on eggshells; I’m the goddamn egg, and part of my shell has already cracked off.
Five different items of religious paraphernalia greet me right at the entrance. A cross hangs above a mass-produced painting of an unnervingly yellowy-green forest Mom has always claimed is an original. A couple picture frames decorate the walls, featuring family holidays with me as a two-foot-tall child, chunky enough to look like I was about to burst.
“Hi, Dad,” I say above the sound of the TV when we pass him lounging on the couch in the living room.
He grunts in greeting.
Lovely to see you, too, as always.
The kitchen is absolute fucking carnage. I’d massage my temples if Mom weren’t already barking a long list of instructions at me like we’re on an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. I’m peeling carrots and mixing adobo between frying two dozenlumpia while Mom does... Actually, I don’t care what she’s doing on her side of the kitchen.
As long as her mouth isn’t moving, she can do whatever she wants. Alas, the chaotic peace is short-lived when she comes over to tell me off about everything I’m doing—I’m not mixing well enough, the lumpia are burned (they’re not), and the carrots are cut too thick (she never clarified when I asked how she wanted them sliced).
I bite my tongue, nod, and try to do everything to a standard that won’t set her off.
I don’t need to ask to know Mom’s been in the kitchen since the early afternoon, while Dad came home from work and immediately planted himself on the couch. It’s been their daily routine ever since I can remember. Sometimes he sits outside to read a book, or blasts videos on his phone loud enough to hear down the street.
We’re making enough food to feed fifteen people, not six and a half humans.
